Dick, Philip K - Complete Stories 5 - The Eye of Sibyl and O

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The Complete Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol. 5:

The Eye of the Sibyl and Other Classic Stories

by Philip K. Dick

eVersion 3.0 / Scan Notes at EOF

Contents

The Little Black Box

The War with the Fnools

Precious Artifact

Retreat Syndrome

A Tehran Odyssey

Your Appointment Will Be Yesterday

Holy Quarrel

A Game of Unchance

Not by its Cover

Return Match

Faith of Our Fathers

The Story to End All Stories for Harlan Ellison's Anthology Dangerous Visions

The Electric Ant

Cadbury, the Beaver Who Lacked

A Little Something for Us Tempunauts

The Pre-Persons

The Eye of the Sibyl

The Day Mr. Computer Fell out of its Tree

The Exit Door Leads In

Chains of Air, Web of Aether

Strange Memories of Death

I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon

Rautavaara's Case

The Alien Mind

NOTES

"The collected stories of Philip K. Dick are awe inspiring." -- The Washington Post

Many thousands of readers worldwide consider Philip K. Dick to have been the greatest

science fiction writer on any planet. Since his untimely death in 1982, interest in Dick's work has

continued to mount and his reputation has been enhanced by a growing body of critical attention.

The Philip K. Dick Award is now presented annually to a distinguished work of science fiction,

and the Philip K. Dick Society is devoted to the study and promulgation of his works.

This collection draws from the writer's earliest short and medium-length fiction (including

several previously unpublished stories) during the years 1952-1955, and features such fascinating

works as The Little Black Box, The Eye of the Sibyl, The Electric Ant, and many others. Here,

readers will find Dick's initial explorations of the themes he so brilliantly brought to life in his

later work.

Dick won the prestigious Hugo Award for best novel of 1963 for The Man in the High

Castle and in the last year of his life, the now-classic film Blade Runner was made from his novel

Do Androids Dream Electric Sheep? More recently, Dick's short story The Minority Report

inspired Steven Spielberg's movie of the same title.

The classic stories of Philip K. Dick offer an intriguing glimpse into the early imagination

of one of science fiction's most enduring and respected names.

"A useful acquisition for any serious SF library or collection." -- Kirkus Reviews

"More than anyone else in the field, Mr. Dick really puts you inside people's minds." --

Wall Street Journal

CITADEL PRESS BOOKS are published by

Kensington Publishing Corp. 850 Third Avenue New York, NY 10022

any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, excepting brief

quotes used in reviews.

The excerpt by Philip K. Dick that appears in the beginning of this volume is

from a collection of interviews with the author conducted by Paul Williams and

published in Only Apparently Real, Arbor House, 1986. Used with permission.

All Kensington titles, imprints, and distributed lines are available at special

quantity discounts for bulk purchases for sales promotions, premiums, fund-raising,

educational, or institutional use. Special book excerpts or customized printings can

also be created to fit specific needs. For details, write or phone the office of the

Kensington special sales manager: Kensington Publishing Corp., 850 Third Avenue,

New York, NY 10022, attn: Special Sales Department.

Citadel Press and the Citadel Logo are trademarks of Kensington Publishing Corp.

First printing: 2002

10 9 8 7 6 5 4

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 87-50159

ISBN 0-8065-1328-4

INTRODUCTION

By Thomas M. Disch

The conventional wisdom has it that there are writers' writers and readers' writers. The

latter are those happy few whose books, by some pheromonic chemistry the former can never

quite duplicate in their own laboratories, appear year after year on the best seller lists. They may

or (more usually) may not satisfy the up-market tastes of "literary" critics but their books sell.

Writers' writers get great reviews, especially from their admiring colleagues, but their books don't

attract readers, who can recognize, even at the distance of a review, the signs of a book by a

writers' writer. The prose style comes in for high praise (a true readers' writer, by contrast, would

not want to be accused of anything so elitist as "style"); the characters have "depth"; above all,

such a book is "serious."

