The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick 4: The Minority Report

by Philip K. Dick

  He stealthily darted past a hut, and emerged into an open place, a flat area of beaten earth. In the shade of the hut a dog lay sleeping with flies crawling over its lean flanks. An old woman was sitting on the porch of the rude dwelling, combing her long gray hair with a bone comb.

  Harl passed by her cautiously. In the center of the open place a group of young men were standing. They were gesturing and talking together. Some were cleaning their weapons, long spears and knives of an inconceivable primitiveness. On the ground lay a dead animal, a huge beast with long, gleaming tusks and a thick hide. Blood oozed from its mouth—thick, dark blood. One of the young men turned suddenly—and kicked it with his foot.

  Harl came up to the young men, and stopped. They were dressed in cloth clothing, long leg garments and shirts. Their feet were bare on top, for they wore loosely-woven vegetable-fiber sandals instead of shoes. They were clean-shaven, but their skin gleamed almost ebony black. Their sleeves were rolled up, exposing bulging, glistening muscles, dripping with sweat in the hot sun.

  Harl could not understand what they were saying, but he was sure they were speaking one of the archaic traditional tongues.

  He passed on. At the other side of the open place a group of old men was sitting cross-legged in a circle, weaving rough cloth on crude frames. Harl watched them in silence for a time. Their chatter drifted noisily up to him. Each old man was bent intently over his frame, his eyes glued on his work.

  Beyond the row of huts some younger men and women were plowing a field, dragging the plow by ropes securely attached to their waists and shoulders.

  Harl wandered on, fascinated. Everyone was engaged in some kind of activity—except the dog asleep under the hut. The young men with their spears, the old woman in front of the hut combing her hair, and weaving.

  In one corner a huge woman was teaching a child what appeared to be an adding and subtracting game, using small sticks in lieu of figures. Two men were removing the hide from a small furred animal, stripping the pelt off carefully.

  Harl passed a wall of hides, all hung up carefully to dry. The dull stench irritated his nostrils, making him want to sneeze. He passed a group of children pounding grain in a hollowed-out stone, beating the grain into meal. None of them looked up as he passed.

  Some animals were tied together in a bunch. Some lay in the shade, big beasts with huge udders. They watched him silently.

  Harl came to the edge of the village and stopped. From that point onward deserted fields stretched out. For perhaps a mile beyond the fields were trees and bushes, and beyond that the endless miles of slag.

  He turned and walked back. Off to one side, sitting in the shade, a young man was chipping away at a block of hydroslag, cutting it carefully with a few rough tools. He seemed to be fashioning a weapon. Harl watched him, watched the endless, solemn blows descending again and again. The slag was hard. It was a long tedious job.

  He walked on. A group of women were mending broken arrows. Their chatter followed him for a time, and he found himself wishing he could understand it. Everyone was busy, working rapidly. Dark, shiny arms rose and fell, and the chattering murmur of voices drifted back and forth.

  Activity. Laughter. A child's laughter echoed suddenly through the village, and a few heads turned. Harl bent down, intently studying a man's head at close range.

  A strong face he had. His twisted knotted hair was short, and his teeth were even and white. On his arms were copper bracelets, almost matching the rich bronze hue of his skin. His bare chest was marked with tattoos, etched into his flesh with brightly colored pigments.

  Harl wandered back the way he had come. He passed the old woman on the porch, and paused again to observe her. She had stopped combing her hair. Now she was fixing a child's hair, braiding it skillfully back into an elaborate pattern. Harl watched her, fascinated. The pattern was intricate, complex, and the task took a long time. The old woman's faded eyes were intent on the child's hair, on the detailed work. Her withered hands flew.

  Harl walked on, moving toward the stream. He passed the bathing children again. They had all climbed out on the bank and were drying themselves in the sun. So these were the saps. The race that was dying out—the dying race, soon to be extinct. Remnants.

  But they did not appear to be a dying race. They were working hard, tirelessly chipping at the hydroslag, fixing their arrows, hunting, plowing, pounding grain, weaving, combing—

  He stopped suddenly, rigid, his blast gun at his shoulder. Ahead of him, through the trees by the stream, something moved. Then he heard two voices—a man's voice and a woman's voice, raised in excited conversation.

