The Golden Man by Philip K. Dick

Author:Philip K. Dick [Dick, Philip K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781443442800
Publisher: HarperCollins Canada
Published: 2014-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

A tight group of top-level DCA officials stood around in a circle, middle-aged, gray-haired, listening to a skinny youth in a white shirt and rolled-up sleeves explaining an elaborate cube of metal and plastic that filled the center of the view-platform. From it jutted an ugly array of tube snouts, gleaming muzzles that disappeared into an intricate maze of wiring.

“This,” the youth was saying briskly, “is the first real test. It fires at random—as nearly random as we can make it, at least. Weighted balls are thrown up in an air stream, then dropped free to fall back and cut relays. They can fall in almost any pattern. The thing fires according to their pattern. Each drop produces a new configuration of timing and position. Ten tubes, in all. Each will be in constant motion.”

“And nobody knows how they’ll fire?” Anita asked.

“Nobody.” Wisdom rubbed his thick hands together. “Mind reading won’t help him, not with this thing.”

Anita moved over to the view windows, as the cube was rolled into place. She gasped. “Is that him?”

“What’s wrong?” Baines asked.

Anita’s cheeks were flushed. “Why, I expected a—a thing. My God, he’s beautiful! Like a golden statue. Like a deity!”

Baines laughed. “He’s eighteen years old, Anita. Too young for you.”

The woman was still peering through the view window. “Look at him. Eighteen? I don’t believe it.”

Cris Johnson sat in the center of the chamber, on the floor. A posture of contemplation, head bowed, arms folded, legs tucked under him. In the stark glare of the overhead lights his powerful body glowed and rippled, a shimmering figure of downy gold.

“Pretty, isn’t he?” Wisdom muttered. “All right. Start it going.”

“You’re going to kill him?” Anita demanded.

“We’re going to try.”

“But he’s—” She broke off uncertainly. “He’s not a monster. He’s not like those others, those hideous things with two heads, or those insects. Or those awful things from Tunis.”

“What is he, then?” Baines asked.

“I don’t know. But you can’t just kill him. It’s terrible!”

The cube clicked into life. The muzzles jerked, silently altered position. Three retracted, disappeared into the body of the cube. Others came out. Quickly, efficiently, they moved into position—and abruptly, without warning, opened fire.

A staggering burst of energy fanned out, a complex pattern that altered each moment, different angles, different velocities, a bewildering blur that cracked from the windows down into the chamber.

The golden figure moved. He dodged back and forth, expertly avoiding the bursts of energy that seared around him on all sides. Rolling clouds of ash obscured him; he was lost in a mist of crackling fire and ash.

“Stop it!” Anita shouted. “For God’s sake, you’ll destroy him!”

The chamber was an inferno of energy. The figure had completely disappeared. Wisdom waited a moment, then nodded to the technicians operating the cube. They touched guide buttons and the muzzles slowed and died. Some sank back into the cube. All became silent. The works of the cube ceased humming.

Cris Johnson was still alive. He emerged from the settling clouds of ash, blackened and singed.

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