Dick, Philip K - World of Chance.pdf - Philip K Dick - przemosta

WORLD

CHANCE

Philip K. Dick

He sought to deliver

Society from the

collapse and chaos

of the world of 2203

A Universe

of Chaos and

Cynicism . . .

a society in which the very concept of honesty has ceased to exist . . . . In the

world of 2203, power and authority are distributed on a random basis, taken and

given in a chance manner that cannot be predicted.

Then, somehow, corruption sets in . . . the supreme authority is undermined;

even more disturbing, the principle of randomness - the very foundation on

which this civilization is built is being exploited by a fanatical crackpot.

CHAPTER I

THERE had been harbingers.

Early in May of 2203 newsmachines were excited by a flight of white crows over

Sweden. A series of unexplained fires demolished half the Oiseau-Lyre Hill, an

industrial pivot of the system. Small stones fell near work-camp installations on

Mars. At Batavia, the Directorate of the nine-planet Federation, a two-headed calf

was born, a sign that something of incredible magnitude was brewing.

Everybody speculated on what the forces of Nature intended. Everybody guessed,

consulted, and argued about the bottle-the socialized instrument of chance.

Directorate fortune-tellers were booked up weeks in advance.

But one man's harbinger is another man's event. The first reaction from Oiseau-

Lyre to its limited catastrophe was to create total catastrophe for half its

employees. Fealty oaths were dissolved, and a variety of research technicians

were tossed out. Adrift, they became a further symptom of the approaching

moment-of-importance for the system. Most of these technicians floundered and

were lost among the masses. But not all.

Ted Benteley yanked his dismissal notice from the board and as he walked to his

office he tore the notice to bits. His reaction differed from that of those around

him; he was glad to have his oath severed. For thirteen years he had been trying

to break his fealty oath with Oiseau-Lyre.

He locked his office door, snapped off his Inter-Plan Visual Industries Corp.

screen, and did some thinking. It took only an hour to develop his plan of action.

At noon Oiseau-Lyre's outworker department returned his power card. His one

chance out of six billion in the great lottery. His fragile possibility of being

twitched by

the random motion of the bottle to the Number One class position. Politically

speaking, he was back thirty-three years; the power-card was coded at the

moment of birth.

At two-thirty he dissolved his remaining fealty connections at Oiseau-Lyre; they

were mostly with himself as protector and somebody else as serf. By four o'clock

he had liquidated his assets and had bought a first-class transport ticket. Before

nightfall he was on his way out of Europe, heading for the Indonesian Empire.

In Batavia he rented a room and unpacked his case; the rest of his possessions

were still in France. Curiously, his room overlooked the main Directorate

building. Like tropical flies people crept in and out of its many doors. All roads,

and all space-lanes, led to Batavia.

His funds didn't amount to much; he could stall only so long. From the Public

Information Library he picked up armloads of tape and a basic scanner. As the

days passed he built up information relating to all aspects of biochemistry, the

subject on which his original classification had been won. As he scanned and

crammed he kept one thought in mind: applications for positional-fealty oaths

were processed only once; if he failed in the first try he was finished.

That first try was going to be successful. He was free of the Hill system, and he

wasn't going back.

During the next five days he smoked endless cigarettes, paced his room, and

finally got out the yellow section of the ipvic directory to look up the local girl

agencies. His favourite agency had a nearby office; within an hour most of his

psychological problems were solved. With the aid of the blonde sent by the

agency and the cocktail bar down the street, he was able to last another twenty-

four hours. But that was as far as he could string it out; the time to act had come.

A cold chill lay over him as he got out of bed. With Quizmaster Verrick

employment oaths were apparently handed out haphazardly. It was impossible to

deduce what factor, if any, determined successful application.

He shaved, dressed, paid Lori her wages, and sent her back to the agency.

Loneliness hit him hard. And fear. He surrendered his room, stored his suit-case,

and bought himself a second good luck charm. In a public washroom he buttoned

the charm inside his shirt and dropped a coin in the phenol-barb dispenser. The

sedative calmed him; he emerged and flagged down a robot taxi.

"Main Directorate building," he told the driver, "and take your time."

"All right, sir or madam," the MacMillan robot answered; MacMillans weren't

capable of fine discriminations.

