Finally Felix said, “Sort of throws you at first, doesn’t it?”
“It does,” Leo agreed hoarsely. “I mean, hey Felix– what do we do?”
“We accept it,” Felix said. He was gazing with fixed intensity down the aisle at the people in the other seats. Leo looked and saw, too. The same deformity of the jaw. The same brilliant, unfleshly right hand, one holding a homeopape, another a book, a third its fingers restlessly tapping. On and on and on until the termination of the aisle and the beginning of the pilot’s cabin. In there, too, he realized. It’s all of us.
“But I just don’t quite get what it means,” Leo complained helplessly. “Are we in–you know. Translated by that foul drug and this is–” He gestured. “We’re both out of our minds, is that it?”
Felix Blau said, “Have you taken Chew-Z?”
“No. Not since that one intravenous injection on Luna.”
“Neither have I,” Felix said. “Ever. So it’s spread. Without the use of the drug. He’s everywhere, or rather it’s everywhere. But this is good; this’ll decidedly cause Hepburn-Gilbert to reconsider the UN’s stand. He’ll have to face exactly what this thing amounts to. I think Palmer Eldritch made a mistake; he went too far.”
“Maybe it couldn’t help it,” Leo said. Maybe the damn organism was like a protoplasm; it had to ingest and grow–instinctively it spread out farther and farther. Until it’s destroyed at the source, Leo thought. And we’re the ones to do it, because I’m personally Homo sapiens evolvens: I’m the human of the future right here sitting in this seat now. If we can get the UN’s help.
I’m the Protector, he said to himself, of our race.
He wondered if this blight had reached Terra, yet. A civilization of Palmer Eldritches, gray and hollow and stooped and immensely tall, each with his artificial arm and eccentric teeth and mechanical, slitted eyes. It would not be pleasant. He, the Protector, shrank from the envisioning of it. And suppose it reaches our minds? he asked himself. Not just the anatomy of the thing but the mentality as well… what would happen to our plans to kill the thing?
Say, I bet this still isn’t real, Leo said to himself. I know I’m right and Felix isn’t; I’m still under the influence of that one dose; I never came back out–that’s what’s the matter. Thinking this he felt relief, because there was still a real Terra untouched; it was only himself that was affected. No matter how genuine Felix beside him and the ship and the memory of his visit to Mars to see about Barney Mayerson seemed.
“Hey, Felix,” he said, nudging him. “You’re a figment. Get it? This is a private world of mine. I can’t prove it, naturally, but–”
“Sorry,” Felix said laconically. “You’re wrong.”
“Aw, come on! Eventually I’m going to wake up or whatever it is you finally do when that miserable staff is out of your system. I’m going to keep drinking a lot of liquids, you know, flush it out of my veins.” He waved. “Stewardess.” He beckoned to her urgently. “Bring us our drinks now. Bourbon and water for me.” He glanced inquiringly at Felix.
“The same,” Felix murmured. “Except I want a little ice. But not too much because that way when it melts the drink is no good.”
The stewardess presently approached, tray extended. “Yours is with ice?” she asked Felix; she was blonde and pretty, with green eyes the texture of good polished stones, and when she bent forward her articulated, spherical breasts were partially exposed. Leo noticed that, liked that; however, the distortion of her jaw ruined the total impression and he felt disappointed, cheated. And now, he saw, the lovely long-lashed eyes had vanished. Been replaced. He looked away, disgruntled and depressed, until she had gone. It was going to be especially hard, he realized, regarding women; he did not for instance anticipate with any pleasure the first sight of Roni Fugate.
“You saw?” Felix said as he drank his drink.
“Yes, and it proves how quickly we’ve got to act,” Leo said. “As soon as we land in New York we look up that wily, no-good nitwit Hepburn-Gilbert.”
“What for?” Felix Blau asked.
Leo stared at him, then pointed at Felix’s artificial, shiny fingers holding his glass.
“I rather like them now,” Felix said meditatively.
That’s what I thought, Leo thought. That’s exactly what I was expecting. But I still have faith I can get at the thing, if not this week then next. If not this month then sometime. I know it; I know myself now and what I can do. It’s all up to me. Which is just fine. I saw enough in the future not to ever give up, even if I’m the only one who doesn’t succumb, who’s still keeping the old way alive, the pre-Palmer Eldritch way. It’s nothing more than faith in powers implanted in me from the start which I can–in the end–draw on and beat him with. So in a sense it isn’t me; it’s something in me that even that thing Palmer Eldritch can’t reach and consume because since it’s not me it’s not mine to lose. I feel it growing. Withstanding the external, nonessential alterations, the arm, the eyes, the teeth–it’s not touched by any of these three, the evil, negative trinity of alienation, blurred reality, and despair that Eldritch brought back with him from Proxima. Or rather from the space in between.
He thought, We have lived thousands of years under one old-time plague already that’s partly spoiled and destroyed our holiness, and that from a source higher than Eldritch. And if that can’t completely obliterate our spirit, how can this? Is it maybe going to finish the job? If it thinks so–if Palmer Eldritch believes that’s what he arrived here for–he’s wrong. Because that power in me that was implanted without my knowledge–it wasn’t even reached by the original ancient blight. How about that?
My evolved mind tells me all these things, he thought. Those E Therapy sessions weren’t in vain… I may not have lived as long as Eldritch in one sense, but in another sense I have; I’ve lived a hundred thousand years, that of my accelerated evolution, and out of it I’ve become very wise; I got my money’s worth. Nothing could be clearer to me now. And down in the resorts of Antarctica I’ll join the others like myself; we’ll be a guild of Protectors. Saving the rest.
“Hey Blau,” he said, poking with his non-artificial elbow the semi-thing beside him. “I’m your descendant. Elditch showed up from another space but I came from another time. Got it?”
“Um,” Felix Blau murmured.
“Look at my double-dome, my big forehead; I’m a bubblehead, right? And this rind; it’s not just on top, it’s all over. So in my case the therapy really took. So don’t give up yet. Believe in me.”
“Okay, Leo.”
“Stick around for a while. There’ll be action. I may be looking out at you through a couple of Jensen luxvid artificial-type eyes but it’s still me inside here. Okay?”
“Okay,” Felix Blau said. “Anything you say, Leo.”
“Leo’? How come you keep calling me ‘Leo’?”
Sitting rigidly upright in his chair, supporting himself with both hands, Felix Blau regarded him imploringly. “Think, Leo. For chrissakes think.”
“Oh yeah.” Sobered, he nodded; he felt chastened. “Sorry. It was just a temporary slip. I know what you’re referring to; I know what you’re afraid of. But it didn’t mean anything.” He added, “I’ll keep thinking, like you say. I won’t forget again.” He nodded solemnly, promising.
The ship rushed on, nearer and nearer Earth.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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 thirty-six novels and five short story collections. He won the Hugo Award for 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 of heart failure following a stroke on March 2, 1982, in Santa Ana, California.