The Unteleported Man

by Philip K. Dick

  "But my paraworld," Rachmael said bluntly, "is Paraworld Blue. I've seen the Aquatic Horror-shape, Matson; I know from firsthand experience what it looks like." He plunged on, then, ruthlessly. "And you're it."

  "Almost." The eye-eater sounded placid; he had not disturbed its potent calm. "But you yourself noticed crucial differences, son. For example, I possess a multitude of compound eyes; high in protein, they often provide me — in time of dire want — an ample diet. As I recently demonstrated. Shall I display this neat faculty once more?" It reached, then, two pseudopodia toward its recently regrown optic organs. "Very tasty," it in­toned, now apparently engrossed in furthering its meal.

  "Wait a moment," Rachmael said thickly. "I find your appetite offensive; for god's sake, wait!"

  "Anything," the eye-eater said obligingly, "to please a fellow human being. We both are, you realize. I am, certainly. After all, I'm the quondam owner of Lies In­corporated; correct? No, I am not a Mazdast; not one of the primordial Ur-inhabitants of Fomalhaut IX. They constitute a low order of organism; I spit on them." It spat, decisively. In its mind there was no doubt; it detested the Mazdasts. "What I am," it continued, "is the living embodiment of humanity and not some alien creep-thing that nature was inclined to spawn on this far-flung, rather degenerate crypto-colony planet. Well, when Computer Day arrives, all that will be taken care of. You included, you odd life form, you. Heh-heh." It giggled once more. "Now, that book I loaned you. Dr. Bloode's book. It seems to me that if you want to catch up on the very vital facts pertaining to Newcolonized­land, you really ought to con it thoroughly. What you want to learn undoubtedly lies within. Read it! Go on! Heh-heh." Its voice trailed off stickily into an indistinct torrent of mumbled amusement, and Rachmael felt a surge of doubt, overwhelming doubt, that this was — at least now — the man he had known as Matson Glazer-Holliday. He sensed its innate alienness. It was, beyond doubt, nonhuman. To say the least.

  With dignity, he answered, "I'll read it when I have time."

  "But you'll enjoy it, Mr. ben Applebaum. Not only is the volume educational, but also highly amusing. Let me quote one of Dr. Bloode's quite singular Thing-isms."

  " 'Thingisms'?" Rachmael felt baffled — and wary. He had a deep intuition that the Thingism, whatever it was, would not be amusing. Not to him, anyhow, or to any human.

  "I always enjoyed this one," the eye-eater intoned, its saliva spilling from its mouth as it writhed with glee. "Consider: since you are about to read the book, here is Thingism Number Twenty, dealing with books.

  "Ahem. 'The book business is hidebound.' "

  After a pause, Rachmael said, "That's it?"

  "Perhaps you failed to understand. I'll give you another gem, one more particular favorite of mine. And if that fails to move you... Oooohhh! That's a Thingism! Listen! 'The representative of the drayage firm failed to move me.' Oooohhh! How was that?" It waited hopefully.

  Baffled, Rachmael said, "I don't get it."

  "All right." The eye-eater's tone was now harsh. "Read the book purely for educational purposes, then. So be it. You want to know the origin of this form which I have taken. Well, everyone will take it, sooner or later. We all do; this is how we become after we die."

  He stared at it.

  "While you ponder," the eye-eater continued, "I'll delight you with a few more Thingisms of Dr. Bloode's. This one I always enjoy. "The vidphone company let me off the hook.' How was that? Or this one: 'The highway construction truck tore up the street at forty miles an hour.' Or this: 'I am not in a position to enjoy sexual relations.' Or — "

  Shutting his ears, ignoring the prolix eye-eater, Rachmael examined the book, finding a page at dead-random. The text swam, then set into clear focus for him.

  A zygote formed between the indigenous in­habitants of Fomalhaut IX and Homo sapiens gives us evidence of the dominant aspect of the so-called 'Mazdast' genetic inheritance. From the twin radically opposing strains arises what nom­inally appears to be a pure 'Mazdast,' with the exceptional reorganization of the organs of sight, the cephalopodic entity otherwise manifesting itself intact and in its customary fashion.

