Collected Stories of Philip Dick

The Collected Stories Of Philip K. Dick Vol. 3 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 6511-30  | Added on Friday, May 11, 2012, 04:10 PM

"Wait a minute," Dawes said. "I have something for him to try." Fergesson waited wearily, as Dawes groped inside his coarse gray shirt. He fumbled and brought out something wrapped in old newspaper. It was a cup, a wooden drinking cup, crude and ill-shaped. There was a strange wry smile on his face as he squatted down and placed the cup in front of the Biltong. Charlotte watched, vaguely puzzled. "What's the use? Suppose he does make a print of it." She poked listlessly at the rough wooden object with the toe of her slipper. "It's so simple you could duplicate it yourself." Fergesson started. Dawes caught his eye -- for an instant the two men gazed at each other, Dawes smiling faintly, Fergesson rigid with burgeoning understanding. "That's right," Dawes said. "I made it." Fergesson grabbed the cup. Trembling, he turned it over and over. "You made it with what? I don't see how! What did you make it out of?" "We knocked down some trees." From his belt, Dawes slid something that gleamed metallically, dully, in the weak sunlight. "Here -- be careful you don't cut yourself." The knife was as crude as the cup -- hammered, bent, tied together with wire. "You made this knife?" Fergesson asked, dazed. "I can't believe it. Where do you start? You have to have tools to make this. It's a paradox!" His voice rose with hysteria. "It isn't possible!" Charlotte turned despondently away. "It's no good -- you couldn't cut anything with that." Wistfully, pathetically, she added, "In my kitchen I had that whole set of stainless steel carving knives -- the best Swedish steel. And now they're nothing but black ash." There were a million questions bursting in Fergesson's mind. "This cup, this knife -- there's a group of you? And that material you're wearing -- you wove that?"
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The Collected Stories Of Philip K. Dick Vol. 3 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 6612-18  | Added on Friday, May 11, 2012, 04:14 PM

Dawes arranged three objects on the ash. The exquisite Steuben glassware, his own crude wooden drinking cup and the blob, the botched print the dying Biltong had attempted. "This is the way is was," he said, indicating the Steuben cup. "Someday it'll be that way again. . . but we're going up the right way -- the hard way -- step by step, until we get back there." He carefully replaced the glassware back in its metal box. "We'll keep it -- not to copy, but as a model, as a goal. You can't grasp the difference now, but you will." He indicated the crude wooden cup. "That's where we are right now. Don't laugh at it. Don't say it's not civilization. It is -- it's simple and crude, but it's the real thing. We'll go up from here."
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The Collected Stories Of Philip K. Dick Vol. 3 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 6674-78  | Added on Friday, May 11, 2012, 05:54 PM

He sat on the park bench, eye half shut, wasted lips twisted in a snarl of bitterness and defeat. Nobody was interested in a decrepit half-blind old man. Nobody wanted to hear his garbled, rambling tales of the battles he had fought and strategies he had witnessed. Nobody seemed to remember the war that still burned like a twisting, corroding fire in the decaying old man's brain. A war he longed to speak of, if he could only find listeners.
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The Collected Stories Of Philip K. Dick Vol. 3 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 7909-27  | Added on Tuesday, May 15, 2012, 02:05 AM

"They didn't call it politics, back in those days. The industrialists hammered away at the people to buy and consume. It centered around this hair-sweat-teeth purity; the city people got it and developed an ideology around it." Betty set the table and brought in the dishes of food. "You mean the Purist political movement was deliberately started?" "They didn't realize what a hold it was getting on them. They didn't know their children were growing up to take such things as underarm perspiration and white teeth and nice-looking hair as the most important things in the world. Things worth fighting and dying for. Things important enough to kill those who didn't agree." "The Naturalists were country people?" "People who lived outside the cities and weren't conditioned by the stimuli." Walsh shook his head irritably. "Incredible, that one man will kill another over trivialities. All through history men murdering each other over verbal nonsense, meaningless slogans instilled in them by somebody else -- who sits back and benefits." "It isn't meaningless if they believe in it." "It's meaningless to kill another man because he has halitosis! It's meaningless to beat up somebody because he hasn't had his sweat glands removed and artificial waste-excretion tubes installed. There's going to be senseless warfare; the Naturalists have weapons stored up at party headquarters. Men'll be just as dead as if they died for something real." "Time to eat, dear," Betty said, indicating the table. "I'm not hungry." "Stop sulking and eat. Or you'll have indigestion, and you know what that means."
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The Collected Stories Of Philip K. Dick Vol. 3 (Philip K Dick)
- Note Loc. 8053  | Added on Tuesday, May 15, 2012, 02:12 AM

consumerism taken to absurdextreme
takeover of companies
surrealism
robots
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.5 (Philip K. Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 2732-36  | Added on Tuesday, May 15, 2012, 10:11 PM

"Sad!" Lehrer bristled. "Good riddance." There: that had been the foremost eccentric and idiot of the world. All Lehrer needed was the opportunity to rub shoulders with a follower of the newly parasitic Anarch. He shivered, recalling from his professional eclectic books -- examining at the library the accounts of mid-twentieth century race violence; out of the riots, lootings and killings of those days had come Sebastian Peak, originally a lawyer, then a master spellbinder, at last a religious fanatic with his own devout following. . . a following which extended over the planet, although operating primarily in the F.N.M. environs.
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.5 (Philip K. Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 2754-59  | Added on Tuesday, May 15, 2012, 10:13 PM

"You must recall. But that's so. You're under Phase, here. I'm oriented in the opposite, normal time-direction; therefore what for you will soon happen is for me an experience of the immediate past. My immediate past. May I take a few minutes of your time? I could well be of great use to you, sir." The man chuckled. " 'Your time.' Well-put, if I do say so. Yes, decidedly your time, not mine. Just consider that this visit by myself took place yesterday." Again he smiled his mechanical smile -- and mechanical it was; Niehls now perceived the small but brilliant
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.5 (Philip K. Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 2887-94  | Added on Tuesday, May 15, 2012, 11:48 PM

On a tree branch a butterfly had begun the intricate, mysterious process of squeezing itself into a dull brown cocoon, and Eng paused to inspect its slow, labored efforts. It had its task, too, but that task, unlike his, was not hopeless. However the butterfly did not know that; it continued mindlessly, a reflex machine obeying the urgings programmed into it from the remote future. The sight of the insect at work gave Eng something to ponder; he perceived the moral in it, and, turning, walked back to confront the child who squatted on the grass with his circle of gaily-colored luminous marbles. "Look at it this way," he said to the Anarch Peak; this was probably his last try, and he meant to bring in everything available. "Even if you can't remember what a swabble is or what the Hobart Phase does, all you need to do is sign; I have the document here."
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.5 (Philip K. Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 3003-16  | Added on Tuesday, May 15, 2012, 11:59 PM

"This is extremely difficult," the Bard said, with agitation. "Eng will probably throw together his first swabble at any moment. And once more we will be cycled in a retrograde direction." What worried him now was one terrible, swift insight. This would occur again and again, and each time the interval would be shortened further. Until, he ruminated, it becomes a stall within a single microsecond; no time-progression in either direction will be able to take place. A morbid prospect indeed. But one redemptive factor existed. Eng undoubtedly would perceive the problem, too. And he would seek a way out. Logically, it could be solved by him in at least one way: he could voluntarily abstain from inventing the swabble. The Hobart Phase, then, would never assert itself, at least not effectively But such a decision lay with Ludwig Eng alone. Would he cooperate, if the idea were presented to him? Probably not. Eng had always been a violent and autistic man; no one could influence him. This, of course, had helped him become an original personality; without this Eng would not have amounted to anything as an inventor, and the swabble, with its enormous effect on contemporary society, would never have come into existence. Which would have been a good thing, the Bard thought morosely. But until now we could not appreciate this. He appreciated it now.
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.5 (Philip K. Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 3059-65  | Added on Wednesday, May 16, 2012, 12:02 AM

"Tell him I died in office," Lehrer said harshly. "But you can't die, sir. You're under the Hobart Phase. And Mr. Arbuthnot knows that, because he mentioned it. He's been sitting out here doing a Hobart type horoscope on you, and he predicts that great things have happened to you during the previous year. Frankly he makes me nervous; some of his predictions sound so accurate." "Fortune-telling about the past doesn't interest me," Lehrer said. "In fact, as far as I'm concerned, it's a hoax. Only the future is knowable." The man is a crank, all right, Lehrer realized.
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.5 (Philip K. Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 3072-81  | Added on Wednesday, May 16, 2012, 12:03 AM

Undoubtedly, Ludwig Eng did not intend to show up. The time, Lehrer said to himself, must be two o'clock by now. He glanced at his wristwatch. And blinked. The watch hands semaphored two-forty. "Miss Tomsen," Lehrer said into the intercom, "What time do you have?" "Leaping J. Lizards," Miss Tomsen said. "It's earlier than I thought. I distinctly recall it being two-twenty just a moment ago. My watch must have stopped." "You mean it's later than you thought. Two-forty is later than two-thirty." "No sir, if you don't resent my disagreeing with you. I mean, it's not my place to tell you what's what, but I am right. You can ask anybody. I'll ask this gentleman out here. Mr. Arbuthnot, isn't two-forty earlier than two-twenty?" Over
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.5 (Philip K. Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 3148-57  | Added on Wednesday, May 16, 2012, 12:19 AM

The wind, rushing about, gathered up a quantity of leaves, swirled them onto the branches of the trees, adhered them in a neat arrangement which decidedly added to the beauty of the trees. Already, some of the brown leaves had turned green. In a short while autumn would give way to summer, and summer to spring. He watched appreciatively. As he waited for the Erad sent out by the syndicate. Due to the crank's deranged thesis, time had once more returned to normal. Except -- Lehrer rubbed his chin. Bristles. He frowned. "Miss Tomsen," he said into the intercom, "will you step in here and tell me whether or not I need a shave?" He had a feeling that he did. And soon. Probably within the previous half hour.
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.5 (Philip K. Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 3247-62  | Added on Friday, May 18, 2012, 04:26 PM

"Without feedback the computer does not possess any method of determining that there has been no counterattack by its military arm. In the abeyance it will have to assume that the counterattack has taken place, but that the enemy strike was at least partially successful." Stafford said, "But there is no enemy. Who's attacking us?" Silence. Sweat made Stafford's forehead slick with moisture. "Do you know what would cause a Genux-B to conclude that we're under attack? A million separate factors, all possible known data weighed, compared, analyzed -- and then the absolute gestalt. In this case, the gestalt of an imminent attacking enemy. No one thing would have raised the threshold; it was quantitative. A shelter-building program in Asiatic Russia, unusual movements of cargo ships around Cuba, concentrations of rocket freight unloadings in Red Canada. . ." "No one," the man at the controls of the flapple said placidly, "no nation or group of persons either on Terra or Luna or Domed Mars is attacking anybody. You can see why we've got to get you over there fast. You have to make it absolutely certain that no orders emanate from Genux-B to SAC. We want Genux-B sealed off so it can't talk to anybody in a position of authority and it can't hear anybody besides us. What we do after that we'll worry about then. 'But the evil of the day --' " "You assert that in spite of everything available to it, Genux-B can't distinguish an attack on us?" Stafford demanded. "With its manifold data-collecting sweepers?" He thought of something then, that terrified him in a kind of hopeless, retrospective way. "What about our attack on France in '82 and then on little Israel in '89?"
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.5 (Philip K. Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 3288-91  | Added on Friday, May 18, 2012, 04:29 PM

