PHILIP K. DICK – UBIK

“Yes, you really bring in the talent,” Runciter said.

The intercom buzzed and the quaking, elderly voice of Mrs. Frick rasped, “A group of our inertials are waiting to see you, Mr. Runciter; they say you sent for them in connection with a new joint work project. Are you free to see them?”

“Send them in,” Runciter said.

Pat said, “I’ll keep this ring.” She displayed the silver and jade wedding ring which, in another time track, she and Joe had picked out; this much of the alternate world she had elected to retain. He wondered what – if any – legal basis she had kept in addition. None, he hoped; wisely, however, he said nothing. Better not even to ask.

The office door opened and, in pairs, the inertials entered; they stood uncertainly for a moment and then began seating themselves facing Runciter’s desk. Runciter eyed them, then pawed among the rat’s nest of documents on his desk; obviously, he was trying to determine whether Pat had changed in any way the composition of the group.

“Edie Dorn,” Runciter said. “Yes, you’re here.” He glanced at her, then at the man beside her. “Hammond. Okay, Hammond. Tippy Jackson.” He peered inquiringly.

“I made it as quick as I could,” Mrs. Jackson said. “You didn’t give me much time, Mr. Runciter.”

“Jon Ild,” Runciter said.

The adolescent boy with the tousled, woolly hair grunted in response. His arrogance, Joe noted, seemed to have receded; the boy now seemed introverted and even a little shaken. It would be interesting, Joe thought, to find out what he remembers – what all of them, individually and collectively, remember.

“Francesca Spanish,” Runciter said.

The luminous, gypsy-like dark woman, radiating a peculiar jangled tautness, spoke up. “During the last few minutes, Mr. Runciter, while we waited in your outer office, mysterious voices appeared to me and told me things.”

“You’re Francesca Spanish?” Runciter asked her, patiently; he looked more than usually tired.

“I am; I have always been; I will always be.” Miss Spanish’s voice rang with conviction. “May I tell you what the voices revealed to me?”

“Possibly later,” Runciter said, passing on to the next personnel document.

“It must be said,” Miss Spanish declared vibrantly.

“All right,” Runciter said. “We’ll take a break for a couple of minutes.” He opened a drawer of his desk, got out one of his amphetamine tablets, took it without water. “Let’s hear what the voices revealed to you, Miss Spanish.” He glanced toward Joe, shrugging.

“Someone,” Miss Spanish said, “just now moved us, all of us, into another world. We inhabited it, lived in it, as citizens of it, and then a vast, all-encompassing spiritual agency restored us to this, our rightful universe.”

“That would be Pat,” Joe Chip said. “Pat Conley. Who just joined the firm today.”

“Tito Apostos,” Runciter said. “You’re here?” He craned his neck, peering about the room at the seated people.

A bald-headed man, wagging a goatish beard, pointed to himself. He wore old-fashioned, hip-hugging gold lame trousers, yet somehow created a stylish effect. Perhaps the egg-sized buttons of his kelp-green mitty blouse helped; in any case he exuded a grand dignity, a loftiness surpassing the average. Joe felt impressed.

“Don Denny,” Runciter said.

“Right here, sir,” a confident baritone like that of a Siamese cat declared; it arose from within a slender, earnest-looking individual who sat bolt-upright in his chair, his hands on his knees. He wore a polyester dirndl, his long hair in a snood, cowboy chaps with simulated silver stars. And sandals.

“You’re an anti-animator,” Runciter said, reading the appropriate sheet. “The only one we use.” To Joe he said, “I wonder if we’ll need him; maybe we should substitute another anti-telepath – the more of those the better.”

Joe said, “We have to cover everything. Since we don’t know what we’re getting into.”

“I guess so.” Runciter nodded. “Okay, Sammy Mundo.”

A weak-nosed young man, dressed in a maxiskirt, with an undersized, melon-like head, stuck his hand up in a spasmodic, wobbling, ticlike gesture; as if, Joe thought, the anemic body had done it by itself. He knew this particular person. Mundo looked years younger than his chronological age; both mental and physical growth processes had ceased for him long ago. Technically, Mundo had the intelligence of a raccoon; he could walk, eat, bathe himself, even – after a fashion – talk. His anti-telepathic ability, however, was considerable. Once, alone, he had blanked out S. Dole Melipone; the firm’s house magazine had rambled on about it for months afterward.

“Oh, yes,” Runciter said. “Now we come to Wendy Wright.”