Spring air billowed into the cab as it zipped above the rooftops. Benteley wasn't

interested; his eyes were fixed on the growing syndrome of buildings ahead. His

written papers had been shot in the night before. He had waited about the right

time; they should be appearing on the desk of the first checker in the chain of

Directorate officials.

"Here we are, sir or madam." The robot taxi settled down and grappled itself to a

halt. Benteley stepped from the open door.

On a main pedestrian artery he paused to light a cigarette. His hands weren't

shaking, not really. He shoved his case under his arm as he reached the

processing lounge. Perhaps by this time next month he would be under fealty to

the Directorate . . . he touched one of the charms inside his shirt.

"Ted," a voice came, small and urgent. "Wait!"

He halted as Lori threaded her way through the crowd and came to him.

"I have something for you," she said breathlessly. "I knew I'd catch you here."

"What is it?" Benteley demanded. He knew that the Directorate's special Corps

was close by; he didn't want his intimate thoughts known by eighty bored

telepaths.

Lori reached round his neck and clicked something in place. It was another good

luck charm.

Benteley examined the charm. "You think it'll do me any good?" he asked.

"I hope so." She touched his arm briefly. "Thanks for being so nice. You hustled

me off before I could tell you." She lingered plaintively. "If you get taken on you'll

probably stay here in Batavia."

Irritably, Benteley answered: "You're being observed. Verrick has observers

planted all over the place."

"I don't mind," Lori said wistfully. "Call girls have nothing to conceal."

"I don't like it." Benteley shrugged. "But if I'm going to hook on here I'll have to

get used to being watched."

He moved towards the central desk, his identifying cards ready. A few moments

later the MacMillan official accepted them.

"All right, Ted Benteley. You may go in."

Benteley stubbed out his cigarette and turned towards the inner offices.

"I'll look you up," he murmured to Lori as he stepped through the door.

He was inside: it had begun.

A small middle-aged man with steel-rimmed glasses and a tiny waxed moustache

was standing by the door watching him intently.

"You're Benteley?"

"That's right," Benteley answered. "I'm here to see Quizmaster Verrick."

"Why?"

"I'm looking for a class 8-8 position."

A girl pushed abruptly into the office. Ignoring Benteley, she said rapidly:

"Well, it's over." She touched her temple. "See? Now are you satisfied?"

"Don't blame me," the small man said. "It's the law."

"The law!" The girl shrugged her crimson hair out of

her eyes. She grabbed a packet of cigarettes from the desk and lit up with shaky

fingers. "Let's get out, Peter. There's nothing of importance left."

"You know I'm staying," the small man said.

The girl half-turned as she noticed Benteley for the first time. Her green eyes

flickered with interest.

"Who are you?"

"Maybe you'd better come back some other time," the small man said to Benteley.

"This isn't exactly the--"

"I didn't come this far to get chucked out," Benteley said hoarsely. "Where's

Verrick?"

The girl eyed him curiously. "You want to see Reese? What are you selling?"

"I'm a biochemist," Benteley answered, "looking for a class 8-8 position."

Amusement twisted the girl's lips. "Is that so? Interesting. . . ." She shrugged her

bare shoulders. "Swear him, Peter."

The small man hesitated.

"I'm Peter Wakeman," he said to Benteley. "This girl is Eleanor Stevens, Verrick's

private secretary."

It wasn't exactly what Benteley had expected. There was a silence as the three of

them appraised one another.

"The MacMillan passed him in," Wakeman said presently. "There's an open call

for 8-8 people. But I think Verrick has no need for more biochemists."

"What do you know about it?" Eleanor Stevens demanded. "You're not running

personnel."

"I'm using common sense." Very deliberately Wakeman moved between the girl

and Benteley. "I'm sorry," he said to the man. "You're wasting your time here. Go

to the Hill offices-they're always buying and selling biochemists."

"I know," Benteley said. "I've worked for the Hill system since I was sixteen."

"Then what do you want here?" Eleanor asked.

"Oiseau-Lyre dropped me."

"Go over to Soong."

"I'm not working for any more Hills!" Benteley's voice lifted harshly. "I'm through

with the Hills."

