Philip Dick - The Science Fiction Anthology

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This collection brings together some of the most incredible sci-fi stories ever told in one convenient, high-quality, Kindle volume!
This book now contains several HTML tables of contents that will make reading a real pleasure!
The Sentimentalists, by Murray Leinster
The Girls from Earth, by Frank Robinson
The Death Traps of FX-31, by Sewell Wright
Song in a minor key, by C.L. Moore
Sentry of the Sky, by Evelyn E. Smith
Meeting of the Minds, by Robert Sheckley
Junior, by Robert Abernathy
Death Wish, by Ned Lang
Dead World, by Jack Douglas
Cost of Living, by Robert Sheckley
Aloys, by R.A. Lafferty
With These Hands, by C.M. Kornbluth
What is POSAT?, by Phyllis Sterling-Smith
A Little Journey, by Ray Bradbury
Hunt the Hunter, by Kris Neville
Citizen Jell, by Michael Shaara
Operation Distress, by Lester Del Rey
Syndrome Johnny, by Charles Dye
Psychotennis, anyone?, by Lloyd Williams
Prime Difference, by Alan Nourse
Doorstep, by Keith Laumer
The Drug, by C.C. MacApp
An Elephant For the Prinkip, by L.J. Stecher
License to Steal, by Louis Newman
The Last Letter, by Fritz Lieber
The Stuff, by Henry Slesar
The Celestial Hammerlock, by Donald Colvin
Always A Qurono, by Jim Harmon
Jamieson, by Bill Doede
A Fall of Glass, by Stanley Lee
Shatter the Wall, by Sydney Van Scyoc
Transfer Point, by Anthony Boucher
Thy Name Is Woman, by Kenneth O'Hara
Twelve Times Zero, by Howard Browne
All Day Wednesday, by Richard Olin
Blind Spot, by Bascom Jones
Double Take, by Richard Wilson
Field Trip, by Gene Hunter
Larson's Luck, by Gerald Vance
Navy Day, by Harry Harrison
One Martian Afternoon, by Tom Leahy
Planet of Dreams, by James McKimmey
Prelude To Space, by Robert Haseltine
Pythias, by Frederik Pohl
Show Business, by Boyd Ellanby
Slaves of Mercury, by Nat Schachner
Sound of Terror, by Don Berry
The Big Tomorrow, by Paul Lohrman
The Four-Faced Visitors of…Ezekiel, by Arthur Orton
The Happy Man, by Gerald Page
The Last Supper, by T.D. Hamm
The One and the Many, by Milton Lesser
The Other Likeness, by James Schmitz
The Outbreak of Peace, by H.B. Fyfe
The Skull, by Philip K. Dick
The Smiler, by Albert Hernhunter
The Unthinking Destroyer, by Roger Phillips
Two Timer, by Frederic Brown
Vital Ingredient, by Charles De Vet
Weak on Square Roots, by Russell Burton
With a Vengeance, by J.B. Woodley
Zero Hour, by Alexander Blade
The Great Nebraska Sea, by Allan Danzig
The Valor of Cappen Varra, by Poul Anderson
A Bad Day for Vermin, by Keith Laumer
Hall of Mirrors, by Frederic Brown
Common Denominator, by John MacDonald
Doctor, by Murray Leinster
The Nothing Equation, by Tom Godwin
The Last Evolution, by John Campbell
A Hitch in Space, by Fritz Leiber
On the Fourth Planet, by J.F. Bone
Flight From Tomorrow, by H. Beam Piper
Card Trick, by Walter Bupp
The K-Factor, by Harry Harrison
The Lani People, by J. F. Bone
Advanced Chemistry, by Jack Huekels
Sodom and Gomorrah, Texas, by R. A. Lafferty
Keep Out, by Frederic Brown
All Cats are Gray, by Andre Norton
A Problem in Communication, by Miles J. Breuer
The Terrible Tentacles of L-472, by Sewell Peaslee Wright
Marooned Under the Sea, by Paul Ernst
The Murder Machine, by Hugh B. Cave
The Attack from Space, by Captain S. P. Meek
The Knights of Arthur, by Frederik Pohl
And All the Earth a Grave, by C.C. MacApp
Citadel, by Algis Budrys
Micro-Man, by Weaver Wright
....

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“Then you’ve failed,” he said bitterly. “In spite of centuries of advance warning, you’ve failed to change the rest of us enough to prevent us from trying to blow ourselves off the Earth. Here we are, still snarling and snapping at our neighbors’ throats—and we’ve caught up with you. We have the atomic bomb. What’s POSAT been doing all that time? Or have you found that human nature really can’t be changed?”

“Come with me,” said Crandon.

He led the way along the narrow balcony to another door, then down a steep flight of stairs. He opened a door at the bottom, and Don saw what must have been the world’s largest computing machine.

“This is our answer,” said Crandon. “Oh, rather, it’s the tool by which we find our answer. For two centuries we have been working on the newest of the sciences—that of human motivation. Soon we will be ready to put some of our new knowledge to work. But you are right in one respect, we are working now against time. We must hurry if we are to save our civilization. That’s why you are here. We have work for you to do. Will you join us, Don?”

“But why the hocus-pocus?” asked Don. “Why do you hide behind such a weird front as POSAT? Why do you advertise in magazines and invite just anyone to join? Why didn’t you approach me directly, if you have work for me to do? And if you really have the answers to our problems, why haven’t you gathered together all the scientists in the world to work on this project—before it’s too late?”

