Our Friends From Frolix 8 by Philip K Dick Read Free Book Online

experiencing difficulty in doing so. ‘That’s the last thing Cordon’s booklets are going to make us. A track will get our names, find out we’re buying Cordonite writing, and then—’
    ‘Always looking over your shoulder for tracks,’ Zeta said scathingly. ‘How can you be alive that way? I’ve seen hundreds of people buy and sell pamphlets, sometimes a thousand pops’ worth at one time and’ – he paused – ‘sometimes the tracks do worm their way in. Or a prowl car catches sight when you’re passing over some pops to a dealer. And then, like you say, it’s in prison on Luna. But you have to take the risk. Life itself is a risk. You say to yourself, “Is it worth it?” and you answer, “Yes, it is. Goddam it, yes it is.”’ He put on his coat, opened the door of the office and stepped out into the sunlight. Nick, after an extensive pause – seeing that Zeta was not looking back – followed after him, slowly. He caught up with him at Zeta’s parked squib. ‘I think you ought to begin looking for another wife,’ Zeta said; he opened the door of the squib and squeezed his bulk in behind the tiller. Nick, getting in also, slammed the door on his side. Zeta grinned as the squib shot up into the morning sky.
    ‘That’s really none of your business,’ Nick said.
    Zeta did not answer; he concentrated on his driving. Turning his head he said to Nick, ‘I can drive badly now, we’re clean. But on the way back we’ll have the stuff, so we won’t get a PSS occifer flagging us down for speeding or erratic turning. Right?’
    ‘Yes,’ Nick said, and felt the numbing fear inside him rise. It had become inevitable, the path they were following; he could not now get out of it. Why not? he asked himself. I know I have to go through with it, but why? To show that I’m not afraid that a track will burst us? To show that I’m not dominated by my wife? For all the wrong reasons, he thought… and mainly because I’ve been drinking alcohol, the most dangerous substance – short of Prussic acid – you can imbibe. Well, he thought, so be it.
    ‘Nice day,’ Zeta said. ‘Blue sky, no clouds to duck behind.’ He soared upward enjoying himself; Nick shrank numbly back against the seat and merely sat, helpless, as the squib oozed forward.
    At a payfone, Zeta made a call; it consisted of only a few half-articulated words. ‘He’s holding?’ Zeta asked. ‘He’s there? Okay. Yeah, right. Thanks. Bye.’ He hung up. ‘That’s the part I don’t like,’ he said. ‘When you make the fonecall. All you can do is figure that so many million fonecalls are made in one given day that they can’t monitor them all.’
    ‘But Parkinson’s Law,’ Nick said, trying to cover his fear with jollification. ‘“If a thing can happen—“’
    Zeta, getting back into the squib, said, ‘It hasn’t happened yet.’
    ‘But eventually.’
    ‘Eventually,’ Zeta pointed out, ‘death will get us all.’ He cranked up the engine of the squib and they zoomed upward again. Presently, they were flying over a sprawling residential section of the city; Zeta peered down, scowling. ‘All the goddam houses look exactly alike,’ he muttered. ‘It’s so frigging hard to see from the air. But that’s good; he’s stuck right in the middle of ten million loyal believers in Willis Gram and Unusuals and New Men and all the rest of that crap.’ The squib dived suddenly. ‘Here we go,’ Zeta said. ‘You know, that beer affected me – it actually did.’ He grinned at Nick. ‘And you look like a stuffed owl; you look like you could turn your head completely around.’ He laughed.
    They came to rest on a roof landing field.
    Grunting, Zeta got out; Nick did so, too, and they made their way to the escalator. In a low voice, Zeta said to him, ‘If the occifers stop us and ask what we’re doing here, we say we’re bringing some guy back his squib keys which we forgot to give him when we fixed his squib.’
    ‘That makes no