As always, when the opportunity arose, Joe took a long, astute look at the girl whom, if he could have managed it, he would have had as his mistress, or, even better, his wife. It did not seem possible that Wendy Wright had been born out of blood and internal organs like other people. In proximity to her he felt himself to be a squat, oily, sweating, uneducated nurt whose stomach rattled and whose breath wheezed. Near her he became aware of the physical mechanisms which kept him alive; within him machinery, pipes and valves and gas-compressors and fan belts had to chug away at a losing task, a labor ultimately doomed. Seeing her face, he discovered that his own consisted of a garish mask; noticing her body made him feel like a low-class windup toy. All her colors possessed a subtle quality, indirectly lit. Her eyes, those green and tumbled stones, looked impassively at everything; he had never seen fear in them, or aversion, or contempt. What she saw she accepted. Generally she seemed calm. But more than that she struck him as being durable, untroubled and cool, not subject to wear, or to fatigue, or to physical illness and decline. Probably she was twenty-five or -six, but he could not imagine her looking younger, and certainly she would never look older. She had too much control over herself and outside reality for that.

“I’m here,” Wendy said, with soft tranquility.

Runciter nodded. “Okay; that leaves Fred Zafsky.” He fixed his gaze on a flabby, big-footed, middle-aged, unnatural-looking individual with pasted-down hair, muddy skin plus a peculiar protruding Adam’s apple – clad, for this occasion, in a shift dress the color of a baboon’s ass. “That must be you.”

“Right you are,” Zafsky agreed, and sniggered. “How about that?”

“Christ,” Runciter said, shaking his head. “Well, we have to include one anti-parakineticist, to be safe. And you’re it.” He tossed down his documents and looked about for his green cigar. To Joe he said, “That’s the group, plus you and me. Any last-minute changes you want to make?”

“I’m satisfied,” Joe said.

“You suppose this bunch of inertials is the best combination we can come up with?” Runciter eyed him intently.

“Yes,” Joe said.

“And it’s good enough to take on Hollis’ Psis?”

“Yes,” Joe said.

But he knew otherwise.

It was not something he could put his finger on. It certainly was not rational. Potentially, the counter-field capacity of the eleven inertials had to be considered enormous. And yet-

“Mr. Chip, can I have a second of your time?” Mr. Apostos, bald-headed and bearded, his gold lamé trousers glittering, plucked at Joe Chip’s arm. “Could I discuss an experience I had late last night? In a hypnagogic state I seem to have contacted one, or possibly two, of Mr. Hollis’ people – a telepath evidently operating in conjunction with one of their precogs. Do you think I should tell Mr. Runciter? Is it important?”

Hesitating, Joe Chip looked toward Runciter. Seated in his worthy, beloved chair, trying to relight his all-Havana cigar, Runciter appeared terribly tired; the wattles of his face sagged. “No,” Joe said. “Let it go.”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Runciter said, raising his voice above the general noise. “We’re leaving now for Luna, you eleven inertials, Joe Chip and myself and our client’s rep, Zoe Wirt; fourteen of us in all. We’ll use our own ship.” He got out his round, gold, anachronistic pocket watch and studied it. “Three-thirty. Pratfall II will take off from the main roof-field at four.” He snapped his watch shut and returned it to the pocket of his silk sash. “Well, Joe,” he said, “we’re in this for better or worse. I wish we had a resident precog who could take a look ahead for us.” Both his face and the tone of his voice drooped with worry and the cares, the irreversible burden, of responsibility and age.

CHAPTER 6.

We wanted to give you a shave like no other you ever had. We said, It’s about time a man’s face got a little loving. We said, With Ubik’s self-winding Swiss chromium never-ending blade, the days of scrape-scrape are over. So try Ubik. And be loved. Warning: use only as directed. And with caution.

“Welcome to Luna,” Zoe Wirt said cheerfully, her jolly eyes enlarged by her red-framed, triangular glasses. “Via myself, Mr. Howard says hello to each and every one of you, and most especially to Mr. Glen Runciter for making his organization – and you people, in particular – available to us. This subsurface hotel suite, decorated by Mr. Howard’s artistically talented sister Lada, lies just three-hundred linear yards from the industrial and research facilities which Mr. Howard believes to have been infiltrated. Your joint presence in this room, therefore, should already be inhibiting the psionic capabilities of Hollis’ agents, a thought pleasing to all of us.” She paused, looked over them all. “Are there any questions?”

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