"And you're certain," Stafford said, "that we're not under attack?" Even if Genux-B had been wrong both times before, it at least theoretically could be right this time. "If we are about to be attacked," the nearest FBI man said, "we can't make out any indication of it -- by human data processing, anyhow.
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.5 (Philip K. Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 3338-40  | Added on Friday, May 18, 2012, 04:32 PM

genuine threat faces us --" "I wonder," Stafford said slowly, pondering, "what's meant by 'artificial' color."
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.5 (Philip K. Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 3404-20  | Added on Friday, May 18, 2012, 04:41 PM

"What you're doing," the engineer said, "is implicitly maintaining that Genux-B is functioning properly. That it's somehow right; there is a hostile warlike menace to us. One so great it justifies pacification of Northern California by hard first-line weapons. As I see it, isn't it easier simply to operate from the fact that the computer is malfunctioning?" Stafford, as they walked down the familiar corridors of the vast government building, said, "Genux-B was built to sift a greater amount of data simultaneously than any man or group of men could. It handles more data than we, and it handles them faster. Its response comes in microseconds. If Genux-B, after analyzing all the current data, feels that war is indicated, and we don't agree, then it may merely show that the computer is functioning as it was intended to function. And the more we disagree with it, the better this is proved. If we could perceive, as it does, the need for immediate, aggressive war on the basis of the data available, then we wouldn't require Genux-B. It's precisely in a case like this, where the computer has given out a Red Alert and we see no menace, that the real use of a computer of this class comes into play." After a pause, one of the FBI men said, as if speaking to himself, "He's right, you know. Absolutely right. The real question is, Do we trust Genux-B more than ourselves? Okay, we built it to analyze faster and more accurately and on a wider scale than we can. If it had been a success, this situation we face now is precisely what could have been predicted. We see no cause for launching an attack; it does." He grinned harshly. "So what do we do? Start Genux-B up again, have it go ahead and program SAC into a war? Or do we neutralize it -- in other words, unmake it?" His eyes were cold and alert on Stafford. "A decision one way or the other has to be made by someone. Now. At once. Someone who can make a good educated guess as to which it is, functioning or malfunctioning."
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.5 (Philip K. Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 3421-28  | Added on Friday, May 18, 2012, 04:42 PM

"An ultimate decision like this has to be his. He bears the moral responsibility." "But the decision," the engineer spoke up, "is not a moral question, Stafford. It only looks like it is. Actually the question is only a technical one. Is Genux-B working properly or has it broken down?" And that's why you rousted me from bed, Stafford realized with a thrill of icy dismal grief. You didn't bring me here to implement your jerry-built jamming of the computer. Genux-B could be neutralized by one shell from one rocket launcher towed up and parked outside the building. In fact, he realized, in all probability it's effectively neutralized now. You can keep that Phillips screwdriver wedged in there forever. And you helped design and build the thing. No, he realized, that's not it. I'm not here to repair or destroy; I'm here to decide.
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.5 (Philip K. Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 3431-37  | Added on Friday, May 18, 2012, 04:43 PM

A diagnosis, he realized. That's all you want. This is a consultation of computer doctors -- and one repairman. The decision evidently lay with the repairman, because the others had given up. He wondered how much time he had. Probably very little. Because if the computer were correct -- Sidewalk gum machines, he pondered. Penny-operated. For kids. And for that it's willing to pacify all Northern California. What could it possibly have extrapolated? What, looking ahead, did Genux-B see?
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.5 (Philip K. Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 3464-76  | Added on Friday, May 18, 2012, 04:45 PM

"I have one more spurious datum I want to feed it," Stafford said. Again he put a card in the typewriter and began to punch. IT APPEARS NOW THAT THERE NEVER WAS AN INDIVIDUAL NAMED HERBERT SOUSA; NOR DID THIS MYTHOLOGICAL PERSON EVER GO INTO THE PENNY GUM MACHINE BUSINESS. As he rose to his feet, Stafford said, "That should cancel out everything Genux-B knows or ever did know about Sousa and his penny-ante operation." As far as the computer was concerned, the man had been retroactively expunged. In which case, how could the computer initiate war against a man who had never existed, who operated a marginal concession which also never existed? A few moments later the engineer, tensely monitoring the output signal of Genux-B, said, "Now there's been a change." He studied his oscilloscope, then accepted the reel of tape being voided by the computer and began a close inspection of that, too. For a time he remained silent, intent on the job of reading the tape; then all at once he glanced up and grinned humorously at the rest of them. He said, "It says that the datum is a lie."
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.5 (Philip K. Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 3478-82  | Added on Friday, May 18, 2012, 04:45 PM

"A lie!" Stafford said unbelievingly. The engineer said, "It's discarded the last datum on the grounds that it can't be true. It contradicts what it knows to be valid. In other words, it still knows that Herb Sousa exists. Don't ask me how it knows this; probably it's an evaluation from wide-spectrum data over an extensive period of time." He hesitated, then said, "Obviously, it knows more about Herb Sousa then we do."
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.5 (Philip K. Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 3487-89  | Added on Friday, May 18, 2012, 04:46 PM

"What it must be doing," he said to the engineer, "is to go on the assumption if if X is true, that Sousa never existed, then Y must be true -- whatever 'Y' is. But Y remains untrue. I wish we knew which of all its millions of data units Y is."
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.5 (Philip K. Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 3493-3509  | Added on Friday, May 18, 2012, 04:47 PM

"Instruct it to produce its stored data inventory on Herb Sousa. All of it." The engineer kept his voice deliberately patient. "God knows what it's sitting on. And once we get it, let's look it over and see if we can spot what it spotted." Typing the proper requisition, Stafford fed the card to Genux-B. "It reminds me," one of the FBI men said reflectively, "of a philosophy course I took at U.C.L.A. There used to be an ontological argument to prove the existence of God. You imagine what He would be like, if He existed: omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, immortal, plus being capable of infinite justice and mercy." "So?" the engineer said irritably. "Then, when you've imagined Him possessing all those ultimate qualities, you notice that He lacks one quality. A minor one - a quality which every germ and stone and piece of trash by the freeway possesses. Existence. So you say: If He has all those others, He must possess the attribute of being real. If a stone can do it, obviously He can." He added, "It's a discarded theory; they knocked it down back in the Middle Ages. But" -- he shrugged -- "it's interesting." "What made you think of that at this particular time?" the engineer demanded. "Maybe," the FBI man said, "there's no one fact or even cluster of facts about Sousa that prove to Genux-B he exists. Maybe it's all the facts. There may be just plain too many. The computer had found, on the basis of past experience, that when so much data exists on a given person, that person must be genuine. After all, a computer of the magnitude of Genux-B is capable of learning; that's why we make use of it."
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.5 (Philip K. Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 3617-25  | Added on Friday, May 18, 2012, 04:52 PM

The engineer, paying attention to his headphones, interrupted all at once. "An answer's coming." He began rapidly to scribble; the others collected around him to see. HERBERT SOUSA OF SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA, IS THE DEVIL. SINCE HE IS THE INCARNATION OF SATAN ON EARTH, PROVIDENCE DEMANDS HIS DESTRUCTION. I AM ONLY AN AGENCY, A SO TO SPEAK CREATURE, OF THE DIVINE MAJESTY, AS ARE ALL OF YOU. There was a pause as the engineer waited, clenching the ballpoint metal government-issue pen, and then he spasmodically added: UNLESS YOU ARE ALREADY IN HIS PAY AND THEREFORE WORKING FOR HIM. Convulsively, the engineer tossed the pen against the far wall. It bounced, rolled off, disappeared. No one spoke.
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.5 (Philip K. Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 3627-37  | Added on Friday, May 18, 2012, 04:52 PM

The engineer said finally, "We have here a sick, deranged piece of electronic junk. We were right. Thank God we caught it in time. It's psychotic. Cosmic, schizophrenic delusions of the reality of archetypes. Good grief, the machine regards itself as an instrument of God! It has one more of those 'God talked to me, yes, He truly did' complexes." "Medieval," one of the FBI men said, with a twitch of enormous nervousness. He and his group had become rigid with tension. "We've uncovered a rat's nest with that last question. How'll we clear this up? We can't let this leak out to the newspapers; no one'll ever trust a GB-class system again. I don't. I wouldn't." He eyed the computer with nauseated aversion. Stafford wondered, What do you say to a machine when it acquires a belief in witchcraft? This isn't New England in the seventeenth century. Are we supposed to make Sousa walk over hot coals without being burned? Or get dunked without drowning? Are we supposed to prove to Genux-B that Sousa is not Satan? And if so, how? What would it regard as proof? And where did it get the idea in the first place?
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.5 (Philip K. Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 3692-3719  | Added on Friday, May 18, 2012, 05:06 PM

A machine, he thought. Believing in the Evil Spirit entrenched solidly on Earth. A mass of solid-state circuitry diving deep into age-old theology, with divine creation and miracles on one side and the diabolic on the other. Plunged back into the Dark Ages, and by a man-made electronic construct, not by one of us humans. And they say humans are prone to error. When he returned home that night -- after participating in the dismantling of every Genux-B-style computer on Earth -- seven colored spheres of candy-coated gum lay in a group of the vanity table, waiting for him. It would create quite a gum empire, he decided as he scrutinized the seven bright balls, all the same color. Not much overhead, to say the least. And no dispenser would ever become empty -- not at this rate. Going to the vidphone, he picked up the receiver and began to dial the emergency number which the FBI men had given him. And then reluctantly hung up. It was beginning to look as if the computer had been right, hard as that was to admit. And it had been his decision to go ahead and dismantle it. But the other part was worse. How could he report to the FBI that he had in his possession seven candy-coated balls of gum? Even if they did divide. That in itself would be even harder to report. Even if he could establish that they consisted of illegal -- and rare -- nonterrestrial primitive life forms smuggled to Terra from God knew what bleak planet. Better to live and let live. Perhaps their reproduction cycle would settle down; perhaps after a period of swift binary fission they would adapt to a terran environment and stabilize. After that he could forget about it. And he could flush them down the incinerator chute of his conapt. He did so. But evidently he missed one. Probably, being round, it had rolled off the vanity table. He found it two days later, under the bed, with fifteen like it. So once more he tried to get rid of them all -- and again he missed one; again he found a new nest the following day, and this time he counted forty of them. Naturally, he began to chew up as many as possible -- and as fast. And he tried boiling them -- at least the ones he could find -- in hot water. He even tried spraying them with an indoor insect bomb. At the end of a week, he had 15,832 of them filling the bedroom of his conapt. By this time chewing them out of existence, spraying them out of existence, boiling them out of existence -- all had become impractical. At the end of the month, despite having a scavenger truck haul away as much as it could take, he computed that he owned two million. Ten days later -- from a pay phone down at the corner -- he fatalistically called the FBI. But by then they were no longer able to answer the vidphone.
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.5 (Philip K. Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 8223-32  | Added on Friday, May 18, 2012, 09:11 PM

