Maybe, he thought, I’ve come to the end. He began to walk toward the abandoned drugstore, not taking his eyes from it; he watched it pulse, he watched it change between its two states, and then, as he got closer and closer to it, he discerned the nature of its alternate conditions. At the amplitude of greater stability it became a retail home-art outlet of his own time period, homeostatic in operation, a self-service enterprise selling ten-thousand commodities for the modern conapt; he had patronized such highly functional computer-controlled pseudo merchants throughout his adult life.
And, at the amplitude of insubstantiality, it resolved itself into a tiny, anachronistic drugstore with rococo ornamentation. In its meager window displays he saw hernia belts, rows of corrective eyeglasses, a mortar and pestle, jars of assorted tablets, a hand-printed sign reading LEECHES, huge glass-stoppered bottles that contained a Pandora’s heritage of patent medicines and placebos…and, painted on a flat wood board running across the top of the windows, the words ARCHER’S DRUGSTORE. No sign whatever of an empty, abandoned, closed-up store; its 1939 stage had somehow been excluded. He thought, So in entering it I either revert further or I find myself back roughly in my own time. And—it’s the further reversion, the pre-1939 phase, that I evidently need.
Presently he stood before it, experiencing physically the tidal tug of the amplitudes; he felt himself drawn back, then ahead, then back again. Pedestrians clumped by, taking no notice; obviously, none of them saw what he saw: They perceived neither Archer’s Drugstore nor the 1992 home-art outlet. That mystified him most of all.
As the structure swung directly into its ancient phase he stepped forward, crossed the threshold. And entered Archer’s Drugstore.
To the right a long marble-topped counter. Boxes on the shelves, dingy in color; the whole store had a black quality to it, not merely in regard to the absence of light but rather a protective coloration, as if it had been constructed to blend, to merge with shadows, to be at all times opaque. It had a heavy, dense quality; it pulled him down, weighing on him like something installed permanently on his back. And it had ceased to oscillate. At least for him, now that he had entered it. He wondered if he had made the right choice; now, too late, he considered the alternative, what it might have meant. A return—possibly—to his own time. Out of this devolved world of constantly declining time-binding capacity—out, perhaps, forever. Well, he thought, so it goes. He wandered about the drugstore, observing the brass and the wood, evidently walnut…he came at last to the prescription window at the rear.
A wispy young man, wearing a gray, many-buttoned suit with vest, appeared and silently confronted him. For a long time Joe and the man looked at each other, neither speaking. The only sound came from a wall clock with Latin numerals on its round face; its pendulum ticked back and forth inexorably. After the fashion of clocks. Everywhere.
Joe said, “I’d like a jar of Ubik.”
“The salve?” the druggist said. His lips did not seem properly synchronized with his words; first Joe saw the man’s mouth open, the lips move, and then, after a measurable interval, he heard the words.
“Is it a salve?” Joe said. “I thought it was for internal use.”
The druggist did not respond for an interval. As if a gulf separated the two of them, an epoch of time. Then at last his mouth again opened, his lips again moved. And, presently, Joe heard words. “Ubik has undergone many alterations as the manufacturer has improved it. You may be familiar with the old Ubik, rather than the new.” The druggist turned to one side, and his movement had a stop-action quality; he flowed in a slow, measured, dancelike step, an esthetically pleasing rhythm but emotionally jolting. “We have had a great deal of difficulty obtaining Ubik of late,” he said as he flowed back; in his right hand he held a flat leaded tin which he placed before Joe on the prescription counter. “This comes in the form of a powder to which you add coal tar. The coal tar comes separate; I can supply that to you at very little cost. The Ubik powder, however, is dear. Forty dollars.”
“What’s in it?” Joe asked. The price chilled him.
“That is the manufacturer’s secret.”
Joe picked up the sealed tin and held it to the light. “Is it all right if I read the label?”
“Of course.”