Many writers' writers aspire to the wider fame and higher advances of readers' writers,

and occasionally a readers' writer will covet such laurels as royalties cannot buy. Henry James,

the writers' writer par excellence wrote one of his drollest tales, The Next Time, about just such a

pair of cross-purposed writers, and James's conclusion is entirely true to life. The literary writer

does his best to write a blockbuster -- and it wins him more laurels but no more readers. The

successful hack does her damnedest to produce a Work of Art: the critics sneer, but it is her

greatest commercial success.

Philip K. Dick was, in his time, both a writers' writer and a readers' writer; and neither;

and another kind altogether -- a science fiction writers' science fiction writer. The proof of the

last contention is to be found blazoned on the covers of a multitude of his paperback books,

where his colleagues have vied to lavish superlatives on him. John Brunner called him "the most

consistently brilliant science fiction writer in the world." Norman Spinrad trumps this with "the

greatest American novelist of the second half of the twentieth century." Ursula LeGuin anoints

him as America's Borges, which Harlan Ellison tops by hailing him as SF's "Pirandello, its

Beckett and its Pinter." Brian Aldiss, Michael Bishop, myself -- and many others -- have all

written encomia as extravagant, but all these praises had very little effect on the sales of the

books they garlanded during the years those books were being written. Dick managed to survive

as a full-time free-lance writer only by virtue of his immense productivity. Witness, the sheer

expanse of these COLLECTED STORIES, and consider that most of his readers didn't consider

Dick a short story writer at all but knew him chiefly by his novels.

It is significant, I think, that all the praise heaped on Dick was exclusively from other SF

writers, not from the reputation makers of the Literary Establishment, for he was not like writers'

writers outside genre fiction. It's not for his exquisite style he's applauded, or his depth of

characterization. Dick's prose seldom soars, and often is lame as any Quasimodo. The characters

in even some of his most memorable tales have all the "depth" of a 50s sitcom. (A more kindly

way to think of it: he writes for the traditional complement of America's indigenous commedia

dell-arte.) Even stories that one remembers as exceptions to this rule can prove, on re-reading, to

have more in common with Bradbury and van Vogt than with Borges and Pinter. Dick is content,

most of the time, with a narrative surface as simple -- even simple-minded -- as a comic book.

One need go no further than the first story in this book, The Little Black Box, for proof of this --

and it was done in 1963, when Dick was at the height of his powers, writing such classic novels

as THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE and MARTIAN TIME-SLIP. Further, Box contains the

embryo for another of his best novels of later years, DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC

SHEEP?

Why, then, such paeans? For any aficionado of SF the answer is self-evident: he had great

ideas. Fans of genre writing have usually been able to tolerate sloppiness of execution for the

sake of genuine novelty, since the bane of genre fiction has been the constant recycling of old

plots and premises. And Dick's great ideas occupied a unique wave-band on the imaginative

spectrum. Not for him the conquest of space. In Dick the colonization of the solar system simply

results in new and more dismal suburbs being built. Not for him the Halloween mummeries of

inventing new breeds of Alien Monsters. Dick was always too conscious of the human face

behind the Halloween mask to bother with elaborate masquerades. Dick's great ideas sprang up

from the world around him, from the neighborhoods he lived in, the newspapers he read, the

stores he shopped in, the ads on TV. His novels and stories taken all together comprise one of the

most accurate and comprehensive pictures of American culture in the Populuxe and Viet Nam

eras that exists in contemporary fiction -- not because of his accuracy in the matter of

inventorying the trivia of those times, but because he discovered metaphors that uncovered the

meaning of the way we lived. He made of our common places worlds of wonder. What more can

we ask of art?

Well, the answer is obvious: polish, execution, economy of means, and other esthetic

niceties. Most SF writers, however, have been able to get along without table linen and crystal so

long as the protein of a meaty metaphor was there on the plate. Indeed, Dick's esthetic failings

could become virtues for his fellow SF writers, since it is so often possible for us to take the ball

he fumbled and continue for a touchdown. Ursula LeGuin's THE LATHE OF HEAVEN is one of

the best novels Dick ever wrote -- except that he didn't. My own 334 would surely not have been

the same book without the example of his own accounts of Future Drabness. The list of his

conscious debtors is long, and of his unconscious debtors undoubtedly even longer.

