"This is the way is was," he said, indicating the Steuben cup. "Someday it'll be that way again … but we're going up the right way—the hard way—step by step, until we get back there." He carefully replaced the glassware back in its metal box. "We'll keep it—not to copy, but as a model, as a goal. You can't grasp the difference now, but you will."
He indicated the crude wooden cup. "That's where we are right now. Don't laugh at it. Don't say it's not civilization. It is—it's simple and crude, but it's the real thing. We'll go up from here."
He picked up the blob, the print the Biltong had left behind. After a moment's reflection, he drew back and hurled it away from him. The blob struck, bounced once, then broke into fragments.
"That's nothing," Dawes said fiercely. "Better this cup. This wooden cup is closer to that Steuben glass than any print."
"You're certainly proud of your little wooden cup," Fergesson observed.
"I sure as hell am," Dawes agreed, as he placed the cup in the metal box beside the Steuben glassware. "You'll understand that, too, one of these days. It'll take awhile, but you'll get it." He began closing the box, then halted a moment and touched the Ronson lighter.
He shook his head regretfully. "Not in our time," he said, and closed the box. "Too many steps in between." His lean face glowed suddenly, a flicker of joyful anticipation. "But by God, we're moving that way!"
WAR VETERAN
THE OLD MAN sat on the park bench in the bright hot sunlight and watched the people moving back and forth.
The park was neat and clean; the lawns glittered wetly in the spray piped from a hundred shiny copper tubes. A polished robot gardener crawled here and there, weeding and plucking and gathering waste debris in its disposal slot. Children scampered and shouted. Young couples sat basking sleepily and holding hands. Groups of handsome soldiers strolled lazily along, hands in their pockets, admiring the tanned, naked girls sunbathing around the pool. Beyond the park the roaring cars and towering needle-spires of New York sparkled and gleamed.
The old man cleared his throat and spat sullenly into the bushes. The bright hot sun annoyed him; it was too yellow and it made perspiration stream through his seedy, ragged coat. It made him conscious of his grizzled chin and missing left eye. And the deep ugly burn-scar that had seared away the flesh of one cheek. He pawed fretfully at the h-loop around his scrawny neck. He unbuttoned his coat and pulled himself upright against the glowing metal slats of the bench. Bored, lonely, bitter, he twisted around and tried to interest himself in the pastoral scene of trees and grass and happily playing children.
Three blond-faced young soldiers sat down on the bench opposite him and began unrolling picnic lunch-cartons.
The old man's thin rancid breath caught in his throat. Painfully, his ancient heart thudded, and for the first time in hours he came fully alive. He struggled up from his lethargy and focused his dim sight on the soldiers. The old man got out his handkerchief, mopped his sweat-oozing face, and then spoke to them.
"Nice afternoon."
The soldiers glanced up briefly. "Yeah," one said.
"They done a good job." The old man indicated the yellow sun and the spires of the city. "Looks perfect."
The soldiers said nothing. They concentrated on their cups of boiling black coffee and apple pie.
"Almost fools you," the old man went on plaintively. "You boys with the seed teams?" he hazarded.
"No," one of them said. "We're rocketeers."
The old man gripped his aluminum cane and said, "I was in demolition. Back in the old Ba-3 Squad."
None of the soldiers responded. They were whispering among themselves. The girls on a bench farther down had noticed them.
The old man reached into his coat pocket and brought out something wrapped in gray torn tissue-paper. He unfolded it with shaking fingers and then got to his feet. Unsteadily, he crossed the gravel path to the soldiers. "See this?" He held out the object, a small square of glittering metal. "I won that back in '87. That was before your time, I guess."
A flicker of interest momentarily roused the young soldiers. "Hey," one whistled appreciatively. "That's a Crystal Disc—first class." He raised his eyes questioningly. "You won that?"
The old man cackled proudly, as he wrapped up the medal and restored it to his coat pocket. "I served under Nathan West, in the Wind Giant. It wasn't until the final jump they took against us I got mine. But I was out there with my d-squad. You probably remember the day we set off our network, rigged all the way from—"
"Sorry," one of the soldiers said vaguely. "We don't go back that far. That must have been before our time."
