The Simulacra by Philip K. Dick Read Free Book Online

idea what your relationship to Molly is these days, but—”
    “You worry about recording Richard Kongrosian,” Nat said shortly.
    “Sure, sure.” Planck shrugged. “It’s your life and job and your project, Nat; I’m just a wage-slave, doing what you tell me.” He ran a nervous, shaky hand through his thinning, slightly shiny black hair. “Are we ready to go?”
    Molly had already gotten into the ’copter; she sat reading a book, ignoring the two of them. She wore a brightly colored cotton blouse and shorts and Nat thought to himself how inappropriate her dress would be for the rain-drenched forests into which they were going. Such a radically different climate; he wondered if Molly had ever been north before. The Oregon-Northern California region had lost much of its population during the fracas of 1980; it had been heavily hit by Red Chinese guided missiles, and of course the clouds of fallout had blanketed it in the subsequent decade. They had in fact not entirely dissipated yet. But the level had been pronounced by NASA technicians as lying within the safe tolerance.
    Lush growth, tangled variants created by the fallout . . . the forestation had an almost tropical quality now, Nat knew. And the rain virtually never ceased; it had been frequent and heavy before 1990 and now it was torrential.
    “Ready,” he said to Jim Planck.
    An unlit Alta Camina cigar jutting from between his teeth, Planck said, “Then away we go, us and your pet worm. To record the greatest handless piano player of the century. Hey, I got a joke, Nat. One day Richard Kongrosian is in a pubtrans accident; he’s all battered up in the wreck, and when they take the bandages off—
he’s grown hands.
” Planck chuckled. “And so he can never play again.”
    Lowering her book, Molly said frigidly, “
Be
entertainment, is that what it’s going to be on this flight?”
    Planck colored, bent to fumble with his recording gear, checking it automatically. “Sorry, Miss Dondoldo,” he said, but he did not sound sorry; he sounded chokingly resentful.
    “Just start up the ’copter,” Molly said. And returned to reading her book. It was, Nat saw, a banned text by the twentieth century sociologist C. Wright Mills. Molly Dondoldo, he reflected, no more a
Ge
than he or Jim Planck, had no anxiety over publicly reading an item forbidden to their class. A remarkable woman in many ways, he thought with admiration.
    He said to her, “Don’t be so harsh, Molly.”
    Without glancing up, Molly said, “I hate
Be
wit.”
    The ’copter started; guiding it expertly, Jim Planck soon had them in the air. They moved north, over the coastal highway and the Imperial Valley with its crisscrossed endless miles of canals stretching as far as one could see.
    “It’s going to be a cozy flight,” Nat said to Molly. “I can make that out already.”
    Molly murmured, “Don’t you have to sprinkle your worm or something? Frankly I’d prefer to be left alone, if you don’t mind.”
    “What do you know about the personal tragedy in Kongrosian’s life?” Nat asked her.
    She was silent a moment and then she said, “It has something to do with the fallout of the late ’90s. I think it’s his son. But no one knows for certain; I have no inside information, Nat. They say, though, that his son is a monster.”
    Once more Nat felt the chill of fear which he had experienced at the idea of visiting Kongrosian’s home.
    “Don’t let it get you down,” Molly said. “After all, there’ve been so many special births since the fallout of the ’90s. Don’t you see them meandering about all the time? I do. Maybe, though, you prefer not to look.” She shut her book, marking the place with a dogear. “It’s the price we pay for our otherwise unblemished lives. My god, Nat, you can adjust to that thing, that Ampek recorder, and that positively gives me the creeps, all shimmering and alive like it is. Perhaps the child’s deformation is due to factors derived