“What is Ubik?” Joe said.
There was no answer from Runciter.
“You don’t know that either,” Joe said. “You don’t know what it is or why it works. You don’t even know where it comes from,”
After a long, agonized pause, Runciter said, “You’re right, Joe. Absolutely right.” Tremulously, he lit another cigarette. “But I wanted to save your life; that part’s true. Hell, I’d like to save all your lives.” The cigarette slipped from his fingers; it dropped to the floor, rolled away. With labored effort, Runciter bent over to grope for it. On his face showed extreme and clear-cut unhappiness. Almost a despair.
“We’re in this,” Joe said, “and you’re sitting out there, out in the lounge, and you can’t do it; you can’t put a stop to the thing we’re involved in.”
“That’s right.” Runciter nodded.
“This is cold-pac,” Joe said, “but there’s something more. Something not natural to people in half-life. There are two forces at work, as Al figured out; one helping us and one destroying us. You’re working with the force or entity or person that’s trying to help us. You got the Ubik from them.”
“Yes.”
Joe said, “So none of us know even yet who it is that’s destroying us – and who it is that’s protecting us; you outside don’t know, and we in here don’t know. Maybe it’s Pat.”
“I think it is,” Runciter said. “I think there’s your enemy.”
Joe said, “Almost. But I don’t think so.” I don’t think, he said to himself, that we’ve met our enemy face to face, or our friend either.
He thought, But I think we will. Before long we will know who they both are.
“Are you sure,” he asked Runciter, “absolutely sure, that you’re beyond doubt the only one who survived the blast? Think before you answer.”
“Like I said, Zoe Wirt-”
“Of us,” Joe said. “She’s not here in this time segment with us. Pat Conley, for example.”
“Pat Conley’s chest was crushed. She died of shock and a collapsed lung, with multiple internal injuries, including a damaged liver and a leg broken in three places. Physically speaking, she’s about four feet away from you; her body, I mean.”
“And it’s the same for all the rest? They’re all here in cold-pac at the Beloved Brethren Moratorium?”
Runciter said, “With one exception. Sammy Mundo. He suffered massive brain damage and lapsed into a coma out of which they say he’ll never emerge. The cortical-”
“Then he’s alive. He’s not in cold-pac. He’s not here.”
“I wouldn’t call it ‘alive.’ They’ve run encephalograms on him; no cortical activity at all. A vegetable, nothing more. No personality, no motion, no consciousness – there’s nothing happening in Mundo’s brain, nothing in the slightest.”
Joe said, “So, therefore, you naturally didn’t think to mention it.”
“I mentioned it now.”
“When I asked you.” He reflected. “How far is he from us? In Zurich?”
“We set down here in Zurich, yes. He’s at the Carl Jung Hospital. About a quarter mile from this moratorium.”
“Rent a telepath,” Joe said. “Or use G. G. Ashwood. Have him scanned.” A boy, he said to himself. Disorganized and immature. A cruel, unformed, peculiar personality. This may be it, he said to himself. It would fit in with what we’re experiencing, the capricious contradictory happenings. The pulling off of our wings and then the putting back. The temporary restorations, as in just now with me here in this hotel room, after my climb up the stairs.
Runciter sighed. “We did that. In brain-injury cases like this it’s a regular practice to try to reach the person telepathically. No results; nothing. No frontal-lobe cerebration of any sort. Sorry, Joe.” He wagged his massive head in a sympathetic, tic-like motion; obviously, he shared Joe’s disappointment.
“Did you ring for me, sir?” Herbert Schoenheit von Vogelsang scuttled into the consultation lounge, cringing like a medieval toady. “Shall I put Mr. Chip back with the others? You’re done, sir?”
Runciter said, “I’m done.”
“Did your-”
“Yes, I got through all right. We could hear each other fine this time.” He lit a cigarette; it had been hours since he had had one, had found a free moment. By now the arduous, prolonged task of reaching Joe Chip had depleted him. “Do you have an amphetamine dispenser nearby?” he asked the moratorium owner.
