Radio Free Albemuth by Philip K. Dick

Author:Philip K. Dick
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fiction - Science Fiction, Political, Space Opera, General, United States, Science Fiction, Science Fiction - General, Adventure, Fiction
ISBN: 9780877957621
Publisher: Arbor House
Published: 1985-11-14T05:00:00+00:00

PART THREE

Phil

. . . along with mine, I thought to myself. Nicholas and I are going down the tubes together, if he goes through with this. What a thing to find out.

“You think it’s worth it?” I asked him. “To destroy yourself, your family, and your friends?”

“It has got to be done,” Nicholas said.

“Why?” I demanded. I was in the middle of writing a new novel, the best yet. “Nicholas,” I said, “what’s in the material you’re putting on the LP?”

We were sitting together in the stands at Anaheim Stadium, watching the Angels play. Nolan Ryan was pitching; it was one hell of a game. Pittsburgh was screwing up badly. My last baseball game, I said to myself bitterly as I drank from my bottle of Falstaff beer.

Nicholas said, “Information that will eventually cause Fremont’s fall from power.”

“No information could do that,” I said. I didn’t have that much faith in the written or spoken word; I wasn’t that naive. “And in addition,” I said, “the police will never let you get the record out. They probably know all about it.”

“Admittedly,” Nicholas said. “But we have to try. It may be only that one FAPer, that gung-ho Vivian Kaplan; she may have developed this as a personal, private lead to feather her own nest. Her suspicions may not be police policy.”

“All suspicions are police policy,” I said.

“Our illustrious President,” Nicholas said, “has been a sleeper for the Communist Party.”

“Is that just a slur,” I said, “or can you prove it?”

“We’re putting names, dates, and places into the material and God knows what else. Enough to -”

“But you can’t prove it,” I said. “You have no documents.”

“We have the details. Or anyway the person working with me has. They’re all going on the record, in subliminal form.”

“And then you saturate America.”

“Right.”

“And everybody wakes up one morning,” I said, ‘singing, „Fremont is a Red; Fremont is a Red; better a dead Fremont than a Red,“ and so forth. Chanting the material in unison.”

Nicholas nodded.

“From a million throats,” I said. “Fifty million. Two hundred million. „Better he’s dead than red; better - „“

„This is no joke,” Nicholas said starkly.

“No,” I agreed, “it’s not. It means our lives. Our careers and our lives. The government will forge documents to refute you, if they take notice of the smear at all.”

“It’s the truth,” Nicholas said. “Fremont was trained as an agent of Moscow; it’s a covert Soviet takeover, bloodless and unnoticed. We have the facts.”

“Gee,” I said, as it began to sink in. “No wonder there’s no criticism of him from the Soviet Union.”

“They think he’s great,” Nicholas said.

“Well,” I said, “do it.”

Nicholas glanced at me. “You agree? That’s why I had to tell you. She said I had to.”

“Did you tell Rachel?”

Tin going to.”

“Johnny will have different parents,” I said. And, I thought, someone else will have to write the great American science fiction novel. “Do it,” I said, “and do it good. Press a million of the damn things. Two million. Mail a copy to every radio station in America, AM and FM.

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