Phil's own note at the back of this book to his story The Pre-Persons provides an

illuminating example of the kind of reaction he could have on a fellow writer. In this case Joanna

Russ allegedly offered to beat him up for his tale of a young boy's apprehension by the driver of a

local "abortion truck," who operates like a dog catcher in rounding up Pre-Persons (children

under 12 no longer wanted by their parents) and taking them into "abortion" centers to be gassed.

It's an inspired piece of propaganda (Phil calls it "special pleading"), to which the only adequate

response is surely not a threat to beat up the author but a story that dramatizes the same issue as

forcefully and that does not shirk the interesting but trouble-making question: If abortion, why

not infanticide? Dick's raising of this question in the current polarized climate of debate was a

coup de theatre but scarcely the last word on the subject. One could easily extrapolate an entire

novel from the essential premise of The Pre-Persons, and it wouldn't necessarily be an anti-

abortion tract. Dick's stories often flowered into novels when he re-considered his first good idea,

and the reason he is a science fiction writers' science fiction writer is because his stories so often

have had the same effect on his colleagues. Reading a story by Dick isn't like "contemplating" a

finished work of art. Much more it's like becoming involved in a conversation. I'm glad to be a

part, here, of that continuing conversation.

Thomas M. Disch

October, 1986

How does one fashion a book of resistance, a book of truth in an empire of falsehood, or a

book of rectitude in an empire of vicious lies? How does one do this right in front of the enemy?

Not through the old-fashioned ways of writing while you're in the bathroom, but how

does one do that in a truly future technological state? Is it possible for freedom and independence

to arise in new ways under new conditions? That is, will new tyrannies abolish these protests? Or

will there be new responses by the spirit that we can't anticipate?

-- Philip K. Dick in an interview, 1974.

(from ONLY APPARENTLY REAL)

The Little Black Box

Bogart Crofts of the State Department said, "Miss Hiashi, we want to send you to Cuba to

give religious instruction to the Chinese population there. It's your Oriental background. It will

help."

With a faint moan, Joan Hiashi reflected that her Oriental background consisted of having

been born in Los Angeles and having attended courses at UCSB, the University of Santa Barbara.

But she was technically, from the standpoint of training, an Asian scholar, and she had properly

listed this on her job-application form.

"Let's consider the word caritas," Crofts was saying. "In your estimation, what actually

does it mean, as Jerome used it? Charity? Hardly. But then what? Friendliness? Love?"

Joan said, "My field is Zen Buddhism."

"But everybody," Crofts protested in dismay, "knows what caritas means in late Roman

usage. The esteem of good people for one another; that's what it means." His gray, dignified

eyebrows raised. "Do you want this job, Miss Hiashi? And if so, why?"

"I want to disseminate Zen Buddhist propaganda to the Communist Chinese in Cuba,"

Joan said, "because --" She hesitated. The truth was simply that it meant a good salary for her, the

first truly high-paying job she had ever held. From a career standpoint, it was a plum. "Aw, hell,"

she said. "What is the nature of the One Way? I don't have any answer."

"It's evident that your field has taught you a method of avoiding giving honest answers,"

Crofts said sourly. "And being evasive. However --" He shrugged. "Possibly that only goes to

prove that you're well trained and the proper person for the job. In Cuba you'll be running up

against some rather worldly and sophisticated individuals, who in addition are quite well off even

from the U.S. standpoint. I hope you can cope with them as well as you've coped with me."

Joan said, "Thank you, Mr. Crofts." She rose. "I'll expect to hear from you, then."

"I am impressed by you," Crofts said, half to himself. "After all, you're the young lady

who first had the idea of feeding Zen Buddhist riddles to UCSB's big computers."

"I was the first to do it," Joan corrected. "But the idea came from a friend of mine, Ray

Meritan. The gray-green jazz harpist."

