Martian Time-Slip by Philip K. Dick Page B

must be understood before therapy can begin. Yes, I'll be right over.”
    Touvim said, “This is evidently a suicide.”
    “I can't believe it,” Dr. Glaub said.
    “For the past half-hour I have been discussing this with the staff at Camp B-G; they tell me you had a long conversation with Steiner shortly before he left the camp. At the inquest our police will want to know what indications if any Steiner gave of a depressed or morbidly introspective mood, what he said that might have given you the opportunity to dissuade him or, barring that, compel him to undergo therapy. I take it the man said nothing that would alert you to his intentions.”
    “Absolutely nothing,” Dr. Glaub said.
    “Then if I were you I wouldn't worry,” Touvim said. “Merely be prepared to give the clinical background of the man…discuss possible motives which might have led him to take his life. You understand.”
    “Thank you, Mr. Touvim,” Dr. Glaub said weakly. “I suppose it is possible he was depressed about his son, but I outlined a new therapy to him; we have very high hopes for it. However, he did seem cynical and shut in, he did not respond as I would have expected. But suicide!”
    What if I lose the B-G assignment? Doctor Glaub was asking himself. I just can't. Working there once a week added enough to his income so that he could imagine—although not attain—financial security. The B-G check at least made the goal plausible.
    Didn't it occur to that idiot Steiner what effect his death might have on others? Yes, it must have; he did it to get vengeance on us. Paying us back—but for what? For trying to heal his child?
    This is a very serious matter, he realized. A suicide, so close on the heels of a doctor-patient interview. Thank God Mr. Touvim warned me. Even so, the newspapers will pick it up, and all those who want to see Camp B-G closed will benefit from this.

    Having repaired the refrigeration equipment at McAuliff's dairy ranch, Jack Bohlen returned to his 'copter, put his tool box behind the seat, and contacted his employer, Mr. Yee.
    “The school,” Mr. Yee said. “You must go there, Jack; I still have no one else to take that assignment.”
    “O.K., Mr. Yee.” He started up the motor of the 'copter, feeling resigned to it.
    “A message from your wife, Jack.”
    “Oh?” He was surprised; his employer frowned on wives of his employees phoning in, and Silvia knew that. Maybe something had happened to David. “Can you tell me what she said?” he asked.
    Mr. Yee said, “Mrs. Bohlen asked our switchboard girl to inform you that a neighbor of yours, a Mr. Steiner, has taken his own life. Mrs. Bohlen is caring for the Steiner children, she wants you to know. She also asked if it was possible for you to come home tonight, but I told her that although we regretted it we could not spare you. You must stay available on call until the end of the week, Jack.”
    Steiner dead, Jack said to himself. The poor ineffectual sap. Well, maybe he's better off.
    “Thank you, Mr. Yee,” he said into the microphone.
    As the 'copter lifted from the sparse grass of the pasture, Jack thought, This is going to affect all of us, and deeply. It was a strong and acute feeling, an intuition. I don't believe I ever exchanged more than a dozen words with Steiner at any one time, and yet—there is something enormous about the dead. Death itself has such authority. A transformation as awesome as life itself, and so much harder for us to understand.
    He turned the 'copter in the direction of the UN headquarters on Mars, on his way to the great self-winding entity of their lives, the unique artificial organism which was their Public School, a place he feared more than any other in his experience away from Home.

5
    Why was it that the Public School unnerved him? Scrutinizing it from above, he saw the duck-egg-shaped building, white against the dark, blurred surface of the planet, apparently dropped there in haste; it did not fit into its