STABILITY (Part 3 of 3)

STABILITY (Part 3 of 3)

Philip K. Dick- The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford and Other Stories

The Controller stepped forward.

"Stability is like a gyroscope," he said. "It is difficult to turn from its course, but once

started it can hardly be stopped. We do not feel that you yourself have the strength to turn that

gyroscope, but there may be others who can. That remains to be seen. We are going to leave now,

and you will be allowed to end your own life, or wait here for the Cart. We are giving you the

choice. You will be watched, of course, and I trust that you will make no attempt to flee. If so,

then it will mean your immediate destruction. Stability must be maintained, at any cost."

Benton watched them, and then laid the globe on the table. The Members looked at it with

interest.

"A paperweight," Benton said. "Interesting, don't you think?" The Members lost interest.

They began to prepare to leave. But the Controller examined the globe, holding it up to the light.

"A model of a city, eh?" he said. "Such fine detail." Benton watched him.

"Why, it seems amazing that a person could ever carve so well," the Controller continued.

"What city is it? It looks like an ancient one such as Tyre or Babylon, or perhaps one far in the

future. You know, it reminds me of an old legend."

He looked at Benton intently as he went on.

"The legend says that once there was a very evil city, it was so evil that God made it small

and shut it up in a glass, and left a watcher of some sort to see that no one came along and

released the city by smashing the glass. It is supposed to have been lying for eternity, waiting to

escape.

"And this is perhaps the model of it." the Controller continued.

"Come on!" the First Member called at the door. "We must be going; there are lots of

things left to do tonight."

The Controller turned quickly to the Members. "Wait!" he said. "Don't leave."

He crossed the room to them, still holding the globe in his hand. "This would be a very

poor time to leave," he said, and Benton saw that while his face had lost most of its color, the

mouth was set in firm lines. The Controller suddenly turned again to Benton.

"Trip through time; city in a glass globe! Does that mean anything?" The two Council

Members looked puzzled and blank. "An ignorant man crosses time and returns with a strange

glass," the Controller said. "Odd thing to bring out of time, don't you think?" Suddenly the First

Member's face blanched white. "Good God in Heaven!" he whispered. "The accursed city! That

globe?" He stared at the round ball in disbelief. The Controller looked at Benton with an amused

glance.

"Odd, how stupid we may be for a time, isn't it?" he said. "But eventually we wake up.

Don't touch it!"

Benton slowly stepped back, his hands shaking.

"Well?" he demanded. The globe was angry at being in the Controller's hand. It began to

buzz, and vibrations crept down the Controller's arm. He felt them, and took a firmer grip on the

globe.

"I think it wants me to break it," he said, "it wants me to smash it on the floor so that it

can get out." He watched the tiny spires and building tops in the murky mistiness of the globe, so tiny that he could cover them all with his fingers.

Benton dived. He came straight and sure, the way he had flown so many times in the air.

Now every minute that he had hurtled about the warm blackness of the atmosphere of the City of

Lightness came back to help him. The Controller, who had always been too busy with his work,

always too piled up ahead to enjoy the airsports that the City was so proud of, went down at once.

The globe bounced out of his hands and rolled across the room. Benton untangled himself and

leaped up. As he raced after the small shiny sphere, he caught a glimpse of the frightened,

bewildered faces of the Members, of the Controller attempting to get to his feet, face contorted

with pain and horror.

The globe was calling to him, whispering to him. Benton stepped swiftly toward it, and

felt a rising whisper of victory and then a scream of joy as his foot crushed the glass that

imprisoned it.

The globe broke with a loud popping sound. For a time it lay there, then a mist began to

rise from it. Benton returned to the couch and sat down. The mist began to fill the room. It grew

and grew, it seemed almost like a living thing, so strangely did it shift and turn.

Benton began to drift into sleep. The mist crowded about him, curling over his legs, up to

his chest, and finally milled about his face. He sat there, slumped over on the couch, his eyes

closed, letting the strange, aged fragrance envelop him.

Then he heard the voices. Tiny and far away at first, the whisper of the globe multiplied

countless times. A concert of whispering voices rose from the broken globe in a swelling

crescendo of exultation. Joy of victory! He saw the tiny miniature city within the globe waver and fade, then change in size and shape. He could hear it now as well as see it. The steady throbbing of the machinery like a gigantic drum. The shaking and quivering of squat metal beings.

These beings were tended. He saw the slaves, sweating, stooped, pale men, twisting in

their efforts to keep the roaring furnaces of steel and power happy. It seemed to swell before his

eyes until the entire room was full of it, and the sweating workmen brushed against him and

around him. He was deafened by the raging power, the grinding wheels and gears and valves.

Something was pushing against him, compelling him to move forward, forward to the City, and

the mist gleefully echoed the new, victorious sounds of the freed ones.

When the sun came up he was already awake. The rising bell rang, but Benton had left his

sleeping-cube some time before. As he fell in with the marching ranks of his companions, he

thought he recognized familiar faces for an instant -- men he had known someplace before. But at once the memory passed. As they marched toward the waiting machines, chanting the tuneless

sounds their ancestors had chanted for centuries, and the weight of his bonus if the Machines saw fit -- For had he not been tending his machine faithfully? (END)