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

away and wondered how he could attract his grandmother’s attention. It would be nice to be in front, in the cabin. It would be nice—
    And then he noticed it. At first he didn’t believe it … but he had to believe it.
    Under him, the truck was beginning to fade away.
    It faded slowly, almost imperceptibly. Dimmer and dimmer the truck grew; its rusty red sides became gray, then colorless. The black road was visible underneath. In wild panic, the boy clutched at the piles of boxes. His hands passed through them; he was riding precariously on an uneven sea of dim shapes, among almost invisible phantoms.
    He lurched and slid down. Now—hideously—he was suspended momentarily halfway through the truck, just above the tail pipe. Groping desperately, he struggled to catch hold of the boxes directly above him. “Help!” he shouted. His voice echoed around him; it was the only sound … the roar of the truck was fading. For a moment he clutched at the retreating shape of the truck; then, gently, gradually, the last image of the truck faded, and with a sickening crunch, the boy dropped to the road.
    The impact sent him rolling into the dry weeds beyond the drainage ditch. Stunned, dazed with disbelief and pain, he lay gasping, trying feebly to pull himself up. There was only silence; the truck, Mrs. Berthelson, had vanished. He was totally alone. He closed his eyes and lay back, stupefied with fright.
    Sometime later, probably not much later, he was aroused by the squeal of brakes. A dirty, orange state maintenance truck had lurched to a stop; two men in khaki work clothes were climbing down and hurrying over.
    “What’s the matter?” one yelled at him. They grabbed him up, faces serious and alarmed. “What are you doing here?”
    “Fell,” he muttered. “Off the truck.”
    ‘What truck?” they demanded. “How?”
    He couldn’t tell them. All he knew was that Mrs. Berthelson had gone. He hadn’t made it, after all. Once again, she was making her trip alone. He would never know where she went; he would never find out who her customers were.
     
    Gripping the steering wheel of the truck, Mrs. Berthelson was conscious that the transition had taken place. Vaguely, she was aware that the rolling brown fields, rocks and green scrub bushes had faded out. The first time she had gone “ahead” she had found the old truck floundering in a sea of black ash. She had been so excited by her discovery that day that she had neglected to “scan” conditions on the other side of the hole. She had known there were customers … and dashed headlong through the warp to get there first. She smiled complacently … she needn’t have hurried, there was no competition here. In fact, the customers were so eager to deal with her, they had done virtually everything in their power to make things easier for her.
    The men had built a crude strip of road out into the ash, a sort of wooden platform onto which the truck now rolled. She had learned the exact moment to “go ahead”; it was the instant that the truck passed the drainage culvert a quarter mile inside the state park. Here, “ahead,” the culvert also existed … but there was little left of it, only a vague jumble of shattered stone. And the road was utterly buried. Under the wheels of the truck the rough boards thumped and banged. It would be bad if she had a flat tire … but some of them could fix it. They were always working; one little additional task wouldn’t make much difference. She could see them, now; they stood at the end of the wooden platform, waiting impatiently for her. Beyond them was their jumble of crude, smelly shacks, and beyond that, their ship.
    A lot she cared about their ship. She knew what it was: stolen army property. Setting her bony hand rigidly around the gearshift knob, she threw the truck into neutral and coasted to a stop. As the men approached, she began pulling on the hand brake.
    “Afternoon,” Professor Crowley muttered, his eyes sharp