Crandon took a sighing breath. “How I wish that we could do just that! But you forget that one of the prime purposes of our organization is to maintain the secrecy of our discoveries until they can be safely disclosed. We must be absolutely certain that anyone who enters this building will have joined POSAT before he leaves. What if we approached the wrong scientist? Centuries of accomplishment might be wasted if they attempted either to reveal it or to exploit it!

“Do you recall the questionnaires that you answered before you were invited here? We fed the answers to this machine and, as a result, we know more about how you will react in any given situation than you do yourself. Even if you should fail to join us, our secrets would be safe with you. Of course, we miss a few of the scientists who might be perfect material for our organization. You’d be surprised, though, at how clever our advertisements are at attracting exactly the men we want. With the help of our new science, we have baited our ads well, and we know how to maintain interest. Curiosity is, to the men we want, a powerful motivator.”

“But what about the others?” asked Don. “There must be hundreds of applicants who would be of no use to you at all.”

“Oh, yes,” replied Crandon. “There are the mild religious fanatics. We enroll them as members and keep them interested by sending pamphlets in line with their interests. We even let them contribute to our upkeep, if they seem to want to. They never get beyond the reception room if they come to call on us. But they are additional people through whom we can act when the time finally comes.

“There are also the desperate people who try POSAT as a last resort—lost ones who can’t find their direction in life. For them we put into practice some of our newly won knowledge. We rehabilitate them—anonymously, of course. Even find jobs or patch up homes. It’s good practice for us.

“I think I’ve answered most of your questions, Don. But you haven’t answered mine. Will you join us?”

Don looked solemnly at the orderly array of the computer before him. He had one more question.

“Will it really work? Can it actually tell you how to motivate the stubborn, quarrelsome, opinionated people one finds on this Earth?”

Crandon smiled. “You’re here, aren’t you?”

Don nodded, his tense features relaxing.

“Enroll me as a member,” he said.

A Little Journey, by Ray Bradbury

There were two important things—one, that she was very old; two, that Mr. Thirkell was taking her to God. For hadn’t he patted her hand and said: “Mrs. Bellowes, we’ll take off into space in my rocket, and go to find Him together.”

And that was how it was going to be. Oh, this wasn’t like any other group Mrs. Bellowes had ever joined. In her fervor to light a path for her delicate, tottering feet, she had struck matches down dark alleys, and found her way to Hindu mystics who floated their flickering, starry eyelashes over crystal balls. She had walked on the meadow paths with ascetic Indian philosophers imported by daughters-in-spirit of Madame Blavatsky. She had made pilgrimages to California’s stucco jungles to hunt the astrological seer in his natural habitat. She had even consented to signing away the rights to one of her homes in order to be taken into the shouting order of a temple of amazing evangelists who had promised her golden smoke, crystal fire, and the great soft hand of God coming to bear her home.

None of these people had ever shaken Mrs. Bellowes’ faith, even when she saw them sirened away in a black wagon in the night, or discovered their pictures, bleak and unromantic, in the morning tabloids. The world had roughed them up and locked them away because they knew too much, that was all.

And then, two weeks ago, she had seen Mr. Thirkell’s advertisement in New York City:

COME TO MARS!

Stay at the Thirkell Restorium for one week. And then,

on into space on the greatest adventure life can offer!

Send for Free Pamphlet: “Nearer My God To Thee.”

Excursion rates. Round trip slightly lower.

“Round trip,” Mrs. Bellowes had thought. “But who would come back after seeing Him ?”

And so she had bought a ticket and flown off to Mars and spent seven mild days at Mr. Thirkell’s Restorium, the building with the sign on it which flashed: THIRKELL’S ROCKET TO HEAVEN! She had spent the week bathing in limpid waters and erasing the care from her tiny bones, and now she was fidgeting, ready to be loaded into Mr. Thirkell’s own special private rocket, like a bullet, to be fired on out into space beyond Jupiter and Saturn and Pluto. And thus—who could deny it?—you would be getting nearer and nearer to the Lord. How wonderful! Couldn’t you just feel Him drawing near? Couldn’t you just sense His breath, His scrutiny, His Presence?

“Here I am,” said Mrs. Bellowes, “an ancient rickety elevator, ready to go up the shaft. God need only press the button.”

Now, on the seventh day, as she minced up the steps of the Restorium, a number of small doubts assailed her.

“For one thing,” she said aloud to no one, “it isn’t quite the land of milk and honey here on Mars that they said it would be. My room is like a cell, the swimming pool is really quite inadequate, and, besides, how many widows who look like mushrooms or skeletons want to swim? And, finally, the whole Restorium smells of boiled cabbage and tennis shoes!”

She opened the front door and let it slam, somewhat irritably.

She was amazed at the other women in the auditorium. It was like wandering in a carnival mirror-maze, coming again and again upon yourself—the same floury face, the same chicken hands, and jingling bracelets. One after another of the images of herself floated before her. She put out her hand, but it wasn’t a mirror; it was another lady shaking her fingers and saying:

“We’re waiting for Mr. Thirkell. Sh!

“Ah,” whispered everyone.

The velvet curtains parted.

Mr. Thirkell appeared, fantastically serene, his Egyptian eyes upon everyone. But there was something, nevertheless, in his appearance which made one expect him to call “Hi!” while fuzzy dogs jumped over his legs, through his hooped arms, and over his back. Then, dogs and all, he should dance with a dazzling piano-keyboard smile off into the wings.

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