Ubik

“Hollis Talents,” a polished female voice said in his ear and, on the screen, a girl’s face, modified by artificial beauty aids of an advanced nature, manifested itself. “Oh, Mr. Chip,” the girl said, recognizing him. “Mr. Hollis left word with us that you’d call. We’ve been expecting you all afternoon.”

Precogs, Joe thought.

“Mr. Hollis,” the girl said, “instructed us to put your call through to him; he wants to handle your needs personally. Would you hold on a moment while I put you through? So just a moment, Mr. Chip; the next voice that you hear will be Mr. Hollis’, God willing.” Her face vanished; he confronted a blank gray screen.

A grim blue face with recessive eyes swam into focus, a mysterious countenance floating without neck or body. The eyes reminded him of flawed jewels; they shone but the faceting had gone wrong; the eyes scattered light in irregular directions. “Hello, Mr. Chip.”

So this is what he looks like, Joe thought. Photographs haven’t caught this, the imperfect planes and surfaces, as if the whole brittle edifice had once been dropped, had broken, had then been reglued—but not quite as before. “The Society,” Joe said, “will receive a full report on your murder of Glen Runciter. They own a lot of legal talent; you’ll be in court the rest of your life.” He waited for the face to react, but it did not. “We know you did it,” he said, and felt the futility of it, the pointlessness of what he was doing.

“As to the purpose of your call,” Hollis said in a slithering voice which reminded Joe of snakes crawling over one another, “Mr. Runciter will not—”

Shaking, Joe hung up the receiver.

He walked back up the corridor along which he had come; he reached the lounge once more where Al Hammond sat morosely picking apart a dry-as-dust former cigarette. There was a moment of silence and then Al raised his head.

“It’s no,” Joe said.

“Vogelsang came around looking for you,” Al said. “He acted very strange, and it was obvious what’s been going on back there. Six will get you eight he’s afraid to tell you outright; he’ll probably go through a long routine but it’ll boil down like you say, it’ll boil down to no. So what now?” He waited.

“Now we get Hollis,” Joe said.

“We won’t get Hollis.”

“The Society—” He broke off. The owner of the moratorium had sidled into the lounge, looking nervous and haggard but attempting at the same time to emit an aura of detached, austere prowess.

“We did what we could. At such low temperatures the flow of current is virtually unimpeded; there’s no perceptible resistance at minus 150g. The signal should have bounced out clear and strong, but all we got from the amplifier was a sixty-cycle hum. Remember, however, that we did not supervise the original cold-pac installation. Bear that in mind.”

Al said, “We have it in mind.” He rose stiffly to his feet and stood facing Joe. “I guess that’s it.”

“I’ll talk to Ella,” Joe said.

“Now?” Al said. “You better wait until you know what you’re going to say. Tell her tomorrow. Go home and get some sleep.”

“To go home,” Joe said, “is to go home to Pat Conley. I’m in no shape to cope with her either.”

“Take a hotel room here in Zurich,” Al said. “Disappear. I’ll go back to the ship, tell the others, and report to the Society. You can delegate it to me in writing.” To von Vogelsang he said, “Bring us a pen and a sheet of paper.”

“You know who I feel like talking to?” Joe said, as the moratorium owner scuttled off in search of pen and paper. “Wendy Wright. She’ll know what to do, I value her opinion. Why is that? I wonder. I barely know her.” He noticed then that subtle background music hung over the lounge. It had been there all this time. The same as on the chopper. “Dies irae, dies illa,” the voices sang darkly. “Solvet saeclum in favilla, teste David cum Sybilla.” The Verdi Requiem, he realized. Von Vogelsang, probably personally with his own two hands, switched it on at nine A.M, every morning when he arrived for work.

“Once you get your hotel room,” Al said, “I could probably talk Wendy Wright into showing up there.”

“That would be immoral,” Joe said.

“What?” Al stared at him. “At a time like this? When the whole organization is about to sink into oblivion unless you can pull yourself together? Anything that’ll make you function is desirable, in fact necessary. Go back to the phone, call a hotel, come back here and tell me the name of the hotel and the—”

“All our money is worthless,” Joe said. “I can’t operate the phone, not unless I can find a coin collector who’ll trade me another Swiss ten-franc piece of current issue.”

“Geez,” Al said; he let out his breath in a groaning sigh and shook his head.

“Is it my fault?” Joe said. “Did I make that quarter you gave me obsolete?” He felt anger.

“In some weird way,” Al said, “yes, it is your fault. But I don’t know how. Maybe one day I’ll figure it out. Okay, we’ll both go back to Pratfall II. You can pick Wendy Wright up there and take her to the hotel with you.”

“Quantus tremor est futurus,” the voices sang. “Quando judex est venturus, cuncta stricte discussurus.”

“What’ll I pay the hotel with? They won’t take our money any more than the phone will.”

Cursing, Al yanked out his wallet, examined the bills in it. “These are old but still in circulation.” He inspected the coins in his pockets. “These aren’t in circulation.” He tossed the coins to the carpet of the lounge, ridding himself, as the phone had, in disgust. “Take these bills.” He handed the paper currency to Joe. “There’s enough there for the hotel room for one night, di

“I’ll pay you back,” Joe said. “As pro tem director of Runciter Associates, I’ll draw a higher salary; I’ll be able to pay all my debts off, including the back taxes, penalties and fines which the income-tax people—”

“Without Pat Conley? Without her help?”

“I can throw her out now,” Joe said.

Al said, “I wonder.”

“This is a new start for me. A new lease on life.” I can run the firm, he said to himself. Certainly I won’t make the mistake that Runciter made; Hollis, posing as Stanton Mick, won’t lure me and my inertials off Earth where we can be gotten at.

“In my opinion,” Al said hollowly, “you have a will to fail. No combination of circumstances—including this—is going to change that.”

“What I actually have,” Joe said, “is a will to succeed. Glen Runciter saw that, which is why he specified in his will that I take over in the event of his death and the failure of the Beloved Brethren Moratorium to revive him into half-life, or any other reputable moratorium as specified by me.” Within him his confidence rose; he saw now the manifold possibilities ahead, as clearly as if he had precog abilities. And then he remembered Pat’s talent, what she could do to precogs, to any attempt to foresee the future.

“Tuba mirum spargens sonum,” the voices sang. “Per sepulchra regionum coget omnes ante thronum.”

Reading his expression, Al said, “You’re not going to throw her out. Not with what she can do.”

“I’ll rent a room at the Zurich Rootes Hotel,” Joe decided. “As per your outlined proposal.” But, he thought, Al’s right. It won’t work; Pat, or even something worse, will move in and destroy me. I’m doomed, in the classic sense. An image thrust itself into his agitated, fatigued mind: a bird caught in cobwebs. Age hung about the image, and this frightened him; this aspect of it seemed literal and real. And, he thought, prophetic. But he could not make out exactly how. The coins, he thought. Out of circulation, rejected by the phone. Collectors’ items. Like ones found in museums. Is that it? Hard to say. He really didn’t know.