  "You mean," Rachmael said, glancing up from the book, stunned, "that when you say you're Matson Glazer-Holliday you mean you're an offspring of his and a — "

  "And of a female Mazdast," the eye-eater said calmly. "Read on, Mr. ben Applebaum. There's much more there to interest you. You'll find that each of the paraworlds is explained; the structure of each is dis­played so that the logic constituting each is clearly revealed. Look in the index. Select the paraworld which most interests you."

  He turned at once to Paraworld Blue.

  "And Freya Holm," the eye-eater said, as Rachmael leafed shakily through the volume for the cited page.

  "You wish to find her; this is your primary motive for coming here to Fomalhaut IX. Possibly there's an entry regarding Miss Holm; had you thought of that, sir?"

  Huskily, with disbelief, Rachmael said, "You're kid­ding." It was impossible.

  "Merely test out what I say. Look under Holm com­ma Freya."

  He did so.

  The index informed him that there existed two entries regarding Freya. One on page fifty. The second further in, deep into the book: on page two-hundred-and-ten.

  He chose the earlier one first.

  Freya saw, then, into the grave and screamed; she ran and as she ran, struggled to get away she knew it for what it was: a refined form of nerve gas that — and then her coherent thoughts ceased and she simply ran.

  "It details," the eye-eater informed him, "Miss Holm's actions on this side of the Telpor gate. Up to the present. If you want to know what became of her, sim­ply read on. And," it added sourly, "what became of me."

  His hands shaking, Rachmael read on. He had now swiftly turned to the later citation on page two-hundred-and-ten; before his eyes danced the black bug-like words, details of Freya's fate here at Newcolonizedland. He held, read, understood what he had come for; this, as the eye-eater said, contained what he wanted.

  Facing the deformed entity which she had once known as the human 'wash psychiatrist Dr. Lupov, Freya whispered ashenly, "So the trans­formation is arranged by means of your techni­ques and all of those damned gadgets you use to keep people thinking along the exact lines you want. And I thought it was a biological sport; I was so completely convinced." She shut her eyes in deep, overpowering fatigue. And realized that this was the end; she would go the way of Mat, of Rachmael ben Applebaum, of

  "What way?" Rachmael demanded, lifting his eyes from the page and confronting the creature before him. "You mean become like you?" His body cringed; he retreated physically from even the notion of it, let alone its presence here before him.

  "All flesh must die," the eye-eater said, and giggled.

  Almost unable to hold onto Dr. Bloode's volume, Rachmael once more turned to the index. This time he selected the entry:

  ben Applebaum, Rachmael

  And again read on. Grimly.

  To the sharp-featured, intent young man beside him, Lupov said, "I think we can consider Reconstruct Method Three to be successful. At least in its initial phase."

  Jaimé Weiss nodded. "I agree. And you have the alternate versions of the text available? As the other per­sons are brought in?" He did not take his eyes from the vid screen; he missed nothing of the activity that at slowed-velocity passed before the magnetic scanning-heads of the replay deck for his and Dr. Lupov's scrutiny.

  "Several are ready." It did not seem urgent to Lupov to have all alternates of the text which Rachmael ben Applebaum now read available at the same time; after all... certain changes in the other versions might be indicated, depending on which way ben Applebaum jumped. His reaction to this text — in particular the part dealing with his own "death" — would come in any mo­ment, now.

  On the small screen Rachmael ben Applebaum slowly closed the book, stood uncertainly, and then said to the creature facing him, "So that's how I'm going to get knocked off. Like
that. Just like that."

  "More or less," the eye-eater answered, carelessly.

  "It's a good job," Jaimé Weiss commented with ap­proval.

  "Yes." Lupov nodded. "It will probably function satisfactorily with this ben Applebaum person, any­how." But the girl, he thought. Miss Holm... so far it had failed with her. So far. But that did not indicate for a certainty that it would continue to fail. She had put up a protracted expert struggle — but of course she was a pro. And ben Applebaum was not. Like the pilot Dosker, Miss Holm knew her business; it would not be easy — was not at this moment easy, in fact — to recon her mentality by means of a variety of (as she had asserted in the pseudo-spurious text) "damned gadgets you use to keep people thinking along the exact lines you want."