“In the hall outside the consultation lounge.” The eager-to-please creature pointed.
Leaving the lounge, Runciter made his way to the amphetamine dispenser; he inserted a coin, pushed the choice lever, and, into the drop slot, a small familiar object slid with a tinkling sound.
The pill made him feel better. But then he thought about his appointment with Len Niggelman two hours from now and wondered if he could really make it. There’s been too much going on, he decided. I’m not ready to make my formal report to the Society; I’ll have to vid Niggelman and ask for a postponement.
Using a pay phone, he called Niggelman back in the North American Confederation. “Len,” he said, “I can’t do any more today. I’ve spent the last twelve hours trying to get through to my people in cold-pac, and I’m exhausted. Would tomorrow be okay?”
Niggelman said, “The sooner you file your official, formal statement with us, the sooner we can begin action against Hollis. My legal department says it’s open and shut; they’re champing at the bit.”
“They think they can make a civil charge stick?”
“Civil and criminal. They’ve been talking to the New York district attorney. But until you make a formal, notarized report to us-”
“Tomorrow,” Runciter promised. “After I get some sleep. This has damn near finished me off.” This loss of all my best people, he said to himself. Especially Joe Chip. My organization is depleted and we won’t be able to resume commercial operations for months, maybe years. God, he thought, where am I going to get inertials to replace those I’ve lost? And where am I going to find a tester like Joe?
Niggelman said, “Sure, Glen. Get a good night’s sleep and then meet me in my office tomorrow, say at ten o’clock our time.”
“Thanks,” Runciter said. He rang off, then threw himself heavily down on a pink-plastic couch across the corridor from the phone. I can’t find a tester like Joe, he said to himself. The fact of the matter is that Runciter Associates is finished.
The moratorium owner came in, then, putting in another of his untimely appearances. “Can I get you anything, Mr. Runciter? A cup of coffee? Another amphetamine, perhaps a twelve-hour spansule? In my office I have some twenty-four-hour spansules; one of those would get you back up into action for hours, if not all night.”
“All night,” Runciter said, “I intend to sleep.”
“Then how about a-”
“Flap away,” Runciter grated. The moratorium owner scuttled off, leaving him alone. Why did I have to pick this place? Runciter asked himself. I guess because Ella’s here. It is, after all, the best; that’s why she’s here, and, hence, why they’re all here. Think of them, he reflected, so many who were so recently on this side of the casket. What a catastrophe.
Ella, he said to himself, remembering. I’d better talk to her again for a moment, to let her know how things are going. That’s, after all, what I told her I’d do.
Getting to his feet, he started off in search of the moratorium owner.
Am I going to get that damn Jory this time? he asked himself. Or will I be able to keep Ella in focus long enough to tell her what Joe said? It’s become so hard to hang onto her now, with Jory growing and expanding and feeding on her and maybe on others over there in half-life. The moratorium should do something about him; Jory’s a hazard to everyone here. Why do they let him go on? he asked himself.
He thought, Maybe because they can’t stop him.
Maybe there’s never been anyone in half-life like Jory before.
CHAPTER 15.
Could it be that I have bad breath, Tom? Well, Ed, if you’re worried about that, try today’s new Ubik, with powerful germicidal foaming action, guaranteed safe when taken as directed.
The door of the ancient hotel room swung open. Don Denny, accompanied by a middle-aged, responsible-looking man with neatly trimmed gray hair, entered. Denny, his face strained with apprehension, said, “How are you, Joe? Why aren’t you lying down? For chrissake, get onto the bed.”
“Please lie down, Mr. Chip,” the doctor said as he set his medical bag on the vanity table and opened it up. “Is there pain along with the enervation and the difficult respiration?” He approached the bed with an old-fashioned stethoscope and cumbersome blood-pressure-reading equipment. “Do you have any history of cardiac involvement, Mr. Chip? Or your mother or father? Unbutton your shirt, please.” He drew up a wooden chair beside the bed, seated himself expectantly on it.