Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick by Philip K. Dick Read Free Book Online Page B

believe.”
    “Don't you think I'm right?”
    “I don't know. Perhaps. Your trinkets. You're not the first to come out with a little cloth sack of odds and ends. You've used some? How?”
    “First, the wire and the bus token. Getting away from the Police. It seems funny, but if I hadn't had them, I'd be there yet. A piece of wire and a ten-cent token. But I don't usually carry such things. That's the point.”
    “Time travel.”
    “No. Not time travel. Berkowsky demonstrated that time travel is impossible. This is a time scoop, a mirror to see and a scoop to pick up things. These trinkets. At least one of them is from the future. Scooped up. Brought back.”
    “How do you know?”
    “It's dated. The others, perhaps not. Things like tokens and wire belong to classes of things. Any one token is as good as another. There, he must have used a mirror.”
    “He?”
    “When I was working with Rethrick. I must have used the mirror. I looked into my own future. If I was repairing their equipment I could hardly keep from it! I must have looked ahead, seen what was coming. The SP picking me up. I must have seen that, and seen what a piece of thin wire and a bus token would do—if I had them with me at the exact moment.”
    Kelly considered. “Well? What do you want me for?”
    “I'm not sure, now. Do you really look on Rethrick as a benevolent institution, waging war against the Police? A sort of Roland at Roncesvalles—”
    “What does it matter how I feel about the Company?”
    “It matters a lot.” Jennings finished his drink, pushing the glass aside. “It matters a lot, because I want you to help me. I'm going to blackmail Rethrick Construction.”
    Kelly stared at him.
    “It's my one chance to stay alive. I've got to get a hold over Rethrick, a big hold. Enough of a hold so they'll let me in, on my own terms. There's no other place I can go. Sooner or later the Police are going to pick me up. If I'm not inside the Plant, and soon—”
    “Help you blackmail the Company? Destroy Rethrick?”
    “No. Not destroy. I don't want to destroy it—my life depends on the Company. My life depends on Rethrick being strong enough to defy the SP. But if I'm on the outside it doesn't much matter how strong Rethrick is. Do you see? I want to get in. I want to get inside before it's too late. And I want in on my own terms, not as a two-year worker who gets pushed out again afterward.”
    “For the Police to pick up.”
    Jennings nodded. “Exactly.”
    “How are you going to blackmail the Company?”
    “I'm going to enter the Plant and carry out enough material to prove Rethrick is operating a time scoop.”
    Kelly laughed. “Enter the Plant? Let's see you find the Plant. The SP have been looking for it for years.”
    “I've already found it.” Jennings leaned back, lighting a cigarette. “I've located it with my trinkets. And I have four left, enough to get me inside, I think. And to get me what I want. I'll be able to carry out enough papers and photographs to hang Rethrick. But I don't want to hang Rethrick. I only want to bargain. That's where you come in.”
    “I?”
    “You can be trusted not to go to the Police. I need someone I can turn the material over to. I don't dare keep it myself. As soon as I have it I must turn it over to someone else, someone who'll hide it where I won't be able to find it.”
    “Why?”
    “Because,” Jennings said calmly, “any minute the SP may pick me up. I have no love for Rethrick, but I don't want to scuttle it. That's why you've got to help me. I'm going to turn the information over to you, to hold, while I bargain with Rethrick. Otherwise I'll have to hold it myself. And if I have it on me—”
    He glanced at her. Kelly was staring at the floor, her face tense. Set.
    “Well? What do you say? Will you help me, or shall I take the chance the SP won't pick me up with the material? Data enough to destroy Rethrick. Well? Which will it be? Do you want to see Rethrick destroyed?