The Crack In Space (19 page)

Hadley eyed him. ‘You mean it. And that’s the whole point; that’s why we don’t understand each other. Maybe I should feel sorry for you instead of trying to get you to feel sorry for me. You know, maybe someday you’ll suddenly crack up completely, fly into a million pieces, without warning. And I’ll limp on for years. Never really give up, never actually stop. Interesting.’

‘For a person who used to be optimistic  . . .’

‘I’ve aged,’ Hadley said briefly. ‘That experience on that alter-world did it to me. Can’t you see it in my face?’ He nodded goodbye to Darius Pethel, then. ‘See you tomorrow. Bright and early.’

As he shut the door, Pethel said to himself, I hope he can still peddle ‘scuttlers. We’ll see about that. If not, he’s out. For good. As far as I’m concerned, he’s just back here on probation, and he’s lucky to get that.

He’s sure depressing to talk to these days, Pethel said to himself as he returned to his back office.

That raise in salary will eventually cheer him up, he decided. How can it not?

His own meager tendency to doubt was assuaged by that timely realization. Thoroughly. Or  . . . was it? Down underneath on a level which he did not care to communicate, a region of his mind which remained his own damn business, he was not so sure.

His feet up on the arm of the couch, Phil Danville said, ‘It was my majestic speeches that did it for you, Jim. So what’s my reward?’ He grinned. ‘I’m waiting.’ He waited. ‘Well?’

‘Nothing on Earth could ever be sufficient reward for such an accomplishment,’ Jim Briskin said absently.

‘He’s got his mind on something else,’ Danville said, appealing to Dorothy Gill. ‘Look at him. He’s not even happy; he’s going to ruin Sal Heim’s party, when we get there. Maybe we better not go.’

‘We have to go,’ Dorothy Gill said.

‘I won’t wreck the mood of the party,’ Jim assured them, drawing himself up dutifully. ‘I’ll be over it by the time we get there.’ After all, this was the moment. But actually the great historic instant had already managed to slide away and disappear; it was too elusive, too subtly interwoven into the texture of more commonplace reality. And, in addition, the problems awaiting him seemed to efface his recognition of anything else. But that was the way it had to be.

The door of the room opened and a Peke entered, carrying a portable version of a TD linguistics machine. At the sight of him everyone jumped to their feet. The three Secret servicemen whipped out their guns and one of them yelled, ‘Drop!’ The people in the room sprawled clumsily, dropping to the floor in grotesque, inexpert heaps, scrambling without dignity away from the line of prospective fire.

‘Hello, Homo friends,’ the Peke said, by means of the linguistics machine. ‘I wish in particular to thank you, Mr Briskin, for permitting me to remain in your world. I will comport myself entirely within the framework of your legal code, believe me. And, in addition, perhaps later  . . .’

The three Secret servicemen put their laser pistols away and slowly returned to their inobtrusive places about the room.

‘Good lord,’ Dorothy Gill breathed in relief as she got unsteadily to her feet. ‘It’s only Bill Smith. This time, anyhow.’ She sank back down in her chair, sighing. ‘We’re safe for a little while longer.’

‘You really gave us a scare,’ Jim Briskin said to the Peke. He found himself still shaking. ‘I don’t remember having had anything to do with permitting him to stay here,’ he said to Tito Cravelli.

‘He’s thanking you in advance,’ Tito said. ‘You’re going to decide after you become president, or rather he hopes so.’

Phil Danville said, ‘Let’s take him along with us to the party. That ought to please Sal Heim. To know there’s still one of them here, that we haven’t quite gotten rid of them and probably never will.’
⁹

‘It is highly fortunate that our two peoples  . . .’ the Peke began, but Tito Cravelli cut him off.

‘Save it. The campaign is over.’

‘We’re taking a rest,’ Danville added. ‘Highly deserved, too.’

The Peke blinked in surprise, then said hurriedly, ‘As currently the sole surviving member of my race on this side of the . . .’

‘I’m sorry,’ Jim said, ‘But Tito’s right; we can’t listen to any more. We’ve got to leave here. You’re welcome to come along, but don’t make any speeches. You understand? It’s over. We’ve got other things on our minds, now.’ The time you’re talking about seems like a million years ago, he said to himself. It no longer seems plausible that your race and ours made contact during modern, historical times; the memory of it is beginning to fade. And your presence here among us has the quality of a startling and unexplained anomaly; it’s more puzzling than anything else.

