The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner

garage. Pete was on the ten-to-six shift today and her job at Bamberley's stopped at five.
    Pete Goddard hated his wife going to work. He wanted her at home, looking after a couple of kids. That, though, would have to wait until after his next promotion. These days nobody in his right mind would start a family before he could afford proper medical care for his children. Up here in the mountains it wasn't so bad as in the cities; even so you couldn't be too careful.
    As he scraped his boots before treading on the front step, there was a slamming sound in the sky. He glanced up just in time to meet an eyeful of snow shaken off the overhang of the porch. Ah, shit, a sonic boom. Oughtn't to have been that loud! One grew used to one or two a day, but faint, far away, doing no damage beyond maybe startling you into spilling a cup of coffee. Down at the station house Sergeant Chain could look forward to a rash of complaints. As though there were anything the police here could do. As though there were anything anybody could do.
    Jeannie was in the kitchen. Not much of a kitchen, equipped with repossessed appliances. But they usually worked. She was busy at the stove: a pretty girl, much lighter than he and a year older, bound to be plump before thirty but what the hell? He liked plenty of meat. Blowing her a kiss, he collected his evening pill, the one for his allergy, and headed for the sink to draw some water.
    But she stopped him with a cry. "No, Pete! I found a don't-drink notice when I got home. See, on the table?"
    Startled, he turned and spotted the bright red paper printed in bold black letters. The familiar phrases leapt out at him: fault in the purifying plant-must not be drunk without boiling-rectified as soon as possible …
    "Shit!" he exclaimed. "It's getting to be as bad as Denver!"
    "Oh, no, honey! Down in the city they get these all the time, like every week, and that's only our second since the summer. Won't a beer do?"
    "A beer? Sure it will!"
    "In the icebox. And one for me. I got this complicated recipe going." She brandished a clipping from the newspaper.
    Grinning, he made to comply-and his hand flew to his hip after his not-present gun as he exclaimed in dismay.
    "What?" Jeannie spun around. "Oh, not another rat?"
    "Just the biggest I ever saw!" But it was gone now. "I thought I told you to call the exterminator!" he snapped.
    "Well, I did! But he said he has so much business well have to wait at least another week."
    "Yeah, I guess so." Pete sighed. "Everybody I meet…" He let the words trail away and opened the icebox. On two shelves, packages with a familiar trade mark: a girl holding an ear of corn between her tits, to make a sort of prick-and-balls pattern of them.
    "Hey, you been to Puritan again!"
    "Well, I spent my bonus," Jeannie said defensively. "And things there aren't that much more expensive! Besides, they do really taste much better."
    "What bonus?"
    "Oh, you know! I told you! All us girls in the packing section who worked overtime to get that shipment away before Christmas. Twenty bucks extra from Mr. Bamberley!"
    "Oh. Oh, yeah." Taking his beer and hers from the six-pack. What the hell? Twenty bucks today was a spit in the ocean. Though he would rather have put it toward their policy with Angel City, saving against the time when they could afford a baby. All these scare stories about chemicals. Just an excuse to double the prices at Puritan…
    Reminded of the plant, though: "Say, baby, how's your leg?" That smooth patch of skin, as though part of her thigh had been glazed.
    "Oh, they were right first time. It is a fungus. You know we have to wear masks against actino-what's-its-name. I picked up something of the same kind. But the ointment's fixing it."
    Pete repressed a shudder. Catching a fungus! Christ, like something out of a horror movie! It had dragged on for more than a month, and even now he kept finding himself obsessively inspecting his own body.
    He gulped at his beer.
    "Say,