The Book of Philip K Dick (1973) Read Online Free PDF Page A

me very soon; this will be our last conversation.”
    Sung-wu’s piteous look hardened into cunning. “You wouldn’t want it on your soul; no restitution will be possible at this late date.”
    Fei-p’ang snorted. “All right; but for Elron’s sake, do it quickly.”
    Sung-wu hurried to the mother-scanner and seated himself in the rickety basket. He snapped on the controls, clamped his forehead to the viewpiece, inserted his identity tab, and set the space-time finger into motion. Slowly, reluctantly, the ancient mechanism coughed into life and began tracing his personal tab along the future track.
    Sung-wu’s hands shook; his body trembled; sweat dripped from his neck, as he saw himself scampering in miniature. Poor Sung-wu, he thought wretchedly. The mite of a thing hurried about its duties; this was but eight months hence. Harried and beset, it performed its tasks— and then, in a subsequent continuum, fell down and died.
    Sung-wu removed his eyes from the viewpiece and waited for his pulse to slow. He could stand that part, watching the moment of death; it was what came next that was too jangling for him.
    He breathed a silent prayer. Had he fasted enough? In the four-day purge and self-flagellation, he had used the whip with metal points, the heaviest possible. He had given away all his money; he had smashed a lovely vase his mother had left him, a treasured heirloom; he had rolled in the filth and mud in the center of town. Hundreds had seen him. Now, surely, all this was enough. But time was so short!
    Faint courage stirring, he sat up and again put his eyes to the viewpiece. He was shaking with terror. What if it hadn’t changed? What if his mortification weren’t enough? He spun the controls, sending the finger tracing his time-track past the moment of death.
    Sung-wu shrieked and scrambled back in horror. His future was the same, exactly the same; there had been no change at all. His guilt had been too great to be washed away in such short a time; it would take ages—and he didn’t have ages.
    He left the scanner and passed by his brother-in-law. “Thanks,” he muttered shakily.
    For once, a measure of compassion touched Fei-p’ang’s efficient brown features. “Bad news? The next turn brings an unfortunate manifestation?”
    “Bad scarcely describes it.”
    Fei-p’ang’s pity turned to righteous rebuke. “Who do you have to blame but yourself?” he demanded sternly. “You know your conduct in this manifestation determines the next; if you look forward to a future life as a lower animal, it should make you glance over your behavior and repent your wrongs. The cosmic law that governs us is impartial. It is true justice: cause and effect; what you do determines what you next become—there can be no blame and no sorrow. There can be only understanding and repentence.” His curiosity overcame him. “What is it? A snake? A squirrel?”
    “It’s no affair of yours,” Sung-wu said, as he moved unhappily toward the exit doors.
    “I’ll look myself.”
    “Go ahead.” Sung-wu pushed moodily out into the hall. He was dazed with despair: it hadn’t changed; it was still the same.
    In eight months he would die, stricken by one of the numerous plagues that swept over the inhabited parts of the world. He would become feverish, break out with red spots, turn and twist in an anguish of delirium. His bowels would drop out; his flesh would waste away; his eyes would roll up; and after an interminable time of suffering, be would die. His body would lie in a mass heap, with hundreds of others—a whole streetful of dead, to be carted away by one of the robot sweepers, happily immune. His mortal remains would be burned in a common rubbish incinerator at the outskirts of the city.
    Meanwhile, the eternal spark, Sung-wu’s divine soul, would hurry from this space-time manifestation to the next in order. But it would not rise; it would sink; he had watched its descent on the scanner many times. There was