Galactic pot-healer by Philip K. Dick

Author:Philip K. Dick [Dick, Philip K.]
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Science fiction, Fantasy, Adventure, General, Science Fiction - General, Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Fiction - Science Fiction, Space Opera, Short stories, Dick, Philip K. - Prose & Criticism
ISBN: 9780679752974
Publisher: Vintage Books
Published: 2010-01-21T16:03:43+00:00

10

With them, Joe Fernwright thought, there is not life but merely a synopsis of life. We are a thread that passes through their hands; always in motion, always flowing, we slip by and are never fully grasped. The slipping away is continuous, and carries all of us with it, on and on, toward the dreadful alchemy of the tomb.

To Willis he said, “Can you contact Glimmung?”

“You have to say—“

“Willis,” he said, “can you contact Glimmung?” Across the room from him the Kalend stood silently—not silently as an owl might stand, absorbing and subduing noise with its feathers, but silent in the mechanical sense: as if its audio portion had been severed. Is it really there? Joe wondered. It appeared to be substantial; it did not have a ghostly, vaporous, wraithlike quality. It really is there, he said to himself. It has invaded my work-area before I have placed a single shard into the weightless chamber. Before I have ignited one heat-needle.

“I can’t contact Glimmung,” Willis said. “He’s sleeping; this is his time for that. In another twelve hours he’ll wake up and then I can contact him. But he’s left a large number of servo-assist mechanisms ready, in case of an emergency. Do you want any of them activated?”

Joe said, “Tell me what to do. Willis, tell me what the hell to do.”

“About the Kalend? There is no existing record of anyone doing anything about Kalends. Do you want me to research this further? There is one particular computer which I can tie into; perhaps it can make an analysis of your abilities in relation to the nature of the Kalend, and formulate a new interaction which—“

“Do they die?” Joe said.

The robot remained silent.

“Willis,” he said, “can they be killed?”

“That’s hard to say,” the robot said. “They’re not your standard living creature. Also, they all look alike, which makes the problem even more complicated.”

The Kalend laid a copy of The Book on the table beside Joe Fernwright. And waited for him to pick it up.

Silently he picked up the book, held it for a time, and then opened it to the page marked. The text read:

That which Joe Fernwright finds in the sunken cathedral

will cause him to kill Glimmung, and, in doing so, halt

forever the raising of Heldscalla.

That which I will find in the cathedral, Joe said to himself. Down there, under the water. Already down beneath the sea. Waiting for me . . .

He thought, I had better get under the water as soon as I can. Will Glimmung let me? he wondered. Especially after he has read this—and he is probably reading it right now, as I stand here; certainly he follows every alteration of the text as it grows, changes, corrects itself day after day. Hour by hour.

If he is smart, Joe thought, he will kill me first. Before I go under water. Kill me, in fact, now.

He stood there, waiting for Glimmung’s violence to come onto him.

It did not come. That’s right, he remembered. Glimmung is asleep.

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