Half to himself, Fred Doubledome said, "It's psychotic, all right. I asked it if it knew where it was and it said it was floating on a raft in the Mississippi. Now get a confirm for me; ask it who it is." Dr. Pacemaker touched command-request buttons on the console of the vast computer, asking it: WHO ARE YOU? The answer appeared on the vidscreen at once. TOM SAWYER "You see?" Doubledome said. "It is totally out of touch with the reality situation. Has reactivation of Ms. Simpson begun?" "That's affirmative, Doubledome," Pacemaker said. And, as if proving him correct, doors slid aside to reveal the lead-lined container in which Ms. Simpson slept, listening to her favorite daytime soap opera, Ma Perkins.
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.5 (Philip K. Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 8416-21  | Added on Friday, May 18, 2012, 10:20 PM

Once he had experienced vague dreams. They had to do with giving to the poor. In high school he had read Charles Dickens and a vivid idea of the oppressed had fixed itself in his mind to the point where he could see them: all those who did not have a one-room apartment and a job and a high school education. Certain vague place names had floated through his head, gleaned from TV, places like India, where heavy-duty machinery swept up the dying. Once a teaching machine had told him, You have a good heart. That amazed him -- not that a machine would say so, but that it would say it to him. A girl had told him the same thing. He marveled at this. Vast forces colluding to tell him that he was not a bad person! It was a mystery and a delight.
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.5 (Philip K. Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 9247-51  | Added on Friday, May 18, 2012, 10:57 PM

McVane turned on the dome's vacuum circuit and it sucked up the spilled tea. He said nothing. He felt amorphous anger all through him, directed at nothing, fury without object, and he sensed that this was the quality of her own hate: it was a passion which went both nowhere and everywhere. Hate, he thought, like a flock of flies. God, he thought, how I want out of here. How I hate to hate like this, hating spilled tea with the same venom as I hate terminal illness. A one-dimensional universe. It has dwindled to that.
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.5 (Philip K. Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 9672-83  | Added on Saturday, May 19, 2012, 04:34 PM

After a pause, Martine said, "Call Ray." "The cat --" he said. "What cat?" "There." He pointed. "In the poster. On Fat Freddy's lap. That's Dorky. Dorky killed Ray." Silence. "The presence told me," Kemmings said. "It was God. I didn't realize it at the time, but God saw me commit the crime. The murder. And he will never forgive me." His wife stared at him numbly. "God sees everything you do," Kemmings said. "He sees even the falling sparrow. Only in this case it didn't fall; it was grabbed. Grabbed out of the air and torn down. God is tearing this house down which is my body, to pay me back for what I've done. We should have had a building contractor look this house over before we bought it. It's just falling goddam to pieces. In a year there won't be anything left of it. Don't you believe me?"
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.5 (Philip K. Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 9696-9705  | Added on Saturday, May 19, 2012, 04:35 PM

"Just a moment," the ship said. "I'm not equipped to do psychiatric reconstruction of you; I am a simple mechanism, that's all. What is it you want? Where do you want to be and what do you want to be doing?" "I want to arrive at our destinalion," Kemmings said. "I want this trip to be over." Ah, the ship thought. That is the solution. One by one the cryonic systems shut down. One by one the people returned to life, among them Victor Kemmings. What amazed him was the lack of a sense of the passage of time. He had entered the chamber, lain down, had felt the membrane cover him and the temperature begin to drop -- And now he stood on the ship's external plaiform, the unloading plalform, gazing down at a verdant planetary landscape. This, he realized, is LR4-6, the colony world to which I have come in order to begin a new life.
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.5 (Philip K. Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 9762-72  | Added on Saturday, May 19, 2012, 04:37 PM

"You could hardly have a memory of completing the trip." "Wish fulfillment, then. It's the same thing. I'll prove it to you. Do you have a screwdriver?" "Why?" Kemmings said, "I'll remove the back of the TV set and you'll see; there's nothing inside it; no components, no parts, no chassis -- nothing." "I don't have a screwdriver." "A small knife, then. I can see one in your surgical supply bag." Bending, Kemmings lifted up a small scalpel. "This will do. If I show you, will you believe me?" "If there's nothing inside the TV cabinet --" Squatting down, Kemmings removed the screws holding the back panel of the TV set in place. The panel came loose and he set it down on the floor.
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.5 (Philip K. Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 10059-64  | Added on Saturday, May 19, 2012, 05:10 PM

"Both propositions are true," I said. "It is a genuine window on the next world and it is a presentation of Rautavaara's own cultural racial propensities." What we had, in essence, was a model into which we could introduce carefully selected variables. We could introduce into Rautavaara's brain our own conception of the Guide of the Soul, and thereby see how our rendition differed practically from the puerile one of the Earth persons'. This was a novel opportunity to test our own theology. In our opinion, the Earth persons' had been tested sufficiently and been found wanting.
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.5 (Philip K. Dick)
- Note Loc. 10065  | Added on Saturday, May 19, 2012, 05:11 PM

emerging theme of these stories ss
eems to be mentality and subjectivity. internalness.

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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.5 (Philip K. Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 10137-43  | Added on Saturday, May 19, 2012, 05:15 PM

It is striking, the gulf which separates races developing in different star systems. We have tried to understand the Earth persons and we have failed. We are aware, too, that they do not understand us and are appalled in turn by some of our customs. This was demonstrated in the Rautavaara Case. But were we not serving the purposes of detached scientific study? I myself was amazed at Rautavaara's reaction when the Savior ate Mr. Travis. I would have wished to see this most holy of the sacraments fulfilled with the others, with Rautavaara and Elms as well. But we were deprived of this. And the experiment, from our standpoint, failed. And we live now, too, under the ban of unnecessary moral blame.
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.2 (Philip K. Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 79-82  | Added on Saturday, May 19, 2012, 05:19 PM

The Earth reduced to a nuclear ash heap. Robot weapons systems evolving towards baleful anti-empathetic pseudo-life. Human freedom ground down in the name of military security, economic prosperity, or even order for its own sake. Interpenetrating realities. Ironic time-loops and paradoxes. Ordinary people holding ordinary jobs as the heroes and heroines trying to muddle through.
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.2 (Philip K. Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 112-20  | Added on Saturday, May 19, 2012, 05:21 PM

Paranoia, in some respects, I think, is a modern-day development of an ancient, archaic sense that animals still have -- quarry-type animals -- that they're being watched. . . I say paranoia is an atavistic sense. It's a lingering sense, that we had long ago, when we were -- our ancestors were -- very vulnerable to predators, and this sense tells them they're being watched. And they're being watched probably by something that's going to get them. . . And often my characters have this feeling. But what really I've done is, I have atavized their society. That although it's set in the future, in many ways they're living -- there is a retrogressive quality in their lives, you know? They're living like our ancestors did. I mean, the hardware is in the future, the scenery's in the future, but the situations are really from the past. -- Philip K. Dick in an interview, 1974
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.1 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 94-99  | Added on Saturday, May 19, 2012, 05:27 PM

Think of Tung Chien in Faith of Our Fathers, and Ragel Gumm in Time Out of Joint. Their prosaic drudgery proves central to the fate of their worlds. Recall Herb Ellis in Prominent Author, an ordinary guy rewrites the Old Testament for inch-tall goatherds. Reflect on the significance of Herb Sousa's gumballs in Holy Quarrel; on the moral influence of wub-fur, in NotBy Its Cover, and the battle with the sentient pinball machine in Return Match. Small is written large. Large is written small. Shop clerks and storekeepers are just as likely as warlords and messiahs to be at Dick's ontological foci. Old Mrs. Berthelsen, in Captive Market, possesses the ultimate secret of time and space, and uses it to sell vegetables out of a wagon.
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.1 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 105-11  | Added on Saturday, May 19, 2012, 05:29 PM

Perhaps Dick, who began his writing career in Berkeley, California, absorbed the sensibilities of a town that had a carefully nurtured liberal commitment. Perhaps Joe McCarthy and the Korean War sensitized a beginning writer's imagination. We know little of his juvenile years during the Second World War. But we can identify, early and consistently, a mistrust of the military mentality, a fear of what he had seen of the total war machine on either side. He had a great disinclination to accept the slogans of the period that supported the ends over the means. Victory at all cost for Democracy, for Freedom, for the Flag are hollow aphorisms when the price of victory is totalitarian submission to a heartless military bureaucracy: Phil feared this particular future for all of us.
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.1 (Philip K Dick)
- Note Loc. 203  | Added on Saturday, May 19, 2012, 05:31 PM

wings time machine stability
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.1 (Philip K Dick)
- Note Loc. 599  | Added on Saturday, May 19, 2012, 05:31 PM

toy soldiers movement
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.1 (Philip K Dick)
- Note Loc. 1028  | Added on Saturday, May 19, 2012, 05:32 PM

self repairing gun as sole artifact of a civilization
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.1 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 1437-49  | Added on Saturday, May 19, 2012, 05:37 PM

"The First Church has an interesting past," he said. "I suppose you are familiar with it, but I'd like to speak of a few points that are of relevancy to us. "It was in the twentieth century that the Movement began -- during one of the periodic wars. The Movement developed rapidly, feeding on the general sense of futility, the realization that each war was breeding greater war, with no end in sight. The Movement posed a simple answer to the problem: Without military preparations -- weapons -- there could be no war. And without machinery and complex scientific technocracy there could be no weapons. "The Movement preached that you couldn't stop war by planning for it. They preached that man was losing to his machinery and science, that it was getting away from him, pushing him into greater and greater wars. Down with society, they shouted. Down with factories and science! A few more wars and there wouldn't be much left of the world. "The Founder was an obscure person from a small town in the American Middle West. We don't even know his name. All we know is that one day he appeared, preaching a doctrine of non-violence, non-resistance; no fighting, no paying taxes for guns, no research except for medicine. Live out your life quietly, tending your garden, staying out of public affairs; mind your own business. Be obscure, unknown, poor. Give away most of your possessions, leave the city. At least that was what developed from what he told the people."
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.1 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 1457-62  | Added on Saturday, May 19, 2012, 05:38 PM

"But the wars," Conger said. "About them?" "The wars? Well, there were no more wars. It must be acknowledged that the elimination of war was the direct result of non-violence practiced on a general scale. But we can take a more objective view of war today. What was so terrible about it? War had a profound selective value, perfectly in accord with the teachings of Darwin and Mendel and others. Without war the mass of useless, incompetent mankind, without training or intelligence, is permitted to grow and expand unchecked. War acted to reduce their numbers; like storms and earthquakes and droughts, it was nature's way of eliminating the unfit.
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.1 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 1467-75  | Added on Saturday, May 19, 2012, 05:38 PM

