A Handful of Darkness

by Philip K. Dick

  They peered through the window into the tube. The frog had gone quite a distance up. He was almost invisible, now, a tiny speck no larger than a fly, moving imperceptibly along the tube. He became smaller. He was a pin point. He disappeared.

  “Gosh,” Pitner said.

  “Pitner, go away,” Hardy said. He rubbed his hands together. “Grote and I have things to discuss.”

  He locked the door after the boy.

  “All right,” Grote said. “You designed this tube. What became of the frog?”

  “Why, he’s still hopping, somewhere in a sub-atomic world.”

  “You’re a swindler. Some place along that tube the frog met with misfortune.”

  “Well,” Hardy said. “If you think that, perhaps you should for him to force. inspect the tube personally.”

  “I believe I will. I may find a—trap door.”

  “Suit yourself,” Hardy said, grinning. He turned off the gas and opened the big metal door.

  “Give me the flashlight,” Grote said. Hardy handed him the flashlight and he crawled into the tube, grunting. His voice echoed hollowly. “No tricks, now.”

  Hardy watched him disappear. He bent down and looked into the end of the tube. Grote was half-way down, wheezing and struggling. “What’s the matter?” Hardy said.

  “Too tight…”

  “Oh?” Hardy’s grin broadened. He took his pipe from his mouth and set it on the table. “Well, maybe we can do something about that.”

  He slammed the metal door shut. He hurried to the other end of the tube and snapped the switches. Tubes lit up, relays clicked into place.

  Hardy folded his arms. “Start hopping, my dear frog,” he said. “Hop for all you’re worth.”

  He went to the gas cock and turned it on.

  It was very dark. Grote lay for a long time without moving. His mind was filled with drifting thoughts. What was the matter with Hardy? What was he up to? At last he pulled himself on to his elbows. His head cracked against the roof of the tube.

  It began to get warm. “Hardy!” His voice thundered around him, loud and panicky. “Open the door. What’s going on?”

  He tried to turn around in the tube, to reach the door, but he couldn’t budge. There was nothing to do but go forward. He began to crawl, muttering under his breath. “Just wait, Hardy. You and your jokes. I don’t see what you expect to—”

  Suddenly the tube leaped. He fell, his chin banging against the metal. He blinked. The tube had grown; now there was more than enough room. And his clothing! His shirt and pants were like a tent around him.

  “Oh, heavens,” Grote said in a tiny voice. He rose to his knees. Laboriously he turned around. He pulled himself back through the tube the way he had come, towards he metal door. He pushed against it, but nothing happened. It was now too large for him to force.

  He sat for a long time. When the metal floor under him became too warm he crawled reluctantly along the tube to a cooler place. He curled himself up and stared dismally into the darkness. “What am I going to do,” he asked himself.

  After a time a measure of courage returned to him. “I must think logically. I’ve already entered the force field once, therefore I’m reduced in size by one-half. I must be about three feet high. That makes the tube twice as long.”

  He got out the flashlight and some paper from his immense and did some figuring. The flashlight was almost unmanageable.

  Underneath him the floor became warm: Automatically he shifted a little up the tube to avoid the heat. “If I stay here long enough,” he murmured, “I might be—”

  The tube leaped again, rushing off in all directions. He found himself floundering in a sea of rough fabric, choking and gasping. At last he struggled free.

  “One and a half feet,” Grote said, staring around him. “I don’t dare move any more, not at all.”

  But when the floor heated under him he moved some more. “Three-quarters of a foot.” Sweat broke out on his face. “Three-quarters of one foot.” He looked down the tube. Far, far down at the end was a spot of light, the photon beam crossing the tube. If he could reach it, if only he could reach it, if only he could reach it!

  He meditated over his figures for a time. “Well,” he said at last, “I hope I’m correct. According to my calculations I should reach the beam of light in about nine hours and thirty minutes, if I keep walking steadily.” He took a deep breath and lifted the flashlight to his shoulder.

  “However,” he murmured, “I may be rather small by that time…” He started walking, his chin up.