"Jazz and Zen Buddhism," Crofts said. "State may be able to make use of you in Cuba."

To Ray Meritan she said, "I have to get out of Los Angeles, Ray. I really can't stand the

way we're living here." She walked to the window of his apartment and looked out at the

monorail gleaming far off. The silver car made its way at enormous speed, and Joan hurriedly

looked away.

If we only could suffer, she thought. That's what we lack, any real experience of

suffering, because we can escape anything. Even this.

"But you are getting out," Ray said. "You're going to Cuba and convert wealthy

merchants and bankers into becoming ascetics. And it's a genuine Zen paradox; you'll be paid for

it." He chuckled. "Fed into a computer, a thought like that would do harm. Anyhow, you won't

have to sit in the Crystal Hall every night listening to me play -- if that's what you're anxious to

get away from."

"No," Joan said, "I expect to keep on listening to you on TV. I may even be able to use

your music in my teaching." From a rosewood chest in the far corner of the room she lifted out a

.32 pistol. It had belonged to Ray Meritan's second wife, Edna, who had used it to kill herself, the

previous February, late one rainy afternoon. "May I take this along?" she asked.

"For sentiment?" Ray said. "Because she did it on your account?"

"Edna did nothing on my account. Edna liked me. I'm not taking any responsibility for

your wife's suicide, even though she did find out about us -- seeing each other, so to speak."

Ray said meditatively, "And you're the girl always telling people to accept blame and not

to project it out on the world. What do you call your principle, dear? Ah." He grinned. "The Anti-

paranoia Prinzip. Doctor Joan Hiashi's cure for mental illness; absorb all blame, take it all upon

yourself." He glanced up at her and said acutely, "I'm surprised you're not a follower of Wilbur

Mercer."

"That clown," Joan said.

"But that's part of his appeal. Here, I'll show you." Ray switched on the TV set across the

room from them, the legless black Oriental-style set with its ornamentation of Sung dynasty

dragons.

"Odd you would know when Mercer is on," Joan said.

Ray, shrugging murmured, "I'm interested. A new religion, replacing Zen Buddhism,

sweeping out of the Middle West to engulf California. You ought to pay attention, too, since you

claim religion as your profession. You're getting a job because of it. Religion is paying your bills,

my dear girl, so don't knock it."

The TV had come on, and there was Wilbur Mercer.

"Why isn't he saying anything?" Joan said.

"Why, Mercer has taken a vow this week. Complete silence." Ray lit a cigarette. "State

ought to be sending me, not you. You're a fake."

"At least I'm not a clown," Joan said, "or a follower of a clown."

Ray reminded her softly, "There's a Zen saying, 'The Buddha is a piece of toilet paper.'

And another. 'The Buddha often --' "

"Be still," she said sharply. "I want to watch Mercer."

"You want to watch," Ray's voice was heavy with irony. "Is that what you want, for God's

sake? No one watches Mercer; that's the whole point." Tossing his cigarette into the fireplace, he

strode to the TV set; there, before it, Joan saw a metal box with two handles, attached by a lead of

twin-cable wire to the TV set. Ray seized the two handles, and at once a grimace of pain shot

across his face.

"What is it?" she asked, in anxiety.

"N-nothing." Ray continued to grip the handles. On the screen, Wilbur Mercer walked

slowly over the barren, jagged surface of a desolate hillside, his face lifted, an expression of

serenity -- or vacuity -- on his thin, middle-aged features. Gasping, Ray released the handles. "I

could only hold them for forty-five seconds this time." To Joan, he explained, "This is the

empathy box, my dear. I can't tell you how I got it -- to be truthful I don't really know. They

brought it by, the organization that distributes it -- Wilcer, Incorporated. But I can tell you that

when you take hold of these handles you're no longer watching Wilbur Mercer. You're actually

participating in his apotheosis. Why, you're feeling what he feels."

Joan said, "It looks like it hurts."

Quietly, Ray Meritan said, "Yes. Because Wilbur Mercer is being killed. He's walking to

the place where he's going to die."