  A good description of our instrumentalities, Lupov reflected. This Weiss person has ability. His com­position, this initial variant of the so-called Dr. Bloode Text — masterful. A powerful weapon in this final vast conflict.

  Of most interest would be a later response to one of the versions of the text. The reaction by Theodoric Ferry.

  It was this that both Jaimé Weiss and Dr. Lupov looked toward.

  And — it would not be long, now. Theodoric Ferry would soon be located where the text could be presented to him. At this moment, Ferry loitered on Terra. But —

  At six-thirty, three hours from now, Ferry would make a secret trip to Newcolonizedland, one of many; like Sepp von Einem, he crossed back and forth at will.

  This time, however, he would make a one-way crossing.

  Theodoric Ferry would never return to Terra.

  At least not sane.

  14

  In the darkness of gathering fright Freya Holm wandered, trying to escape insight, the awareness of absolute nonbeing which the intricate weapon manned by the two veteran police of Lies Incorporated had thrust onto her — how long ago? She could not tell; her time sense, in the face of the field emanating from the weapon, had like so much else that constituted objective reality totally vanished.

  At her waist a delicate detection meter clicked on, reg­istered a measured passage of high-frequency current; she halted, and the gravity of this new configuration slapped her into abrupt alertness. The meter had been built to record one sole sub-variety of electrical activity. The flux emanating from —

  A functioning Telpor station.

  She peered. And, gathering in the dense haze that oc­cluded her sight, she made out what normally would have passed for — and beyond any doubt had been designed deliberately to pass for — a mediocre construct: a peripatetic bathroom. It appeared to have landed nearby, undoubtedly to give aid and comfort to some passerby; its gay, bright neon sign winked on and off invitingly, displaying the relief-providing slogan:

  UNCLE JOHN'S LI'L HUT-SUT

  An ordinary sight. And yet, according to the meter at her belt, not a peripatetic bathroom at all but one end of a von Einem entity, set down here at Newcolonizedland and working away full blast; the recorded line-surge ap­peared to be maximum, not minimum. The station could not be more fully in operation.

  Warily, she made her way toward it. Heavy gray haze, a diffuse mass of drifting airborne debris, sur­rounded her as she entered Uncle John's Li'l Hut-Sut station, passed down the quaintly archaic wrought-iron staircase and into the cool, dimly lit chamber marked LADIES.

  "Five cents, please," a mechanical voice said pleas­antly.

  In a reflexive gesture she handed the nonexistent at­tendant a dime; her change rolled down a slot to her and she pocketed it with absolutely no interest. Because, ahead of her, two bald women sat in adjoining stalls, conversing in deep, guttural German.

  She drew her sidearm and said to them as she pointed the pistol at them, "Hände hock, bitte."

  Instantly one of the two figures yanked at the handle nearest her — or more accurately his — right hand; a roar of rushing water thundered up and lashed at Freya in a sonic torrent which shook her and caused her vision to blur, to become disfigured; the two shapes wavered and blended, and she found it virtually impossible to keep her weapon pointed at them.

  "Fräulein," a masculine voice said tautly, "gib uns augenblicklich dein — "

  She fired.

  One of the twin indistinct shapes atomized silently. But the alternate Telpor technician hopped, floundered, to one side; he sprang to his feet and bolted off. She followed him with the barrel of her gun, fired once more — and missed. The last shot I'm entitled to, she thought to herself wanly. I missed my chance; I missed getting both of them. And now it's me.

  A current of hot, lashing air burst at her from the automatic wet-hands dryer; she ducked, half-blinded, attempted to fire her small weapon once more — and then, from behind her, something of steel, something not alive but alert and active, closed around her middle. She gasped in fear as it swept her from her feet; twist­ing, she managed a meager glimpse of it: grotesquely, it was the vanity-table assembly — or rather a homotropic device cammed as a vanity table. Its legs, six of them, had fitted one into the next, like old-fashioned curtain rods; the joint appendage had extended itself expertly, groped until it encountered her, and then, without the need or assistance of life, had embraced her in a grip of crushing death.

  The remaining Telpor technician ceased to duck and weave; he drew himself upright, irritably tossed aside the female garments which he had worn, walked a few steps toward her to watch her destruction. Face twitch­ing eagerly, he surveyed the rapid closure of the vanity-table defense system, oh-ing with satisfaction, his thin, pinched face marred with sadistic delight — pleasure at a well-functioning instrument of murder.