  Professor Hardy turned to Pitner. “Tell the class what you saw this morning.”

  Everyone turned to look. Pitner swallowed nervously. “Well, I was downstairs in the basement. I was asked in to see the Frog Chamber. By Professor Grote. They were going to start the experiment.”

  “What experiment do you refer to?”

  “The Zeno one,” he explained nervously. “The frog. He put the frog in the tube and closed the door. And then Professor Grote turned on the power.”

  “What occurred?”

  “The frog started to hop. He got smaller.”

  “He got smaller, you say. And then what?”

  “He disappeared.”

  Professor Hardy sat back in his chair. “The frog did not reach the end of the tube, then?”

  “No.”

  “That’s all.” There was a murmuring from the class. “So you see, the frog did not reach the end of the tube, as expected by my colleague, Professor Grote. He will never reach the end. Alas, we shall not see the unfortunate frog again.”

  There was a general stir. Hardy tapped with his pencil. He lit his pipe and puffed calmly, leaning back in his chair. “This experiment was quite an awakener to poor Grote, I’m afraid. He has had a blow of some unusual proportion. As you may have noticed, he hasn’t appeared for his afternoon classes. Professor Grote, I understand, has decided to go on a long vacation to the mountains. Perhaps after he has had time to rest and enjoy himself, and to forget—”

  Grote winced. But he kept on walking. “Don’t get frightened,” he said to himself. “Keep on.”

  The tube jumped again. He staggered. The flashlight crashed to the floor and went out. He was alone in an enormous cave, an immense void that seemed to have no end, no end at all.

  He kept walking.

  After a time he began to get tired again. It was not the first time. “A rest wouldn’t do any harm.” He sat down. The floor was rough under him, rough and uneven. “According to my figures it will be more like two days, or so. Perhaps a little longer…”

  He rested, dozing a little. Later on he began to walk again. The sudden jumping of the tube had ceased to frighten him; he had grown accustomed to it. Sooner or later he would reach the photon beam and cut through it. The force field would go off and he would resume his normal size. Grote smiled a little to himself. Wouldn’t Hardy be surprised to—

  He stubbed his toe and fell, headlong into the blackness around him. A deep fear ran through him and he began to tremble. He stood up, staring around him.

  Which way?

  “My God,” he said. He bent down and touched the floor under him. Which way? Time passed. He began to walk slowly, first one way, then another. He could make out nothing, nothing at all.

  Then he was running, hurrying through the darkness, this way and that, slipping and falling. All at once he staggered. The familiar sensation: he breathed a sobbing sigh of relief. He was moving in the right direction! He began to run again, calmly, taking deep breaths, his mouth open. Then once more the staggering shudder as he shrank down another notch; but he was going the right way. He ran on and on.

  And as he ran the floor became rougher and rougher. Soon he was forced to stop, falling over boulders and rocks. Hadn’t they smoothed the pipe down? What had gone wrong with the sanding, the steel wool—

  “Of course,” he murmured. “Even the surface of a razor blade… if one is small…”

  He walked
ahead, feeling his way along. There was a dim light over everything, rising up from the great stones around him, even from his own body. What was it? He looked at his hands. They glittered in the darkness.

  “Heat,” he said. “Of course. Thanks, Hardy.” In the half light he leaped from stone to stone. He was running across an endless plain of rocks and boulders, jumping like a goat, from crag to crag. “Or like a frog,” he said. He jumped on, stopping once in a while for breath. How long would it be? He looked at the size of the great blocks of ore piled up around him. Suddenly a terror rushed through him.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t figure it out,” he said. He climbed up the side of one towering cliff and leaped across to the other side. The next gulf was even wider. He barely made it, gasping and struggling to catch hold.

  He jumped endlessly, again and again. He forgot how many times.

  He stood on the edge of a rock and leaped.

  Then he was falling, down, down, into the cleft, into the dim light. There was no bottom. On and on he fell.

  Professor Grote closed his eyes. Peace came over him, his tired body relaxed.

