Philip Dick - The Science Fiction Anthology

They came at dawn on the second day. We were deployed across five of the dead planets of Menelaus XII in a ring around Nova-Maurania. They came fast and hard, and Portario and his men had at least ten hours work left before they could fire their reactors and pray. Until then we did the praying. It didn’t help.

Mandasiva’s command ship went at the third hour. A Lukan blaster got it. By the fourth hour I had watched three of my sub-command ships go. A Sirian force beam got one, an Earth fusion gun got another, and the third went out of action and rammed O’Hara’s command ship that had been leading their attack against us. That third ship of mine was Pete Colenso’s. Old Mike would have been proud of his boy. I was sick. Pete had been a good boy. So had O’Hara. Not a boy, O’Hara, but the next to the last of old Free Companion from Earth. I’m the last, and I said a silent good-bye to O’Hara. By the sixth hour Rajay-Ben had only ten ships left. I had twelve. Five thousand of my men were gone. Eight thousand of Rajay-Ben’s Lukans. The Sirians of Mandasiva’s O Company were getting the worst of it, and in the eighth hour Mandasiva’s second in command surrendered. It would be over soon, too soon. And the dream would be over with the battle. I broke silence.

“Red Stone calling. Do you read me? Commander Stone calling. Request conference. Repeat, request conference.”

A face appeared on the inter-Company beam screen. The cold, blank, hard-bitten face of the only Free Company Commander senior to me now that O’Hara was gone, Jake Campesino of the Cygne Black Company. “Are you surrendering, Stone?”

“No. I want to speak to my fellow Companions.”

Campesino’s voice was like ice. “Violation! You know the rules, Stone. Silence cannot be broken in battle. I will bring charges. You’re through, Stone.”

I said, “Okay, crucify me later. But hear me now.”

Campesino said, “Close silence or surrender.”

It was no good. We’d had it. And across the distance of battle Rajay-Ben’s face appeared on the screen. The colored lights that were a Lukan’s face and I knew enough to know that the shimmering lights were mad. “The hell with them, Red, let’s go all the damned way!”

And a new face appeared on the screen. A face I knew too well. First Councillor Roark. “Stone! You’ve done a lot in your day but this is the end, you hear me? You’re defending a madman in a Council crime. Do you realize the risk? Universal imbalance! The whole pattern of galaxies could be destroyed! We’ll destroy you for this, Stone. An ionic project without Council authorization.”

I said to Campesino, “Five minutes, Commander. That’s all.”

There was a long blank on the screen, then Campesino’s cold face appeared. “Okay, Red, talk. I don’t like civilian threats. You’ve got your five minutes, make it good.”

I made it good. I told them of a handful of people who had a dream. A handful of people who wanted their home back. A few lost souls who would rather die trying to live the way they wanted to live than go on living in a world they did not want. And I told them of the great United Galaxies, that had been created to protect the dreams of everyone in it and had forgotten why it had been created. I told them that it did not matter who was right or wrong, because when a man can no longer dream something has gone wrong in the Universe. When I finished, Campesino’s face was impassive.

Campesino said, “You heard Commander Stone, men. Close off, Stone, give me a minute to get the vote.”

I waited. It was the longest minute of my life.

“You win, Red,” Campesino said. He was smiling at me. “Go home, Councillor, battle’s over.”

The Councillor went. He said there would be hell to pay, and maybe there will be, but I don’t think so, they still need us. We lost thirty thousand good men in all the Companies. But when the next dawn came Nova-Maurania was gone. I don’t know where they went, or what happened to them. Here in my stronghold I sometimes imagine them safe and rebuilding a green world where they can smoke pipes and live their own lives. And sometimes I imagine them all dead and drifting out there in the infinity of space. I don’t think they would mind too much, either way.

CARRIN decided that he could trace his present mood to Miller’s suicide last week. But the knowledge didn’t help him get rid of the vague, formless fear in the back of his mind. It was foolish. Miller’s suicide didn’t concern him.

But why had that fat, jovial man killed himself? Miller had had everything to live for—wife, kids, good job, and all the marvelous luxuries of the age. Why had he done it?

“Good morning, dear,” Carrin’s wife said as he sat down at the breakfast table.

“Morning, honey. Morning, Billy.”

His son grunted something.

You just couldn’t tell about people, Carrin decided, and dialed his breakfast. The meal was gracefully prepared and served by the new Avignon Electric Auto-cook.

His mood persisted, annoyingly enough since Carrin wanted to be in top form this morning. It was his day off, and the Avignon Electric finance man was coming. This was an important day.

He walked to the door with his son.

“Have a good day, Billy.”

His son nodded, shifted his books and started to school without answering. Carrin wondered if something was bothering him, too. He hoped not. One worrier in the family was plenty.

“See you later, honey.” He kissed his wife as she left to go shopping.

At any rate, he thought, watching her go down the walk, at least she’s happy. He wondered how much she’d spend at the A. E. store.

Checking his watch, he found that he had half an hour before the A. E. finance man was due. The best way to get rid of a bad mood was to drown it, he told himself, and headed for the shower.

THE shower room was a glittering plastic wonder, and the sheer luxury of it eased Carrin’s mind. He threw his clothes into the A. E. automatic Kleen-presser, and adjusted the shower spray to a notch above “brisk.” The five-degrees-above-skin-temperature water beat against his thin white body. Delightful! And then a relaxing rub-dry in the A. E. Auto-towel.

Wonderful, he thought, as the towel stretched and kneaded his stringy muscles. And it should be wonderful, he reminded himself. The A. E. Auto-towel with shaving attachments had cost three hundred and thirteen dollars, plus tax.

But worth every penny of it, he decided, as the A. E. shaver came out of a corner and whisked off his rudimentary stubble. After all, what good was life if you couldn’t enjoy the luxuries?

His skin tingled when he switched off the Auto-towel. He should have been feeling wonderful, but he wasn’t. Miller’s suicide kept nagging at his mind, destroying the peace of his day off.

Was there anything else bothering him? Certainly there was nothing wrong with the house. His papers were in order for the finance man.

“Have I forgotten something?” he asked out loud.

“The Avignon Electric finance man will be here in fifteen minutes,” his A. E. bathroom Wall-reminder whispered.

“I know that. Is there anything else?”

The Wall-reminder reeled off its memorized data—a vast amount of minutiae about watering the lawn, having the Jet-lash checked, buying lamb chops for Monday, and the like. Things he still hadn’t found time for.

“All right, that’s enough.” He allowed the A. E. Auto-dresser to dress him, skillfully draping a new selection of fabrics over his bony frame. A whiff of fashionable masculine perfume finished him and he went into the living room, threading his way between the appliances that lined the walls.

A quick inspection of the dials on the wall assured him that the house was in order. The breakfast dishes had been sanitized and stacked, the house had been cleaned, dusted, polished, his wife’s garments had been hung up, his son’s model rocket ships had been put back in the closet.