Our Friends from Frolix 8 - By Philip K. Dick Page 0,1
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 they’re working together,’ the bartender said. And walked off to wait on another customer.
How many times, Nick thought as he left the bar, I’ve 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… it’s 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. ‘Let’s go,’ Nick said, placing his hand firmly – the drugs had made him so – on the boy’s shoulder.
Not moving, Bobby said, ‘There’s a distance pain infliction knife they’re selling. Can I have one? It’d give me more self-confidence if I was wearing that while I take the test.’ ‘It’s 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. ‘Don’t dwell on concrete things,’ he said harshly. ‘Think of abstractions; think of processes of neutrologics. That’s what they’ll be asking.’ The boy hung back. ‘Move!’ Nick grated, urging him forcibly on. And, physically sensing the boy’s reluctance, felt the overwhelming presence of failure.
It had been this way for fifty years, now, since 2085 when the first New Man had been elected… eight years before the first Unusual had taken upon himself that high office. Then, it had been a novelty; everyone had wondered how the lately-evolved irregular types would function in practice. They had done well – too well for any Old Man to follow. Where they could balance a bundle of bright lights, an Old Man could handle one. Some actions, based on thought processes that no Old Man could even follow, had no analogue among the earlier variety of human species at all.
‘Look at the headline.’ Bobby had halted before a newspaper rack.
CAPTURE OF PROVONI REPORTED NEAR
Nick read it without interest, not believing it and at the same time not really caring. As far as he was concerned, Thors Provoni no longer existed, captured or otherwise. But Bobby seemed fascinated by the news. Fascinated – and repelled.
‘They won’t ever capture Provoni,’ Bobby said.
‘You’re saying it too loud,’ Nick said, his lips close to his boy’s ears. He felt deeply uneasy.
‘What do I care if somebody hears me?’ Bobby said hotly. He gestured at the streams of men and women flowing by them. ‘They all agree with me anyhow.’ He glared up at his father with churning wrath.
‘When Provoni left,’ Nick said, ‘and headed out of the Sol System, he betrayed all mankind, Superior and – otherwise.’ He believed this strongly. They had argued this many times, but never had they been able to integrate their conflicting views about the man who had promised to find another planet, another useful world, on which Old Men could live… and govern themselves. ‘Provoni was a coward,’ Nick said, ‘and subpar mentally. I don’t even think he was worth chasing. Anyhow, they’ve evidently found him.’
‘They always say that,’ Bobby said. ‘Two months ago they told us that within twenty-four hours—’
‘He was subpar,’ Nick broke in sharply. ‘And so he doesn’t count.’
‘We’re subpar, too,’ Bobby said.
‘I am,’ Nick answered. ‘But you’re not.’
They continued on in silence; neither of them felt like talking to the other.
Civil Service Officer Norbert Weiss withdrew a green slip from the processing computer behind his desk and read with care the information thereon.