Vulcan's Hammer by Philip K. Dick Page A

more data.
    “All right,” Dill muttered. “We’ll get you more data; anything you want.”
    I am considering calling a special meeting of the Control Council. I am on the verge of deciding to question the staff of eleven
Regional Directors personally.
    At that Dill was stunned; he tried to speak, but for a time he could not. He could only stare fixedly at the ribbon of words. The ribbon moved inexorably on.
    I am not satisfied with the way data is supplied. I may demand
your removal and an entirely new system of feeding.
    Dill’s mouth opened and closed. Aware that he was shaking visibly, he backed away from the computer. “Unless you want something else,” he managed, “I have business. In Geneva.” All he wanted to do was get out of the situation, away from the chamber.
    Nothing more. You may go.
    As quickly as possible, Dill left the chamber, ascending by express lift to the surface level. Around him, in a blur, guards checked him over; he was scarcely aware of them.
    What a going-over, he thought. What an ordeal. Talk about the Atlanta psychologists—they’re nothing compared with what I have to face, day after day.
    God, how I hate that machine, he thought. He was still trembling, his heart palpitating; he could not breathe, and for a time he sat on a leather-covered couch in the outer lounge, recovering.
    To one of the attendants he said, “I’d like a glass of some stimulant. Anything you have.”
    Presently it was in his hand, a tall green glass; he gulped it down and felt a trifle better. The attendant was waiting around to be paid, he realized; the man had a tray and a bill.
    “Seventy-five cents, sir,” the attendant said.
    To Dill it was the final blow. His position as Managing Director did not exempt him from these annoyances; he had to fish around in his pocket for change. And meanwhile, he thought, the future of our society rests with me. While I dig up seventyfive cents for this idiot.
    I ought to let them all get blown to bits.
I ought to give up.
    William Barris felt a little more relaxed as the cab carried him and Rachel Pitt into the dark, overpopulated, older section of the city. On the sidewalks clumps of elderly men in seedy garments and battered hats stood inertly. Teenagers lounged by store windows. Most of the store windows, Barris noticed, had metal bars or gratings protecting their displays from theft. Rubbish lay piled up in alleyways.
    “Do you mind coming here?” he asked the woman beside him. “Or is it too depressing?”
    Rachel had taken off her coat and put it across her lap. She wore a short-sleeved cotton shirt, probably the one she had had on when the police arrested her; it looked to him like something more suited for house use. And, he saw, her throat was streaked with what appeared to be dust. She had a tired, wan expression and she sat listlessly.
    “You know, I like the city,” she said, after a time.
    “Even this part?”
    “I’ve been staying in this section,” she said. “Since they let me go.”
    Barris said, “Did they give you time to pack? Were you able to take any clothes with you?”
    “Nothing,” she said.
    “What about money?”
    “They were very kind.” Her voice had weary irony in it. “No, they didn’t let me take any money; they simply bundled me into a police ship and took off for Europe. But before they let me go they permitted me to draw enough money from my husband’s pension payment to take care of getting me back home.” Turning her head she finished, “Because of all the red tape, it will be several months before the regular payments will be forthcoming. This was a favor they did me.”
    To that, Barris could say nothing.
    “Do you think,” Rachel said, “that I resent the way Unity has treated me?”
    “Yes,” he said.
    Rachel said, “You’re right.”
    Now the cab had begun to coast up to the entrance of an ancient brick hotel with a tattered awning. Feeling somewhat dismayed by the appearance of the Bond Hotel,