Collected Stories Of Philip K. Dick Vol. 3, Philip K. Dick PDF Collection, Short Stories

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The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol. 3
by
Philip K Dick
Table of Contents
Fair Game
Professor Anthony Douglas lowered gratefully into his red-leather easy chair and sighed. A
long sigh, accompanied by labored removal of his shoes and numerous grunts as he kicked
them into the corner. He folded his hands across his ample middle and lay back, eyes closed.
"Tired?" Laura Douglas asked, turning from the kitchen stove a moment, her dark eyes
sympathetic.
"You're darn right." Douglas surveyed the evening paper across from him on the couch.
Was it worth it? No, not really. He felt around in his coat pocket for his cigarettes and lit up
slowly, leisurely. "Yeah, I'm tired, all right. We're starting a whole new line of research.
Whole flock of bright young men in from Washington today. Briefcases and slide rules."
"Not --"
"Oh, I'm still in charge." Professor Douglas grinned expansively. "Perish the thought." Pale
gray cigarette smoke billowed around him. "It'll be another few years before they're ahead of
me. They'll have to sharpen up their slide rules just a little bit more. . ."
His wife smiled and continued preparing dinner. Maybe it was the atmosphere of the little
Colorado town. The sturdy, impassive mountain peaks around them. The thin, chill air. The
quiet citizens. In any case, her husband seemed utterly unbothered by the tensions and
doubts that pressured other members of his profession. A lot of aggressive newcomers were
swelling the ranks of nuclear physics these days. Old-timers were tottering in their positions,
abruptly insecure. Every college, every physics department and lab was being invaded by the
new horde of skilled young men. Even here at Bryant College, so far off the beaten track.
But if Anthony Douglas worried, he never let it show. He rested happily in his easy chair,
eyes shut, a blissful smile on his face. He was tired -- but at peace. He sighed again, this time
more from pleasure than fatigue.
"It's true," he murmured lazily. "I may be old enough to be their father, but I'm still a few
jumps ahead of them. Of course, I know the ropes better. And --"
"And the wires. The ones worth pulling."
"Those, too. In any case, I think I'll come off from this new line we're doing just about. . ."
His voice trailed off.
"What's the matter?" Laura asked.
Douglas half rose from his chair. His face had gone suddenly white. He stared in horror,
gripping the arms of his chair, his mouth opening and closing.
At the window was a great eye. An immense eye that gazed into the room intently,
studying him. The eye filled the whole window.
"Good God!" Douglas cried.
The eye withdrew. Outside there was only the evening gloom, the dark hills and trees, the
street. Douglas sank down slowly in his chair.
"What was it?" Laura demanded sharply. "What did you see? Was somebody out there?"
Douglas clasped and unclasped his hands. His lips twitched violently. "I'm telling you the
truth, Bill. I saw it myself. It was real. I wouldn't say so, otherwise. You know that. Don't you
believe me?"
"Did anybody else see it?" Professor William Henderson asked, chewing his pencil
thoughtfully. He had cleared a place on the dinner table, pushed back his plate and silver and
laid out his notebook. "Did Laura see it?"
"No. Laura had her back turned."
"What time was it?"
"Half an hour ago. I had just got home. About six-thirty. I had my shoes off, taking it
easy." Douglas wiped his forehead with a shaking hand.
"You say it was unattached? There was nothing else? Just the -- eye?"
"Just the eye. One huge eye looking in at me. Taking in everything. As if. . ."
"As if what?"
"As if it was looking down a microscope."
Silence.
From across the table, Henderson's red-haired wife spoke up. "You always were a strict
empiricist, Doug. You never went in for any nonsense before. But this. . . It's too bad nobody
else saw it."
"Of course nobody else saw it!"
"What do you mean?"
"The damn thing was looking at
m e.
It was
m e
it was studying." Douglas's voice rose
hysterically. "How do you think I feel -- scrutinized by an eye as big as a piano! My God, if I
weren't so well integrated, I'd be out of my mind!"
Henderson and his wife exchanged glances. Bill, dark-haired and handsome, ten years
Douglas's junior. Vivacious Jean Henderson, lecturer in child psychology, lithe and full-
bosomed in her nylon blouse and slacks.
"What do you make of this?" Bill asked her. "This is more along your line."
"It's
your
line," Douglas snapped. "Don't try to pass this off as a morbid projection. I came
to you because you're head of the Biology Department."
"You think it's an animal? A giant sloth or something?"
"It must be an animal."
"Maybe it's a joke," Jean suggested. "Or an advertising sign. An oculist's display.
Somebody may have been carrying it past the window."
Douglas took a firm grip on himself. "The eye was alive. It looked at me. It considered me.
Then it withdrew. As if it had moved away from the lens." He shuddered. "I tell you it was
studying
me!"
"You only?"
"Me. Nobody else."
"You seem curiously convinced it was looking down from above," Jean said.
"Yes, down. Down at me. That's right." An odd expression flickered across Douglas's face.
"You have it, Jean. As if it came from up there." He jerked his hand upward.
"Maybe it was God," Bill said thoughtfully.
Douglas said nothing. His face turned ash white and his teeth chattered.
"Nonsense," Jean said. "God is a psychological transcendent symbol expressing
unconscious forces."
"Did it look at you accusingly?" asked Bill. "As if you'd done something wrong?"
"No. With interest. With considerable interest." Douglas raised himself. "I have to get
back. Laura thinks I'm having some kind of fit. I haven't told her, of course. She's not
scientifically disciplined. She wouldn't be able to handle such a concept."
"It's a little tough even for us," Bill said.
Douglas moved nervously toward the door. "You can't think of any explanation?
Something thought extinct that might still be roaming around these mountains?"
"None that we know of. If I should hear of any --"
"You said it looked down," Jean said. "Not bending down to peer in at you. Then it couldn't
have been an animal or terrestrial being." She was deep in thought. "Maybe we're being
observed."
"Not you," Douglas said miserably. "Just me."
"By another race," Bill put in. "You think --"
"Maybe it's an eye from Mars."
Douglas opened the front door carefully and peered out. The night was black. A faint wind
moved through the trees and along the highway. His car was dimly visible, a black square
against the hills. "If you think of anything, call me."
"Take a couple of phenobarbitals before you hit the sack," Jean suggested. "Calm your
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Collected Stories Of Philip K. Dick Vol. 3, Philip K. Dick PDF Collection, Short Stories

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