They crossed the dark roof. "Doubtless you now know whom those bones belonged to, who it is that we are after. He has been dead just two centuries, now, this ignorant man from the Middle West, this Founder. The tragedy is that the authorities of the time acted too slowly. They allowed him to speak, to get his message across. He was allowed to preach, to start his cult. And once such a thing is under way, there's no stopping it. "But what if he had died before he preached? What if none of his doctrines had ever been spoken? It took only a moment for him to utter them, that we know. They say he spoke just once, just one time. Then the authorities came, taking him away. He offered no resistance; the incident was small." The Speaker turned to Conger. "Small, but we're reaping the consequences of it today."
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.1 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 1486-90  | Added on Saturday, May 19, 2012, 05:39 PM

The Speaker nodded. "You will be instructed on the use of the gun and the operation of the cage. You will be given all data we have on the time and location. The exact spot was a place called Hudson's field. About 1960 in a small community outside Denver, Colorado. And don't forget -- the only means of identification you will have will be the skull. There are visible characteristics of the front teeth, especially the left incisor --"
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.1 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 1567-80  | Added on Saturday, May 19, 2012, 05:42 PM

He walked back through the main section of town, past the library, past the grocery store. It would not be hard; the hard part was over. He would go there; rent a room, prepare to wait until the man appeared. He turned the corner. A woman was coming out of a doorway loaded down with packages. Conger stepped aside to let her pass. The woman glanced at him. Suddenly her face turned white. She stared, her mouth open. Conger hurried on. He looked back. What was wrong with her? The woman was still staring; she had dropped the packages to the ground. He increased his speed. He turned a second corner and went up a side street. When he looked back again the woman had come to the entrance of the street and was starting after him. A man joined her, and the two of them began to run toward him. He lost them and left town, striding quickly, easily, up into the hills at the edge of town. When he reached the cage he stopped. What had happened? Was it something about his clothing? His dress? He pondered. Then, as the sun set, he stepped into the cage. Conger sat before the wheel. For a moment he waited, his hands resting lightly on the control. Then he turned the wheel, just a little, following the control readings carefully. The grayness settled down around him.
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.1 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 1789-98  | Added on Saturday, May 19, 2012, 05:50 PM

Conger looked toward the shelf. There was the neat package. He took it down and unwrapped it. He held the skull in his hands, turning it over. In spite of himself, a cold feeling rushed through him. This was the man's skull, the skull of the Founder, who was still alive, who would come here, this day, who would stand on the field not fifty yards away. What if he could see this, his own skull, yellow and corroded? Two centuries old. Would he still speak? Would he speak, if he could see it, the grinning, aged skull? What would there be for him to say, to tell the people? What message could he bring? What action would not be futile, when a man could look upon his own aged, yellowed skull? Better they should enjoy their temporary lives, while they still had them to enjoy. A man who could hold his own skull in his hands would believe in few causes, few movements. Rather, he would preach the opposite --
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.1 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 1887-99  | Added on Saturday, May 19, 2012, 05:53 PM

"Throw a bomb! You with the beard! Throw a bomb!" "Let 'em have it!" "Toss a few A Bombs!" They began to laugh. He smiled. He put his hands to his hips. They suddenly turned silent, seeing that he was going to speak. "I'm sorry," he said simply. "I don't have any bombs. You're mistaken." There was a flurry of murmuring. "I have a gun," he went on. "A very good one. Made by science even more advanced than your own. But I'm not going to use that, either." They were puzzled. "Why not?" someone called. At the edge of the group an older woman was watching. He felt a sudden shock. He had seen her before. Where? He remembered. The day at the library. As he had turned the corner he had seen her. She had noticed him and been astounded. At the time, he did not understand why.
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.1 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 1887-1902  | Added on Saturday, May 19, 2012, 05:54 PM

"Throw a bomb! You with the beard! Throw a bomb!" "Let 'em have it!" "Toss a few A Bombs!" They began to laugh. He smiled. He put his hands to his hips. They suddenly turned silent, seeing that he was going to speak. "I'm sorry," he said simply. "I don't have any bombs. You're mistaken." There was a flurry of murmuring. "I have a gun," he went on. "A very good one. Made by science even more advanced than your own. But I'm not going to use that, either." They were puzzled. "Why not?" someone called. At the edge of the group an older woman was watching. He felt a sudden shock. He had seen her before. Where? He remembered. The day at the library. As he had turned the corner he had seen her. She had noticed him and been astounded. At the time, he did not understand why. Conger grinned. So he would escape death, the man who right now was voluntarily accepting it. They were laughing, laughing at a man who had a gun but didn't use it. But by a strange twist of science he would appear again, a few months later, after his bones had been buried under the floor of a jail.
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.1 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 1908-15  | Added on Saturday, May 19, 2012, 05:54 PM

A police car came on the edge of the field and stopped. The people retreated a little. Conger raised his hands. "I have an odd paradox for you," he said. "Those who take lives will lose their own. Those who kill, will die. But he who gives his own life away will live again!" They laughed, faintly, nervously. The police were coming out, walking toward him. He smiled. He had said everything he intended to say. It was a good little paradox he had coined. They would puzzle over it, remember it. Smiling, Conger awaited a death foreordained.
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.1 (Philip K Dick)
- Note Loc. 1357  | Added on Saturday, May 19, 2012, 05:57 PM

back n time to kill The Founder. skull. reds. denver. sixties.
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The Collected Stories Of Philip K. Dick Vol. 3 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 230-72  | Added on Saturday, May 19, 2012, 06:03 PM

"What is it?" Bill demanded. "What's the matter, Doug?" Laura caught his arm. "What's wrong? Are you sick? Say something! Doug!" Professor Douglas jerked free and pulled open the front door. He stepped out onto the porch. There was a faint moon. A soft light hovered over everything. "Professor Douglas!" The voice again, sweet and fresh -- a girl's voice. Outlined by the moonlight, at the foot of the porch steps, stood a girl. Blonde-haired, perhaps twenty years old. In a checkered skirt, pale Angora sweater, a silk kerchief around her neck. She was waving at him anxiously, her small face pleading. "Professor, do you have a minute? Something terrible has gone wrong with. . ." Her voice trailed off as she moved nervously away from the house, into the darkness. "What's the matter?" he shouted. He could hear her voice faintly. She was moving off. Douglas was torn with indecision. He hesitated, then hurried impatiently down the stairs after her. The girl retreated from him, wringing her hands together, her full lips twisting wildly with despair. Under her sweater, her breasts rose and fell in an agony of terror, each quiver sharply etched by the moonlight. "What is it?" Douglas cried. "What's wrong?" He hurried angrily after her. "For God's sake, stand still!" The girl was still moving away, drawing him farther and farther away from the house, toward the great green expanse of lawn, the beginning of the campus. Douglas was overcome with annoyance. Damn the girl! Why couldn't she wait for him? "Hold on a minute!" he said, hurrying after her. He started out onto the dark lawn, puffing with exertion. "Who are you? What the hell do you --" There was a flash. A bolt of blinding light crashed past him and seared a smoking pit in the lawn a few feet away. Douglas halted, dumfounded. A second bolt came, this one just ahead of him. The wave of heat threw him back. He stumbled and half fell. The girl had abruptly stopped. She stood silent and unmoving, her face expressionless. There was a peculiar waxy quality to her. She had become, all at once, utterly inanimate. But he had no time to think about that. Douglas turned and lumbered back toward the house. A third bolt came, striking just ahead of him. He veered to the right and threw himself into the shrubs growing near the wall. Rolling and gasping, he pressed against the concrete side of the house, squeezing next to it as hard as he could. There was a sudden shimmer in the star-studded sky above him. A faint motion. Then nothing. He was alone. The bolts ceased. And -- The girl was gone, also. A decoy. A clever imitation to lure him away from the house, so he'd move out into the open where they could take a shot at him. He got shakily to his feet and edged around the side of the house. Bill Henderson and Laura and Berg were on the porch, talking nervously and looking around for him. There was his car, parked in the driveway. Maybe, if he could reach it -- He peered up at the sky. Only stars. No hint of them. If he could get in his car and drive off, down the highway, away from the mountains, toward Denver, where it was lower, maybe he'd be safe. He took a deep, shuddering breath. Only ten yards to the car. Thirty feet. If he could once get in it -- He ran. Fast. Down the path and along the driveway. He grabbed open the car door and leaped inside. With one quick motion he threw the switch and released the brake. The car glided forward. The motor came on with a sputter. Douglas bore down desperately on the gas. The car leaped forward. On the porch, Laura shrieked and started down the stairs. Her cry and Bill's startled shout were lost in the roar of the engine. A moment later he was on the highway, racing away from town, down the long, curving road toward Denver.
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The Collected Stories Of Philip K. Dick Vol. 3 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 326-32  | Added on Saturday, May 19, 2012, 06:04 PM

Douglas peered up. He couldn't see them, but they were there, waiting for him to get out of his car. His knowledge, his ability, would be utilized by an alien culture. He would become an instrument in their hands. All his learning would be theirs. He would be a slave and nothing more. Yet, in a way, it was a complement. From a whole society, he alone had been selected. His skill and knowledge, over everything else. A faint glow rose in his cheeks. Probably they had been studying him for some time. The great eye had no doubt often peered down through its telescope, or microscope, or whatever it was, peered down and seen him. Seen his ability and realized what that would be worth to its own culture.
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The Collected Stories Of Philip K. Dick Vol. 3 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 345-57  | Added on Saturday, May 19, 2012, 06:05 PM

Shapes. Two enormous shapes squatting down. Two incredibly huge figures bending over. One was drawing in the net. The other watched, holding something in its hand. A landscape. Dim forms too vast for Douglas to comprehend. At last, a thought came. What a struggle. It was worth it, thought the other creature. Their thoughts roared through him. Powerful thoughts, from immense minds. I was right. The biggest yet. What a catch! Must weigh all of twenty-four ragets! At last! Suddenly Douglas's composure left him. A chill of horror flashed through his mind. What were they talking about? What did they mean? But then he was being dumped from the net. He was falling. Something was coming up at him. A flat, shiny surface. What was it? Oddly, it looked almost like a frying pan.
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The Collected Stories Of Philip K. Dick Vol. 3 (Philip K Dick)
- Note Loc. 28  | Added on Saturday, May 19, 2012, 06:06 PM

nuclear physics professor eaten by aother race
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The Collected Stories Of Philip K. Dick Vol. 3 (Philip K Dick)
- Note Loc. 28  | Added on Saturday, May 19, 2012, 10:26 PM

fair game ... nuclear physics professor eaten by aother race
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The Collected Stories Of Philip K. Dick Vol. 3 (Philip K Dick)
- Note Loc. 360  | Added on Saturday, May 19, 2012, 10:30 PM

hanging stranger ... strangerhaging from lamppost to id non insect non fake humans
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The Collected Stories Of Philip K. Dick Vol. 3 (Philip K Dick)
- Note Loc. 711  | Added on Saturday, May 19, 2012, 10:31 PM

the eyes have it ... various uses of eyes that lead one to think of them as aliens
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The Collected Stories Of Philip K. Dick Vol. 3 (Philip K Dick)
- Note Loc. 3739  | Added on Saturday, May 19, 2012, 10:33 PM

to serve the master ... abandoned computer relic wit fake story to trick imtorebuilding
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The Collected Stories Of Philip K. Dick Vol. 3 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 4028-33  | Added on Saturday, May 19, 2012, 10:34 PM