  Harl advanced cautiously. He pushed past a flowering bush, and peered into the gloom between the trees.

  A man and woman were sitting at the edge of the water, in the dark shadow of the tree. The man was making bowls, shaping them out of wet clay scooped up from the water. His fingers flew, expertly, rapidly. He spun the bowls, turning them on a revolving platform between his knees.

  As the man finished the bowls the woman took them and painted them with deft, vigorous strokes of a crude brush gleaming with red pigment.

  The woman was beautiful. Harl gazed down at her in stunned admiration. She sat almost motionless, resting against a tree, holding each bowl securely as she painted it. Her black hair hung down to her waist, falling across her shoulders and back. Her features were finely cut, each line clear and vivid, her dark eyes immense. She studied each bowl intently, her lips moving a little and Harl noticed that her hands were small and delicately fashioned.

  He walked over toward her, moving carefully. The woman did not hear him or look up. In growing wonder he realized that her coppery body was small and beautifully formed, her limbs slender and supple. She did not seem to be aware of him.

  Suddenly the man spoke again. The woman glanced up, lowering the bowl to the ground. She rested a minute, cleaning her brush with a leaf. She wore rough leg garments, reaching down to her knees, and tied at her waist with a twisted flaxen rope. She wore no other garment. Her feet and shoulders were bare, and in the afternoon sun her bosom rose and fell quickly as she breathed.

  The man said something else. After a moment the woman picked up another bowl and began to paint again. The two of them worked rapidly, silently, both intent on their work.

  Harl studied the bowls. They were all of similar design. The man made them rapidly, building them up from coils of clay, and then snaking the coils around and around, higher and higher. He slapped water against the clay, rubbing the surface smooth and firm. Finally he laid them out in rows, to dry in the sun.

  The woman selected the bowls that were dry and then painted them.

  Harl watched her. He studied her a long time—the way she moved her coppery body, the intense expression on her face, the faint movement of her lips and chin. Her fingers were slender and exquisitely tapered. Her nails were long, coming finally to a point. She held each bowl carefully, turning it with expert care, painting her design with rapid strokes.

  He watched her closely. She was painting the same design on each bowl, painting it again and again. A bird, and then a tree. A line that appeared to represent the ground. A cloud suspended directly above it.

  What was the precise significance of that recurrent motif? Harl bent closer, peering intently. Was it really the same? He watched the skillful motion of her hands as she took bowl after bowl, starting the design again and again. The design was basically the same—but each time she made it a little different. No two bowls came out exactly the same.

  He was both puzzled, and fascinated. It was the same design, but altered slightly each time. The color of the bird would be altered—or the length of its plume. Less frequently the position of the tree, or the cloud. Once she painted two tiny clouds hovering above the ground. Sometimes she put grass and the outline of hills in the background.

  Suddenly the man got to his feet, wiping his hands on his cloth. He spoke to the girl and then hurried off, threading h
is way through the bushes until he was lost to view,

  Harl glanced around excitedly. The girl went right on painting rapidly, calmly. The man had disappeared and the girl remained alone, painting quietly by herself.

  Harl was caught in the grip of conflicting and almost overpowering emotions. He wanted to speak to the girl, to ask her about her painting, her design. He wanted to ask her why she changed it each time.

  He wanted to sit down and talk to her. To speak to her and hear her talk to him. It was strange. He didn't understand it himself. His vision swam, twisting and blurring, and sweat dripped from his neck and stooping shoulders. The girl continued to paint. She did not look up, or suspect that he was standing directly in front of her. Harl's hand flew to his belt. He took a deep breath, hesitating. Dared he? Should he? The man would be back—

  Harl pressed the stud on his belt. Around him the screen hissed, and sparked.

  The girl glanced up, startled. Her eyes widened in swift horror.

  She screamed.

  Harl stepped quickly back, gripping his gun, appalled by what he had done.