In the dim light entering from the street he at last managed to make out the printing on the label of the tin. It continued the handwritten message on the traffic citation, picking up at the exact point at which Runciter’s writing had abruptly stopped.
absolutely untrue. She did not—repeat,
not—try to use her talent following the
bomb blast. She did not try to restore
Wendy Wright or Al Hammond or Edie Dorn.
She’s lying to you, Joe, and that makes
me rethink the whole situation. I’ll
let you know as soon as I come to a
conclusion. Meanwhile be very careful.
By the way: Ubik powder is of universal
healing value if directions for use are
rigorously and conscientiously followed.
“Can I make you out a check?” Joe asked the druggist. “I don’t have forty dollars with me and I need the Ubik badly. It’s literally a matter hanging between life and death.” He reached into his jacket pocket for his checkbook.
“You’re not from Des Moines, are you?” the druggist said. “I can tell by your accent. No, I’d have to know you to take a check that large. We’ve had a whole rash of bad checks the last few weeks, all by people from out of town.”
“Credit card, then?”
The druggist said, “What is a ‘credit card’?”
Laying down the tin of Ubik, Joe turned and walked wordlessly out of the drugstore onto the sidewalk. He crossed the street, starting in the direction of the hotel, then paused to look back at the drugstore.
He saw only a dilapidated yellow building, curtains in its upstairs windows, the ground floor boarded up and deserted; through the spaces between the boards he saw gaping darkness, the cavity of a broken window. Without life.
And that is that, he realized. The opportunity to buy a tin of Ubik powder is gone. Even if I were to find forty dollars lying on the pavement. But, he thought, I did get the rest of Runciter’s warning. For what it’s worth. It may not even be true. It may be only a deformed and misguided opinion by a dying brain. Or by a totally dead brain—as in the case of the TV commercial. Christ, he said to himself dismally. Suppose it is true?
Persons here and there on the sidewalk stared up absorbedly at the sky. Noticing them, Joe looked up too. Shielding his eyes against the slanting shafts of sun, he distinguished a dot exuding white trails of smoke: a high-flying monoplane industriously skywriting. As he and the other pedestrians watched, the already dissipating streamers spelled out a message.
KEEP THE OLD SWIZER UP, JOE!
Easy to say, Joe said to himself. Easy enough to write out in the form of words.
Hunched over with uneasy gloom—and the first faint intimations of returning terror—he shuffled off in the direction of the Meremont Hotel.
Don Denny met him in the high-ceilinged, provincial, crimson-carpeted lobby. “We found her,” he said. “It’s all over—for her, anyhow. And it wasn’t pretty, not pretty at all. Now Fred Zafsky is gone. I thought he was in the other car, and they thought he went along with us. Apparently, he didn’t get into either car; he must be back at the mortuary.”
“It’s happening faster now,” Joe said. He wondered how much difference Ubik—dangled toward them again and again in countless different ways but always out of reach—would have made. I guess we’ll never know, he decided. “Can we get a drink here?” he asked Don Denny. “What about money? Mine’s worthless.”
“The mortuary is paying for everything. Runciter’s instructions to them.”
“The hotel tab too?” It struck him as odd. How had that been managed? “I want you to look at this citation,” he said to Don Denny. “While no one else is
with us.” He passed the slip of paper over to him. “I have the rest of the message; that’s where I’ve been: getting it.”
Denny read the citation, then reread it. Then, slowly, handed it back to Joe. “Runciter thinks Pat Conley is lying,” he said.
“Yes,” Joe said.
“You realize what that would mean?” His voice rose sharply. “It means she could have nullified all this. Everything that’s happened to us, starting with Runciter’s death.”
Joe said, “It could mean more than that.”
Eying him, Denny said, “You’re right. Yes, you’re absolutely right.” He looked startled and, then, acutely responsive. Awareness glittered in his face. Of an unhappy, stricken kind.
“I don’t particularly feel like thinking about it,” Joe said. “I don’t like anything about it. It’s worse. A lot worse than what I thought before, what Al Hammond believed, for example. Which was bad enough.”
“But this could be it,” Denny said.
