Philip K Dick - Project Earth

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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.

"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.

Edward Billings was working on his report. The report was open on the desk

beside him, an immense book, leather-bound, bulging at its cracked seams. He was

transferring material into it from his heaps of notes.

The steady thumping of the great typewriter made the things in the bathroom

rattle and shake, the light fixture, the bottles and tubes in the medicine cabinet.

Even the floor under the children's feet.

"He's some kind of Communist agent," Joan said. "He's drawing maps of the city

so he can set off bombs when Moscow gives the word."

The heck he is," Dave said angrily.

"Don't you see all the maps and pencils and papers? Why else would— "

"Be quiet," Dave snapped. "He will hear us. He is not a spy. He's too old to be a

spy."

"What is he, then?"

"I don't know. But he isn't a spy. You're sure dumb. Anyhow, spies have beards."

"Maybe he's a criminal," Joan said.

"I talked to him once," Dave said. "He was coming downstairs. He spoke to me

and gave me some candy out of a bag."

"What kind of candy was it?"

"I don't know. Hard candy. It wasn't any good."

"What's he do?" Tommy asked, turning from the crack.

"Sits in his room all day. Typing."

"Doesn't he work?"

Dave sneered. "That's what he does. He writes on his report. He's an official with

a company."

"What company?"

"I forget."

"Doesn't he ever go out?"

"He goes out on the roof."

"On the roof?"

"He has a porch he goes out on. We fixed it. It's part of the apartment. He's got a

garden. He comes downstairs and gets dirt from the back yard."

"Shhh!" Tommy warned. "He turned around."

Edward Billings had got to his feet. He was covering the typewriter with a black

cloth, pushing it back and gathering up the pencils and erasers. He opened the desk

drawer and dropped the pencils into it.

"He's through," Tommy said. "He's finished working."

The old man removed his glasses and put them away in a case. He dabbed at his

forehead wearily, loosening his collar and necktie. His neck was long and the cords

stood out from yellow, wrinkled skin. His adam's apple bobbed up and down as he

sipped some water from a glass.

His eyes were blue and faded, almost without color. For a moment he gazed

directly at Tommy, his hawk-like face blank. Then abruptly he left the room, going

through a door.

"He's going to bed," Tommy said.

Mr Billings returned, a towel over his arm. At the desk he stopped and laid the

towel over the back of the chair. He lifted the massive report book and carried it

from the desk over to the bookcase, holding it tightly with both hands. It was heavy.

He laid it down and left the room again.

The report was very close. Tommy could make out the gold letters stamped into

the cracked leather binding. He gazed at the letters a long time— until Joan finally

pushed him away from the crack, shoving him impatiently off the chair.

Tommy stepped down and moved away, awed and fascinated by what he had

seen. The great report book, the huge volume of material on which the old man

worked, day after day. In the flickering light from the lamp on the desk he had easily

been able to make out the gold-stamped words on the ragged leather binding.

PROJECT B: EARTH.

"Let's go," Dave said. "He'll come in here in a couple minutes. He might catch us

watching."

"You're afraid of him," Joan taunted.

"So are you. So is Mom. So is everybody." He glanced at Tommy. "You afraid of

him?"

Tommy shook his head. "I'd sure like to know what's in that book," he murmured.

"I'd sure like to know what that old man is doing."

The late afternoon sunlight shone down bright and cold. Edward Billings came

slowly down the back steps, an empty pail in one hand, rolled-up newspapers under

his arm. He paused a moment, shielding his eyes and gazing around him. Then he

disappeared into the back yard, pushing through the thick wet grass.

Tommy stepped out from behind the garage. He raced silently up the steps two at

a time. He entered the building, hurrying down the dark corridor.

A moment later he stood before the door of Edward Billings's apartment, his chest

rising and falling, listening intently.

There was no sound.

Tommy tried the knob. It turned easily. He pushed. The door swung open and a

musty cloud of warm air drifted past him out into the corridor.

He had little time. The old man would be coming back with his pail of dirt from the

yard.

Tommy entered the room and crossed to the bookcase, his heart pounding

excitedly. The huge report book lay among heaps of notes and bundles of clippings.

He pushed the papers away, sliding them from the book. He opened it quickly, at

random, the thick pages crackling and bending.

Denmark.

Figures and facts. Endless facts, pages and columns, row after row. The lines of

type danced before his eyes. He could make little out of them. He turned to another

section.

New York.

Facts about New York. He struggled to understand the column heads. The number

of people. What they did. How they lived. What they earned. How they spent their

time. Their beliefs. Politics. Philosophy. Morals. Their age. Health. Intelligence.

Graphs and statistics, averages and evaluations.

Evaluations. Appraisals. He shook his head and turned to another section.

California.

Population. Wealth. Activity of the state government. Ports and harbors. Facts,

facts, facts—

Facts on everything. Everywhere. He thumbed through the report. On every part

of the world. Every city, every state, every country. Any and all possible information.

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摘要：

Thesoundechoedhollowlythroughthebigframehouse.Itvibratedamongthedishesinthekitchen,theguttersalongtheroof,thumpingslowlyandevenlylikedistantthunder.Fromtimetotimeitceased,butthenitbeganagain,boomingthroughthequietnight,arelentlesssound,brutalinitsregularity.Fromthetopfloorofthebighouse.Inthebathroom...

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Philip K Dick - Project Earth

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