The Minority Report and Other Classic Stories by Philip K. Dick Read Free Book Online Page A

you’re doing this evening. I’m going to give you a list of instructions and I want them carried out right away.”
    At the other end of the line Jack Hurley could be heard pulling himself angrily together. “Tonight? Listen, Dave, the company isn’t my mother—I have some life of my own. If I’m supposed to come running down—”
    “This has nothing to do with Pesco. I want a tape recorder and a movie camera with infrared lens. I want you to round up a legal stenographer. I want one of the company electricians—you pick him out, but get the best. And I want Anderson from the engineering room. If you can’t get him, get any of our designers. And I want somebody off the assembly line; get me some old mechanic who knows his stuff. Who really knows machines.”
    Doubtfully, Hurley said, “Well, you’re the boss; at least, you’re boss of research. But I think this will have to be cleared with the company. Would you mind if I went over your head and got an okay from Pesbroke?”
    “Go ahead.” Courtland made a quick decision. “Better yet, I’ll call him myself; he’ll probably have to know what’s going on.”
    “What is going on?” Hurley demanded curiously. “I never heard you sound this way before … has somebody brought out a self-spraying paint?”
    Courtland hung up the phone, waited out a torturous interval, and then dialed his superior, the owner of Pesco Paint.
    “You have a minute?” he asked tightly, when Pesbroke’s wife had roused the white-haired old man from his after-dinner nap and got him to the phone. “I’m mixed up in something big; I want to talk to you about it.”
    “Has it got to do with paint?” Pesbroke muttered, half humorously, half seriously. “If not—”
    Courtland interrupted him. Speaking slowly, he gave a full account of his contact with the swibble repairman.
    When Courtland had finished, his employer was silent. “Well,” Pesbroke said finally, “I guess I could go through some kind of routine. But you’ve got me interested. All right, I’ll buy it. But,” he added quietly, “if this is an elaborate time-waster, I’m going to bill you for the use of the men and equipment.”
    “By time-waster, you mean if nothing profitable comes out of this?”
    “No,” Pesbroke said. “I mean, if you know it’s a fake; if you’re consciously going along with a gag. I’ve got a migraine headache and I’m not going along with a gag. If you’re serious, if you really think this might be something, I’ll put the expenses on the company books.”
    “I’m serious,” Courtland said. “You and I are both too damn old to play games.”
    “Well,” Pesbroke reflected, “the older you get, the more you’re apt to go off the deep end; and this sounds pretty deep.” He could be heard making up his mind. “I’ll telephone Hurley and give him the okay. You can have whatever you want… I suppose you’re going to try to pin this repairman down and find out what he really is.”
    “That’s what I want to do.”
    “Suppose he’s on the level… what then?”
    “Well,” Courtland said cautiously, “then I want to find out what a swibble is. As a starter. Maybe after that—”
    “You think he’ll be back?”
    “He might be. He won’t find the right address; I know that. Nobody in this neighborhood called for a swibble repairman.”
    “What do you care what a swibble is? Why don’t you find out how he got from his period back here?”
    “I think he knows what a swibble is—and I don’t think he knows how he got here. He doesn’t even know he’s here.”
    Pesbroke agreed. “That’s reasonable. If I come over, will you let me in? I’d sort of enjoy watching.”
    “Sure,” Courtland said, perspiring, his eye on the closed door to the hall.
    “But you’ll have to watch from the other room. I don’t want anything to foul this up … we may never have another chance like this.”
     
    Grumpily, the jury-rigged company team filed into the apartment