Dick, Philip K. - Ubik

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Ubik

by Philip K. Dick

eVersion 1.1

Chapter 1

Friends, this is clean-up time and we’re discounting all our

silent, electric Ubiks by this much money. Yes, we’re

throwing away the blue-book. And remember: every Ubik

on our lot has been used only as directed.

At three-thirty A.M. on the night of June 5, 1992, the top

telepath in the Sol System fell off the map in the offices of

Runciter Associates in New York City. That started vid-

phones ringing. The Runciter organization had lost track of

too many of Hollis’ PSIs during the last two months; this

added disappearance wouldn’t do.

“Mr. Runciter? Sorry to bother you.” The technician in

charge of the night shift at the map room coughed nervously

as the massive, sloppy head of Glen Runciter swam up to fill

the vidscreen. “We got this news from one of our inertials.

Let me look.” He fiddled with a disarranged stack of tapes

from the recorder which monitored incoming messages. “Our

Miss Dorn reported it; as you may recall she had followed

him to Green River, Utah, where-”

Sleepily, Runciter grated, “Who? I can’t keep in mind at

all times which inertials are following what teep or precog.”

With his hand he smoothed down his ruffled gray mass of

wirelike hair. “Skip the rest and tell me which of Hollis’

people is missing now.”

“S. Dole Melipone,” the technician said.

“What? Melipone’s gone? You kid me.”

“I not kid you,” the technician assured him. “Edie Dorn

and two other inertials followed him to a motel named the

Bonds of Erotic Polymorphic Experience, a sixty-unit sub-

surface structure catering to businessmen and their hookers

who don’t want to be entertained. Edie and her colleagues

didn’t think he was active, but just to be on the safe side we

had one of our own telepaths, Mr. G. G. Ashwood, go in and

read him. Ashwood found a scramble pattern surrounding

Melipone’s mind, so he couldn’t do anything; he therefore

went back to Topeka, Kansas, where he’s currently scouting

a new possibility.”

Runciter, more awake now, had lit a cigarette; chin in

hand, he sat propped up somberly, smoke drifting across the

scanner of his end of the bichannel circuit. “You’re sure the

teep was Melipone? Nobody seems to know what he looks

like; he must use a different physiognomic template every

month. What about his field?”

“We asked Joe Chip to go in there and run tests on the

magnitude and minitude of the field being generated there

at the Bonds of Erotic Polymorphic Experience Motel. Chip

says it registered, at its height, 68.2 blr units of telepathic

aura, which only Melipone, among all the known telepaths,

can produce.” The technician finished, “So that’s where we

stuck Melipone’s identflag on the map. And now he - it - is

gone.”

“Did you look on the floor? Behind the map?”

“It’s gone electronically. The man it represents is no

longer on Earth or, as far as we can make out, on a colony

world either.”

Runciter said, “I’ll consult my dead wife.”

“It’s the middle of the night. The moratoriums are closed

now.”

“Not in Switzerland,” Runciter said, with a grimacing

smile, as if some repellent midnight fluid had crept up into

his aged throat. “Goodeve.” Runciter hung up.

As owner of the Beloved Brethren Moratorium, Herbert

Schoenheit von Vogelsang, of course, perpetually came to

work before his employees. At this moment, with the chilly,

echoing building just beginning to stir, a worried-looking

clerical individual with nearly opaque glasses and wearing a

tabby-fur blazer and pointed yellow shoes waited at the

reception counter, a claim-check stub in his hand. Obviously,

he had shown up to holiday-greet a relative. Resurrection

Day - the holiday on which the half-lifers were publicly

honored - lay just around the corner; the rush would soon

be beginning.

“Yes, sir,” Herbert said to him with an affable smile. “I’ll

take your stub personally.”

“It’s an elderly lady,” the customer said. “About eighty,

very small and wizened. My grandmother.”

“Twill only be a moment.” Herbert made his way back to

the cold-pac bins to search out number 3054039-B.

When he located the correct party he scrutinized the

lading report attached. It gave only fifteen days of half-life

remaining. Not very much, he reflected; automatically he

pressed a portable protophason amplifier into the

transparent plastic hull of the casket, tuned it, listened at

the proper frequency for indication of cephalic activity.

Faintly from the speaker a voice said, “…and then Tillie

sprained her ankle and we never thought it’d heal; she was

so foolish about it, wanting to start walking immediately…”

Satisfied, he unplugged the amplifier and located a union

man to perform the actual task of carting 3054039-B to the

consultation lounge, where the customer would be put in

touch with the old lady.

“You checked her out, did you?” the customer asked as

he paid the poscreds due.

“Personally,” Herbert answered. “Functioning perfectly.”