"Sure," the old man agreed eagerly. "That was more than sixty years ago. You heard of Major Perati, haven't you? How he rammed their covering fleet into a meteor cloud as they were converging for their final attack? And how the Ba-3 was able to hold them back months before they finally slammed us?" He swore bitterly. "We held them off. Until there wasn't more'n a couple of us left. And then they came in like vultures. And what they found they—"
"Sorry, Pop." The soldiers had got lithely up, collected their lunches, and were moving toward the bench of girls. The girls glanced at them shyly and giggled in anticipation. "We'll see you some other time."
The old man turned and hobbled furiously back to his own bench. Disappointed, muttering under his breath and spitting into the wet bushes, he tried to make himself comfortable. But the sun irritated him; and the noises of people and cars made him sick.
He sat on the park bench, eye half shut, wasted lips twisted in a snarl of bitterness and defeat. Nobody was interested in a decrepit half-blind old man. Nobody wanted to hear his garbled, rambling tales of the battles he had fought and strategies he had witnessed. Nobody seemed to remember the war that still burned like a twisting, corroding fire in the decaying old man's brain. A war he longed to speak of, if he could only find listeners.
Vachel Patterson jerked his car to a halt and slammed on the emergency brake. "That's that," he said over his shoulder. "Make yourselves comfortable. We're going to have a short wait."
The scene was familiar. A thousand Earthmen in gray caps and armbands streamed along the street, chanting slogans, waving immense crude banners that were visible for blocks.
NO NEGOTIATION! TALK IS FOR TRAITORS!
ACTION IS FOR MEN!
DON'T TELL THEM SHOW THEM!
A STRONG EARTH IS THE BEST GUARANTEE OF PEACE!
In the back seat of the car Edwin LeMarr put aside his report tapes with a grunt of near-sighted surprise. "Why have we stopped? What is it?"
"Another demonstration," Evelyn Cutter said distantly. She leaned back and disgustedly lit a cigarette. "Same as all of them."
The demonstration was in full swing. Men, women, youths out of school for the afternoon, marched wild-faced, excited and intense, some with signs, some with crude weapons and in partial uniform. Along the sidewalks more and more watching spectators were being tugged along. Blue-clad policemen had halted surface traffic; they stood watching indifferently, waiting for somebody to try to interfere. Nobody did, of course. Nobody was that foolish.
"Why doesn't the Directorate put a stop to this?" LeMarr demanded. "A couple of armored columns would finish this once and for all."
Beside him, John V-Stephens laughed coldly. "The Directorate finances it, organizes it, gives it free time on the vidnet, even beats up people who complain. Look at those cops standing over there. Waiting for somebody to beat up."
LeMarr blinked. "Patterson, is that true?"
Rage-distorted faces loomed up beyond the hood of the sleek '64 Buick. The tramp of feet made the chrome dashboard rattle; Doctor LeMarr tugged his tapes nervously into their metal case and peered around like a frightened turtle.
"What are you worried about?" V-Stephens said harshly. "They wouldn't touch you—you're an Earthman. I'm the one who should be sweating."
"They're crazy," LeMarr muttered. "All those morons chanting and marching—"
"They're not morons," Patterson answered mildly. "They're just too trusting. They believe what they're told, like the rest of us. The only trouble is, what they're told isn't true."
He indicated one of the gigantic banners, a vast 3-D photograph that twisted and turned as it was carried forward. "Blame him. He's the one who thinks up the lies. He's the one who puts the pressure on the Directorate, fabricates the hate and violence—and has the funds to sell it."
The banner showed a stern-browed white-haired gentleman, clean-shaven and dignified. A scholarly man, heavy-set, in his late fifties. Kindly blue eyes, firm jawline, an impressive and respected dignitary. Under his handsome portrait was his personal slogan, coined in a moment of inspiration.
ONLY TRAITORS COMPROMISE!
"That's Francis Gannet," V-Stephens said to LeMarr. "Fine figure of a man, isn't he?" He corrected himself. "Of an Earthman."
"He looks so genteel," Evelyn Cutter protested. "How could an intelligent-looking man like that have anything to do with this?"
