Philip Dick: The Last Of The Masters

Silvia shrieked. Tolby threw himself down, head between his knees, doubled up in a ball. A sudden curtain of green burst around Penn. Then a sickening emptiness, as the car plunged down. It struck with a roaring crash that blotted out everything. A single titanic cataclysm of fury that picked Penn up and flung his remains in every direction.

"Put me down,” Bors ordered. "On this railing for a moment before I go inside.”

The crew lowered him onto the concrete surface and fastened magnetic grapples into place. Men and women hurried up the wide steps, in and out of the massive building that was Bors' main offices.

The sight from these steps pleased him. He liked to stop here and look around at his world. At the civilization he had carefully constructed. Each piece added painstakingly, scrupulously, with infinite care, throughout the years.

It wasn’t big. The mountains ringed it on all sides. The valley was a level bowl, surrounded by dark violet hills. Outside, beyond the hills, the regular world began. Parched fields. Blasted, poverty-stricken towns. Decayed roads. The remains of houses, tumbled-down farm buildings. Ruined cars and machinery. Dust-covered people creeping listlessly around in hand-made clothing, dull rags and tatters.

He had seen the outside. He knew what it was like. At the mountains the blank faces, the disease, the withered crops, the crude plows and ancient tools all ended here. Here, within the ring of hills, Bors had constructed an accurate and detailed reproduction of a society two centuries gone. The world as it had been in the old days. The time of governments. The time that had been pulled down by the. Anarchist League.

Within his five synapsis-coils the plans, knowledge, information, blueprints of a whole world existed. In the two centuries he had carefully recreated that world, had made this miniature society that glittered and hummed on all sides of him. The roads, buildings, houses, industries of a dead world, all a fragment of the past, built with his own hands, his own metal fingers and brain.

"Fowler," Bors said.

Fowler came over. He looked haggard. His eyes were red-rimmed and swollen. "What is it? You want to go inside?”

Overhead, the morning patrol thundered past. A string of black dots against the sunny, cloudless sky. Bors watched with satisfaction. "Quite a sight.”

"Right on the nose,” Fowler agreed, examining his wristwatch. To their right, a column of heavy tanks snaked along,a highway between green fields. Their gun- snouts glittered. Behind them a column of foot soldiers marched, faces hidden behind bacteria masks.

"I’m thinking,” Bors said, "that it may be unwise to trust Green any longer.”

"Why the hell do you say that?” "Every ten days I’m inactivated. So your crew-can see what repairs are needed." Bors twisted restlessly. "For twelve hours I’m completely helpless. Green takes care of me. Sees nothing happens. But—”

"But what?”

"It occurs to me perhaps there’d be more safety in a squad of troops. It’s too much of a temptation for one man, alone.”

Fowler scowled. "I don’t see that. How about me? I have charge of inspecting you. I could switch a few leads around. Send a load through your synapsis-coils. Blow them out."

Bors whirled wildly, then subsided. "True. You could do that.” After a moment he demanded, "But what would you gain? You know I’m the only one who can keep all this together. I’m the only one who knows how to maintain a planned society, not a disorderly chaos! If it weren’t for me, all this would collapse, and you’d have dust and ruins and weeds.

The whole outside would come rushing in to take over!”

"Of course. So why worry about Green?”

Trucks of workers rumbled past. Loads of men in blue-green, sleeves rolled up, armloads of tools. A mining team, heading for the mountains.

"Take me inside," Bors said abruptly.

Fowler called McLean. They hoisted Bors and carried him past the throngs of people, into the building, down the corridor and to his office. Officials and technicians moved respectfully out of the way as the great pitted, corroded tank was carried past.

"All right,” Bors said impatiently. "That’s all. You can go.”

Fowler and McLean left the luxurious office, with its lush carpets, furniture, drapes and rows of books. Bors was already bent over his desk, sorting through heaps of reports and papers.

Fowler shook his head, as they walked down the halL "He won’t last much longer."

"The motor system? Can’t we reinforce the—”

"I don’t mean that. He’s breaking up mentally. He can’t take the strain any longer.”

"None of us can,” McLean muttered.

"Running this thing is too much for him. Knowing it’s all dependent on him. Knowing as soon as he turns his back or lets down it’ll begin to come apart at the seams. A hell of a job, trying to shut out the real world. Keeping his model universe running.”

"He’s gone on a long time,” McLean said.

Fowler brooded. "Sooner or later we’re going to have to face the situation.” Gloomily, he ran his fingers along the blade of a large screwdriver. "He’s wearing out. Sooner or later somebody’s going to have to step in. As he continues to decay He stuck the screwdriver back in his belt, with his pliers and hammer and soldering iron. "One crossed ‘wire.”

"What’s that?”

Fowler laughed. "Now he’s got me doing it. One crossed wire and —poof. But what then? That’s the big question.”

"Maybe,” McLean said softly, "you and I can then get off this rat race. You and I and all the rest of us. And live like human beings.” "Rat race" Fowler murmured. "Rats in a maze. Doing tricks. Performing chores thought up by somebody else.”

McLean caught Fowler’s eye. "By somebody of another species."

Tolby struggled vaguely. Silence. A faint dripping close by. A beam pinned his body down. He was caught on all sides by the twisted wreck of the car. He was head down. The car was turned on its side. Off the road in a gully, wedged between two huge trees. Bent struts and smashed metal all around him. And bodies.

He pushed up with all his strength. The beam gave, and he managed to get to a sitting position. A tree branch had burst in the windshield. The black-haired girl, still turned toward the back seat, was impaled on it. The branch had driven through her spine, out her chest, and into the seat; she clutched at it with both hands, head limp, mouth half-open. The man beside her was also dead. His hands were gone; the windshield had burst around him. He lay in a heap among the remains of the dashboard and the bloody shine of his own internal organs.

Penn was dead. Neck snapped like a rotten broom handle. Tolby pushed his corpse aside and examined his daughter. Silvia didn’t stir. He put his ear to her shirt and listened. She was alive. Her heart beat faintly. Her bosom rose and fell against his ear.

He wound a handkerchief around her arm, where the flesh was ripped open and oozing blood. She was badly cut and scratched; one leg was doubled under her, obviously broken. Her clothes were ripped, her hair matted with blood. But she was alive. He pushed the twisted door open and stumbled out. A fiery tongue of afternoon sunlight struck him and he winced. He began to ease her limp body out of the car, past the twisted door-frame.

A sound.

Tolby glanced up, rigid. Something was coming. A whirring insect that rapidly descended. He let go of Silvia, crouched, glanced around, then lumbered awkwardly down the gully. He slid and fell and rolled among the green vines and jagged gray boulders. His gun gripped, he lay gasping in the moist shadows, peering upward.

The insect landed. A small airship, jet-driven. The sight stunned him. He had heard about jets, seen photographs of them. Been briefed and lectured in the history-indoc- trination courses at the League Camps. But to see a jet!