Philip Dick - A Maze of Death

He then, eyes shut, opened the book to a page at random, put his finger at one exact spot, and opened his eyes.

His finger rested on: the Form Destroyer.

That doesn’t tell us much, he reflected. All death comes as a result of a deterioration of form, due to the activity of the Form Destroyer.

And yet it scared him.

It doesn’t sound like a bug or a plant, he thought starkly. It sounds like something entirely else.

A tap-tap sounded at his door.

Rising warily, he moved by slow degrees to the door; keeping it shut he swept the curtain back from the small window and peered out into the night darkness. Someone stood on the porch, someone small, with long hair, tight sweater, peek-n-squeeze bra, tight short skirt, barefoot. Susie Smart has come to visit, he said to himself, and unlocked the door.

“Hi,” she said brightly, smiling up at him. “May I come in and talk a little?”

He led her over to The Book. “I asked it what or who killed Tallchief.”

“What did it say?” She seated herself, crossed her bare legs and leaned forward to see as he placed his finger on the same spot as before. “The Form Destroyer,” she said soberly. “But it’s always the Form Destroyer.”

“Yet I think it means something.”

“That it wasn’t an insect?”

He nodded.

“Do you have anything to eat or drink?” Susie said. “Any candy?”

“The Form Destroyer,” he said, “is loose outside.”

“You’re scaring me.”

“Yes,” he said. “I want to. We’ve got to get a prayer off this planet and to the relay network. We’re not going to survive unless we get help.”

“The Walker comes without prayer,” Susie said.

“I have a Baby Ruth candy bar,” he said. “You can have that.” He rummaged through a suitcase of Mary’s, found it, handed it to her.

“Thank you,” she said, tearing the paper from one of the candy bar’s blunt ends.

He said, “I think we’re doomed.”

“We’re always doomed. It’s the essence of life.”

“Doomed immediately. Not abstractly—doomed in the sense that I and Mary were doomed when I tried to load up the Morbid Chicken. Mors certa, hora incerta; there’s a big difference between knowing that you’re going to die and knowing you’re going to die within the next calendar month.”

“Your wife is very attractive.”

He sighed.

“How long have you two been married?” Susie gazed at him intently.

“Eight years,” he said.

Susie Smart swiftly stood up. “Come over to my place and let me show you how nice these little rooms can be fixed up. Come on—it’s depressing in here.” She tugged little-girl-wise at his hand and he found himself following after her.

They danced up the porch, passed several doorways and came at last to Susie’s door. It was unlocked; she opened it, welcoming him into warmth and light. She had told the truth; it did look nice. Can we make ours as nice as this? he asked himself as he looked around, at the pictures on the walls, the textures of fabrics, and the many, many planter boxes and pots, out of which multicolored blossoms dazzled the eye.

“Nice,” he said.

Susie banged the door shut. “Is that all you can say? It’s taken me a month to make it look like this.”

“‘Nice’ was your word for it, not mine.”

She laughed. “I can call it ‘nice,’ but since you’re a visitor you have to be more lavish about it.”

“Okay,” he said, “it’s wonderful.”

“That’s better.” She seated herself in a black canvas-backed chair facing him, leaned back, rubbed her hands together briskly, then fastened her attention on him. “I’m waiting,” she said.

“For what?”

“For you to proposition me.”

“Why would I do that?”

Susie said, “I’m the settlement whore. You’re supposed to die of priapism because of me. Haven’t you heard?”

“I just got here late today,” he pointed out.

“But somebody must have told you.”

“When someone does,” he said, “he’ll get his nose punched in.”

“But it’s true.”

“Why?” he said.

“Dr. Babble explained to me that it’s a diencephalic disturbance in my brain.”

He said, “That Babble. You know what he said about my visit with the Walker? He said most of what I said was untrue.”

“Dr. Babble has a keen little maliciousness about him. He loves to put down everyone and everything.”

“If you know that about him,” Seth Morley said, “then you know enough not to pay any attention.”

“He just explained why I’m that way. I am that way. I’ve slept with every man in the settlement, except that Wade Frazer.” She shook her head, making a wry face. “He’s awful.”

With curiosity, he said, “What does Frazer say about you? After all, he’s a psychologist. Or claims he is.”

“He says that—” She reflected, staring up pensively at the ceiling of the room, meantime chewing abstractedly on her lower lip. “It’s a search for the great world-father archetype. That’s what Jung would have said. Do you know about Jung?”

“Yes,” he said, although in fact he had only heard little more than the name; Jung, he had been told, had in many ways laid the groundwork for a rapprochement between intellectuals and religion—but at that point Seth Morley’s knowledge gave out. “I see,” he said.

“Jung believed that our attitudes toward our actual mothers and fathers are because they embody certain male and female archetypes. For instance, there’s the great bad earth-father and the good earth-father and the destroying earthfather, and so forth… and the same with women. My mother was the bad earth-mother, so all my psychic energy was turned toward my father.”

“Hmm,” he said. He had, all at once, begun to think about Mary. Not that he was afraid of her, but what would she think when she got back to their living quarters and found him gone? And then—God forbid—found him here with Susie Dumb, the self-admitted settlement whore?

Susie said, “Do you think the sexual act makes a person impure?”

“Sometimes,” he responded reflexively, still thinking about his wife. His heart labored and he felt his pulse race. “Specktowsky isn’t too clear about that in The Book,” he mumbled.

“You’re going to take a walk with me,” Susie said.

“Now? I am? Where? Why?”

“Not now. Tomorrow when it’s daylight. I’ll take you outside the settlement, out into the real Delmak-O. Where the strange things are, the movements that you catch out of the corner of your eye—and the Building.”

“I’d like to see the Building,” he said, truthfully.

Abruptly she rose. “Better get back to your living quarters, Mr. Seth Morley,” she said.

“Why?” He, too, confused, rose to his feet.

“Because if you stay here your attractive wife is going to find us and create chaos and open the way for the Form Destroyer, who you say is loose outside, to get all of us.” She laughed, showing perfect, pale teeth.

“Can Mary come on our walk?” he asked.

“No.” She shook her head. “Just you. Okay?”

He hesitated, a flock of thoughts invading his mind; they pulled him this way and that, then departed, leaving him free to make an answer. “If I can work it,” he said.

“Try. Please. I can show you all the places and life forms and things I’ve discovered.”

“Are they beautiful?”

“S-some. Why are you looking at me so intently? You make me nervous.”

“I think you’re insane,” he said.

“I’m just outspoken. I simply say, ‘A man is a sperm’s way of producing another sperm.’ That’s merely practical.”

Seth Morley said, “I don’t know much about Jungian analysis, but I certainly do not recall—” He broke off. Something had moved at the periphery of his vision.