V-Stephens bellowed with taut laughter. "His nice clean white hands are a lot filthier than any of those plumbers and carpenters marching out there."
"But why—"
"Gannet and his group own Transplan Industries, a holding company that controls most of the export-import business of the inner worlds. If my people and the Martian people are given their independence they'll start cutting into his trade. They'll be competition. But as it stands, they're bottled up in a cold-decked mercantile system."
The demonstrators had reached an intersection. A group of them dropped their banners and sprouted clubs and rocks. They shouted orders, waved the others on, and then headed grimly for a small modern building that blinked the word COLOR-AD in neon lights.
"Oh, God," Patterson said. "They're after the Color-Ad office." He grabbed at the door handle, but V-Stephens stopped him.
"You can't do anything," V-Stephens said. "Anyhow, nobody's in there. They usually get advance warning."
The rioters smashed the plate-plastic windows and poured into the swank little store. The police sauntered over, arms folded, enjoying the spectacle. From the ruined front office, smashed furniture was tossed out onto the sidewalks. Files, desks, chairs, vidscreens, ashtrays, even gay posters of happy life on the inner worlds. Acrid black fingers of smoke curled up as the store room was ignited by a hot-beam. Presently the rioters came streaming back out, satiated and happy.
Along the sidewalk, people watched with a variety of emotions. Some showed delight. Some a vague curiosity. But most showed fear and dismay. They backed hurriedly away as the wild-faced rioters pushed brutally past them, loaded down with stolen goods.
"See?" Patterson said. "This stuff is done by a few thousand, a Committee Gannet's financing. Those in front are employees of Gannet's factories, goon squads on extracurricular duty. They try to sound like Mankind, but they aren't. They're a noisy minority, a small bunch of hard-working fanatics."
The demonstration was breaking up. The Color-Ad office was a dismal fire-gutted ruin; traffic had been stopped; most of downtown New York had seen the lurid slogans and heard the tramp of feet and shouted hate. People began drifting back into offices and shops, back to their daily routine.
And then the rioters saw the Venusian girl, crouched in the locked and bolted doorway.
Patterson gunned the car forward. Bucking and grinding savagely, it hurtled across the street and up on the sidewalk, toward the running knot of dark-faced hoods. The nose of the car caught the first wave of them and tossed them like leaves. The rest collided with the metal hull and tumbled down in a shapeless mass of struggling arms and legs.
The Venusian girl saw the car sliding toward her—and the Earth-people in the front seat. For a moment she crouched in paralyzed terror. Then she turned and scurried off in panic, down the sidewalk and into the milling throng that filled up the street. The rioters regrouped themselves and in an instant were after her in full cry.
"Get the webfoot!"
"Webfoots back to their own planet!"
"Earth for Earthmen!"
And beneath the chanted slogans, the ugly undercurrent of unverbalized lust and hate.
Patterson backed the car up and onto the street. His fist clamped savagely over the horn, he gunned the car after the girl, abreast with the loping rioters and then past them. A rock crashed off the rear-view window and for an instant a hail of rubbish banged and clattered. Ahead, the crowd separated aimlessly, leaving an open path for the car and the rioters. No hand was lifted against the desperately running girl as she raced sobbing and panting between parked cars and groups of people. And nobody made a move to help her. Everybody watched dull-eyed and detached. Remote spectators viewing an event in which they had no part.
"I'll get her," V-Stephens said. "Pull up in front of her and I'll head her off."
Patterson passed the girl and jammed on the brakes. The girl doubled off the street like a terrified hare. V-Stephens was out of the car in a single bound. He sprinted after her as she darted mindlessly back toward the rioters. He swept her up and then plunged back to the car. LeMarr and Evelyn Cutter dragged the two of them in; and Patterson sent the car bucking ahead.
A moment later he turned a corner, snapped a police rope, and passed beyond the danger zone. The roar of people, the flap-flap of feet against the pavement, died down behind them.
"It's all right," V-Stephens was saying gently and repeatedly to the girl. "We're friends. Look, I'm a webfoot, too."
