Philip K. Dick - Our Friends From Frolix 8

Clans of the Alphane Moon
Confessions of a Crap Artist
The Cosmic Puppets
Counter-Clock World
The Crack in Space
Deus Irae (with Roger Zelazny)
The Divine Invasion
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Dr. Bloodmoney
Dr. Futurity
Eye in the Sky
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
Galactic Pot-Healer
The Game-Players of Titan
The Man in the High Castle
The Man Who Japed
Martian Time-Slip
A Maze of Death
Now Wait for Last Year
Our Friends From Frolix 8
The Penultimate Truth
Radio Free Albemuth
A Scanner Darkly
The Simulacra
Solar Lottery
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
Time Out of Joint
The Transmigration of Timothy Archer
Ubik
The Unteleported Man
VALIS
Vulcans Hammer
We Can Build You
The World Jones Made
The Zap Gun

Bobby said. I dont want to take the test.

But you must, his father thought. If there is going to be any hope for our family as it extends itself into the future. Into periods lying long after my death mine and Kleos.

Let me explain it this way, he said aloud, as he moved along the crowded sliding sidewalk in the direction of the Federal Bureau of Personnel Standards. Different people have different ability. How well he knew that. My ability, for example, is very limited; I cant even qualify for a government G-one rating, which is the lowest rating of all. It hurt to admit this, but he had to; he had to make the boy understand how vital this was. So Im not qualified at all. Ive got a little nongovernment job nothing, really. Do you want to be like me when you grow up?

Youre okay, Bobby said, with the majestic assurance of his twelve years.

Im not, Nick said.

To me you are.

He felt baffled. And, as so many times of late, on the edge of despair. Listen, he said, to the facts of how Terra is run. Two entities maneuver around each other, with first one ruling and then the other. These entities

Im not either one, his son said. Im an Old and a Regular. I dont want to take the test; I know what I am. I know what you are and Im the same.

Within him, Nick felt his stomach dry and shrink, and because of that he felt acute need. Looking around, he made out a drugbar on the far side of the street, beyond the traffic of squib cars and the larger, rotund public-transit vehicles. He led Bobby up a ped-ramp, and ten minutes later they had reached the far sidewalk.

Im going into the bar for a couple of minutes, Nick said. Im not well enough to take you to the Federal Building, at this particular junction of time and space. He led his son past the eye of the door, into the dark interior of Donovans Drugbar a bar which he had never visited before but liked on first impact.

You cant bring that boy in here, the bartender informed him. He pointed to the sign on the wall. Hes not eighteen. Do you want it to look like I sell nibbles to minors?

At my regular bar Nick began, but the bartender cut him brusquely off.

This isnt your regular bar, he declared, and stumped off to wait on a customer at the far end of the shadow-clouded room.

Nick said, You look in the shop windows next door. He nudged his son, indicating the door through which they had just entered. Ill meet you in three or four minutes.

You always say that, Bobby said, but he trudged off, out onto the midday sidewalk with its legions of squashed-together humanity for a moment he paused, glancing back, and then he continued on, out of sight.

Seating himself on a bar stool, Nick said, Id like fifty milligrams of phenmetrazine hydrochloride and thirty of stelladrine, with a sodium acetyl-salicylate chaser.

The bartender said, The stelladrine will make you dream of many and far-off stars. He placed a tiny plate before Nick, got the pills and then the sodium acetyl-salicylate solution in a plastic glass; laying everything before Nick he stood back, scratching his ear reflectively.

I hope it does. Nick swallowed the three meagre pills he could not afford any more this late in the month and downed the brackish chaser.

Taking your son for a Federal test?

As he got out his wallet he nodded.

You think theyre rigged? the bartender inquired.

I dont know, Nick said briefly.

The bartender, resting his elbows on the polished surface of the bar, leaned toward him and said, I think they are. He took Nicks money; turned to the cash register to ring it up. I see folks going by here fourteen, fifteen times. Unwilling to accept the fact that they or as in your case, your kid isnt going to pass. They keep trying and it comes out the same, always. The New Men, they arent going to let anybody else into the Civil Service. They want He glanced about, lowered his voice. They dont intend to split up the action among anybody extra beyond themselves. Hell, in government speeches they practically admit it. They

They need fresh blood, Nick said doggedly said it to the bartender as he had said it to himself so many times.

The bartender said, They have their own kids.

Not enough. Nick sipped his chaser. He could already feel the phenmetrazine hydrochloride going to work on him, building up his sense of worth, his optimism; he experienced a powerful glow deep within him. If it got out, he said, that the Civil Service tests were rigged, this government would be voted out of office within twenty-four hours and the Unusuals would be in, replacing them. Do you think the New Men want the Unusuals to rule? My god.

I think theyre working together, the bartender said. And walked off to wait on another customer.

How many times, Nick thought as he left the bar, Ive thought that myself. Rule first by the Unusuals, then the New Men if they have actually worked this out to a fine point, he thought, where they control the personnel testing apparatus, then they could constitute, as he said, a self-perpetuating structure of power; but our whole political system is based on the fact of the two groups mutual animosity its the basic verity of our lives that, and the admission that due to their superiority they deserve to rule and can do so wisely.

He parted the moving mass of pedpeople, came upon his son, who stood gazing raptly into a store window. Lets go, Nick said, placing his hand firmly the drugs had made him so on the boys shoulder.

Not moving, Bobby said, Theres a distance pain infliction knife theyre selling. Can I have one? Itd give me more self-confidence if I was wearing that while I take the test. Its a toy, Nick said.

Even so, Bobby said. Please. It really would make me feel a lot better.

Someday, Nick thought, you will not have to rule through pain infliction rule your peers, serve your masters. You will be a master yourself, and then I can happily accept everything I see going on around me. No, he said, and steered his boy back into the dense stream of sidewalk traffic. Dont dwell on concrete things, he said harshly. Think of abstractions; think of processes of neutrologics. Thats what theyll be asking. The boy hung back. Move! Nick grated, urging him forcibly on. And, physically sensing the boys reluctance, felt the overwhelming presence of failure.