In horror, Joan moved away from the box.

"You said that was what we needed," Ray said. "Remember, I'm a rather adequate

telepath; I don't have to bestir myself very much to read your thoughts. 'If only we could suffer.'

That's what you were thinking, just a little while ago. Well, here's your chance, Joan."

"It's -- morbid!"

"Was your thought morbid?"

"Yes!" she said.

Ray Meritan said, "Twenty million people are followers of Wilbur Mercer now. All over

the world. And they're suffering with him, as he walks along toward Pueblo, Colorado. At least

that's where they're told he's going. Personally I have my doubts. Anyhow, Mercerism is now

what Zen Buddhism was once; you're going to Cuba to teach the wealthy Chinese bankers a form

of asceticism that's already obsolete, already seen its day."

Silently, Joan turned away from him and watched Mercer walking.

"You know I'm right," Ray said. "I can pick up your emotions. You may not be aware of

them, but they're there."

On the screen, a rock was thrown at Mercer. It struck him on the shoulder.

Everyone who's holding onto his empathy box, Joan realized, felt that along with Mercer.

Ray nodded. "You're right."

"And -- what about when he's actually killed?" She shuddered.

"We'll see what happens then," Ray said quietly. "We don't know."

To Bogart Crofts, Secretary of State Douglas Herrick said, "I think you're wrong, Boge.

The girl may be Meritan's mistress but that doesn't mean she knows."

"We'll wait for Mr. Lee to tell us," Crofts said irritably. "When she gets to Havana he'll be

waiting to meet her."

"Mr. Lee can't scan Meritan direct?"

"One telepath scan another?" Bogart Crofts smiled at the thought. It conjured up a

nonsensical situation: Mr. Lee reading Meritan's mind, and Meritan, also being a telepath, would

read Mr. Lee's mind and discover that Mr. Lee was reading his mind, and Lee, reading Meritan's

mind, would discover that Meritan knew -- and so forth. Endless regression, winding up with a

fusion of minds, within which Meritan carefully guarded his thoughts so that he did not think

about Wilbur Mercer.

"It's the similarity of names that convinces me," Herrick said. "Meritan, Mercer. The first

three letters -- ?"

Crofts said, "Ray Meritan is not Wilbur Mercer. I'll tell you how we know. Over at CIA,

we made an Ampex video tape from Mercer's telecast, had it enlarged and analyzed. Mercer was

shown against the usual dismal background of cactus plants and sand and rock. . . you know."

"Yes," Herrick said, nodding. "The Wilderness, as they call it."

"In the enlargement something showed up in the sky. It was studied. It's not Luna. It's a

moon, but too small to be Luna. Mercer is not on Earth. I would guess that he is not a terrestrial

at all."

Bending down, Crofts picked up a small metal box, carefully avoiding the two handles.

"And these were not designed and built on Earth. The entire Mercer Movement is null-T all the

way, and that's the fact we've got to contend with."

Herrick said, "If Mercer is not a Terran, then he may have suffered and even died before,

on other planets."

"Oh, yes," Crofts said. "Mercer -- or whatever his or its real name is -- may be highly

experienced in this. But we still don't know what we want to know." And that of course was,

What happens to those people holding onto the handles of their empathy boxes?

Crofts seated himself at his desk and scrutinized the box resting directly before him, with

its two inviting handles. He had never touched them, and he never intended to. But --

"How soon will Mercer die?" Herrick asked.

"They're expecting it some time late next week."

"And Mr. Lee will have gotten something from the girl's mind by then, you think? Some

clue as to where Mercer really is?"

"I hope so," Crofts said, still seated at the empathy box but still not touching it. It must be

a strange experience, he thought, to place your hands on two ordinary-looking metal handles and

find, all at once, that you're no longer yourself; you're another man entirely, in another place,

laboring up a long, dreary inclined plain toward certain extinction. At least, so they say. But

hearing about it. . . what does that actually convey? Suppose I tried it for myself.

The sense of absolute pain. . . that was what appalled him, held him back.

