Ubik (9 page)

Cursing, Al yanked out his wallet, examined the bills in it. “These are old but still in circulation.” He inspected the coins in his pockets. “These aren’t in circulation.” He tossed the coins to the carpet of the lounge, ridding himself, as the phone had, in disgust. “Take these bills.” He handed the paper currency to Joe. “There’s enough there for the hotel room for one night, dinner and a couple of drinks for each of you. I’ll send a ship from New York tomorrow to pick you and her up.”

“I’ll pay you back,” Joe said. “As pro tem director of Runciter Associates, I’ll draw a higher salary; I’ll be able to pay all my debts off, including the back taxes, penalties and fines which the income-tax people—”

“Without Pat Conley? Without her help?”

“I can throw her out now,” Joe said.

Al said, “I wonder.”

“This is a new start for me. A new lease on life.” I can run the firm, he said to himself. Certainly I won’t make the mistake that Runciter made; Hollis, posing as Stanton Mick, won’t lure me and my inertials off Earth where we can be gotten at.

“In my opinion,” Al said hollowly, “you have a will to fail. No combination of circumstances—including this—is going to change that.”

“What I actually have,” Joe said, “is a will to succeed. Glen Runciter saw that, which is why he specified in his will that I take over in the event of his death and the failure of the Beloved Brethren Moratorium to revive him into half-life, or any other reputable moratorium as specified by me.” Within him his confidence rose; he saw now the manifold possibilities ahead, as clearly as if he had precog abilities. And then he remembered Pat’s talent, what she could do to precogs, to any attempt to foresee the future.

“Tuba mirum spargens sonum,”
the voices sang.
“Per sepulchra regionum coget omnes ante thronum.”

Reading his expression, Al said, “You’re not going to throw her out. Not with what she can do.”

“I’ll rent a room at the Zürich Rootes Hotel,” Joe decided. “As per your outlined proposal.” But, he thought, Al’s right. It won’t work; Pat, or even something worse, will move in and destroy me. I’m doomed, in the classic sense. An image thrust itself into his agitated, fatigued mind: a bird caught in cobwebs. Age hung about the image, and this frightened him; this aspect of it seemed literal and real. And, he thought, prophetic. But he could not make out exactly how. The coins, he thought. Out of circulation, rejected by the phone. Collectors’ items. Like ones found in museums. Is that it? Hard to say. He really didn’t know.

“Mors stupebit,”
the voices sang.
“Et natura, cum resurget creatura, judicanti responsura.”
They sang on and on.

EIGHT

If money worries have you in the cellar, go visit the lady at Ubik Savings & Loan. She’ll take the frets out of your debts. Suppose, for example, you borrow fifty-nine poscreds on an interest-only loan. Let’s see, that adds up to—

Daylight rattled through the elegant hotel room, uncovering stately shapes which, Joe Chip blinkingly saw, were articles of furnishings: great hand-printed drapes of a neo-silkscreen sort that depicted man’s ascent from the unicellular organisms of the Cambrian Period to the first heavier-than-air flight at the beginning of the twentieth century. A magnificent pseudo-mahogany dresser, four variegated crypto-chromeplated reclining chairs…he groggily admired the splendor of the hotel room and then he realized with a tremor of keen disappointment, that Wendy had not come knocking at the door. Or else he had not heard her; he had been sleeping too deeply.

Thus, the new empire of his hegemony had vanished in the moment it had begun.

With numbing gloom—a remnant of yesterday—pervading him, he lurched from the big bed, found his clothes and dressed. It was cold, unusually so; he noticed that and pondered on it. Then he lifted the phone receiver and dialed for room service.