"Try to understand, Fleming. By accustoming myself to everyday objects of my research period I transform my relation from mere intellectual curiosity to genuine empathy. You have frequently noticed I pronounce certain words oddly. The accent is that of an American businessman of the Eisenhower administration. Dig me?" "Eh?" Fleming muttered. "Dig me was a twentieth-century expression." Miller laid out his study spools on his desk. "Was there anything you wanted? If
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The Collected Stories Of Philip K. Dick Vol. 3 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 4033-38  | Added on Saturday, May 19, 2012, 10:35 PM

I've uncovered fascinating evidence to indicate that although twentieth-century Americans laid their own floor tiles, they did not weave their own clothing. I wish to alter my exhibits on this matter." "There's no fanatic like an academician," Fleming grated. "You're two hundred years behind times. Immersed in your relics and artifacts. Your damn authentic replicas of discarded trivia." "I love my work," Miller answered mildly.
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The Collected Stories Of Philip K. Dick Vol. 3 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 4179-98  | Added on Saturday, May 19, 2012, 10:43 PM

Miller rubbed his forehead vaguely. "I don't know. It's all confused. I don't remember looking for any newspaper. I remember coming back in the house. Then it gets clear. But before that it's all tied up with the History Agency and my quarrel with Fleming." "What was that again about your briefcase? Go over that." "Fleming said it looked like a squashed Jurassic lizard. And I said --" "No. I mean, about looking for it in the closet and not finding it." "I looked in the closet and it wasn't there, of course. It's sitting beside my desk at the History Agency. On the Twentieth Century level. By my exhibits." A strange expression crossed Miller's face. "Good God, Grunberg. You realize this may be nothing but an exhibit? You and everybody else -- maybe you're not real. Just pieces of this exhibit." "That wouldn't be very pleasant for us, would it?" Grunberg said, with a faint smile. "People in dreams are always secure until the dreamer wakes up," Miller retorted. "So you're dreaming me," Grunberg laughed tolerantly. "I suppose I should thank you." "I'm not here because I especially like you. I'm here because I can't stand Fleming and the whole History Agency." Grunberg protested. "This Fleming. Are you aware of thinking about him before you went out looking for the newspaper?" Miller got to his feet and paced around the luxurious office, between the leather-covered chairs and the huge mahogany desk. "I want to face this thing. I'm an exhibit. An artificial replica of the past. Fleming said something like this would happen to me."
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The Collected Stories Of Philip K. Dick Vol. 3 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 4281-93  | Added on Saturday, May 19, 2012, 10:47 PM

Fleming grunted sourly. "In other words, you're going to stay in there." "It's a pleasant place," Miller said easily. "Of course, my position is better than average. Let me describe it for you. I have an attractive wife: marriage is permitted, even sanctioned in this era. I have two fine kids -- both boys -- who are going up to the Russian River this weekend. They live with me and my wife -- we have complete custody of them. The State has no power of that, yet. I have a brand new Buick --" "Illusions," Fleming spat. "Psychotic delusions." "Are you sure?" "You damn fool! I always knew you were too ego-recessive to face reality. You and your anachronistic retreats. Sometimes I'm ashamed I'm a theoretician. I wish I had gone into engineering." Fleming's lips twitched. "You're insane, you know. You're standing in the middle of an artificial exhibit, which is owned by the History Agency, a bundle of plastic and wire and struts. A replica of a past age. An imitation. And you'd rather be there than in the real world." "Strange," Miller said thoughtfully. "Seems to me I've heard the same thing very recently. You don't know a Doctor Grunberg, do you? A psychiatrist."
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The Collected Stories Of Philip K. Dick Vol. 3 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 4319-29  | Added on Saturday, May 19, 2012, 10:48 PM

"Of course. The exhibit is only a bridge, a link with the past. I passed through the exhibit, but I'm not there now. I'm beyond the exhibit." He grinned tightly. "Your demolition can't reach me. But seal me off, if you want. I don't think I'll be wanting to come back. I wish you could see this side, Carnap. It's a nice place here. Freedom, opportunity. Limited government, responsible to the people. If you don't like a job here you quit. There's no euthanasia, here. Come on over. I'll introduce you to my wife." "We'll get you," Carnap said. "And all your psychotic figments along with you." "I doubt if any of my 'psychotic figments' are worried. Grunberg wasn't. I don't think Marjorie is --" "We've already begun demolition preparations," Carnap said calmly. "We'll do it piece by piece, not all at once. So you may have the opportunity to appreciate the scientific and -- artistic way we take your imaginary world apart." "You're wasting your time,"
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The Collected Stories Of Philip K. Dick Vol. 3 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 4331-38  | Added on Saturday, May 19, 2012, 10:49 PM

In the living room he threw himself down in the easy chair and snapped on the television set. Then he went to the kitchen and got a can of ice cold beer. He carried it happily back into the safe, comfortable living room. As he was seating himself in front of the television set he noticed something rolled up on the low coffee table. He grinned wryly. It was the morning newspaper, which he had looked so hard for. Marjorie had brought it in with the milk, as usual. And of course forgotten to tell him. He yawned contentedly and reached over to pick it up. Confidently, he unfolded it -- and read the big black headlines. RUSSIA REVEALS COBALT BOMB TOTAL WORLD DESTRUCTION AHEAD
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The Collected Stories Of Philip K. Dick Vol. 3 (Philip K Dick)
- Note Loc. 4015  | Added on Saturday, May 19, 2012, 10:49 PM

exhibit piece ... twentieth century exhibt time gate cobalt bmb world destruction
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The Collected Stories Of Philip K. Dick Vol. 3 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 4447-48  | Added on Sunday, May 20, 2012, 08:36 AM

The old woman's eyes flashed. "You people and your machines. See what you've done!" She jabbed a bony finger at him excitedly. "Now you have to fix it. You have to do something."
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The Collected Stories Of Philip K. Dick Vol. 3 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 4515-24  | Added on Sunday, May 20, 2012, 08:40 AM

He built, and the more he built the more he enjoyed building. By now the city was over eighty miles deep and five miles in diameter. The whole island had been converted into a single vast city that honeycombed and interlaced farther each day. Eventually it would reach the land beyond the ocean; then the work would begin in earnest. To his right, a thousand methodically moving companions toiled silently on the structural support that was to reinforce the main breeding chamber. As soon as it was in place everyone would feel better; the mothers were just now beginning to bring forth their young. That was what worried him. It took some of the joy out ot building. He had seen one of the first born -- before it was quickly hidden and the thing hushed up. A brief glimpse of a bulbous head, foreshortened body, incredibly rigid extensions. It shrieked and wailed and turned red in the face. Gurgled and plucked aimlessly and kicked its feet. In horror, somebody had finally mashed the throwback with a rock. And hoped there wouldn't be any more.
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The Collected Stories Of Philip K. Dick Vol. 3 (Philip K Dick)
- Note Loc. 4341  | Added on Sunday, May 20, 2012, 08:41 AM

the crawlers ... subterranean human species branch. caused by radiation lab.
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.5 (Philip K. Dick)
- Note Loc. 3160  | Added on Sunday, May 20, 2012, 11:36 AM

holy qarrel ... supercomputer n control of military sets off red alert over gumball machines
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.5 (Philip K. Dick)
- Note Loc. 8172  | Added on Sunday, May 20, 2012, 11:42 AM

the day mr computer fell out of its tree ... computer crazy because joe contemptible is crazy
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.5 (Philip K. Dick)
- Note Loc. 8352  | Added on Sunday, May 20, 2012, 11:45 AM

the exit door leadsin ... bob bibleman gets selected to attend military college remote place. trns out to be a test re classified information about engine.
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.5 (Philip K. Dick)
- Note Loc. 8352  | Added on Sunday, May 20, 2012, 11:45 AM

the exit door leads in ... bob bibleman gets selected to attend military college remote place. trns out to be a test re classified information about engine.
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.5 (Philip K. Dick)
- Note Loc. 9374  | Added on Sunday, May 20, 2012, 11:46 AM

strange memoriesof death ... apartment. lysol lady. paranoia. money separaing sane and insane. buying apartment.
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.5 (Philip K. Dick)
- Note Loc. 8833  | Added on Sunday, May 20, 2012, 11:48 AM

chains of air web of aether ... technicians on remote stations. one gets sick. death spreading organism. 
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.5 (Philip K. Dick)
- Note Loc. 9492  | Added on Sunday, May 20, 2012, 11:49 AM

i hopei shall arrive soon ... ship suspended consciousness feeding memories depression last time real
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.5 (Philip K. Dick)
- Note Loc. 9919  | Added on Sunday, May 20, 2012, 11:51 AM

rautavaaras case ... plasma beings rescue human. brain still alive. afterlife experiment. our version of god
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.5 (Philip K. Dick)
- Note Loc. 10145  | Added on Sunday, May 20, 2012, 12:03 PM

the alien mind ... ship is redirected off course. kills cat. lands. takes off.
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.4 (Philip K. Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 228-34  | Added on Sunday, May 20, 2012, 02:14 PM

"Isn't there some limiting injunction?" Ferine asked nervously. "Were they set up to expand indefinitely?" "Each factory is limited to its own operational area," O'Neill said, "but the network itself is unbounded. It can go on scooping up our resources forever. The Institute decided it gets top priority; we mere people come second." "Will there be anything left for us?" Morrison wanted to know. "Not unless we can stop the network's operations. It's already used up half a dozen basic minerals.
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.4 (Philip K. Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 282-87  | Added on Sunday, May 20, 2012, 02:17 PM

The factory representative moved toward the door. "Until such time as your community finds other sources of milk supply, the network will continue to supply you. Analytical and evaluating apparatus will remain in this area, conducting the customary random sampling." Ferine shouted futilely, "How can we find other sources? You have the whole setup! You're running the whole show!" Following after it, he bellowed, "You say we're not ready to run things -- you claim we're not capable. How do you know? You don't give us a chance! We'll never have a chance!"
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.4 (Philip K. Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 330-38  | Added on Sunday, May 20, 2012, 02:19 PM

"Ruins-squatters," O'Neill said gloomily. "Too far from the network -- not tangent to any of the factories." "It's their own fault," Morrison told him angrily. "They could come into one of the settlements." "That was their town. They're trying to do what we 're trying to do -- build up things again on their own. But they're starting now, without tools or machines, with their bare hands, nailing together bits of rubble. And it won't work. We need machines. We can't repair ruins; we've got to start industrial production." Ahead lay a series of broken hills, chipped remains that had once been a ridge. Beyond stretched out the titanic ugly sore of an H-bomb crater, half filled with stagnant water and slime, a disease-ridden inland sea.
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.4 (Philip K. Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 375-79  | Added on Sunday, May 20, 2012, 02:21 PM

"What happens when we've identified the missing element?" Morrison asked O'Neill. "What happens when we've got two tangent factories short on the same material?" "Then," O'Neill said grimly, "we start collecting the material ourselves -- even if we have to melt down every object in the settlements."
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.4 (Philip K. Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 529-45  | Added on Sunday, May 20, 2012, 04:59 PM