"Why?" Wakeman asked.

Benteley grunted.

"The Hills are corrupt. The whole system's decaying. It's up for sale to the highest

bidder . . . and bidding's going on."

Wakeman pondered. "I don't see what that matters to you. You have your work;

that's what you're supposed to be thinking about."

"For my time, skill and loyalty I get money," Benteley agreed. "I have a lab and

equipment that cost more to build than I'll earn in a lifetime. But what is the

result of my work? Where does it go?" Benteley struggled to continue. "I stood the

smell of Oiseau-Lyre as long as possible. The Hills are supposed to be separate,

independent economic units; actually, they're sliding together into a

homogeneous mass. It isn't merely a question of mis-shipments and expense

padding and doctored tax returns. You know the Hill slogan: SERVICE IS GOOD

AND BETTER SERVICE IS BEST. That's a laugh! You think the Hills care about

serving anybody? Instead of existing for the public good they're parasites on the

public."

"I never imagined the Hills were philanthropic organizations," Wakeman said.

Benteley moved away from them. Why did he get upset about the Hills? Nobody

had complained yet. But he was complaining. Maybe it was lack of realism on his

part, an anachronistic survival the child-guidance clinic hadn't been able to shake

out of him. Whatever it was, he had taken as much as he could stand.

"How do you know the Directorate is any better?" Wakeman asked. "You have a

lot of illusions about it, I think."

"Let him swear," Eleanor said indifferently.

Wakeman shook his head. "I won't swear him."

"I will, then," the girl answered.

From the desk drawer Wakeman got a flask and poured himself a drink.

"Anybody care to join me?"

Benteley turned irritably. "Is this the way the Directorate is run?"

Wakeman smiled. "Your illusions are being shattered. Stay where you are,

Benteley; you don't know when you're well off."

Eleanor slid from the desk and hurried out of the room. She returned in a

moment with the customary symbol-representation of the Quizmaster. "Come

over here, Benteley. I'll accept your oath." She placed the small plastic flesh-

coloured bust of Reese Verrick in the centre of the desk and turned briskly to

Benteley. As Benteley moved towards the desk she reached up and touched the

cloth bag hanging from a string round his neck, the charm Lori had put there.

"What kind of charm is that?" she asked.

Benteley showed her the bit of magnetized steel and white powder.

"Virgin's milk," he explained curtly.

"That's all you carry?" Eleanor indicated the array of charms dangling on her

chest. "I don't understand how people manage with only one charm." Her green

eyes danced. "Maybe you don't! Maybe that's why you have bad luck."

"I have a high positive scale," Benteley replied. "And I have two other charms.

Somebody gave me this."

She leaned close and examined it intently. "It's the kind of charm a woman would

buy. Expensive, but flashy."

"Is it true," Benteley asked her, "that Verrick doesn't carry any charms?"

"That's right," Wakeman spoke up. "He doesn't need them. When the bottle

twitched him to One he was already class six-three. Talk about luck! He's risen all

the way to the top exactly as you see on the children's edutapes. Luck leaks out of

his pores."

"I've seen people touch him hoping to get some of it," Eleanor said. "I don't blame

them. I've touched him myself, many times."

"What good has it done you?" Wakeman asked quietly; he indicated the girl's

discoloured temples.

"I wasn't born at the same time and place as Reese," Eleanor answered shortly.

"I don't hold with astro-cosmology," Wakeman said. "Luck comes in streaks."

Speaking slowly and intently to Benteley, he continued: "Verrick may have it now,

but that doesn't mean he'll always have it." He gestured vaguely towards the floor

above, "They like to see some kind of balance." He added hastily: "I'm not a

Christian or anything like that, you understand. I know it's all chance. Everybody

gets his chance. And the high and the mighty always fall."

Eleanor shot Wakeman a warning look. "Be careful!"

Without taking his eyes from Benteley, Wakeman said slowly:

"You're out of fealty; take advantage of that. Don't swear yourself on to Verrick.

You'll be stuck to him, as one of his permanent serfs."

Benteley was chilled. "You mean I'm supposed to take an oath directly to Verrick?

Not a positional oath to the Quizmaster?"

"That's right," Eleanor said.

"Why?"

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