“—pay him back if at all possible,” the receiver declared in his ear. “First, of course, it has to be established whether Stanton Mick actually involved himself, or if a mere homosimulacric substitute was in action against us, and if so why, and if not then how—” The voice droned on, speaking to itself and not to Joe. It seemed as unaware of him as if he did not exist. “From all our previous reports,” the voice declared, “it would appear that Mick acts generally in a reputable manner and in accord with legal and ethical practices established throughout the System. In view of this—”

Joe hung up the phone and stood dizzily swaying, trying to clear his head.
Runciter’s voice
. Beyond any doubt. He again picked up the phone, listened once more.

“—lawsuit by Mick, who can afford and is accustomed to litigation of that nature. Our own legal staff certainly should be consulted before we make a formal report to the Society. It would be libel if made public and grounds for a suit claiming false arrest if—”

“Runciter!” Joe said. He said it loudly.

“—unable to verify probably for at least—”

Joe hung up.

I don’t understand this, he said to himself.

Going into the bathroom, he splashed icy water on his face, combed his hair with a sanitary, free hotel comb, then, after meditating for a time, shaved with the sanitary, free hotel throwaway razor. He slapped sanitary, free hotel aftershave onto his chin, neck and jowls, unwrapped the sanitary, free hotel glass and drank from it. Did the moratorium finally manage to revive him? he wondered. And wired him up to my phone? Runciter, as soon as he came around, would want to talk to me, probably before anyone else. But if so, why can’t he hear me back? Why does it consist of one-way transmission only? Is it only a technical defect which will clear up?

Returning to the phone, he picked up the receiver once more with the idea of calling the Beloved Brethren Moratorium.

“—not the ideal person to manage the firm, in view of his confused personal difficulties, particularly—”

I can’t call, Joe realized. He hung up the receiver. I can’t even get room service.

In a corner of the large room a chime sounded and a tinkling mechanical voice called, “I’m your free homeopape machine, a service supplied exclusively by all the fine Rootes hotels throughout Earth and the colonies. Simply dial the classification of news that you wish, and in a matter of seconds I’ll speedily provide you with a fresh, up-to-the-minute homeopape tailored to your individual requirements; and, let me repeat, at no cost to you!”

“Okay,” Joe said, and crossed the room to the machine. Maybe by now, he reflected, news of Runciter’s murder has gotten out. The news media cover all admissions to moratoriums routinely. He pressed the button marked
high-type interplan info
. At once the machine began to clank out a printed sheet, which he gathered up as fast as it emerged.

No mention of Runciter. Too soon? Or had the Society managed to suppress it? Or Al, he thought; maybe Al slipped a few poscreds to the owner of the moratorium. But—he himself had all of Al’s money. Al couldn’t buy off anybody to do anything.

A knock sounded on the hotel room door.

Putting down the homeopape, Joe made his way cautiously to the door, thinking, It’s probably Pat Conley; she’s trapped me here. On the other hand, it might be someone from New York, here to pick me up and take me back there. Theoretically, he conjectured, it could even be Wendy. But that did not seem likely. Not now, not this late.

It could also be an assassin dispatched by Hollis. He could be killing us off one by one.

Joe opened the door.

Quivering with unease, wringing his pulpy hands together, Herbert Schoenheit von Vogelsang stood in the doorway mumbling. “I just don’t understand it, Mr. Chip. We worked all night in relays. We just are not getting a single spark. And yet we ran an electroencephalograph and the ’gram shows faint but unmistakable cerebral activity. So the afterlife is there, but we still can’t seem to tap it. We’ve got probes at every part of the cortex now. I don’t know what else we can do, sir.”

“Is there measurable brain metabolism?” Joe asked.

“Yes, sir. We called in an outside expert from another moratorium, and he detected it, using his own equipment. It’s a normal amount too. Just what you’d expect immediately after death.”

“How did you know where to find me?” Joe asked.

“We called Mr. Hammond in New York. Then I tried to call you, here at your hotel, but your phone has been busy all morning. That’s why I found it necessary to come here in person.”

“It’s broken,” Joe said. “The phone. I can’t call out either.”