He kicked a series of switches, then stepped back. “Happy

Resurrection Day, sir.”

“Thank you.” The customer seated himself facing the

casket, which steamed in its envelope of cold-pac; he

pressed an earphone against the side of his head and spoke

firmly into the microphone. “Flora, dear, can you hear me? I

think I can hear you already. Flora?”

When I pass, Herbert Schoenheit von Vogelsang said to

himself, I think I’ll will my heirs to revive me one day a

century. That way I can observe the fate of all mankind. But

that meant a rather high maintenance cost to the heirs - and

he knew what that meant. Sooner or later they would rebel,

have his body taken out of cold-pac and - god forbid -

buried.

“Burial is barbaric,” Herbert muttered aloud. “Remnant of

the primitive origins of our culture.”

“Yes, sir,” his secretary agreed, at her typewriter.

In the consultation lounge several customers now

communed with their half-lifer relations, in rapt quiet,

distributed at intervals each with his separate casket. It was

a tranquil sight, these faithfuls, coming as they did so

regularly to pay homage. They brought messages, news of

what took place in the outside world; they cheered the

gloomy half-lifers in these intervals of cerebral activity. And

- they paid Herbert Schoenheit von Vogelsang. It was a

profitable business, operating a moratorium.

“My dad seems a little frail,” a young man said, catching

Herbert’s attention. “I wonder if you could take a moment of

your time to check him over. I’d really appreciate it,”

“Certainly,” Herbert said, accompanying the customer

across the lounge to his deceased relative. The lading for

this one showed only a few days remaining; that explained

the vitiated quality of cerebration. But still… he turned up

the gain of the protophason amplifier, and the voice from

the half-lifer became a trifle stronger in the earphone. He’s

almost at an end, Herbert thought. It seemed obvious to

him that the son did not want to see the lading, did not

actually care to know that contact with his dad was

diminishing, finally. So Herbert said nothing; he merely

walked off, leaving the son to commune. Why tell him that

this was probably the last time he would come here? He

would find out soon enough in any case.

A truck had now appeared at the loading platform at the

rear of the moratorium; two men hopped down from it,

wearing familiar pale-blue uniforms. Atlas Interplan Van and

Storage, Herbert perceived. Delivering another half-lifer who

had just now passed, or here to pick up one which had

expired. Leisurely, he started in that direction, to supervise;

at that moment, however, his secretary called to him. “Herr

Schoenheit von Vogelsang; sorry to break into your

meditation, but a customer wishes you to assist in revving

up his relative.” Her voice took on special coloration as she

said, “The customer is Mr. Glen Runciter, all the way here

from the North American Confederation.”

A tall, elderly man, with large hands and a quick,

sprightly stride, came toward him. He wore a varicolored

Dacron wash-and-wear suit, knit cummerbund and dip-dyed

cheese-cloth cravat. His head, massive like a tomcat’s,

thrust forward as he peered through slightly protruding,

round and warm and highly alert eyes. Runciter kept, on his

face, a professional expression of greeting, a fast

attentiveness which fixed on Herbert, then almost at once

strayed past him, as if Runciter had already fastened onto

future matters. “How is Ella?” Runciter boomed, sounding as

if he possessed a voice electronically augmented. “Ready to

be cranked up for a talk? She’s only twenty; she ought to be

in better shape than you or me.” He chuckled, but it had an

abstract quality; he always smiled and he always chuckled,

his voice always boomed, but inside he did not notice

anyone, did not care; it was his body which smiled, nodded

and shook hands. Nothing touched his mind, which remained

remote; aloof, but amiable, he propelled Herbert along with

him, sweeping his way in great strides back into the chilled

bins where the half-lifers, including his wife, lay.

“You have not been here for some time, Mr. Runciter,”

Herbert pointed out; he could not recall the data on Mrs.

Runciter’s lading sheet, how much half-life she retained.

Runciter, his wide, flat hand pressing against Herbert’s

back to urge him along, said, “This is a moment of

importance, von Vogelsang. We, my associates and myself,

are in a line of business that surpasses all rational

understanding. I’m not at liberty to make disclosures at this

time, but we consider matters at present to be ominous but

not however hopeless. Despair is not indicated - not by any

means. Where’s Ella?” He halted, glancing rapidly about.

“I’ll bring her from the bin to the consultation lounge for

you,” Herbert said; customers should not be here in the

bins. “Do you have your numbered claim-check, Mr.

Runciter?”

“God, no,” Runciter said. “I lost it months ago. But you

know who my wife is; you can find her. Ella Runciter, about

twenty. Brown hair and eyes.” He looked around him

impatiently. “Where did you put the lounge? It used to be

located where I could find it.”