The girl was huddled against the door of the car, green eyes wide with terror, thin face convulsed, knees pulled up against her stomach. She was perhaps seventeen years old. Her webbed fingers scrabbled aimlessly with the torn collar of her blouse. One shoe was missing. Her face was scratched, dark hair disheveled. From her trembling mouth only vague sounds came.
LeMarr took her pulse. "Her heart's about to pop out of her," he muttered. From his coat he took an emergency capsule and shot a narcotic into the girl's trembling forearm. "That'll relax her. She's not harmed—they didn't get to her."
"It's all right," V-Stephens murmured. "We're doctors from the City Hospital, all but Miss Cutter, who manages the files and records. Dr. LeMarr is a neurologist, Dr. Patterson is a cancer specialist, I'm a surgeon—see my hand?" He traced the girl's forehead with his surgeon's hand. "And I'm a Venusian, like you. We'll take you to the hospital and keep you there for a while."
"Did you see them?" LeMarr sputtered. "Nobody lifted a finger to help her. They just stood there."
"They were afraid," Patterson said. "They want to avoid trouble."
"They can't," Evelyn Cutter said flatly. "Nobody can avoid this kind of trouble. They can't keep standing on the sidelines watching. This isn't a football game."
"What's going to happen?" the girl quavered.
"You better get off Earth," V-Stephens said gently. "No Venusian is safe here. Get back to your own planet and stay there until this thing dies down."
"Will it?" the girl gasped.
"Eventually." V-Stephens reached down and passed her Evelyn's cigarettes. "It can't go on like this. We have to be free."
"Take it easy," Evelyn said in a dangerous voice. Her eyes faded to hostile coals. "I thought you were above all this."
V-Stephens' dark green face flushed. "You think I can stand idly by while my people are killed and insulted, and our interests passed over, ignored so paste-faces like Gannet can get rich on blood squeezed from—"
"Paste-face," LeMarr echoed wonderingly. "What's that mean, Vachel?"
"That's their word for Earthmen," Patterson answered. "Can it, V-Stephens. As far as we're concerned it's not your people and our people. We're all the same race. Your ancestors were Earthmen who settled Venus back in the late twentieth century."
"The changes are only minor adaptive alterations," LeMarr assured V-Stephens. "We can still interbreed—that proves we're the same race."
"We can," Evelyn Cutter said thinly. "But who wants to marry a webf
oot or a crow?"
Nobody said anything for a while. The air in the car was tense with hostility as Patterson sped toward the hospital. The Venusian girl sat crouched, smoking silently, her terrified eyes on the vibrating floor.
Patterson slowed down at the check-point and showed his i.d. tab. The hospital guard signaled the car ahead and he picked up speed. As he put his tab away his fingers touched something clipped to the inside of his pocket. Sudden memory returned.
"Here's something to take your mind off your troubles," he said to V-Stephens. He tossed the sealed tube back to the webfoot. "Military fired it back this morning. Clerical error. When you're through with it hand it over to Evelyn. It's supposed to go to her, but I got interested."
V-Stephens slit open the tube and spilled out the contents. It was a routine application for admission to a Government hospital, stamped with the number of a war-veteran. Old sweat-grimed tapes, papers torn and mutilated throughout the years. Greasy bits of metal foil that had been folded and refolded, stuffed in a shirt pocket, carried next to some filthy, hair-matted chest. "Is this important?" V-Stephens asked impatiently. "Do we have to worry over clerical trifles?"
Patterson halted the car in the hospital parking lot and turned off the motor. "Look at the number of the application," he said, as he pushed open the car door. "When you have time to examine it you'll find something unusual. The applicant is carrying around an old veteran's i.d. card—with a number that hasn't been issued yet."
LeMarr, hopelessly baffled, looked from Evelyn Cutter to V-Stephens, but got no explanation.
The old man's h-loop awoke him from a fitful slumber. "David Unger," the tinny female voice repeated. "You are wanted back at the hospital. It is requested that you return to the hospital immediately."
The old man grunted and pulled himself up with an effort. Grabbing his aluminum cane he hobbled away from his sweat-shiny bench, toward the escape ramp of the park. Just when he was getting to sleep, shutting out the too-bright sun and the shrill laughter of children and girls and young soldiers…
The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick 4: The Minority Report Page 135