The moratorium owner said, “Mr. Hammond tried to contact you too, with no success. He asked me to give you a message from him, something he wants you to do here in Zürich before you start back to New York.”

“He wants to remind me,” Joe said, “to consult Ella.”

“To tell her about her husband’s unfortunate, untimely death.”

“Can I borrow a couple of poscreds from you?” Joe said. “So I can eat breakfast?”

“Mr. Hammond warned me that you would try to borrow money from me. He informed me that he already provided you with sufficient funds to pay for your hotel room, plus a round of drinks, as well as—”

“Al based his estimate on the assumption that I would rent a more modest room than this. However, nothing smaller than this was available, which Al did not foresee. You can add it onto the statement which you will be presenting to Runciter Associates at the end of the month. I am, as Al probably told you, now acting director of the firm. You’re dealing with a positive-thinking, powerful man here, who has worked his way step by step to the top. I could, as you must well realize, reconsider our basic policy decision as to which moratorium we wish to patronize; we might, for example, prefer one nearer New York.”

Grumpily, von Vogelsang reached within his tweed toga and brought out an ersatz alligator-skin wallet, which he dug into.

“It’s a harsh world we’re living in,” Joe said, accepting the money. “The rule is ‘Dog eat dog.’ ”

“Mr. Hammond gave me further information to pass on to you. The ship from your New York office will arrive in Zürich two hours from now. Approximately.”

“Fine,” Joe said.

“In order for you to have ample time to confer with Ella Runciter, Mr. Hammond will have the ship pick you up at the moratorium. In view of this, Mr. Hammond suggests that I take you back to the moratorium with me. My chopper is parked on the hotel roof.”

“Al Hammond said that? That I should return to the moratorium with you?”

“That’s right.” Von Vogelsang nodded.

“A tall, stoop-shouldered Negro, about thirty years old? With gold-capped front teeth, each with an ornamental design, the one on the left a heart, the next a club, the one on the right a diamond?”

“The man who came with us from Zürich Field yesterday. Who waited with you at the moratorium.”

Joe said, “Did he have on green felt knickers, gray golf socks, badger-hide open-midriff blouse and imitation patent-leather pumps?”

“I couldn’t see what he wore. I just saw his face on the vidscreen.”

“Did he convey any specific code words so I could be sure it was him?”

The moratorium owner, peeved, said, “I don’t understand the problem, Mr. Chip. The man who talked to me on the vidphone from New York is the same man you had with you yesterday.”

“I can’t take a chance,” Joe said, “on going with you, on getting into your chopper. Maybe Ray Hollis sent you. It was Ray Hollis who killed Mr. Runciter.”

His eyes like glass buttons, von Vogelsang said, “Did you inform the Prudence Society of this?”

“We will. We’ll get around to it in due time. Meanwhile we have to watch out that Hollis doesn’t get the rest of us. He intended to kill us too, there on Luna.”

“You need protection,” the moratorium owner said. “I suggest you go immediately to your phone and call the Zürich police; they’ll assign a man to cover you until you leave for New York. And, as soon as you arrive in New York—”

“My phone, as I said, is broken. All I get on it is the voice of Glen Runciter. That’s why no one could reach me.”

“Really? How very unusual.” The moratorium owner undulated past him into the hotel room. “May I listen?” He picked up the phone receiver questioningly.

“One poscred,” Joe said.

Digging into the pockets of his tweed toga, the moratorium owner fished out a handful of coins; his airplane-propeller beanie whirred irritably as he handed three of the coins to Joe.

“I’m only charging you what they ask around here for a cup of coffee,” Joe said. “This ought to be worth at least that much.” Thinking that, he realized that he had had no breakfast, and that he would be facing Ella in that condition. Well, he could take an amphetamine instead; the hotel probably provided them free, as a courtesy.

Holding the phone receiver tightly against his ear, von Vogelsang said, “I don’t hear anything. Not even a dial tone. Now I hear a little static. As if from a great distance. Very faint.” He held the receiver out to Joe, who took it and also listened.

