Twin lights flashed ahead of her. She halted, cautiously, gasping for breath. Wondering what she had arrived at.
A car lowered itself warily to the surface of the desert, its signal lights flashing on and off. It landed, stopped.
The door opened.
“Mrs. Gaines!” a cheerful voice called.
Peering, Freya walked toward the car.
Behind the wheel sat a balding, friendly-looking elderly man. “I’m glad I found you,” the elderly man said. “Get in and we’ll drive out of this dreadful desert-area. Where exactly do you want to go?” He chuckled. “Carmel?”
“No,” Freya said. “Not Carmel.” Never again, she thought.
“Where then? What about Pocatello, Idaho?”
“Why Pocatello?” Freya demanded. But she got into the car; it was better than continuing to wander aimlessly across the desert, alone in the darkness, with no one—certainly none of the group—to help her. To give a damn about what happened to her.
The elderly man, as he started up the car, said pleasantly, “I’m Doctor E.R. Philipson.”
She stared at him. She knew—she was positive she knew—who he was. Or rather, who it was.
“Do you want to get out?” Doctor Philipson asked her. “I could, if you wish, set you back down there again where I found you.”
“N-no,” Freya murmured. She sat back in her seat, scrutinized him thoroughly, thinking to herself many thoughts.
Doctor E.R. Philipson said to her, “Mrs. Gaines, how would you like to work for us, for a change?” He glanced her way, smiling, a smile without warmth or humor. A smile utterly cold.
Freya said, “It’s an interesting proposal, but I’d have to think it over. I couldn’t decide just like that, right now.”
Very interesting indeed, she thought. “You’ll have time,” Doctor Philipson said. “We’re patient. You’ll have all the time in the world.” His eyes twinkled. Freya smiled back.
Humming confidently to himself, Doctor Philipson drove the car toward Idaho, skimming across the dark night sky of Earth.
First Vintage Books Edition, July 1992
Copyright © 1963 by The Estate of Philip K. Dick
Copyright renewed 1991 by Laura Coehlo, Christopher Dick and Isa Hackett
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published by Ace Books, in 1963.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dick, Philip K.
The game-players of Titan / Philip K. Dick.—1st Vintage Books ed.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-49562-4
I. Title.
PS3554.I3G3 1992
813’.54—dc20 91-50893
CIP
For information about the Philip K. Dick Society,
write to: PKDS, Box 611, Glen Ellen, CA 95442.
v3.0
Philip K. Dick, The Game-Players of Titan
(Series: # )
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