‘Let’s go,’ Phil Danville said, getting his coat and Dorothy’s from the hall closet and moving toward the door.

‘I would think twice before going out there,’ the Peke said to Jim Briskin. ‘There’s a man lying in wait for you.’

The Secret servicemen, again alert, strolled forward.

‘Who is it?’ Jim asked the Peke.

‘I couldn’t catch his name,’ the Peke said.

‘Better not go out there,’ Tito said warningly.

‘A well-wisher,’ Jim said.

‘An assassin, you mean,’ Tito said.

Jim started to open the hall door, but one of the Secret servicemen stopped him. ‘Let us check first.’ They filed, hard-eyed, out of the room.

‘They’re still after you,’ Tito said to Jim.

‘I doubt that very much,’ Jim said.

A moment later the Secret servicemen returned, leisurely. ‘It’s okay, Mr Briskin. You can talk to him.’

Opening the hall door, Jim looked out. It was not a well wisher and, as the Secret servicemen had said, it was not an assassin.

The man waiting for him was Bruno Mini.

Hand extended, Mini said, ‘It certainly took me a long time to catch up with you, Mr Briskin. I’ve been trying all throughout the latter part of the campaign.’

‘Indeed you have, Mr Mini,’ Jim said.

Mini advanced toward Jim, smiling an intense, white-tooth smile. A small man, wearing a stylish but somewhat gaudy Ionian purple snakeskin jacket with illuminated kummerbund and curly-toed Brazilian pigbark slippers, Mini looked exactly what he was: a dealer in wholesale dried fruit. ‘We’ve got a tremendous amount of vital business to transact,’ Mini said earnestly. The gold toothpick projecting from between his molar teeth wobbled in a spasm of energetic activity. ‘At this point I can reveal to you that the first planet I’ve planned on—and this will no doubt come to you as a complete surprise—is Uranus. You’ll naturally ask why.’

‘No,’ Jim Briskin said. ‘I won’t ask why.’ He felt resigned. Sooner or later Mini had to catch up with him. In fact, he was very slightly but perceptibly relieved that it had at last happened  . . . and that did surprise him.

‘Where can we go that we can talk at adequate length to do justice to this topic, and of course, in strict private?’ Mini asked. He added, ‘I’ve already gone to the trouble of informing the media that we would meet, tonight; it’s my conviction, based on years of experience, that dignified but continual public exposure to our program will do much to put it over with the—how shall I phrase it?—less educated masses.’ He rooted vigorously in his overstuffed briefcase.

A Secret serviceman appeared out of nowhere and took the briefcase from Mini.

Grumbling, Mini said, ‘You fellows inspected it downstairs on the front sidewalk and then here just a minute ago. For heaven’s sake.’

‘Can’t afford to take any chances.’ Obviously the Secret servicemen viewed Bruno Mini with magnified distrust. Some quality about him aroused their professional interest. The briefcase was elaborately examined and then, reluctantly, passed back to Mini as being harmless.

From the room noisily trooped Tito Cravelli, Phil Danville, Dorothy Gill, the Peke Bill Smith, wearing his blue cloth cap and carrying his linguistics machine, and finally three Secret servicemen. ‘We’re on our way to Sal and Pat’s,’ Tito explained to Jim Briskin. ‘You coming or not?’

‘Not for a while,’ Jim Briskin said, and knew that it would be a long time before he managed to get to this party or any other party.

‘Let me describe the advantages of Uranus,’ Mini said enthusiastically. And began handing Jim an overwhelming spectrum of documents from his briefcase as rapidly as possible.

It was going to be a difficult four years. He could see that. Four? More likely eight.

The way things turned out, he was proved correct.

PHILIP K. DICK

THE CRACK IN SPACE

Philip K. Dick was born in Chicago in 1928 and lived most of his life in California. He briefly attended the University of California, but dropped out before completing any classes. In 1952, he began writing professionally and proceeded to write numerous novels and short story collections. He won the Hugo Award for the best novel in 1962 for
The Man in the High Castle
and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best novel of the year in 1974 for
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
. Philip K. Dick died on March 2, 1982, in Santa Ana, California, of heart failure following a stroke.