“Show Mr. Runciter to the consultation lounge,” Herbert

said to one of his employees, who had come meandering by,

curious to see what the world-renowned owner of an anti-

PSI organization looked like.

Peering into the lounge, Runciter said with aversion, “It’s

full. I can’t talk to Ella in there.” He strode after Herbert,

who had made for the moratorium’s files. “Mr. von

Vogelsang,” he said, overtaking him and once more

dropping his big paw onto the man’s shoulder; Herbert felt

the weight of the hand, its persuading vigor. “Isn’t there a

more private sanctum sanctorum for confidential

communications? What I have to discuss with Ella my wife is

not a matter which we at Runciter Associates are ready at

this time to reveal to the world.”

Caught up in the urgency of Runciter’s voice and

presence, Herbert found himself readily mumbling, “I can

make Mrs. Runciter available to you in one of our offices,

sir.” He wondered what had happened, what pressure had

forced Runciter out of his bailiwick to make this belated

pilgrimage to the Beloved Brethren Moratorium to crank up -

as Runciter crudely phrased it - his half-lifer wife. A business

crisis of some sort, he theorized. Ads over TV and in the

homeopapes by the various anti-PSI prudence

establishments had shrilly squawked their harangues of late.

Defend your privacy, the ads yammered on the hour, from

all media. Is a stranger tuning in on you? Are you really

alone? That for the telepaths… and then the queasy worry

about precogs. Are your actions being predicted by someone

you never met? Someone you would not want to meet or

invite into your home? Terminate anxiety; contacting your

nearest prudence organization will first tell you if in fact you

are the victim of unauthorized intrusions, and then, on your

instructions, nullify these intrusions - at moderate cost to

you.

“Prudence organizations.” He liked the term; it had

dignity and it was accurate. He knew this from personal

experience; two years ago a telepath had infiltrated his

moratorium staff, for reasons which he had never

discovered. To monitor confidences between half-lifers and

their visitors, probably; perhaps those of one specific half-

lifer - anyhow, a scout from one of the anti-PSI

organizations had picked up the telepathic field, and he had

been notified. Upon his signing of a work contract an anti-

telepath had been dispatched, had installed himself on the

moratorium premises. The telepath had not been located but

it had been nullified, exactly as the TV ads promised. And

so, eventually, the defeated telepath had gone away. The

moratorium was now PSI-free, and, to be sure it stayed so,

the anti-PSI prudence organization surveyed his

establishment routinely once a month.

“Thanks very much, Mr. Vogelsang,” Runciter said,

following Herbert through an outer office in which clerks

worked to an empty inner room that smelled of drab and

unnecessary micro-documents.

Of course, Herbert thought musingly to himself, I took

their word for it that a telepath got in here; they showed me

a graph they had obtained, citing it as proof. Maybe they

faked it, made up the graph in their own labs. And I took

their word for it that the telepath left; he came, he left - and

I paid two thousand poscreds. Could the prudence

organizations be, in fact, rackets? Claiming a need for their

services when sometimes no need actually exists?

Pondering this he set off in the direction of the files once

more. This time Runciter did not follow him; instead, he

thrashed about noisily, making his big frame comfortable in

terms of a meager chair. Runciter sighed, and it seemed to

Herbert, suddenly, that the massively built old man was

tired, despite his customary show of energy.

I guess when you get up into that bracket, Herbert

decided, you have to act in a certain way; you have to

appear more than a human with merely ordinary failings.

Probably Runciter’s body contained a dozen artiforgs,

artificial organs grafted into place in his physiological

apparatus as the genuine, original ones, failed. Medical

science, he conjectured, supplies the material groundwork,

and out of the authority of his mind Runciter supplies the

remainder. I wonder how old he is, he wondered. Impossible

any more to tell by looks, especially after ninety.

“Miss Beason,” he instructed his secretary, “have Mrs.

Ella Runciter located and bring me the ident number. She’s

to be,taken to office 2-A.” He seated himself across from

her, busied himself with a pinch or two of Fribourg & Treyer

Princes snuff as Miss Beason began the relatively simple job

of tracking down Glen Runciter’s wife.

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UbikbyPhilipK.DickeVersion1.1Chapter1Friends,thisisclean-uptimeandwe’rediscountingalloursilent,electricUbiksbythismuchmoney.Yes,we’rethrowingawaytheblue-book.Andremember:everyUbikonourlothasbeenusedonlyasdirected.Atthree-thirtyA.M.onthenightofJune5,1992,thetoptelepathintheSolSystemfelloffthemapinthe...

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Dick, Philip K. - Ubik

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