The Simulacra by Philip K. Dick Read Free Book Online Page B

wants to find out that the entire solar system has been exposed to Coca-Cola over a period of two million years? It was, for him, impossible to imagine a civilization—of any kind of life form—that had not contrived Coke. Otherwise, how could it authentically be called a “civilization”? But then he thought, I’m letting my bitterness get the better of me. Maury won’t like it; better curb it before I arrive. Bad for business. And we must have business as usual. That’s the watch-word of the day—if not of the century. After all, that’s really all that separates me from my younger brother: my ability to face fundamentals and not get lost in the maze of external rituals. If Vince could do that—then he’d be me.
    And he’d perhaps have his wife back.
    And Vince would have been in on Maury Frauenzimmer’s scheme, put by Maury to Sepp von Lessinger in person at a conference of ersatx engineers in New York in 2023, to make use of von Lessinger’s time travel experiments to send a psychiatrist back to 1925 to cure Führer Hitler of his paranoia. As a matter of fact, von Lessinger had made some attempt in that direction, apparently, but the
Ges
kept the results to themselves—of course. Leave it to the
Ges
to protect their privileged status, Chic thought to himself. And now von Lessinger was dead.
    Something sizzled to the right of him. A commercial, made by Theodorus Nitz, the worst house of all, had attached itself to his car.
    “Get off,” he warned it. But the commercial, well-adhered, began to crawl, buffeted by the wind, toward the door and the entrance crack. It would soon have squeezed in and would be haranguing him in the cranky, garbagey fashion of the Nitz advertisements.
    He could, as it came through the crack, kill it. It was alive, terribly mortal; the ad agencies, like nature, squandered hordes of them.
    The commercial, fly-sized, began to buzz out its message as soon as it managed to force entry. “Say! Haven’t you sometimes said to yourself, I’ll bet other people in restaurants can see me! And you’re puzzled as to what to do about this serious, baffling problem of being conspicuous, especially—”
    Chic crushed it with his foot.
    The card told Nicole Thibodeaux that the Prime Minister of Israel had arrived at the White House and now waited in the Camellia Room. Emil Stark, slender, tall, always knowing the latest Jewish joke (“One day God met Jesus and Jesus was wearing—” or however it went; she could not remember—she was too sleepy). Anyhow, today she had a joke for him. The Wolff Commission had brought in its report.
    Later, in a robe and slippers, she drank coffee, read the morning
Times,
then pushed the paper away and picked up the document which the Wolff Commission had presented her. Whom had they selected? Hermann Goering; she leafed through the pages and wished she could fire General Wolff. The army brass had picked the wrong man in the Age of Barbarism to deal with; she knew that, but the Washington authorities had agreed to follow General Wolff’s recommendation, not realizing at the time what a typical military fathead he was. It demonstrated the power of the army’s GHQ within purely political areas, these days.
    She called to Leonore, her secretary, “Tell Emil Stark to come on in.” No use delaying it; anyhow Stark probably would be pleased. Like so many others, the Israeli Prime Minister no doubt imagined that Goering had been a simple clown. Nicole laughed sharply. They hadn’t digested the War Crimes Trial documents of World War Two, if they believed that.
    “Mrs. Thibodeaux,” Stark said, appearing, smiling.
    “It’s Goering,” Nicole said.
    “Of course.” Stark continued to smile.
    “You damn fool,” she said. “He’s too smart, for any of us— don’t you know that? If we try to do business with him—”
    “But toward the end of the war Goering lost favor,” Stark said urbanely, seating himself at the table facing her. “He was involved in