A single battered ore-gathering cart was creeping clumsily toward the factory. One last damaged mobile unit trying to complete its task. The cart was virtually empty; a few meager scraps of metal lay strewn in its hold. A scavenger. . . the metal was sections ripped from destroyed equipment encountered on the way. Feebly, like a blind metallic insect, the cart approached the factory. Its progress was incredibly jerky. Every now and then, it halted, bucked and quivered, and wandered aimlessly off the path. "Control is bad," Judith said, with a touch of horror in her voice. "The factory's having trouble guiding it back." Yes, he had seen that. Around New York, the factory had lost its high-frequency transmitter completely. Its mobile units had floundered in crazy gyrations, racing in random circles, crashing against rocks and trees, sliding into gullies, overturning, finally unwinding and becoming reluctantly inanimate. The ore cart reached the edge of the ruined plain and halted briefly. Above it, the dot of black still circled the sky. For a time, the cart remained frozen. "The factory's trying to decide," Ferine said. "It needs the material, but it's afraid of that hawk up there." The factory debated and nothing stirred. Then the ore cart again resumed its unsteady crawl. It left the tangle of vines and started out across the blasted open plain. Painfully, with infinite caution, it headed toward the slab of dark concrete and metal at the base of the mountains. The hawk stopped circling. "Get down!" O'Neill said sharply. "They've got those rigged with the new bombs."
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.4 (Philip K. Dick)
- Note Loc. 109  | Added on Sunday, May 20, 2012, 05:17 PM

autofac .. automatic factory that wont stop producing. war started. multilevel plant. bottom is generating miniature factories.
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.4 (Philip K. Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 995-1001  | Added on Sunday, May 20, 2012, 08:11 PM

"And your job," Pesbroke muttered, "is to keep the swibbles working?" "They do get out of adjustment, left to themselves." "Isn't it a kind of paradox?" Pesbroke pursued. "The swibbles keep us in adjustment, and we keep them in adjustment. . . it's a closed circle." The repairman was intrigued. "Yes, that's an interesting way of putting it. But we must keep control over the swibbles, of course. So they don't die." He shivered. "Or worse."
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.4 (Philip K. Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 1009-19  | Added on Sunday, May 20, 2012, 08:13 PM

"The swibble has direct access to human minds?" Anderson asked, fascinated. "Naturally. It's an artificially evolved telepathic metazoan. And with it, Wright solved the basic problem of modern times: the existence of diverse, warring ideological factions, the presence of disloyalty and dissent. In the words of General Steiner's famous aphorism: War is an extension of the disagreement from the voting booth to the battlefield. And the preamble of the World Service Charter: war, if it is to be eliminated, must be eliminated from the minds of men, for it is in the minds of men that disagreement begins. Up until 1963, we had no way to get into the minds of men. Up until 1963, the problem was unsolvable." "Thank God," Fay said clearly. The repairman failed to hear her; he was carried away by his own enthusiasm. "By means of the swibble, we've managed to transform the basic sociological problem of loyalty into a routine technical matter: to the mere matter of maintenance and repair. Our only concern is keep the swibbles functioning correctly; the rest is up to them."
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.4 (Philip K. Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 1405-18  | Added on Monday, May 21, 2012, 07:05 PM

Masterson and Crowley looked uneasily at each other. "She sure is mad," Masterson said apprehensively. Tellman hurried up, glanced at the old woman getting into her truck, and then bent down to root around in one of the cartons of groceries. Childish greed flushed across his thin face. "Look," he gasped. "Coffee -- fifteen pounds of it. Can we open some? Can we get one tin open, to celebrate?" "Sure," Crowley said tonelessly, his eyes on the truck. With a muffled roar, the truck turned in a wide arc and rumbled off down the crude platform, toward the ash. It rolled off into the ash, slithered for a short distance, and then faded out. Only the bleak, sun-swept plain of darkness remained. "Coffee!" Tellman shouted gleefully. He tossed the bright metal can high in the air and clumsily caught it again. "A celebration! Our last night -- last meal on Earth!" It was true. As the red pickup truck jogged metallically along the road, Mrs Berthelson scanned "ahead" and saw that the men were telling the truth. Her thin lips writhed; in her mouth an acid taste of bile rose. She had taken it for granted that they would continue to buy -- there was no competition, no other source of supply. But they were leaving. And when they left, there would be no more market.
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.4 (Philip K. Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 1467-76  | Added on Monday, May 21, 2012, 07:08 PM

On Masterson's shattered face glittered the first stirrings of hysteria. "Do you think--" "No, Crowley muttered. "It isn't possible." Masterson began to giggle. Tears streaked the grime of his cheeks; drops of thick moisture dripped down his neck into his charred collar. "She did it. She fixed us. She wants us to stay here." "No," Crowley repeated. He shut out the thought. It couldn't be. It just couldn't, "We'll get away," he said. "We'll assemble the remains -- start over." "She'll be back," Masterson quavered. "She knows we'll be here waiting for her. Customers!" "No," Crowley said. He didn't believe it; he made himself not believe it. "We'll get away. We've got to get away!"
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.4 (Philip K. Dick)
- Note Loc. 672  | Added on Monday, May 21, 2012, 07:09 PM

service call ... service for unknown device by service man from future. 
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.4 (Philip K. Dick)
- Note Loc. 1096  | Added on Monday, May 21, 2012, 07:10 PM

captive market ... woman travels through time to find a captive market
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.1 (Philip K Dick)
- Bookmark Loc. 831  | Added on Tuesday, May 22, 2012, 07:54 PM


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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.1 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 826-35  | Added on Tuesday, May 22, 2012, 07:55 PM

The Optus went off, wordless. Franco joined the first mate at the bottom of the gangplank. "How's it coming?" he asked. He looked at his watch. "We got a good bargain here." The mate glanced at him sourly. "How do you explain that?" "What's the matter with you? We need it more than they do." "I'll see you later, Captain." The mate threaded his way up the plank, between the long-legged Martian go-birds, into the ship. Franco watched him disappear. He was just starting up after him, up the plank toward the port, when he saw it. "My God!" He stood staring, his hands on his hips. Peterson was walking along the path, his face red, leading it by a string.
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.1 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 864-77  | Added on Tuesday, May 22, 2012, 07:56 PM

"Let's have a look at it." He advanced, squinting critically. "You got this for fifty cents?" "Yes, sir," Peterson said. "It eats almost anything. I fed it on grain and it liked that. And then potatoes, and mash, and scraps from the table, and milk. It seems to enjoy eating. After it eats it lies down and goes to sleep." "I see," Captain Franco said. "Now, as to its taste. That's the real question. I doubt if there's much point in fattening it up any more. It seems fat enough to me already. Where's the cook? I want him here. I want to find out --" The wub stopped lapping and looked up at the Captain. "Really, Captain," the wub said. "I suggest we talk of other matters." The room was silent. "What was that?" Franco said. "Just now." "The wub, sir," Peterson said. "It spoke." They all looked at the wub. "What did it say? What did it say?" "It suggested we talk about other things."
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.1 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 880-90  | Added on Tuesday, May 22, 2012, 07:57 PM

"Oh, goodness!" the wub cried. "Is that all you people can think of, killing and cutting?" Franco clenched his fists. "Come out of there! Whoever you are, come out!" Nothing stirred. The men stood together, their faces blank, staring at the wub. The wub swished its tail. It belched suddenly. "I beg your pardon," the wub said. "I don't think there's anyone in there," Jones said in a low voice. They all looked at each other. The cook came in. "You wanted me, Captain?" he said. "What's this thing?" "This is a wub," Franco said. "It's to be eaten. Will you measure it and figure out --" "I think we should have a talk," the wub said. "I'd like to discuss this with you, Captain, if I might. I can see that you and I do not agree on some basic issues."
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.1 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 903-13  | Added on Tuesday, May 22, 2012, 07:57 PM

"And you speak English? You've been in contact with Earthmen before?" "No." "Then how do you do it?" "Speak English? Am I speaking English? I'm not conscious of speaking anything in particular. I examined your mind --" "My mind?" "I studied the contents, especially the semantic warehouse, as I refer to it --" "I see," the Captain said. "Telepathy. Of course." "We are a very old race," the wub said. "Very old and very ponderous. It is difficult for us to move around. You can appreciate anything so slow and heavy would be at the mercy of more agile forms of life. There was no use in our relying on physical defenses. How could we win? Too heavy to run, too soft to fight, too good-natured to hunt for game --"
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.1 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 924-32  | Added on Tuesday, May 22, 2012, 07:58 PM

"Indeed." The Captain nodded. "But to get back to the problem. . ." "Quite so. You spoke of dining on me. The taste, I am told, is good. A little fatty, but tender. But how can any lasting contact be established between your people and mine if you resort to such barbaric attitudes? Eat me? Rather you should discuss questions with me, philosophy, the arts --" The Captain stood up. "Philosophy. It might interest you to know that we will be hard put to find something to eat for the next month. An unfortunate spoilage --" "I know." The wub nodded. "But wouldn't it be more in accord with your principles of democracy if we all drew straws, or something along that line? After all, democracy is to protect the minority from just such infringements. Now, if each of us casts one vote
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.1 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 937-44  | Added on Tuesday, May 22, 2012, 07:59 PM

The room was quiet. "So you see," the wub said, "we have a common myth. Your mind contains many familiar myth symbols. Ishtar, Odysseus --" Peterson sat silently, staring at the floor. He shifted in his chair. "Go on," he said. "Please go on." "I find in your Odysseus a figure common to the mythology of most self-conscious races. As I interpret it, Odysseus wanders as an individual aware of himself as such. This is the idea of separation, of separation from family and country. The process of individuation."
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.1 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 973-78  | Added on Tuesday, May 22, 2012, 08:00 PM

"You are quite afraid, aren't you?" the wub said. "Have I done anything to you? I am against the idea of hurting. All I have done is try to protect myself. Can you expect me to rush eagerly to my death? I am a sensible being like yourselves. I was curious to see your ship, learn about you. I suggested to the native --" The gun jerked. "See," Franco said. "I thought so."
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.1 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 973-87  | Added on Tuesday, May 22, 2012, 08:00 PM

"You are quite afraid, aren't you?" the wub said. "Have I done anything to you? I am against the idea of hurting. All I have done is try to protect myself. Can you expect me to rush eagerly to my death? I am a sensible being like yourselves. I was curious to see your ship, learn about you. I suggested to the native --" The gun jerked. "See," Franco said. "I thought so." The wub settled down, panting. It put its paws out, pulling its tail around it. "It is very warm," the wub said. "I understand that we are close to the jets. Atomic power. You have done many wonderful things with it -- technically. Apparently your scientific hierarchy is not equipped to solve moral, ethical --" Franco turned to the men, crowding behind him, wide-eyed, silent. "I'll do it. You can watch." French nodded. "Try to hit the brain. It's no good for eating. Don't hit the chest. If the rib cage shatters, we'll have to pick bones out." "Listen," Peterson said, licking his lips. "Has it done anything? What harm has it done? I'm asking you. And anyhow, it's still mine. You have no right to shoot it. It doesn't belong to you."
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.1 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 1013-26  | Added on Tuesday, May 22, 2012, 08:02 PM

