agreed on last December; specify—”
“What is the starting salary?” the girl Pat asked, her voice suffused with sardonic suspicion of a cheap, childish sort.
Runciter eyed her. “I don’t even know what you can do.”
“It’s precog, Glen,” Joe Chip grated. “But in a different way.” He did not elaborate; he seemed to have run down, like an old-time battery-powered watch.
“Is she ready to go to work?” Runciter asked Joe. “Or is this one we have to train and work with and wait for? We’ve got almost forty idle inertials and we’re hiring another; forty less, I suppose, eleven. Thirty idle employees, all drawing full scale while they sit around with their thumbs in their noses. I don’t know, Joe; I really don’t. Maybe we ought to fire our scouts. Anyway, I think I’ve found the rest of Hollis’ Psis. I’ll tell you about it later.” Into his intercom he said, “Specify that we can discharge this Jane Doe without notice, without severance pay or compensation of any kind; nor is she eligible, for the first ninety days, for pension, health or sick-pay benefits.” To Pat he said, “Starting salary, in all cases, begins at four hundred ’creds per month, figuring on twenty hours a week. And you’ll have to join a union. The Mine, Mill and Smelter-workers Union; they’re the one that signed up all the prudence-organization employees three years ago. I have no control over that.”
“I get more,” Pat said, “maintaining vidphone relays at the Topeka Kibbutz. Your scout Mr. Ashwood said—”
“Our scouts lie,” Runciter said. “And, in addition, we’re not legally bound by anything they say. No prudence organization is.” The office door opened and Mrs. Frick crept unsteadily in with the typed-out agreement. “Thank you, Mrs. Frick,” Runciter said, accepting the papers. “I have a twenty-year-old wife in cold-pac,” he said to Joe and Pat. “A beautiful woman who when she talks to me gets pushed out of the way by some weird kid named Jory, and then I’m talking to him, not her. Ella frozen in half-life and dimming out—and that battered crone for my secretary that I have to look at all day long.” He gazed at the girl Pat, with her black, strong hair and her sensual mouth; in him he felt unhappy cravings arise, cloudy and pointless wants that led nowhere, that returned to him empty, as in the completion of a geometrically perfect circle.
“I’ll sign,” Pat said, and reached for the desk pen.
FIVE
----
Can’t make the frug contest, Helen; stomach’s upset. I’ll fix you Ubik! Ubik drops you back in the thick of things fast. Taken as directed, Ubik speeds relief to head and stomach. Remember: Ubik is only seconds away. Avoid prolonged use.
During the long days of forced, unnatural idleness, the antitelepath Tippy Jackson slept regularly until noon. An electrode planted within her brain perpetually stimulated EREM—
extremely
rapid eye movement—sleep, so while tucked within the percale sheets of her bed she had plenty to do.
At this particular moment her artificially induced dream state centered around a mythical Hollis functionary endowed with enormous psionic powers. Every other inertial in the Sol System had either given up or been melted down into lard. By process of elimination, the task of nullifying the field generated by this supernatural entity had devolved to her.
“I can’t be myself while you’re around,” her nebulous opponent informed her. On his face a feral, hateful expression formed, giving him the appearance of a psychotic squirrel.
In her dream Tippy answered, “Perhaps your definition of your self-system lacks authentic boundaries. You’ve erected a precarious structure of personality on unconscious factors over which you have no control. That’s why you feel threatened by me.”
“Aren’t you an employee of a prudence organization?” the Hollis telepath demanded, looking nervously about.
“If you’re the stupendous talent you
“What is the starting salary?” the girl Pat asked, her voice suffused with sardonic suspicion of a cheap, childish sort.
Runciter eyed her. “I don’t even know what you can do.”
“It’s precog, Glen,” Joe Chip grated. “But in a different way.” He did not elaborate; he seemed to have run down, like an old-time battery-powered watch.
“Is she ready to go to work?” Runciter asked Joe. “Or is this one we have to train and work with and wait for? We’ve got almost forty idle inertials and we’re hiring another; forty less, I suppose, eleven. Thirty idle employees, all drawing full scale while they sit around with their thumbs in their noses. I don’t know, Joe; I really don’t. Maybe we ought to fire our scouts. Anyway, I think I’ve found the rest of Hollis’ Psis. I’ll tell you about it later.” Into his intercom he said, “Specify that we can discharge this Jane Doe without notice, without severance pay or compensation of any kind; nor is she eligible, for the first ninety days, for pension, health or sick-pay benefits.” To Pat he said, “Starting salary, in all cases, begins at four hundred ’creds per month, figuring on twenty hours a week. And you’ll have to join a union. The Mine, Mill and Smelter-workers Union; they’re the one that signed up all the prudence-organization employees three years ago. I have no control over that.”
“I get more,” Pat said, “maintaining vidphone relays at the Topeka Kibbutz. Your scout Mr. Ashwood said—”
“Our scouts lie,” Runciter said. “And, in addition, we’re not legally bound by anything they say. No prudence organization is.” The office door opened and Mrs. Frick crept unsteadily in with the typed-out agreement. “Thank you, Mrs. Frick,” Runciter said, accepting the papers. “I have a twenty-year-old wife in cold-pac,” he said to Joe and Pat. “A beautiful woman who when she talks to me gets pushed out of the way by some weird kid named Jory, and then I’m talking to him, not her. Ella frozen in half-life and dimming out—and that battered crone for my secretary that I have to look at all day long.” He gazed at the girl Pat, with her black, strong hair and her sensual mouth; in him he felt unhappy cravings arise, cloudy and pointless wants that led nowhere, that returned to him empty, as in the completion of a geometrically perfect circle.
“I’ll sign,” Pat said, and reached for the desk pen.
FIVE
----
Can’t make the frug contest, Helen; stomach’s upset. I’ll fix you Ubik! Ubik drops you back in the thick of things fast. Taken as directed, Ubik speeds relief to head and stomach. Remember: Ubik is only seconds away. Avoid prolonged use.
During the long days of forced, unnatural idleness, the antitelepath Tippy Jackson slept regularly until noon. An electrode planted within her brain perpetually stimulated EREM—
extremely
rapid eye movement—sleep, so while tucked within the percale sheets of her bed she had plenty to do.
At this particular moment her artificially induced dream state centered around a mythical Hollis functionary endowed with enormous psionic powers. Every other inertial in the Sol System had either given up or been melted down into lard. By process of elimination, the task of nullifying the field generated by this supernatural entity had devolved to her.
“I can’t be myself while you’re around,” her nebulous opponent informed her. On his face a feral, hateful expression formed, giving him the appearance of a psychotic squirrel.
In her dream Tippy answered, “Perhaps your definition of your self-system lacks authentic boundaries. You’ve erected a precarious structure of personality on unconscious factors over which you have no control. That’s why you feel threatened by me.”
“Aren’t you an employee of a prudence organization?” the Hollis telepath demanded, looking nervously about.
“If you’re the stupendous talent you
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