Philip Dick - Deus Irae

Tibor stared at him without moving.

“I gave the bomb order,” the old man added, then.

Tibor continued to stare.

Tom appeared a trifle uneasy, but held his ground, held his smile.

But the moments passed, and Tibor still did not respond. Finally Tom’s face slackened.

A little longer; then, “You ever been in Denver?”

“No,” Tibor said.

Pete wanted to scream, but then Tom said, “It was a nice city. Pretty. Good people. Then came the war. They burned it, you know…” His face underwent contortions and his eyes glistened.

“I was Chairman of the ERDA. I gave the bomb order,” he said again.

Tiber’s head moved and his tongue licked over the control unit. An extensor moved, activating a stereo, full-color, wide-angle, tel-scope, fast-action, shirtbutton-sized war-surplus camera the Servants of Wrath had provided him for this purpose.

I will never know the best way, Tibor thought. I will never do the perfect job with a subject like this. But then it does not matter. I will do the best that I can, the best that I can to show this subject as he is, to give them their murch, as they want it, to glorify their god, as they would see him glorified, not to my greater honor and glory, or even to his, but simply to fulfill this commission, as I promised. Whether it was destiny or simply luck does not matter. Our journey is over. The Pilg has been completed. I have his likeness. What can I say to him now that this is done?

“I’m pleased to meet you,” Tibor said. “I just took your picture. I hope that is all right with you.”

“Sure, son, sure. Glad to be of help. I’m going to have to get back to rest now, though, if your friend here will give me a hand. I’m ailing, you know.”

“Is there anything we could do?”

“No, thanks. I’ve got plenty of medicine laid by. You’re nice people. Have a good trip.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Tom flipped one hand at him, as Pete caught his arm and steered him back to the stall.

Home! Tibor thought, his eyes filling with tears. We can go home now…

He waited for Pete to come and harness the cow.

That night they sat by a small fire Pete had kindled. The clouds had blown, over and the stars shone in the fresh-washed sky. They had eaten dry rations. Pete had found a half jar of instant coffee in an abandoned farmhouse. It was stale, but it was hot and black and steamed attractively under the breeze from the south.

“There were times,” Tibor said, “when I thought I would never make it.”

Pete nodded.

“Still mad I came along?” he asked.

Tibor chuckled.

“Go on, push your advantage,” he said. “… Hell of a way to get converts.”

“Are you still going Christian?”

“Still thinking about it. Let me finish this job first.”

“Sure.” Pete had tried to get through to Abernathy earlier, but the storm system had blanked him out. No hurry now though, he thought. It is all right. Over.

“Want to see his picture again?”

“Yes.”

Tibor’s extensor moved, withdrew the picture from its case, passed it down to him.

Pete studied Tom Gleason’s tired, old features. Poor guy, he thought. May be dead by now. Not a thing we could have done for him, though. What if—? Supposing it was no coincidence? Supposing it was something more than luck that gave him to us? The irony I saw in Lufteufel’s victim deified… Could it run deeper even than irony? He turned the picture, looking into the eyes, a bit brighter for the moment as the man had realized he was making someone happy, a touch of pain in the lowering, the tightening of the brows as he had recalled his nice Denver gone…

Pete drank his coffee, passed the picture back to Tibor.

“You don’t seem unhappy,” Tibor said, “that the competition is getting what it wants.”

Pete shrugged.

“It’s not that big a thing to me,” he said. “After all, it’s only a picture.”

Tibor replaced it in his case.

“Did he look the way you thought he would?” he asked.

Pete nodded, thinking back over faces he had known.

“Pretty much,” he said. “Have you decided how you will handle it?”

“I’ll give them a good job. I know that.”

“More coffee?”

“Thanks.”

Tibor extended his cup. Pete filled it, added some to his own. He looked up at the stars then, listened to the noises of the night, breathed the warm wind—how warm it had become!—and sipped the coffee. “Too bad I didn’t find some cigarettes, too.”

At the side of the dust-run serving as a road, the cretin girl Alice remained in silence, and a thousand years passed as sun came and day held a time and finally fell into darkness. She knew he was dead, even before the lizzy approached her.

“Miss.” .

She did not look up.

“Miss, come along with us.”

“No!” she said, violently.

“The cadaver—”

“I no want!”

Seating itself beside her, the lizzy said in a patient voice, “By custom you’re supposed to claim it.” Time passed; she kept her eyes shut, so as not to see, and with her hands over her ears she could not be certain if it was speaking further or not. At last it touched her on the shoulder. “You’re a retard, aren’t you?”

“No.”

“You’re too retarded to know what I’m saying. He’s dressed as a hunter, but he’s the old man you were shacking up with, the rat man. He is the rat man, isn’t he? Disguised. What was he doing disguised? Trying to get away from enemies, was he?” The lizzy laughed roughly, then, the scales of its body ambient in the noise of its voice. “Didn’t work. They bashed his face in. You should see it; nothing but pulp and—”

She leaped up and ran, then ran back for her forgotten doll. The lizzy had the doll, and the lizzy grinned at her, not giving the doll to her but pressing it against its scaly chest. Mockery of her.

“He good man!” she shouted frantically, as she scrabbled for the doll, her doll.

“No, he wasn’t a good man. He wasn’t even a good rat catcher. A lot of times, more than you know, he sold old gristly rats for the price supposed to be the going rate for young plump ones. What did he used to do, before he was a rat catcher?”

Alice said, “Bombs.”

“Your daddy.”

“Yes, my daddy.”

“Well, since he was your daddy we’ll bring you the corpse. You stay here.” The lizzy rose, dropped the doll before her, and ambulated off, after its fashion.

Seated by the doll, she watched the lizzy go, feeling the tears running silently down her cheeks. Knew it wouldn’t work, she thought. Knew they’d get him. Maybe for bad rats; tough old ones… like it just now said.

Why is it all like this? she wondered. He gave me this doll, a long time ago. Now he won’t give me nothing more again. Ever. Something is wrong, she realized. But why? People, they are here for a time and then even if you love them they are gone and it is for always, they are never back, not now.

Once more she shut her eyes and sat rocking back and forth.

When again she looked, a man who wasn’t a lizard was coming along the dust-rut road toward her. It was her daddy. As she leaped up joyfully she realized that something had happened to him, and she faltered, taken aback by the transformation in him. Now he stood straighter, and his face had a kindness glowing about it, a warm expression, without the twistedness she had become accustomed to.

Her daddy approached, step by step, in a certain measured fashion, as if in solemn dance toward her, and then he seated himself silently, indicating to her to be seated, too. It was odd, she thought, that he did not speak, that he only gestured. There was about him a peacefulness she had never witnessed before, as if time had rolled back for him, malting him both younger and—more gentle. She liked him better this way; the fear she had always felt toward him began to leave her, and she reached out, haltingly, to touch his arm.