Philip Dick: The Eye of the Sibyl and Other Classic Strories

“I don’t have any reason to go back to L.A.,” Joan said, “now that you’re here. I might as well cancel my flight.”

“You know they’re picking up and destroying all the empathy boxes they can,” Ray said.

“No,” she said. “I didn’t know; I was just released half an hour ago. That’s dreadful. They really mean business.”

Ray laughed. “Let’s say they’re really frightened.” He put his arm around her and kissed her. “I tell you what we’ll do. We’ll try to sneak out of this place, go to the lower East Side and rent a little cold-water walk-up. We’ll hide out and find an empathy box they missed.” But, he thought, it’s unlikely; they probably have them all by now. There weren’t that many to start with.

“Anything you say,” Joan said drably.

“Do you love me?” he asked her. “I can read your mind; you do.” And then he said quietly, “I can also read the mind of a Mr. Lewis Scanlan, an FBI man who’s now at the UWA desk. What name did you give?”

“Mrs. George McIsaacs,” Joan said. “I think.” She examined her ticket and envelope. “Yes, that’s right.”

“But Scanlan is asking if a japanese woman has been at the desk in the last fifteen minutes,” Ray said. “And the clerk remembers you. So—” He took hold of Joan’s arm. “We better get started.”

They hurried down the deserted ramp, passed through an electric-eye operated door and came out in a baggage lobby. Everyone there was far too busy to pay any attention as Ray Meritan and Joan threaded their way to the street door and, a moment later, stepped out onto the chill gray sidewalk where cabs had parked in a long double row. Joan started to hail a cab…

“Wait,” Ray said, pulling her back. “I’m getting a jumble of thoughts. One of the cab drivers is an FBI man but I can’t tell which.” He stood uncertainly, not knowing what to do.

“We can’t get away, can we?” Joan said.

“It’s going to be hard.” To himself he thought, More like impossible; you’re right. He experienced the girl’s confused, frightened thoughts, her anxiety about him, that she had made it possible for them to locate and capture him, her fierce desire not to return to jail, her pervasive bitterness at having been betrayed by Mr. Lee, the Chinese Communist bigshot who had met her in Cuba.

“What a life,” Joan said, standing close to him.

And still he did not know which cab to take. One precious second after another escaped as he stood there. “Listen,” he said to Joan, “maybe we should separate.”

“No,” she said clinging to him. “I can’t stand to do it alone any more. Please.”

A bewhiskered peddler walked up to them with a tray suspended by a cord which ran about his neck. “Hi, folks,” he mumbled.

“Not now,” Joan said to him.

“Free sample of breakfast cereal,” the peddler said. “No cost. Just take a box, miss. You mister. Take one.” He extended the tray of small, gaily colored cartons toward Ray.

Strange, Ray thought. I’m not picking up anything from this man’s mind. He stared at the peddler, saw—or thought he saw—a peculiar insubstantiality to the man. A diffused quality.

Ray took one of the samples of breakfast cereal.

“Merry Meal, it’s called,” the peddler said. “A new product they’re introducing to the public. There’s a coupon inside. Entitles you to—”

“Okay,” Ray said, sticking the box in his pocket. He took hold of Joan and led her along the line of cabs. He chose one at random and opened the rear door. “Get in,” he said urgently to her.

“I took a sample of Merry Meal, too,” she said with a wan smile as he seated himself beside her. The cab started up, left the line and pulled past the entrance of the airfield terminal. “Ray, there was something strange about that salesman. It was as if he wasn’t actually there, as if he was nothing more than—a picture.”

As the cab drove down the auto ramp, away from the terminal, another cab left the line and followed after them. Twisting, Ray saw riding in the back of it two well-fed men in dark business suits. FBI men, he said to himself.

Joan said, “Didn’t that cereal salesman remind you of anyone?”

“Who?”

“A little of Wilbur Mercer. But I haven’t seen him enough to—” Ray grabbed the cereal box from her hand, tore the cardboard top from it. Poking up from the dry cereal he saw the corner of the coupon the peddler had spoken about; he lifted out the coupon, held it up and studied it. The coupon said in large clear printing:

“It was them,” he said to Joan.

He put the coupon carefully away in his pocket, then he changed his mind.

Folding it up, he tucked it in the cuff of his trousers. Where the FBI possibly wouldn’t find it.

Behind them, the other cab came closer, and now he picked up the thoughts of the two men. They were FBI agents; he had been right. He settled back against the seat.

There was nothing to do but wait.

Joan said, “Could I have the other coupon?”

“Sorry.” He got out the other cereal package. She opened it, found the coupon inside and, after a pause, folded it and hid it in the hem of her skirt.

“I wonder how many there are of those so-called peddlers,” Ray said musingly. “I’d be interested to know how many free samples of Merry Meal they’re going to manage to give away before they’re caught.”

The first ordinary household object needed was a common radio set; he had noticed that. The second, the filament from a five-year light-bulb. And next—he’d have to look again, but now was not the time. The other cab had drawn abreast with theirs.

Later. And if the authorities found the coupon in the cuff of his trousers, they, he knew, would somehow manage to bring him another.

He put his arm around Joan. “I think we’ll be all right.”

The other cab, now, was nosing theirs to the curb and the two FBI men were waving in a menacing, official manner to the driver to stop.

“Shall I stop?” the driver said tensely to Ray.

“Sure,” he said. And, taking a deep breath, prepared himself.

Captain Edgar Lightfoot of CIA said, “Darn it, the Fnools are back again, Major. They’ve taken over Provo, Utah.”

With a groan, Major Hauk signaled his secretary to bring him the Fnool dossier from the locked archives. “What form are they assuming this time?” he asked briskly.

“Tiny real-estate salesmen,” Lightfoot said.

Last time, Major Hauk reflected, it had been filling station attendants. That was the thing about the Fnools. When one took a particular shape they all took that shape. Of course, it made detection for CIA fieldmen much easier. But it did make the Fnools look absurd, and Hauk did not enjoy fighting an absurd enemy; it was a quality which tended to diffuse over both sides and even up to his own office.

“Do you think they’d come to terms?” Hauk said, half-rhetorically. “We could afford to sacrifice Provo, Utah, if they’d be willing to circumscribe themselves there. We could even add those portions of Salt Lake City which are paved with hideous old red brick.”

Lightfoot said, “Fnools never compromise, Major. Their goal is Sol System domination. For all time.”

Leaning over Major Hauk’s shoulder, Miss Smith said, “Here is the Fnool dossier, sir.” With her free hand she pressed the top of her blouse against herself in a gesture indicating either advanced tuberculosis or advanced modesty. There were certain indications that it was the latter.

“Miss Smith,” Major Hauk complained, “here are the Fnools trying to take over the Sol System and I’m handed their dossier by a woman with a forty-two inch bosom. Isn’t that a trifle schizophrenic—for me, at least?” He carefully averted his eyes from her, remembering his wife and the two children. “Wear something else from here on out,” he told her. “Or swaddle yourself. I mean, my God, let’s be reasonable: let’s be realistic.”