"It is only organic matter, now," he said. "The life essence is gone." He ate, spooning up the gravy with some bread. "I, myself, love to eat. It is one of the greatest things that a living creature can enjoy. Eating, resting, meditation, discussing things." Peterson nodded. Two more men got up and went out. The Captain drank some water and sighed. "Well," he said. "I must say that this was a very enjoyable meal. All the reports I had heard were quite true -- the taste of wub. Very fine. But I was prevented from enjoying this in times past." He dabbed at his lips with his napkin and leaned back in his chair. Peterson stared dejectedly at the table. The Captain watched him intently. He leaned over. "Come, come," he said. "Cheer up! Let's discuss things." He smiled. "As I was saying before I was interrupted, the role of Odysseus in the myths --" Peterson jerked up, staring. "To go on," the Captain said. "Odysseus, as I understand him --"
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.1 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 2912-24  | Added on Friday, June 01, 2012, 09:09 AM

One day he and the Professor had been sitting together in the school chapel, talking leisurely. "Well, you'll be out of school, soon," the Professor had said. "What are you going to do?" "Do? Work at one of the Government Research Projects, I suppose." "And eventually? What's your ultimate goal?" Kramer had smiled. "The question is unscientific. It presupposes such things as ultimate ends." "Suppose instead along these lines, then: What if there were no war and no Government Research Projects? What would you do, then?" "I don't know. But how can I imagine a hypothetical situation like that? There's been war as long as I can remember. We're geared for war. I don't know what I'd do. I suppose I'd adjust, get used to it." The Professor had stared at him. "Oh, you do think you'd get accustomed to it, eh? Well, I'm glad of that. And you think you could find something to do?"
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.1 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 3137-40  | Added on Friday, June 01, 2012, 09:55 AM

"I don't doubt that. My conception, my plan, came to me as soon as you began to describe your project, that day at my house. I saw at once that you were wrong; you people have no understanding of the mind at all. I realized that the transfer of a human brain from an organic body to a complex artificial spaceship would not involve the loss of the intellectualization faculty of the mind. When a man thinks, he is.
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.1 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 3145-53  | Added on Friday, June 01, 2012, 09:56 AM

The human society has evolved war as a cultural institution, like the science of astronomy, or mathematics. War is a part of our lives, a career, a respected vocation. Bright, alert young men and women move into it, putting their shoulders to the wheel as they did in the time of Nebuchadnezzar. It has always been so. "But is it innate in mankind? I don't think so. No social custom is innate. There were many human groups that did not go to war; the Eskimos never grasped the idea at all, and the American Indians never took to it well. "But these dissenters were wiped out, and a cultural pattern was established that became the standard for the whole planet. Now it has become ingrained in us. "But if someplace along the line some other way of settling problems had arisen and taken hold, something different than the massing of men and to
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.1 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 3145-53  | Added on Friday, June 01, 2012, 09:56 AM

The human society has evolved war as a cultural institution, like the science of astronomy, or mathematics. War is a part of our lives, a career, a respected vocation. Bright, alert young men and women move into it, putting their shoulders to the wheel as they did in the time of Nebuchadnezzar. It has always been so. "But is it innate in mankind? I don't think so. No social custom is innate. There were many human groups that did not go to war; the Eskimos never grasped the idea at all, and the American Indians never took to it well. "But these dissenters were wiped out, and a cultural pattern was established that became the standard for the whole planet. Now it has become ingrained in us. "But if someplace along the line some other way of settling problems had arisen and taken hold, something different than the massing of men and to --"
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.1 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 3163-67  | Added on Friday, June 01, 2012, 10:46 AM

That would be time enough, sufficient to see the direction of the new colony. After that -- Well, after that it would be up to the colony itself. "Which is just as well, of course. Man must take control eventually, on his own. One hundred years, and after that they will have control of their destiny. Perhaps I am wrong, perhaps war is more than a habit. Perhaps it is a law of the universe, that things can only survive as groups by group violence.
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.1 (Philip K Dick)
- Bookmark Loc. 16  | Added on Friday, June 01, 2012, 10:50 AM


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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.1 (Philip K Dick)
- Note Loc. 2475  | Added on Friday, June 01, 2012, 10:50 AM

mr spaceship ... old man brain in ship new eden
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.1 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 2044-55  | Added on Friday, June 01, 2012, 11:05 AM

The door beyond the wall opened. Taylor peered through his view slot. He saw something advancing slowly, a slender metallic figure moving on a tread, its arm grips at rest by its sides. The figure halted and scanned the lead wall. It stood, waiting. "We are interested in learning something," Franks said. "Before I question you, do you have anything to report on surface conditions?" "No. The war continues." The leady's voice was automatic and toneless. "We are a little short of fast pursuit craft, the single-seat type. We could use also some --" "That has all been noted. What I want to ask you is this. Our contact with you has been through vidscreen only. We must rely on indirect evidence, since none of us goes above. We can only infer what is going on. We never see anything ourselves. We have to take it all secondhand. Some top leaders are beginning to think there's too much room for error." "Error?" the leady asked. "In what way? Our reports are checked carefully before they're sent down. We maintain constant contact with you; everything of value is reported. Any new weapons which the enemy is seen to employ --"
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.1 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 2073-87  | Added on Friday, June 01, 2012, 02:12 PM

He put his shoulder against the wall and a section slid aside. Taylor gasped -- Franks and Moss were hurrying up to the leady! "Good God!" Taylor said. "But it's radioactive!" The leady stood unmoving, still holding the metal. Soldiers appeared in the chamber. They surrounded the leady and ran a counter across it carefully. "OK, sir," one of them said to Franks. "It's as cold as a long winter evening." "Good. I was sure, but I didn't want to take any chances." "You see," Moss said to Taylor, "this leady isn't hot at all. Yet it came directly from the surface, without even being bathed." "But what does it mean?" Taylor asked blankly. "It may be an accident," Franks said. "There's always the possibility that a given object might escape being exposed above. But this is the second time it's happened that we know of. There may be others." "The second time?" "The previous interview was when we noticed it. The leady was not hot. It was cold, too, like this one."
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.1 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 2116-21  | Added on Friday, June 01, 2012, 02:13 PM

He stood for a long time, staring ahead. Slowly, he reached for the newspaper and held it up to the light. "It looks real," he murmured. "Ruins, deadness, slag. It's convincing. All the reports, photographs, films, even air samples. Yet we haven't seen it for ourselves, not after the first months. . . ." "What are you talking about?" "Nothing." He put the paper down. "I'm leaving early after the next Sleep Period. Let's turn in."
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.1 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 2186-2211  | Added on Friday, June 01, 2012, 02:27 PM

"This is Security," Franks said. "Have an A-class sent to me at once." The leady hesitated. Other B-class guards were coming, scooting across the floor, alert and alarmed. Moss peered around. "Obey!" Franks said in a loud, commanding voice. "You've been ordered!" The leady moved uncertainly away from them. At the end of the building, a door slid back. Two Class-A leadies appeared, coming slowly toward them. Each had a green stripe across its front. "From the Surface Council," Franks whispered tensely. "This is above ground, all right. Get set." The two leadies approached warily. Without speaking, they stopped close by the men, looking them up and down. "I'm Franks of Security. We came from undersurface in order to --" "This is incredible," one leady interrupted him coldly. "You know you can't live up here. The whole surface is lethal to you. You can't possibly remain on the surface." "These suits will protect us," Franks said. "In any case, it's not your responsibility. What I want is an immediate Council meeting so I can acquaint myself with conditions, with the situation here. Can that be arranged?" "You human beings can't survive up here. And the new Soviet attack is directed at this area. It is in considerable danger." "We know that. Please assemble the Council." Franks looked around him at the vast room, lit by recessed lamps in the ceiling. An uncertain quality came into his voice. "Is it night or day right now?" "Night," one of the A-class leadies said, after a pause. "Dawn is coming in about two hours." Franks nodded. "We'll remain at least two hours, then. As a concession to our sentimentality, would you please show us some place where we can observe the sun as it comes up? We would appreciate it." A stir went through the leadies. "It is an unpleasant sight," one of the leadies said. "You've seen the photographs; you know what you'll witness. Clouds of drifting particles blot out the light, slag heaps are everywhere, the whole land is destroyed. For you it will be a staggering sight, much worse than pictures and film can convey."
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.1 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 2223-27  | Added on Friday, June 01, 2012, 02:29 PM

"This astonishes and perplexes us," it said. "Of course we must do what you tell us, but allow me to point out that if you remain here --" "We know," Franks said impatiently. "However, we intend to remain, at least until sunrise." "If you insist."
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.1 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 2223-36  | Added on Friday, June 01, 2012, 02:29 PM

"This astonishes and perplexes us," it said. "Of course we must do what you tell us, but allow me to point out that if you remain here --" "We know," Franks said impatiently. "However, we intend to remain, at least until sunrise." "If you insist." There was silence. The leadies seemed to be conferring with each other, although the three men heard no sound. "For your own good," the leader said at last, "you must go back down. We have discussed this, and it seems to us that you are doing the wrong thing for your own good." "We are human beings," Franks said sharply. "Don't you understand? We're men, not machines." "That is precisely why you must go back. This room is radioactive; all surface areas are. We calculate that your suits will not protect you for over fifty more minutes. Therefore --" The leadies moved abruptly toward the men, wheeling in a circle, forming a solid row. The men stood up, Taylor reaching awkwardly for his weapon, his fingers numb and stupid. The men stood facing the silent metal figures.
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.1 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 2237-2306  | Added on Friday, June 01, 2012, 02:33 PM

