Philip Dick: Prominent Author

“MY HUSBAND” said Mary Ellis, “although he is a very prompt man, and hasn’t been late to work in twenty-five years, is actually still someplace around the house.” She sipped at her faintly- scented hormone and carbohydrate drink. “As a matter of fact, he won’t be leaving for another ten minutes.”

“Incredible,” said Dorothy Lawrence, who had finished her drink, and now basked in the dermal- mist spray that descended over her virtually unclad body from an automatic jet above the couch. “What they won’t think of next!”

Mrs. Ellis beamed proudly, as if she personally were an employee of Terran Development. “Yes, it is incredible. According to somebody down at the office, the whole history of civilization can be explained in terms of transportation techniques. Of course, I don’t know anything about history. That’s for Government research people. But from what this man told Henry—” “Where’s my briefcase?” came a fussy voice from the bedroom. “Good Lord, Mary. I know I left it on the clothes-cleaner last night.” “You left it upstairs,” Mary replied, raising her voice slightly. “Look in the closet.”

“Why would it be in the closet?” Sounds of angry stirring-arounds. “You’d think a man’s own briefcase would be safe ”

Henry Ellis stuck his head into the living room briefly. “I found it. Hello, Mrs. Lawrence.”

“Good morning,” Dorothy Lawrence replied. “Mary was explaining that you’re still here.”

“Yes, I’m still here.” Ellis straightened his tie, as the mirror revolved slowly around him. “Anything you want me to pick up downtown, honey?”

“No,” Mary replied. “Nothing I can think of. I’ll vid you at the office, if I remember something.” “Is it true,” Mrs. Lawrence asked, “that as soon as you step into it you’re all the way downtown?”

“Well, almost all the way.”

“A hundred and sixty miles! It’s beyond belief. Why, it takes my husband two and a half hours to get his monojet through the commercial lanes and down at the parking lot and then walk all the way up to his office.”

“I know,” Elli smuttered, grabbing his hat and coat. “Used to take me about that long. But no more.” He kissed his wife goodbye. “So long. See you tonight. Nice to have seen you again, Mrs. Lawrence.”

“Can I—watch?” Mrs. Lawrence asked hopefully.

“Watch? Of course, of course.” Ellis hurried through the house, out the back door and down the steps into the yard. “Gome along!” he shouted impatiently. “I don’t want to be late. It’s nine fifty-nine and I have to be at my desk by ten.”

Mrs. Lawrence hurried eagerly after Ellis. In the back yard stood a big circular hoop that gleamed brightly in the mid-morning sun. Ellis turned some controls at the base. The hoop changed color, from silver to a shimmering red.

“Here I go!” Ellis shouted. He stepped briskly into the hoop. The hoop fluttered about him. There was a faint pop. The glow died.

“Good Heavens!” Mrs. Lawrence gasped. “He’s gone!”

“He’s in downtown N’York,” Mary Ellis corrected.

“I wish my husband had a Jiffi- scuttler. When they show up on the market commercially maybe I can afford to get him one.”

“Oh, they’re very handy,” Mary Ellis agreed. “He’s probably saying hello to the boys right this minute.”

HENRY ELLIS was in a sort of tunnel. All around him a gray, formless tube stretched out in both directions, a sort of hazy sewerpipe.

Framed in the opening behind him, he could see the faint outline of his own house. His backporch and yard, Mary standing on the steps in her red bra and slacks. Mrs. Lawrence beside her in green- checkered shorts. The cedar tree and rows of petunias. A hill. The neat little houses of Cedar Groves, Pennsylvania. And in front of him—

New York City. A wavering glimpse of the busy streetcorner in front of his office. The great building itself, a section of concrete and glass and steel. People moving. Skyscrapers. Monojets landing in swarms. Aerial signs. Endless white- collar workers hurrying every- where, rushing to their offices.

Ellis moved leisurely toward the New York end. He had taken the Jiffi-scuttler often enough to know just exactly how many steps it was. Five steps. Five steps along the wavery gray tunnel and he had gone a hundred and sixty miles. He halted, glancing back. So far he had gone three steps. Ninety six miles. More than half way.

The fourth dimension was a wonderful thing.

Ellis lit his pipe, leaning his briefcase against his trouserleg and groping in his coat pocket for his tobacco. He still had thirty seconds to get to work. Plenty of time. The pipelighter flared and he sucked in expertly. He snapped the lighter shut and restored it to his pocket.

A wonderful thing, all right. The Jiffi-scuttler had already revolutionized society. It was now possible to go anywhere in the world instantly with no time lapse. And without wading through endless lanes of other monojets, also going places. The transportation problem had been a major headache since the middle of the twentieth century. Every year it took longer to get to work. Every year more families moved from the cities out into the country, adding numbers to the already swollen swarms that choked the roads and jetlanes.

But it was all solved, now. An infinite number of Jiffi-scuttlers could be set up; there was no interference between them. The Jiffi-scuttler bridged distances non- spacially, through another dimension of some kind (they hadn’t explained that part too clearly to him). For a flat thousand credits any Terran family could have Jiffi- scuttler hoops set up, one in the backyard—the other in Berlin, or Bermuda, or San Francisco, or Port Said. Anywhere in the world. Of course, there was one drawback. The hoop had to be anchored in one specific spot. You picked your destination and that was that.

But for an office worker, it was perfect. Step in one end, step out the other. Five steps—a hundred and sixty miles. A hundred and sixty miles that had been a two hour nightmare of grinding gears and sudden jolts, monojets cutting in and out, speeders, reckless flyers, alert cops waiting to pounce, ulcers and bad tempers. It was all over now. All over for him, at least, as an employee of Terran Development, the manufacturer of the Jiffi- scuttler. And soon for everybody, when they were commercially on the market.

Ellis sighed. Time for work. He could see Ed Hall racing up the steps of the TD building two at a time. Tony Franklin hurrying after him. Time to get moving. He bent down and reached for his briefcase—

It was then he saw them.

THE WAVERY gray haze was thin, there. A sort of thin spot where the shimmer wasn’t so strong. Just a bit beyond his foot and past the corner of iiis briefcase.

Beyond the thin spot were three tiny figures. Just beyond the gray waver. Incredibly small men, no larger than insects. Watching him with incredulous astonishment.

Ellis gazed down intently, his briefcase forgotten. The three tiny men were equally dumbfounded. None of them stirred, the three tiny figures, rigid with awe, Henry Ellis bent over, his mouth open, eyes wide.

A fourth little figure joined the others. They all stood rooted to the spot, eyes bulging. They had on some kind of robes. Brown robes and sandals. Strange, unTerran costumes. Everything about them was unTerran. Their size, their oddly-colored dark faces, their clothing—and their voices.