It was unbelievable that people could deliberately seek it out, rather than avoiding it.

Gripping the handles of the empathy box was certainly not the act of a person seeking escape. It

was not the avoidance of something but the seeking of something. And not the pain as such;

Crofts knew better than to suppose that the Mercerites were simple masochists who desired

discomfort. It was, he knew, the meaning of the pain which attracted Mercer's followers.

The followers were suffering from something.

Aloud, he said to his superior, "They want to suffer as a means of denying their private,

personal existences. It's a communion in which they all suffer and experience Mercer's ordeal

together." Like the Last Supper, he thought. That's the real key: the communion, the participation

that is behind all religion. Or ought to be. Religion binds men together in a sharing, corporate

body, and leaves everyone else on the outside.

Herrick said, "But primarily it's a political movement, or must be treated as such."

"From our standpoint," Crofts agreed. "Not theirs."

The intercom on the desk buzzed and his secretary said, "Sir, Mr. John Lee is here."

"Tell him to come in."

The tall, slender young Chinese entered, smiling, his hand out. He wore an old-fashioned

single-breasted suit and pointed black shoes. As they shook hands, Mr. Lee said, "She has not left

for Havana, has she?"

"No," Crofts said.

"Is she pretty?" Mr. Lee said.

"Yes," Crofts said, with a smile at Herrick. "But -- difficult. The snappish kind of woman.

Emancipated, if you follow me."

"Oh, the suffragette type," Mr. Lee said, smiling. "I detest that type of female. It will be

hard going, Mr. Crofts."

"Remember," Crofts said, "your job is simply to be converted. All you have to do is listen

to her propaganda about Zen Buddhism, learn to ask a few questions such as, 'Is this stick the

Buddha?' and expect a few inexplicable blows on the head -- a Zen practice, I understand,

supposed to instill sense."

With a broad grin, Mr. Lee said, "Or to instill nonsense. You see, I am prepared. Sense,

nonsense; in Zen it's the same thing." He became sober, now. "Of course, I myself am a

Communist," he said. "The only reason I'm doing this is because the Party at Havana has taken

the official stand that Mercerism is dangerous and must be wiped out." He looked gloomy. "I

must say, these Mercerites are fanatics."

"True," Crofts agreed. "And we must work for their extinction." He pointed to the

empathy box. "Have you ever --?"

"Yes," Mr. Lee said. "It's a form of punishment. Self-imposed, no doubt for reasons of

guilt. Leisure gleans such emotions from people if it is properly utilized; otherwise not."

Crofts thought, This man has no understanding of the issues at all. He's a simple

materialist. Typical of a person born in a Communist family, raised in a Communist society.

Everything is either black or white.

"You're mistaken," Mr. Lee said; he had picked up Crofts' thought.

Flushing, Crofts said, "Sorry, I forgot. No offense."

"I see in your mind," Mr. Lee said, "that you believe Wilbur Mercer, as he calls himself,

may be non-T. Do you know the Party's position on this question? It was debated just a few days

ago. The Party takes the stand that there are no non-T races in the solar system, that to believe

remnants of once-superior races still exist is a form of morbid mysticism."

Crofts sighed. "Deciding an empirical issue by vote -- deciding it on a strictly political

basis. I can't understand that."

At that point, Secretary Herrick spoke up, soothing both men. "Please, let's not become

sidetracked by theoretical issues on which we don't all agree. Let's stick to basics - the Mercerite

Party and its rapid growth all over the planet."

Mr. Lee said, "You are right, of course."

III

At the Havana airfield Joan Hiashi looked around her as the other passengers walked

rapidly from the ship to the entrance of the number twenty concourse.

Relatives and friends had surged cautiously out onto the field, as they always did, in

defiance of field rulings. She saw among them a tall, lean young Chinese man with a smile of

greeting on his face.

Walking toward him she called, "Mr. Lee?"

"Yes." He hurried toward her. "It's dinner time. Would you care to eat? I'll take you to the

Hang Far Lo restaurant. They have pressed duck and bird's nest soup, all Canton-style. . . very

sweet but good once in a long while."