  “No more jumping,” he said, drifting down, down. “A certain law regarding falling bodies… the smaller the body the less the effect of gravity. No wonder bugs fall so lightly… certain characteristics…

  He closed his eyes and allowed the darkness to take him over, at last.

  “And so,” Professor Hardy said, “we can expect to find that this experiment will go down in science as—”

  He stopped, frowning. The class was staring towards the door. Some of the students were smiling, and one began to laugh. Hardy turned to see what it was.

  “Shades of Charles Fort,” he said.

  A frog came hopping into the room.

  Pitner stood up. “Professor,” he said excitedly. “This confirms a theory I’ve worked out. The frog became so reduced in size that he passed through the spaces—”

  “What?” Hardy said. “This is another frog.”

  “—through the spaces between the molecules which form the floor of the Frog Chamber. The frog would then drift slowly to the floor, since he would be proportionally less affected by the law of acceleration. And leaving the force field, he would regain his original size.”

  Pitner beamed down at the frog as the frog slowly made his way across the room.

  “Really,” Professor Hardy began. He sat down at his desk weakly. At that moment the bell rang, and the students began to gather their books and papers together. Presently Hardy found himself alone, staring down at the frog. He shook his head. “It can’t be,” he murmured. “The world is full of frogs. It can’t be the same frog.”

  A student came up to the desk. “Professor Hardy—”

  Hardy looked up.

  “Yes? What is it?”

  “There’s a man outside in the hall wants to see you. He’s upset. He has a blanket on.”

  “All right,” Hardy said. He sighed and got to his feet. At the door he paused, taking a deep breath. Then he set his jaw and went out into the hall.

  Grote was standing there, wrapped in a red-wool blanket, his face flushed with excitement. Hardy glanced at him apologetically.

  “We still don’t know!” Grote cried.

  “What?” Hardy murmured. “Say, er, Grote—”

  “We still don’t know whether the frog would have reached the end of the tube. He and I fell out between the molecules. We’ll have to find some other way to test the paradox. The Chamber’s no good.”

  “Yes, true.” Hardy said. “Say, Grote—”

  “Let’s discuss it later,” Grote said. “I have to get to my classes. I’ll look you up this evening.”

  And he hurried off down the hall clutching his blanket.

  THE TURNING WHEEL

  Bard Chai said thoughtfully, “Cults.” He examined a tape report grinding from the receptor. The receptor was rusty and unoiled; it whined piercingly and sent up an acrid wisp of smoke. Chai shut it off as its pitted surface began to heat ugly red. Presently he finished with the tape and tossed it with a heap of refuse jamming the mouth of the disposal slot.

  “What about cults?” Bard Sung-wu asked faintly. He brought himself back with an effort, and forced a smile of interest on his plump olive-yellow face. “You were saying?”

  “Any stable society is menaced by cults; our society is no exception.” Chai rubbed his finely tapered fingers together reflectively. “Certain lower strata are axiomatically dissatisfied. Their hearts burn with envy of those the wheel has placed above them; in secret they form fanatic, rebellious bands. They meet in the dark of the night; they insidiously express inversions of accepted norms; they delight in flaunting basic mores and customs.”

  “Ugh,” Sung-wu agreed. “I mean,” he explained quickly, “it seems incredible people could practise such fanatic and disgusting rites.” He got nervously to his feet. “I must go, if it’s permitted.”

  “Wait,” snapped Chai. “You are familiar with the Detroit area?”

  Uneasily, Sung-wu nodded. “Very slightly.”

  With characteristic vigour, Chai made his decision. “I’m sending you; investigate and make a blue-slip report. If this group is dangerous, the Holy Arm should know. It’s of the worst elements—the Techno class.” He made a wry face. “Caucasians, hulking, hairy things. We’ll give you six months in Spain, on your return; you can poke over ruins of abandoned cities.”

  “Caucasians!” Sung-wu exclaimed, his face turning green. “But I haven’t been well; please, if somebody else could go—”

  “You, perhaps, hold to the Broken Feather theory?” Chai raised an eyebrow. “An amazing philologist, Broken Feather; I took partial—instruction from him. He held, you know, the Caucasian to be descended of Neanderthal stock. Their extreme size, thick body hair, their general brutish cast, reveal an innate inability to comprehend anything but a purely animalistic horizontal; proselytism is a waste of time.”

