Philip Dick: The Turning Wheel

"Come here,” Sung-wu called sharply to the gang of black-faced children who followed along after him. "I'm going to talk to you.”

The children approached, eyes on the ground, and assembled in a silent circle around him. Sung-wu sat down, placed his briefcase beside him, and folded his legs expertly under him in the traditional posture outlined by Elron in his seventh book of teachings.

"I will ask and you will answer,” Sung-wu stated. "You know the basic catechisms?” He peered sharply around. "Who knows the basic catechisms?”

One or two hands went up. Most of the children looked away unhappily.

"First!” snapped Sung-wu. " Who are you? You are a minute fragment of the cosmic plan.

"Second! What are you? A mere speck in a system so vast as to be beyond comprehension.

"Third! What is the way of life? To fulfill what is required by the cosmic forces.

"Fourth! Where are you? On one step of the cosmic ladder.

"Fifth! Where have you been? Through endless steps; each turn of the wheel advances or depresses you.

"Sixth! What determines your direction at the next turn? Your conduct in this manifestation.

"Seventh! What is right conduct? Submitting yourself to the eternal forces, the cosmic elements that make up the divine plan.

"Eighth! What is the significance of suffering? To purify the soul.

"Ninth! What is the significance of death? To release the person from this manifestation, so he may rise to a new rung of the ladder.

"Tenth—”

But at that moment Sung-wu broke off. Two quasi-human shapes were approaching him. Immense white-skinned figures striding across the baked fields, between the sickly rows of wheat.

Technos—coming to meet him; his flesh crawled. Caucs. Their skins glittered pale and unhealthy, like nocturnal insects, dug from under rocks.

He rose to his feet, conquered his disgust, and prepared to greet them.

SUNG-WU said, "Clearness!" He could smell them, a musky sheep smell, as they came to a halt in front of him. Two bucks, two immense sweating males, skin damp and sticky, with beards, and long disorderly hair. They wore sailcloth trousers and boots. With horror Sung-wu perceived a thick body-hair, on their chests, like woven mats—tufts in their armpits, on their arms, wrists, even the backs of their hands. Maybe Broken Feather was right; perhaps, in these great lumbering blond-haired beasts, the archaic Neanderthal stock—the false men—still survived. He could almost see the ape, peering from behind their blue eyes.

"Hi,” the first Cauc said. After amoment he added reflectively, "My name’s Jamison.”

"Pete Ferris,” the other grunted. Neither of them observed the customary deferences; Sung-wu winced but managed not to show it. Was it deliberate, a veiled insult, or perhaps mere ignorance? This was hard to tell; in lower classes there was, as Chai said, an ugly undercurrent of resentment and envy, and hostility.

"I’mmaking a routine survey,” Sung-wu explained, "on birth and death rates in rural areas. I’ll be here a few days. Is there some place I can stay? Some public inn or hostel?”

The two Cauc bucks were silent. "Why?” one of them demanded bluntly.

Sung-wu blinked. "Why? Why what?”

"Why are you making a survey? If you want any information we'll supply it.”

Sung-wu was incredulous. "Do you know to whom you’re talking? I’m a Bard! Why, you’re ten classes down; how dare you—” He choked with rage. In these rural areas the Technos had utterly forgotten their place. What was ailing the local Bards? Were they letting the system break apart?

He shuddered violently at the thought of what it would mean if Technos and Farmers and Businessmen were allowed to intermingle —even intermarry, and eat, and drink, in the same places. The whole structure of society would collapse. If all were to ride the same carts, use the same outhouses; it passed belief. A sudden nightmare picture loomed up, before Sung-wu of Technos living and mating with women of the Bard and Poet classes. He visioned a horizontally-oriented society, all persons on the same level, with horror. It went against the very grain of the cosmos, against the divine plan; it was the Time of Madness all over again. He shuddered.

"Where is the Manager of this area?” he demanded. "Take me to him; I'll deal directly with him.”

The two Caucs turned and headed back the way they had come, without a word. After a moment of fury, Sung-wu followed behind them.

THEY LED him through withered fields and over barren, eroded hills on which nothing grew; the ruins increased. At the edge of the city, a line of meager villages had been set up; he saw leaning, rickety wood huts, and mud streets. From the villages a thick stench rose, the smell of offal and death.

Dogs lay sleeping under the huts; children poked and played in the filth and rotting debris. A few old people sat on porches, vacantfaced, eyes glazed and dull. Chickens pecked around, and he saw pigs and skinny cats—and the eternal rusting piles of metal, sometimes thirty feet high. Great towers of red slag were heaped up everywhere.

Beyond the villages were the ruins proper—endless miles of abandoned wreckage; skeletons of buildings; concrete walls; bathtubs and pipe; overturned wrecks that had been cars. All these were from the Time of Madness, the decade that had finally rung the curtain clown on the sorriest interval in man’s history. The five centuries of madness and jangledness were now known as the Age of Heresy, when man had gone against the divine plan and taken his destiny in his own hands.

They came to' a larger hut, a two-story wood structure. The Caucs climbed a decaying flight of steps; boards creaked and gave ominously under their heavy boots. Sung-wu followed them nervously; they came out on a porch, a kind of open balcony.

On the balcony sat a man, an obese copper-skinned official in unbuttoned breeches, his shiny black hair pulled back and tied with a bone against his bulging red neck. His nose was large and prominent, his face, flat and wide, with many chins. He was drinking lime juice from a tin cup and gazing down at the mud street below. As the two Caucs appeared he rose slightly, a prodigious effort.

"This man,” the Cauc named Jamison said, indicating Sung-wu, "wants to see you.”

Sung-wu pushed angrily forward. "I am a Bard, from the Central Chamber; do you people recognize this?" He tore open his robe and flashed the symbol of the Holy Arm, gold worked to form a swath of flaming red. "I insist you accord me proper treatment! I’m not here to be pushed around by any—”

HE HAD SAID too much; Sung-wu forced his anger down and gripped his briefcase. The fat Indian was studying him calmly; the two Caucs had wandered to the far end of the balcony and were squatting down in the shade. They lit crude cigarets and turned their backs.

"Do you permit this?” Sung-wu demanded, incredulous. "This— mingling ?”

The Indian shrugged and sagged down even more on his chair. "Clearness be with you,” he murmured; "will you join me?" His calm expression remained unchanged; he seemed not to have noticed. "Some lime juice? Or perhaps coffee? Lime juice is good for these." He tapped his mouth; his soft gums were lined with caked sores.

"Nothing for me,” Sung-wu muttered grumpily, as he took aseat opposite the Indian; "I’m here on an official survey.”

The Indian nodded faintly. "Oh?”

"Birth and death rates.” Sung-wu hesitated, then leaned toward the Indian. "I insist you send those two Caucs away; what I have to say to you is private.”

The Indian showed no change of expression; his broad face was utterly impassive. After a time he turned slightly. "Please go down to the street level,” he ordered. "As you will.”