The Minority Report and Other Classic Stories by Philip K. Dick

eight,” Patricia answered. In the shadow of the ship she was carefully checking the automatic relays that would maintain the air, temperature, and humidity of the ship. “But I’ll never forget it. Maybe I was a precog—when I saw it sticking up I knew someday it would mean a lot to everybody. “
    “A lot to the twenty of us,” Tellman corrected. Suddenly he offered her the remains of his cigarette. “Here—you look like you could use it.”
    “Thanks.” Patricia continued with her work, the cigarette between her lips. “I’m almost done—Boy, some of these relays are tiny. Just think.” She held up a microscopic wafer of transparent plastic. “While we’re all out cold, this makes the difference between life and death.” A strange, awed look crept into her dark-blue eyes. “To the human race.”
    Tellman guffawed. “You and Flannery. He’s always spouting idealistic twaddle.”
    Professor John Crowley, once head of the history department at Stanford, now the nominal leader of the colony, sat with Flannery and Jean Dobbs, examining the suppurating arm of a ten-year-old boy. “Radiation,” Crowley was saying emphatically. “The overall level is rising daily. It’s settling ash that does it. If we don’t get out soon, we’re done.”
    “It’s not radiation,” Flannery corrected in his ultimately certain voice. “It’s toxic crystalline poisoning; that stuff’s knee-deep up in the hills. He’s been playing around up there.”
    “Is that so?” Jean Dobbs demanded. The boy nodded his head not daring to look at her. “You’re right,” she said to Flannery.
    “Put some salve on it,” Flannery said. “And hope he’ll live. Outside of sulfathiazole there’s not much we have.” He glanced at his watch, suddenly tense. “Unless she brings the penicillin, today.”
    “If she doesn’t bring it today,” Crowley said, “she’ll never bring it. This is the last load; as soon as it’s stored, we’re taking off.”
    Rubbing his hands, Flannery suddenly bellowed: “Then get out the money!”
    Crowley grinned. “Right.” He fumbled in one of the steel storage lockers and yanked out a handful of paper bills. Holding a sheaf of bills up to Tellman he fanned them out invitingly. “Take your pick. Take them all.”
    Nervously, Tellman said, “Be careful with that. She’s probably raised the price on everything, again.”
    “We’ve got plenty.” Flannery took some and stuffed it into a partly filled load being wheeled by, on its way to the ship. “There’s money blowing all over the world, along with the ash and particles of bone. On Venus we won’t need it—she might as well have it all.”
    On Venus, Tellman thought, savagely, things would revert to their legitimate order—with Flannery digging sewers where he belonged. “What’s she bringing mostly?” he asked Crowley and Jean Dobbs, ignoring Flannery. “What’s the last load made up of?”
    “Comic books,” Flannery said dreamily, wiping perspiration from his balding forehead; he was a lean, tall, dark-haired young man. “And harmonicas.”
    Crowley winked at him. “Uke picks, so we can lie in our hammocks all day, strumming ‘Someone’s in the Kitchen with Dinah.’ ”
    “And swizzle sticks,” Flannery reminded him. “In order that we may all the more properly flatten the bubbles of our vintage ‘38 champagne.”
    Tellman boiled. “You degenerate!”
    Crowley and Flannery roared with laughter, and Tellman stalked off, smoldering under this new humiliation. What kind of morons and lunatics were they? Joking at a time like this … He peered miserably, almost accusingly, at the ship. Was this the kind of world they were going to found?
    In the pitiless white-hot sun, the huge ship shimmered and glowed. A vast upright tube of alloy and protective fiber mesh rising up above the tumble of wretched shacks. One more load, and they were off. One more truckful of supplies from their only source, the meager trickle of