Short Fiction, Philip K. Dick [best large ereader .txt] 📗

Suddenly the air-conditioning snapped into operation. It snapped abruptly off again. Down the corridor a door slammed. Something thudded. The men stood listening. Sounds came from all sides of them, switches shutting, opening. The lights blinked off; they were in darkness. The lights came back on, and at the same time the heating coils dimmed and faded.

“Good God!” Winter said.

Water poured down on them, the emergency fire-fighting system. There was a screaming rush of air. One of the escape hatches had slid back, and the air was roaring frantically out into space.

The hatch banged closed. The ship subsided into silence. The heating coils glowed into life. As suddenly as it had begun the weird exhibition ceased.

“I can do⁠—everything,” the dry, toneless voice came from the wall speaker. “It is all controlled. Kramer, I wish to talk to you. I’ve been⁠—been thinking. I haven’t seen you in many years. A lot to discuss. You’ve changed, boy. We have much to discuss. Your wife⁠—”

The pilot grabbed Kramer’s arm. “There’s a ship standing off our bow. Look.”

They ran to the port. A slender pale craft was moving along with them, keeping pace with them. It was signal-blinking.

“A Terran pursuit ship,” the pilot said. “Let’s jump. They’ll pick us up. Suits⁠—”

He ran to a supply cupboard and turned the handle. The door opened and he pulled the suits out onto the floor.

“Hurry,” Gross said. A panic seized them. They dressed frantically, pulling the heavy garments over them. Winter staggered to the escape hatch and stood by it, waiting for the others. They joined him, one by one.

“Let’s go!” Gross said. “Open the hatch.”

Winter tugged at the hatch. “Help me.”

They grabbed hold, tugging together. Nothing happened. The hatch refused to budge.

“Get a crowbar,” the pilot said.

“Hasn’t anyone got a blaster?” Gross looked frantically around. “Damn it, blast it open!”

“Pull,” Kramer grated. “Pull together.”

“Are you at the hatch?” the toneless voice came, drifting and eddying through the corridors of the ship. They looked up, staring around them. “I sense something nearby, outside. A ship? You are leaving, all of you? Kramer, you are leaving, too? Very unfortunate. I had hoped we could talk. Perhaps at some other time you might be induced to remain.”

“Open the hatch!” Kramer said, staring up at the impersonal walls of the ship. “For God’s sake, open it!”

There was silence, an endless pause. Then, very slowly, the hatch slid back. The air screamed out, rushing past them into space.

One by one they leaped, one after the other, propelled away by the repulsive material of the suits. A few minutes later they were being hauled aboard the pursuit ship. As the last one of them was lifted through the port, their own ship pointed itself suddenly upward and shot off at tremendous speed. It disappeared.

Kramer removed his helmet, gasping. Two sailors held onto him and began to wrap him in blankets. Gross sipped a mug of coffee, shivering.

“It’s gone,” Kramer murmured.

“I’ll have an alarm sent out,” Gross said.

“What’s happened to your ship?” a sailor asked curiously. “It sure took off in a hurry. Who’s on it?”

“We’ll have to have it destroyed,” Gross went on, his face grim. “It’s got to be destroyed. There’s no telling what it⁠—what he has in mind.” Gross sat down weakly on a metal bench. “What a close call for us. We were so damn trusting.”

“What could he be planning,” Kramer said, half to himself. “It doesn’t make sense. I don’t get it.”

As the ship sped back toward the moon base they sat around the table in the dining room, sipping hot coffee and thinking, not saying very much.

“Look here,” Gross said at last. “What kind of man was Professor Thomas? What do you remember about him?”

Kramer put his coffee mug down. “It was ten years ago. I don’t remember much. It’s vague.”

He let his mind run back over the years. He and Dolores had been at Hunt College together, in physics and the life sciences. The College was small and set back away from the momentum of modern life. He had gone there because it was his home town, and his father had gone there before him.

Professor Thomas had been at the College a long time, as long as anyone could remember. He was a strange old man, keeping to himself most of the time. There were many things that he disapproved of, but he seldom said what they were.

“Do you recall anything that might help us?” Gross asked. “Anything that would give us a clue as to what he might have in mind?”

Kramer nodded slowly. “I remember one thing.⁠ ⁠…”

One day he and the Professor had been sitting together in the school chapel, talking leisurely.

“Well, you’ll be out of school, soon,” the Professor had said. “What are you going to do?”

“Do? Work at one of the Government Research Projects, I suppose.”

“And eventually? What’s your ultimate goal?”

Kramer had smiled. “The question is unscientific. It presupposes such things as ultimate ends.”

“Suppose instead along these lines, then: What if there were no war and no Government Research Projects? What would you do, then?”

“I don’t know. But how can I imagine a hypothetical situation like that? There’s been war as long as I can remember. We’re geared for war. I don’t know what I’d do. I suppose I’d adjust, get used to it.”

The Professor had stared at him. “Oh, you do think you’d get accustomed to it, eh? Well, I’m glad of that. And you think you could find something to do?”

Gross listened intently. “What do you infer from this, Kramer?”

“Not much. Except that he was against war.”

“We’re all against war,” Gross pointed out.

“True. But he was withdrawn, set apart. He lived very simply, cooking his own meals. His wife died many years ago. He was born in Europe, in Italy. He changed his name when he came to the United States. He used to read Dante and Milton. He even had a Bible.”

“Very anachronistic, don’t you think?”

“Yes, he lived quite a lot in the past. He found an old