  The girl scrambled to her feet, sending bowls and paints flying. She gazed at him, her eyes still wide, her mouth open. Slowly she backed away toward the bushes. Then abruptly she turned and fled, crashing through the shrubbery, screaming and shrieking.

  Harl straightened in sudden fear. Quickly, he restored his screen. The village was alive with growing sound. He could hear voices raised in excited panic, and the sound of people running, crashing through the bushes—the entire village erupting in a torrent of excited activity.

  Harl made his way quickly down the stream, past the bushes and out into the open.

  Suddenly he stopped, his heart pounding furiously. A crowd of saps was hurrying toward the stream—men with spears, old women, and shrieking children. At the edge of the bushes they stopped, staring and listening, their faces frozen in a strange, intent expression. Then they were advancing into the bushes, furiously pushing the branches out of the way—searching for him.

  Abruptly his earphones clicked.

  "Harl!" Ed Boynton's voice came clear and sharp. "Harl, lad!"

  Harl jumped, then cried out in desperate gratefulness. "Dad, I'm here."

  Ed Boynton gripped his arm, yanking him off balance. "What's the matter with you? Where did you go? What did you do?"

  "You got him?" Turner's voice broke in. "Come on then—both of you! We have to get out of here, fast. They're scattering white powder everywhere."

  Saps were rushing around, throwing the powder into the air in great clouds. It drifted through the air, settling down over everything. It appeared to be a kind of pulverized chalk. Other saps were sprinkling oil from big jars and shouting in high-pitched excitement.

  "We better get out," Boynton agreed grimly. "We don't want to tangle with them when they're aroused."

  Harl hesitated. "But—"

  "Come on!" his father urged, tugging at his arm. "Let's go. We haven't a moment to lose."

  Harl gazed back. He could not see the woman, but saps were running everywhere, throwing their sheets of chalk and sprinkling the oil. Saps with iron-tipped spears advanced ominously, kicking at the weeds and bushes as they circled about.

  Harl allowed himself to be led by his father. His mind whirled. The woman was gone, and he was sure that he would never see her again. When he had made himself visible she had screamed, and run off.

  Why? It didn't make sense. Why had she recoiled from him in blind terror? What had he done?

  And what did it matter to him whether he saw her again or not? Why was she important? He did not understand. He did not understand himself. There was no rational explanation for what had happened. It was totally incomprehensible.

  Harl followed his father and Turner back to the egg, still bewildered and wretched, still trying to understand, to grasp the meaning of what had happened between him and the woman. It did not make sense. He had gone out of his mind and then she had gone out of her mind. There had to be some meaning to it—if he could only grasp it.

  At the egg Ed Boynton halted, glancing back. "We were lucky to get away," he said to Harl, shaking his head. "When they're aroused they're like beasts. They're animals, Harl. That's what they are. Savage animals."

  "Come on," Turner said impatiently. "Let's get out of here—while we still can walk."

  Julie continued to shudder even after she had been carefully bathed and purified in the stream and rubbed down with oil by one of the older women.

  She sat in a heap, her arms wrapped around her knees, shaking and trembling uncontrollably. Ken, her brother, stood beside her, grim-faced, his hand on her bare, coppery shoulder.

  "What was it?" Julie murmured. "What was it?" She shuddered. "It was—horrible. It revolted me, made me ill, just to look at it."

  "What did it look like?" Ken demanded.

  "It was—it was like a man. But it couldn't have been a man. It was metallic all over, from head to foot, and it had huge hands and feet. Its face was all pasty white like—like meal. It was—sickly. Hideously sickly. White and metallic, and sickly. Like some kind of root dug up out of the soil."

  Ken turned to the old man sitting behind him, who was listening intently. "What was it?" he demanded. "What was it, Mr. Stebbins? You know about such things. What did she see?"

  Mr. Stebbins got slowly to his feet. "You say it had white skin? Pasty? Like dough? And huge hands and feet?"

  Julie nodded. "And—something else."

  "What?"

  "It was blind. It had something instead of eyes. Two black spaces. Darkness." She shuddered and stared toward the stream.