“Throughout all that’s been happening,” Joe said, “I’ve kept trying to understand why. I was sure if I knew why—” But Al never thought of this, he said to himself. Both of us let it drop out of our minds. For a good reason.
Denny said, “Don’t say anything to the rest of them. This may not be true; and even if it is, knowing it isn’t going to help them.”
“Knowing what?” Pat Conley said from behind them. “What isn’t going to help them?” She came around in front of them now, her black, color-saturated eyes wise and calm. Serenely calm. “It’s a shame about Edie Dorn,” she said. “And Fred Zafsky; I guess he’s gone too. That doesn’t really leave very many of us, does it? I wonder who’ll be next.” She seemed undisturbed, totally in control of herself. “Tippy is lying down in her room. She didn’t say she felt tired, but I think we must assume she is. Don’t you agree?”
After a pause Don Denny said, “Yes, I agree.”
“How did you make out with your citation, Joe?” Pat said. She held out her hand. “Can I take a look at it?”
Joe passed it to her. The moment, he thought, has come; everything is now; rolled up into the present. Into one instant.
“How did the policeman know my name?” Pat asked, after she had glanced over it; she raised her eyes, looked intently at Joe and then at Don Denny. “Why is there something here about me?”
She doesn’t recognize the writing, Joe said to himself. Because she’s not familiar with it. As the rest of us are. “Runciter,” he said. “You’re doing it, aren’t you, Pat?” he said. “It’s you, your talent. We’re here because of you.”
“And you’re killing us off,” Don Denny said to her. “One by one. But why?” To Joe he said, “What reason could she have? She doesn’t even know us, not really.”
“Is this why you came to Runciter Associates?” Joe asked her. He tried—but failed—to keep his voice steady; in his ears it wavered and he felt abrupt contempt for himself. “G. G. Ashwood scouted you and brought you in. Was he working for Hollis, is that it? Is that what really happened to us—not the bomb blast but you?”
Pat smiled.
And the lobby of the hotel blew up in Joe Chip’s face.
THIRTEEN
* * *
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Darkness hummed about him, clinging to him like coagulated, damp, warm wool. The terror he had felt as intimation fused with the darkness became whole and real. I wasn’t careful, he realized. I didn’t do what Runciter told me to do; I let her see the citation.
“What’s the matter, Joe?” Don Denny’s voice, edged with great worry. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m okay.” He could see a little now; the darkness had grown horizontal lines of gray, as if it had begun to decompose. “I just feel tired,” he said, and realized how really tired his body had become. He could not remember such fatigue. Never before in his life.
Don Denny said, “Let me help you to a chair.” Joe felt his hand clamped over his shoulder; he felt Denny guiding him, and this made him afraid, this need to be led. He pulled away.
“I’m okay,” he repeated. The shape of Denny had started to form near him; he concentrated on it, then once again distinguished the turn-of-the-century lobby with its ornate crystal chandelier and its complicated yellow light. “Let me sit down,” he said and, groping, found a cane-bottomed chair.
To Pat, Don Denny said harshly, “What did you do to him?”
“She didn’t do anything to me,” Joe said, trying to make his voice firm. But it dipped shrilly, with unnatural overtones. As if it’s speeded up, he thought. High-pitched. Not my own.
“That’s right,” Pat said. “I didn’t do anything to him or to anybody else.”
Joe said, “I want to go upstairs and lie down.”
“I’ll get you a room,” Don Denny said nervously; he hovered near Joe, appearing and then disappearing as the lights of the lobby ebbed. The light waned into dull red, then grew stronger, then waned once more. “You stay there in that chair, Joe; I’ll be right back.” Denny hurried off in the direction of the desk. Pat remained.
“Anything I can do for you?” Pat asked pleasantly.
“No,” he said. It took vast effort, saying the word aloud; it clung to the internal cavern lodged in his heart, a hollowness which grew with each second. “A cigarette, maybe,” he said, and saying the full sentence exhausted him; he felt his heart labor. The difficult beating increased his burden; it was a further weight pressing down on him, a huge hand squeezing. “Do you have one?” he said, and managed to look up at her through the smoky red light. The fitful, flickering glow of an unrobust reality.
