Dr. Bloodmoney by Philip K Dick

Author:Philip K Dick
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2013-07-06T04:00:00+00:00

TEN

At the Foresters’ Hall, the people of West Marin sat discussing the illness of the man in the satellite. Agitated, they interrupted one another in their eagerness to speak. The reading from Of Human Bondage had begun, but no one in the room wanted to listen; they were all murmuring grim-faced, all of them alarmed, as June Raub was, to realize what would happen to them if the disc jockey were to die.

“He can’t really be that sick,” Cas Stone, the largest land-owner in West Marin, exclaimed. “I never told anybody this, but listen; I’ve got a really good doctor, a specialist in heart diseases, down in San Rafael. I’ll get him to a transmitter somewhere and he can tell Dangerfield what’s the matter with him. And he can cure him.”

“But he’s got no medicines up there,” old Mrs. Lully, the most ancient person in the community, said. “I heard him say once that his departed wife used them all up.”

“I’ve got quinidine,” the pharmacist spoke up. “That’s probably exactly what he needs. But there’s no way to get it up to him.”

Earl Colvig, who headed the West Marin Police, said, “I understand that the Army people at Cheyenne are going to make another try to reach him later this year.”

“Take your quinidine to Cheyenne,” Cas Stone said to the pharmacist.

“To Cheyenne?” the pharmacist quavered. “There aren’t any through roads over the Sierras any more. I’d never get there.”

In as calm a voice as possible, June Raub said, “Perhaps he isn’t actually ill; perhaps it’s only hypochondria, from being isolated and alone up there all these years. Something about the way he detailed each symptom made me suspect that.” However, hardly anyone heard her. The three representatives from Bolinas, she noticed, had gone quietly over beside the radio and were stooping down to listen to the reading. “Maybe he won’t die,” she said, half to herself.

At that, the glasses man glanced up at her. She saw on his face an expression of shock and numbness, as if the realization that the man in the satellite might be sick and would die was too much for him. The illness of his own daughter, she thought, had not affected him so.

A silence fell over the people in the furthest part of the Hall, and June Raub looked to see what had happened.

At the door, a gleaming platform of machinery had rolled into sight. Hoppy Harrington had arrived.

“Hoppy, you know what?” Cas Stone called. “Dangerfield said he’s got something wrong with him, maybe his heart.”

They all became silent, waiting for the phocomelus to speak.

Hoppy rolled past them and up to the radio; he halted his ’mobile, sent one of his manual extensions over to delicately diddle at the tuning knob. The three representatives from Bolinas respectfully stood aside. Static rose, then faded, and the voice of Walt Dangerfield came in clear and strong. The reading was still in progress, and Hoppy, in the center of his machinery, listened intently. He, and the others

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