  He affixed the younger man with a stern eye. “I wouldn’t send you, if I didn’t have unusual faith in your devotion.”

  Sung-wu fingered his beads miserably. “Elron be praised,” he muttered; “you are too kind.”

  Sung-wu slid into a lift and was raised, amid great groans and whirrings and false stops, to the top level of the Central Chamber building. He hurried down a corridor dimly lit by occasional yellow bulbs. A moment later he approached the doors of the scanning offices and flashed his identification at the robot guard. “Is Bard Fei-p’ang within?” he inquired.

  “Verily,” the robot answered, stepping aside.

  Sung-wu entered the offices, bypassed the rows of rusted, discarded machines, and entered the still functioning wing. He located his brother-in-law, hunched over some graphs at one of the desks, laboriously copying material by hand. “Clearness be with you,” Sung-wu murmured.

  Fei-p’ang glanced up in annoyance. “I told you not to come again; if the Arm finds out I’m letting you use the scanner for a personal plot, they’ll stretch me on the rack.”

  “Gently,” Sung-wu murmured, his hand on his relation’s shoulder. “This is the last time. I’m going away; one more look, a final look.” His olive face took on a pleading, piteous cast. “The turn comes for me very soon; this will be our last conversation.”

  Sung-wu’s piteous look hardened into cunning. “You wouldn’t want it on your soul; no restitution will be possible at this late date.”

  Fei-p’ang snorted. “All right; but for Elron’s sake, do it quickly.”

  Sung-wu hurried to the mother-scanner and seated himself in the rickety basket. He snapped on the controls, clamped his forehead to the viewpiece, inserted his identity tab, and set the space-time finger into motion. Slowly, reluctantly, the ancient mechanism coughed into life and began tracing his personal tab along the future track.

  Sung-wu’s hands shook; his body trembled; sweat dripped from his neck, as he saw himself scampering in miniature. Poor Sung-wu, he thought wretchedly. The mite
of a thing hurried about its duties; this was but eight months hence. Harried and beset, it performed its tasks—and then, in a subsequent continuum, fell down and died.

  Sung-wu removed his eyes from the viewpiece and waited for his pulse to slow. He could stand that part, watching the moment of death; it was what came next that was too jangling for him.

  He breathed a silent prayer. Had he fasted enough? In the four-day purge and self-flagellation, he had used the whip with metal points, the heaviest possible. He had given away all his money; he had smashed a lovely vase his mother had left him, a treasured heirloom; he had rolled in the filth and mud in the centre of town. Hundreds had seen him. Now, surely, all this was enough. But time was so short!

  Faint courage stirring, he sat up and again put his eyes to the viewpiece. He was shaking with terror. What if it hadn’t changed? What if his mortification weren’t enough? He spun the controls, sending the finger tracing his time-track past the moment of death.

  Sung-wu shrieked and scrambled back in horror. His future was the same, exactly the same; there had been no change at all. His guilt had been too great to be washed away in such short a time; it would take ages—and he didn’t have ages.

  He left the scanner and passed by his brother-in-law. “Thanks,” he muttered shakily.

  For once, a measure of compassion touched Fei-p’ang’s efficient brown features. “Bad news? The next turn brings an unfortunate manifestation?”

  “Bad scarcely describes it.”

  Fei-p’ang’s pity turned to righteous rebuke. “Who do you He was determined to go down, straight down to a wallowing, have to blame but yourself?” he demanded sternly. “You know your conduct in this manifestation determines the next; if you look forward to a future life as a lower animal, it should make you glance over your behaviour and repent your wrongs. The cosmic law that governs us is impartial. It is true justice: cause and effect; what you do determines what you next become—there can be no blame and no sorrow. There can be only understanding and repentance.” His curiosity overcame him. “What is it? A snake? A squirrel?”