Soon they were at the restaurant, in a red-leather and imitation teak booth. Cubans and

Chinese chattered on all sides of them; the air smelled of frying pork and cigar smoke.

"You are President of the Havana Institute for Asian Studies?" she asked, just to be

certain there had been no slip-ups.

"Correct. It is frowned on by the Cuban Communist Party because of the religious aspect.

But many of the Chinese here on the island attend lectures or are on our mailing list. And as you

know we've had many distinguished scholars from Europe and Southern Asia come and address

us. . . By the way. There is a Zen parable which I do not understand. The monk who cut the kitten

in half -- I have studied it and thought about it, but I do not see how the Buddha could be present

when cruelty was done to an animal." He hastened to add, "I'm not disputing with you. I am

merely seeking information."

Joan said, "Of all the Zen parables that has caused the most difficulty. The question to ask

is, Where is the kitten now?"

"That recalls the opening of the Bhagavad-Gita," Mr. Lee said, with a quick nod. "I recall

Arjura saying,

The bow Gandiva slips from

my hand. . .

Omens of evil!

What can we hope from this killing of kinsmen?

"Correct," Joan said, "And of course you remember Krishna's answer. It is the most

profound statement in all pre-Buddhistic religion of the issue of death and of action."

The waiter came for their order. He was a Cuban, in khaki and a beret.

"Try the fried won ton," Mr. Lee advised. "And the chow yuk, and of course the egg roll.

You have egg roll today?" he asked the waiter.

"Si, Senor Lee." The waiter picked at his teeth with a toothpick.

Mr. Lee ordered for both of them, and the waiter departed.

"You know," Joan said, "when you've been around a telepath as much as I have, you

become conscious of intensive scanning going on. . . I could always tell when Ray was trying to

dig at something in me. You're a telepath. And you're very intensively scanning me right now."

Smiling, Mr. Lee said, "I wish I was, Miss Hiashi."

"I have nothing to hide," Joan said. "But I wonder why you are so interested in what I'm

thinking. You know I'm an employee of the United States Department of State; there's nothing

secret about that. Are you afraid I've come to Cuba as a spy? To study military installations? Is it

something like that?" She felt depressed. "This is not a good beginning," she said. "You haven't

been honest with me."

"You are a very attractive woman, Miss Hiashi," Mr. Lee said, losing none of his poise. "I

was merely curious to see -- shall I be blunt? Your attitude toward sex."

"You're lying," Joan said quietly.

Now the bland smile departed; he stared at her.

"Bird's nest soup, senor." The waiter had returned; he set the hot steaming bowl in the

center of the table. "Tea." He laid out a teapot and two small white handleless cups. "Senorita,

you want chopsticks?"

"No," she said absently.

From outside the booth came a cry of anguish. Both Joan and Mr. Lee leaped up. Mr. Lee

pulled the curtain aside; the waiter was staring, too, and laughing.

At a table in the opposite corner of the restaurant sat an elderly Cuban gentleman with his

hands gripping the handles of an empathy box.

"Here, too," Joan said.

"They are pests," Mr. Lee said. "Disturbing our meal."

The waiter said, "Loco." He shook his head, still chuckling.

"Yes," Joan said. "Mr. Lee, I will continue here, trying to do my job, despite what's

occurred between us. I don't know why they deliberately sent a telepath to meet me -- possibly it's

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TheCompleteStoriesofPhilipK.DickVol.5:TheEyeoftheSibylandOtherClassicStoriesbyPhilipK.DickeVersion3.0/ScanNotesatEOFContentsTheLittleBlackBoxTheWarwiththeFnoolsPreciousArtifactRetreatSyndromeATehranOdysseyYourAppointmentWillBeYesterdayHolyQuarrelAGameofUnchanceNotbyitsCoverReturnMatchFaithofOurFathe...

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Dick, Philip K - Complete Stories 5 - The Eye of Sibyl and O.pdf

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Dick, Philip K - Complete Stories 5 - The Eye of Sibyl and O

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