  Suddenly Mr. Stebbins tensed, his jaw hardening. He nodded. "I know," he said. "I know what it was."

  "What was it?"

  Mr. Stebbins muttered to himself, frowning. "It's not possible. But your description—" He stared off in the distance, his brow wrinkled. "They live underground," he said finally, "under the surface. They emerge from the mountains. They live in the earth, in great tunnels and chambers they have hewn out for themselves. They are not men. They look like men, but they are not. They live under the ground and dig the metal from the earth. They dig and horde the metal. They seldom come up to the surface. They cannot look at the sun."

  "What are they called?" Julie asked.

  Mr. Stebbins searched his mind, thinking back through the years. Back to the old books and legends he had heard. Things that lived under the ground … Like men but not men… Things that dug tunnels, that mined metals… Things that were blind and had great hands and feet and pasty white skin.

  "Goblins," Mr. Stebbins stated. "What you saw was a goblin."

  Julie nodded, gazing down wide-eyed at the ground, her arms clasped around her knees. "Yes," she said. "That sounds like what it was. It frightened me. I was so afraid. I turned and ran. It seemed so horrible." She looked up at her brother, smiling a little. "But I'm better now…"

  Ken rubbed his big dark hands together, nodding with relief. "Fine," he said. "Now we can get back to work. There's a lot to do. A lot of things to get done."

  PROJECT: EARTH

  THE SOUND ECHOED HOLLOWLY through the big frame house. It vibrated among the dishes in the kitchen, the gutters along the roof, thumping slowly and evenly like distant thunder. From time to time it ceased, but then it began again, booming through the quiet night, a relentless sound, brutal in its regularity. From the top floor of the big house.

  In the bathroom the three children huddled around the chair, nervous and hushed, pushing against each other with curiosity.

  "You sure he can't see us?" Tommy rasped.

  "How could he see us? Just don't make any noise." Dave Grant shifted on the chair, his face to the wall. "Don't talk so loud." He went on looking, ignoring them both.

  "Let me see," Joan whispered, nudging her brother with a sharp elbow. "Get out of the way."

  "Shut up." Dave pushed her back. "I can see better now." He turned up the light.
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br />   "I want to see," Tommy said. He pushed Dave off the chair onto the bathroom floor. "Come on."

  Dave withdrew sullenly. "It's our house."

  Tommy stepped cautiously up onto the chair. He put his eye to the crack, his face against the wall. For a time he saw nothing. The crack was narrow and the light on the other side was bad. Then, gradually, he began to make out shapes, forms beyond the wall.

  Edward Billings was sitting at an immense old-fashioned desk. He had stopped typing and was resting his eyes. From his vest pocket he had taken a round pocket watch. Slowly, carefully, he wound the great watch. Without his glasses his lean, withered face seemed naked and bleak, the features of some elderly bird. Then he put his glasses on again and drew his chair closer to the desk.

  He began to type, working with expert fingers the towering mass of metal and parts that reared up before him. Again the ominous booming echoed through the house, resuming its insistent beat.

  Mr. Billings's room was dark and littered. Books and papers lay everywhere, in piles and stacks, on the desk, on the table, in heaps on the floor. The walls were covered with charts, anatomy charts, maps, astronomy charts, signs of the zodiac. By the windows rows of dust-covered chemical bottles and packages lay stacked. A stuffed bird stood on the top of the bookcase, gray and drooping. On the desk was a huge magnifying glass, Greek and Hebrew dictionaries, a postage stamp box, a bone letter opener. Against the door a curling strip of flypaper moved with the air currents rising from the gas heater.

  The remains of a magic lantern lay against one wall. A black satchel with clothes piled on it. Shirts and socks and a long frock coat, faded and threadbare. Heaps of newspapers and magazines, tied with brown cord. A great black umbrella against the table, a pool of sticky water around its metal point. A glass frame of dried butterflies, pressed into yellowing cotton.

  And at the desk the huge old man hunched over his ancient typewriter and heaps of notes and papers.

  "Gosh," Tommy said.