"We must insist," the leader said, its voice without emotion. "We must take you back to the Tube and send you down on the next car. I am sorry, but it is necessary." "What'll we do?" Moss said nervously to Franks. He touched his gun. "Shall we blast them?" Franks shook his head. "All right," he said to the leader. "We'll go back." He moved toward the door, motioning Taylor and Moss to follow him. They looked at him in surprise, but they came with him. The leadies followed them out into the great warehouse. Slowly they moved toward the Tube entrance, none of them speaking. At the lip, Franks turned. "We are going back because we have no choice. There are three of us and about a dozen of you. However, if --" "Here comes the car," Taylor said. There was a grating sound from the Tube. D-class leadies moved toward the edge to receive it. "I am sorry," the leader said, "but it is for your protection. We are watching over you, literally. You must stay below and let us conduct the war. In a sense, it has come to be our war. We must fight it as we see fit." The car rose to the surface. Twelve soldiers, armed with Bender pistols, stepped from it and surrounded the three men. Moss breathed a sigh of relief. "Well, this does change things. It came off just right." The leader moved back, away from the soldiers. It studied them intently, glancing from one to the next, apparently trying to make up its mind. At last it made a sign to the other leadies. They coasted aside and a corridor was opened up toward the warehouse. "Even now," the leader said, "we could send you back by force. But it is evident that this is not really an observation party at all. These soldiers show that you have much more in mind; this was all carefully prepared." "Very carefully," Franks said. They closed in. "How much more, we can only guess. I must admit that we were taken unprepared. We failed utterly to meet the situation. Now force would be absurd, because neither side can afford to injure the other; we, because of the restrictions placed on us regarding human life, you because the war demands --" The soldiers fired, quick and in fright. Moss dropped to one knee, firing up. The leader dissolved in a cloud of particles. On all sides D- and B-class leadies were rushing up, some with weapons, some with metal slats. The room was in confusion. Off in the distance a siren was screaming. Franks and Taylor were cut off from the others, separated from the soldiers by a wall of metal bodies. "They can't fire back," Franks said calmly. "This is another bluff. They've tried to bluff us all the way." He fired into the face of a leady. The leady dissolved. "They can only try to frighten us. Remember that." They went on firing and leady after leady vanished. The room reeked with the smell of burning metal, the stink of fused plastic and steel. Taylor had been knocked down. He was struggling to find his gun, reaching wildly among metal legs, groping frantically to find it. His fingers strained, a handle swam in front of him. Suddenly something came down on his arm, a metal foot. He cried out. Then it was over. The leadies were moving away, gathering together off to one side. Only four of the Surface Council remained. The others were radioactive particles in the air. D-class leadies were already restoring order, gathering up partly destroyed metal figures and bits and removing them. Franks breathed a shuddering sigh. "All right," he said. "You can take us back to the windows. It won't be long now." The leadies separated, and the human group, Moss and Franks.and Taylor and the soldiers, walked slowly across the room, toward the door. They entered the Council Chamber. Already a faint touch of gray mitigated the blackness of the windows. "Take us outside," Franks said impatiently. "We'll see it directly, not in here." A door slid open. A chill blast of cold morning air rushed in, chilling them even through their lead suits. The men glanced at each other uneasily. "Come on," Franks said. "Outside." He walked out through the door, the others following him. They were on a hill, overlooking the vast bowl of a valley. Dimly, against the graying sky, the outline of mountains were forming, becoming tangible. "It'll be bright enough to see in a few minutes," Moss said. He shuddered as a chilling wind caught him and moved around him. "It's worth it, really worth it, to see this again after eight years. Even if it's the last thing we see --" "Watch," Franks snapped. They obeyed, silent and subdued. The sky was clearing, brightening each moment. Some place far off, echoing across the valley, a rooster crowed. "A chicken!" Taylor murmured. "Did you hear?" Behind them, the leadies had come out and were standing silently, watching, too. The gray sky turned to white and the hills appeared more clearly. Light spread across the valley floor, moving toward them. "God in heaven!" Franks exclaimed. Trees, trees and forests. A valley of plants and trees, with a few roads winding among them. Farmhouses. A windmill. A barn, far down below them. "Look!" Moss whispered. Color came into the sky. The sun was approaching. Birds began to sing. Not far from where they stood, the leaves of a tree danced in the wind. Franks turned to the row of leadies behind them. "Eight years. We were tricked. There was no war. As soon as we left the surface --" "Yes," an A-class leady admitted. "As soon as you left, the war ceased. You're right, it was a hoax. You worked hard undersurface, sending up guns and weapons, and we destroyed them as fast as they came up." "But why?" Taylor asked, dazed. He stared down at the vast valley below, "Why?" "You created us," the leady said, "to pursue the
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.1 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 2237-2308  | Added on Friday, June 01, 2012, 02:33 PM

"We must insist," the leader said, its voice without emotion. "We must take you back to the Tube and send you down on the next car. I am sorry, but it is necessary." "What'll we do?" Moss said nervously to Franks. He touched his gun. "Shall we blast them?" Franks shook his head. "All right," he said to the leader. "We'll go back." He moved toward the door, motioning Taylor and Moss to follow him. They looked at him in surprise, but they came with him. The leadies followed them out into the great warehouse. Slowly they moved toward the Tube entrance, none of them speaking. At the lip, Franks turned. "We are going back because we have no choice. There are three of us and about a dozen of you. However, if --" "Here comes the car," Taylor said. There was a grating sound from the Tube. D-class leadies moved toward the edge to receive it. "I am sorry," the leader said, "but it is for your protection. We are watching over you, literally. You must stay below and let us conduct the war. In a sense, it has come to be our war. We must fight it as we see fit." The car rose to the surface. Twelve soldiers, armed with Bender pistols, stepped from it and surrounded the three men. Moss breathed a sigh of relief. "Well, this does change things. It came off just right." The leader moved back, away from the soldiers. It studied them intently, glancing from one to the next, apparently trying to make up its mind. At last it made a sign to the other leadies. They coasted aside and a corridor was opened up toward the warehouse. "Even now," the leader said, "we could send you back by force. But it is evident that this is not really an observation party at all. These soldiers show that you have much more in mind; this was all carefully prepared." "Very carefully," Franks said. They closed in. "How much more, we can only guess. I must admit that we were taken unprepared. We failed utterly to meet the situation. Now force would be absurd, because neither side can afford to injure the other; we, because of the restrictions placed on us regarding human life, you because the war demands --" The soldiers fired, quick and in fright. Moss dropped to one knee, firing up. The leader dissolved in a cloud of particles. On all sides D- and B-class leadies were rushing up, some with weapons, some with metal slats. The room was in confusion. Off in the distance a siren was screaming. Franks and Taylor were cut off from the others, separated from the soldiers by a wall of metal bodies. "They can't fire back," Franks said calmly. "This is another bluff. They've tried to bluff us all the way." He fired into the face of a leady. The leady dissolved. "They can only try to frighten us. Remember that." They went on firing and leady after leady vanished. The room reeked with the smell of burning metal, the stink of fused plastic and steel. Taylor had been knocked down. He was struggling to find his gun, reaching wildly among metal legs, groping frantically to find it. His fingers strained, a handle swam in front of him. Suddenly something came down on his arm, a metal foot. He cried out. Then it was over. The leadies were moving away, gathering together off to one side. Only four of the Surface Council remained. The others were radioactive particles in the air. D-class leadies were already restoring order, gathering up partly destroyed metal figures and bits and removing them. Franks breathed a shuddering sigh. "All right," he said. "You can take us back to the windows. It won't be long now." The leadies separated, and the human group, Moss and Franks.and Taylor and the soldiers, walked slowly across the room, toward the door. They entered the Council Chamber. Already a faint touch of gray mitigated the blackness of the windows. "Take us outside," Franks said impatiently. "We'll see it directly, not in here." A door slid open. A chill blast of cold morning air rushed in, chilling them even through their lead suits. The men glanced at each other uneasily. "Come on," Franks said. "Outside." He walked out through the door, the others following him. They were on a hill, overlooking the vast bowl of a valley. Dimly, against the graying sky, the outline of mountains were forming, becoming tangible. "It'll be bright enough to see in a few minutes," Moss said. He shuddered as a chilling wind caught him and moved around him. "It's worth it, really worth it, to see this again after eight years. Even if it's the last thing we see --" "Watch," Franks snapped. They obeyed, silent and subdued. The sky was clearing, brightening each moment. Some place far off, echoing across the valley, a rooster crowed. "A chicken!" Taylor murmured. "Did you hear?" Behind them, the leadies had come out and were standing silently, watching, too. The gray sky turned to white and the hills appeared more clearly. Light spread across the valley floor, moving toward them. "God in heaven!" Franks exclaimed. Trees, trees and forests. A valley of plants and trees, with a few roads winding among them. Farmhouses. A windmill. A barn, far down below them. "Look!" Moss whispered. Color came into the sky. The sun was approaching. Birds began to sing. Not far from where they stood, the leaves of a tree danced in the wind. Franks turned to the row of leadies behind them. "Eight years. We were tricked. There was no war. As soon as we left the surface --" "Yes," an A-class leady admitted. "As soon as you left, the war ceased. You're right, it was a hoax. You worked hard undersurface, sending up guns and weapons, and we destroyed them as fast as they came up." "But why?" Taylor asked, dazed. He stared down at the vast valley below, "Why?" "You created us," the leady said, "to pursue the war for you, while you human beings went below the ground in order to survive. But before we could continue the war, it was necessary to analyze it to determine what its purpose was. We did this, and we found that it had no purpose, except, perhaps, in terms of human needs. Even this was questionable.
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.1 (Philip K Dick)
- Bookmark Loc. 2308  | Added on Friday, June 01, 2012, 02:33 PM


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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.1 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 2308-11  | Added on Friday, June 01, 2012, 02:34 PM

"We investigated further. We found that human cultures pass through phases, each culture in its own time. As the culture ages and begins to lose its objectives, conflict arises within it between those who wish to cast it off and set up a new culture-pattern, and those who wish to retain the old with as little change as possible.
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.1 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 2311-21  | Added on Friday, June 01, 2012, 02:35 PM

"At this point, a great danger appears. The conflict within threatens to engulf the society in self-war, group against group. The vital traditions may be lost -- not merely altered or reformed, but completely destroyed in this period of chaos and anarchy. We have found many such examples in the history of mankind. "It is necessary for this hatred within the culture to be directed outward, toward an external group, so that the culture itself may survive its crisis. War is the result. War, to a logical mind, is absurd. But in terms of human needs, it plays a vital role. And it will continue to until Man has grown up enough so that no hatred lies within him." Taylor was listening intently. "Do you think this time will come?" "Of course. It has almost arrived now. This is the last war. Man is almost united into one final culture -- a world culture. At this point he stands continent against continent, one half of the world against the other half. Only a single step remains, the jump to a unified culture. Man has climbed slowly upward, tending always toward unification of his culture.
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.1 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 2463-70  | Added on Friday, June 01, 2012, 02:45 PM

If this tiny amalgam of former enemies was a good example, it wouldn't be too long before he and Mary and the rest of humanity would be living on the surface like rational human beings instead of blindly hating moles. "It has taken thousands of generations to achieve," the A-class leady concluded. "Hundreds of centuries of bloodshed and destruction. But each war was a step toward uniting mankind. And now the end is in sight: a world without war. But even that is only the beginning of a new stage of history." "The conquest of space," breathed Colonel Borodoy. "The meaning of life," Moss added. "Eliminating hunger and poverty," said Taylor.
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.1 (Philip K Dick)
- Highlight Loc. 2463-74  | Added on Friday, June 01, 2012, 02:45 PM

If this tiny amalgam of former enemies was a good example, it wouldn't be too long before he and Mary and the rest of humanity would be living on the surface like rational human beings instead of blindly hating moles. "It has taken thousands of generations to achieve," the A-class leady concluded. "Hundreds of centuries of bloodshed and destruction. But each war was a step toward uniting mankind. And now the end is in sight: a world without war. But even that is only the beginning of a new stage of history." "The conquest of space," breathed Colonel Borodoy. "The meaning of life," Moss added. "Eliminating hunger and poverty," said Taylor. The leady opened the door of the ship. "All that and more. How much more? We cannot foresee it any more than the first men who formed a tribe could foresee this day. But it will be unimaginably great." The door closed and the ship took off toward their new home.
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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol.1 (Philip K Dick)
- Note Loc. 1916  | Added on Friday, June 01, 2012, 02:46 PM

the defenders ... underground.robots on surface. leadies. new civilization.