He, too, heard only the far-off static. From thousands of miles away, he thought. Eerie. As perplexing in its own way as the voice of Runciter—if that was what it had been. “I’ll return your poscred,” he said, hanging up the receiver.

“Never mind,” von Vogelsang said.

“But you didn’t get to hear his voice.”

“Let’s return to the moratorium. As your Mr. Hammond requested.”

Joe said, “Al Hammond is my employee. I make policy. I think I’ll return to New York before I talk to Ella; in my opinion, it’s more important to frame our formal notification to the Society. When you talked to Al Hammond did he say whether all the inertials left Zürich with him?”

“All but the girl who spent the night with you, here in the hotel.” Puzzled, the moratorium owner looked around the room, obviously wondering where she was. His peculiar face fused over with concern. “Isn’t she here?”

“Which girl was it?” Joe asked; his morale, already low, plunged into the blackest depths of his mind.

“Mr. Hammond didn’t say. He assumed you’d know. It would have been indiscreet for him to tell me her name, considering the circumstances. Didn’t she—”

“Nobody showed up.” Which had it been? Pat Conley? Or Wendy? He prowled about the hotel room, reflexively working off his fear. I hope to god, he thought, that it was Pat.

“In the closet,” von Vogelsang said.

“What?” He stopped pacing.

“Maybe you ought to look in there. These more expensive suites have extra-large closets.”

Joe touched the stud of the closet door; its spring-loaded mechanism sent it flying open.

On the floor of the closet a huddled heap, dehydrated, almost mummified, lay curled up. Decaying shreds of what seemingly had once been cloth covered most of it, as if it had, by degrees, over a long period of time, retracted into what remained of its garments. Bending, he turned it over. It weighed only a few pounds; at the push of his hand its limbs folded out into thin bony extensions that rustled like paper. Its hair seemed enormously long; wiry and tangled, the black cloud of hair obscured its face. He crouched, not moving, not wanting to see who it was.

In a strangled voice von Vogelsang rasped, “That’s old. Completely dried-out. Like it’s been here for centuries. I’ll go downstairs and tell the manager.”

“It can’t be an adult woman,” Joe said. These could only be the remnants of a child; they were just too small. “It can’t be either Pat or Wendy,” he said, and lifted the cloudy hair away from its face. “It’s like it was in a kiln,” he said. “At a very high temperature, for a long time.” The blast, he thought. The severe heat from the bomb.

He stared silently then at the shriveled, heat-darkened little face. And knew who this was. With difficulty he recognized her.

Wendy Wright.

Sometime during the night, he reasoned, she had come into the room, and then some process had started in her or around her. She had sensed it and had crept off, hiding herself in the closet, so he wouldn’t know; in her last few hours of life—or perhaps minutes; he hoped it was only minutes—this had overtaken her, but she had made no sound. She hadn’t wakened him. Or, he thought, she tried and she couldn’t do it, couldn’t attract my attention. Maybe it was after that, after trying and failing to wake me, that she crawled into this closet.

I pray to god, he thought, that it happened fast.

“You can’t do anything for her?” he asked von Vogelsang. “At your moratorium?”

“Not this late. There wouldn’t be any residual half-life left, not with this complete deterioration. Is—she the girl?”

“Yes,” he said, nodding.

“You better leave this hotel. Right now. For your own safety. Hollis—it
is
Hollis, isn’t it?—will do this to you too.”

“My cigarettes,” Joe said. “Dried out. The two-year-old phone book in the ship. The soured cream and coffee with scum on it, mold on it. The antiquated money.” A common thread: age. “She said that back on Luna, after we made it up to the ship; she said, ‘I feel old.’ ” He pondered, trying to control his fear; it had begun now to turn into terror. But the voice on the phone, he thought. Runciter’s voice. What did that mean?