“Sorry,” Pat said. “No got.”
Joe said, “What’s—the matter with me?”
“Cardiac arrest, maybe,” Pat said.
“Do you think there’s a hotel doctor?” he managed to say.
“I doubt it.”
“You won’t see? You won’t look?”
Pat said, “I think it’s merely psychosomatic. You’re not really sick. You’ll recover.”
Returning, Don Denny said, “I’ve got a room for you, Joe. On the second floor, Room 203.” He paused, and Joe felt his scrutiny, the concern of his gaze. “Joe, you look awful. Frail. Like you’re about to blow away. My god, Joe, do you know what you look like? You look like Edie Dorn looked when we found her.”
“Oh, nothing like that,” Pat said. “Edie Dorn is dead. Joe isn’t dead. Are you, Joe?”
Joe said, “I want to go upstairs. I want to lie down.” Somehow he got to his feet; his heart thudded, seemed to hesitate, to not beat for a moment, and then it resumed, slamming like an upright iron ingot crashing against cement; each pulse of it made his whole body shudder. “Where’s the elevator?” he said.
“I’ll lead you over to it,” Denny said; again his hand clamped over Joe’s shoulder. “You’re like a feather,” Denny said. “What’s happening to you, Joe? Can you say? Do you know? Try to tell me.”
“He doesn’t know,” Pat said.
“I think he should have a doctor,” Denny said. “Right away.”
“No,” Joe said. Lying down will help me, he said to himself; he felt an oceanic pull, an enormous tide tugging at him: It urged him to lie down. It compelled him toward one thing alone, to stretch out, on his back, alone, upstairs in his hotel room. Where no one could see him. I have to get away, he said to himself. I’ve got to be by myself. Why? he wondered. He did not know; it had invaded him as an instinct, nonrational, impossible to understand or explain.
“I’ll go get a doctor,” Denny said. “Pat, you stay here with him. Don’t let him out of your sight. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He started off; Joe dimly saw his retreating form. Denny appeared to shrink, to dwindle. And then he was entirely gone. Patricia Conley remained, but that did not ma
ke him feel less alone. His isolation, in spite of her physical presence, had become absolute.
“Well, Joe,” she said. “What do you want? What can I do for you? Just name it.”
“The elevator,” he said.
“You want me to lead you over to the elevator? I’ll be glad to.” She started off, and, as best he could, he followed. It seemed to him that she walked unusually fast; she did not wait and she did not look back—he found it almost impossible to keep her in sight. Is it my imagination, he asked himself, that she’s moving so rapidly? It must be me; I’m slowed down, compressed by gravity. His world had assumed the attribute of pure mass. He perceived himself in one mode only: that of an object subjected to the pressure of weight. One quality, one attribute. And one experience. Inertia.
“Not so fast,” he said. He could not see her now; she had lithely trotted beyond his range of vision. Standing there, not able to move any farther, he panted; he felt his face drip and his eyes sting from the salty moisture. “Wait,” he said.
Pat reappeared. He distinguished her face as she bent to peer at him. Her perfect and tranquil expression. The disinterestedness of her attention, its scientific detachment. “Want me to wipe your face?” she asked; she brought out a handkerchief, small and dainty and lace-edged. She smiled, the same smile as before.
“Just get me into the elevator.” He compelled his body to move forward. One step. Two. Now he could make out the elevator, with several persons waiting for it. The old-fashioned dial above the sliding doors with its clock hand. The hand, the baroque needle, wavered between three and four; it retired to the left, reaching the three, then wavered between three and two.
“It’ll be here in a sec,” Pat said. She got her cigarettes and lighter from her purse, lit up, exhaled trails of gray smoke from her nostrils. “It’s a very ancient kind of elevator,” she said to him, her arms folded sedately. “You know what I think? I think it’s one of those old open iron cages. Do they scare you?”