Read Online Ubik by Philip K. Dick - Free Book Online

G.G.’s feet clacked irritatingly. “Joe Chip can’t seem to tell me what she does,” Runciter said.
    “Joe Chip is a grunk,” G.G. said.
    “How come she, this Pat, can travel back into time, and no one else can? I’ll bet this talent isn’t new; you scouts probably just missed noticing it up until now. Anyhow, it’s not logical for a prudence organization to hire her; it’s a talent, not an anti-talent. We deal in—”
    “As I explained, and as Joe indicated on the test report, it aborts the precogs out of business.”
    “But that’s only a side-effect.” Runciter pondered moodily. “Joe thinks she’s dangerous. I don’t know why.”
    “Did you ask him why?”
    Runciter said, “He mumbled, the way he always does. Joe never has reasons, just hunches. On the other hand, he wants to include her in the Mick operation.” He shuffled through, rooted among and rearranged the personnel-department documents before him on his desk. “Ask Joe to come in here so we can see if we’ve got our group of eleven set up.” He examined his watch. “They should be arriving about now. I’m going to tell Joe to his face that he’s crazy to include this Pat Conley girl if she’s so dangerous. Wouldn’t you say, G.G.?”
    G. G. Ashwood said, “He’s got a thing going with her.”
    “What sort of thing?”
    “A sexual understanding.”
    “Joe has no sexual understanding. Nina Freede read his mind the other day and he’s too poor even to—” He broke off, because the office door had opened; Mrs. Frick teetered her way in carrying G.G.’s bounty check for him to sign. “I know why he wants her along on the Mick operation,” Runciter said as he scratched his signature on the check. “So he can keep an eye on her. He’s going too; he’s going to measure the psi field despite what the client stipulated. We have to know what we’re up against. Thank you, Mrs. Frick.” He waved her away and held the check out to G. G. Ashwood. “Suppose we don’t measure the psi field and it turns out to be too intense for our inertials. Who gets blamed?”
    “We do,” G.G. said.
    “I told them eleven wasn’t enough. We’re supplying our best; we’re doing the best we can. After all, getting Stanton Mick’s patronage is a matter of great importance to us. Amazing, that someone as wealthy and powerful as Mick could be so short-sighted, so goddam miserly. Mrs. Frick, is Joe out there? Joe Chip?”
    Mrs. Frick said, “Mr. Chip is in the outer office with a number of other people.”
    “How many other people, Mrs. Frick? Ten or eleven?”
    “I’d say about that many, Mr. Runciter. Give or take one or two.”
    To G. G. Ashwood, Runciter said, “That’s the group. I want to see them, all of them, together. Before they leave for Luna.” To Mrs. Frick he said, “Send them in.” He puffed vigorously on his green-wrapped cigar.
    She gyrated out.
    “We know,” Runciter said to G.G., “that as individuals they perform well. It’s all down here on paper.” He rattled the documents on his desk. “But how about together? How great a polyencephalic counter-field will they generate together? Ask yourself that, G.G. That is the question to ask.”
    “I guess time will tell,” G. G. Ashwood said.
    “I’ve been in this business a long time,” Runciter said. From the outer office people began to file in. “This is my contribution to contemporary civilization.”
    “That puts it well,” G.G. said. “You’re a policeman guarding human privacy.”
    “You know what Ray Hollis says about us?” Runciter said. “He says we’re trying to turn the clock back.” He eyed the individuals who had begun to fill up his office; they gathered near one another, none of them speaking. They waited for him. What an ill-assorted bunch, he thought pessimistically. A young stringbean of a girl with glasses and straight lemon-yellow hair, wearing a cowboy hat, black lace mantilla and Bermuda shorts; that would be Edie Dorn. A