  "Please," she gasped, as the appendage drew her back toward the crypto-vanity table, which now dis­played a wide maw in which to engulf her; within it she would be converted to ergs: energy to power the assembly for future use.

  "Es tut mir furchtbar leid,"the Telpor technician said, licking his mildly hairy lips with near-erotic delight, "aber — "

  "Can't you do anything for me?" she managed to say, or rather made an attempt to say; no breath remained in her, now, by which to speak. The end, she realized, was close by; it would not be long.

  "So schön, dock," the German intoned, his eyes fixed on her; crooning to himself, he approached closer and closer, swaying in a hypnotic dance of physiological sympathy — physical but not emotional correspondence, his body — but not his mentality — responding to what was rapidly happening to her as the tapered extension of

  the vanity table drew her back to engulf her.

  No one, she realized. Nothing. Rachmael, she thought; why is it that — and then her thoughts dimmed. Over. Done. She shut her eyes, and, with her fingers, groped for the destruct-trigger which would set off a high-yield charge implanted subdermally; better to die by means of a merciful Lies Incorporated Selbstmort in­strument placed within her body for her protection than by the cruel THL thing devouring her piecemeal... as the final remnant of awareness departed from her, she touched the trigger —

  "Oh no, miss," a reprimanding voice said, from a distance away. "Not in the presence of a guided tour." Sounds, the near-presence of people — she opened her eyes, saw descending the stairs of the women's room a gang of miscellaneous persons: men and women and children, all dressed well, all solemnly scrutinizing her and the remaining Telpor technician, the vanity table with its metal arm engaged in dragging her to her death... my god, she realized. I've seen this on TV, on trans­missions from Whale's Mouth!

  It can't be, Freya Holm said to herself. This is part of the ersatz reality superimposed for our benefit. Years of this hoax — still? This is impossible!

  Yet — here it was, before her eyes. Not on TV but in actuality.

  The tour guide, with armband, in carefully pressed suit, continued to eye her reprovingly. Being killed before the eyes of a guided tour; it's wrong, she real­ized. True; she agreed. You're absolutely correct. Thinking that, she found herself sobbing hysterically; unable to cease she shut her ey
es, took a deep, unsteady breath.

  "I am required to inform you, miss," the guide stated, his voice now wooden and correct, "that you are under arrest. For causing a disturbance interfering with the orderly unfolding of an official, licensed White House tour. I am also required to inform you that you are in custody as of this moment, without written notice, and you are to be held without bail until a

  Colony Municipal Court can, at a later date, deal with you." He eyed the Telpor technician coldly and with massive suspicion. "Sir, you appear to be involved in this matter to some extent."

  "In no way whatsoever," the Telpor technician said at once.

  "Then," the guide said, as his herded group of sight­seers gawked, "how do you explain your unauthorized presence here in the ladies' section of this Uncle John's Li'l Hut-sut station?"

  The Telpor technician shrugged, flushing crimson.

  "A Thingism," the guide said in an aside to Freya. "He flushes at his presence in a comfort station." He sniggered, and the group of sightseers laughed to various degrees. "I hold this job," the guide informed Freya as he expertly unfastened her from the manual ex­tension of the pseudo vanity table, "for good reason; my wit delights the multitude."

  The Telpor technician said sullenly, "Thingismtry is degenerate."

  "Perhaps," the guide admitted. He steadied Freya as the vanity table reluctantly released her; in a gentle­manly way he assisted her away from the feral device and over to his throng. "But it helps pass the dull hours away; does it not?" He addressed his tame collection of sightseers.

  They nodded obediently, the men eying Freya with in­terest; she saw, now, that her blouse had been neatly shredded by the arm of the vanity table, and, with numb fingers, she gathered it about her.

  "No need of that," the guide said softly in her ear. "A bit of exposed female bosom also helps pass the dull hours." He grinned at her. "Hmm," he added, half to himself. "I wouldn't be surprised if President Jones wanted to interview you personally. He takes a grave in­terest in matters of this sort, these civil disturbances which upset the orderly — "