Ubik

Am I going to get that damn Jory this time? he asked himself. Or will I be able to keep Ella in focus long enough to tell her what Joe said? It's become so hard to hang onto her now, with Jory growing and expanding and feeding on her and maybe on others over there in half-life. The moratorium should do something about him; Jory's a hazard to everyone here. Why do they let him go on? he asked himself.

He thought, Maybe because they can't stop him.

Maybe there's never been anyone in half-life like Jory before.

CHAPTER 15.

Could it be that I have bad breath, Tom? Well, Ed, if you're worried about that, try today's new Ubik, with powerful germicidal foaming action, guaranteed safe when taken as directed.

The door of the ancient hotel room swung open. Don Denny, accompanied by a middle-aged, responsible-looking man with neatly trimmed gray hair, entered. Denny, his face strained with apprehension, said, "How are you, Joe? Why aren't you lying down? For chrissake, get onto the bed."

"Please lie down, Mr. Chip," the doctor said as he set his medical bag on the vanity table and opened it up. "Is there pain along with the enervation and the difficult respiration?" He approached the bed with an old-fashioned stethoscope and cumbersome blood-pressure-reading equipment. "Do you have any history of cardiac involvement, Mr. Chip? Or your mother or father? Unbutton your shirt, please." He drew up a wooden chair beside the bed, seated himself expectantly on it.

Joe said, "I'm okay now."

"Let him listen to your heart," Denny said tersely.

"Okay." Joe stretched out on the bed and unbuttoned his shirt. "Runciter managed to get through to me," he said to Denny. "We're in cold-pac; he's on the other side trying to reach us. Someone else is trying to injure us. Pat didn't do it, or, anyhow, she didn't do it alone. Neither she nor Runciter knows what's going on. When you opened the door did you see Runciter?"

"No," Denny said.

"He was sitting across the room from me," Joe said. "Two, three minutes ago. 'Sorry, Joe,' he said; that was the last thing he said to me and then he cut contact, stopped communicating, just canceled himself out. Look on the vanity table and see if he left the spray can of Ubik."

Denny searched, then held up the brightly illuminated can. "Here it is. But it seems empty." Denny shook it.

"Almost empty," Joe said. "Spray what's left on yourself. Go ahead." He gestured emphatically.

"Don't talk, Mr. Chip," the doctor said, listening to his stethoscope. He then rolled up Joe's sleeve and began winding inflatable rubber fabric around his arm in preparation for the blood-pressure test.

"How's my heart?" Joe asked.

"Appears normal," the doctor said. "Although slightly fast."

"See?" Joe said to Don Denny. "I've recovered."

Denny said, "The others are dying, Joe."

Half sitting up, Joe said, "All of them?"

"Everyone that's left." He held the can but did not use it.

"Pat, too?" Joe asked.

"When I got out of the elevator on the second floor here I found her. It had just begun to hit her. She seemed terribly surprised; apparently, she couldn't believe it." He set the can down again. "I guess she thought she was doing it. With her talent."

Joe said, "That's right; that's what she thought. Why won't you use the Ubik?"

"Hell, Joe, we're going to die. You know it, and I know it." He removed his horn-rimmed glasses and rubbed his eyes. "After I saw Pat's condition I went into the other rooms, and that's when I saw the rest of them. Of us. That's why we took so long getting here; I had Dr. Taylor examine them. I couldn't believe they'd dwindle away so fast. The acceleration has been so goddam great. In just the last hour -"

"Use the Ubik," Joe said. "Or I'll use it on you."

Don Denny again picked up the can, again shook it, pointed the nozzle toward himself. "All right," he said. "If that's what you want. There really isn't any reason not to. This is the end, isn't it? I mean, they're all dead; only you and I are left, and the Ubik is going to wear off you in a few hours. And you won't be able to get any more. Which will leave me." His decision made, Denny depressed the button of the spray can; the shimmering, palpitating vapor, filled with particles of metallic light that danced nimbly, formed at once around him. Don Denny disappeared, concealed by the nimbus of radiant, ergic excitement.

Pausing in his task of reading Joe's blood pressure, Dr. Taylor twisted his head to see. Both he and Joe watched as the vapor now condensed; puddles of it glistened on the carpet, and down the wall behind Denny it drizzled in bright streaks.

The cloud concealing Denny evaporated.

The person standing there, in the center of the vaporizing stain of Ubik that had saturated the worn and dingy carpet, was not Don Denny.