"021 - Dick, Philip K - Counter Clock World v1.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dick Phillip K)

"Whatever you can tell me would be appreciated," Mrs. Hermes said in her shy way.
Shrugging, with a smile, pleased in fact to be encouraged, Doug Appleford began his oration. Both Mrs. Hermes and Officer Tinbane listened with obedient attention, and this pleased him, too.
At the time of his death the Anarch had been fifty years old. He had led an interesting--and unusual--life. In his college days, as a brilliant student, he had studied at Cambridge; he had in fact become a Rhodes scholar, majoring in classic languages: Hebrew, Sanskrit, Attic Greek and Latin. Then, at twenty-two, he had abruptly abandoned his academic career--and his country; he had migrated to the United States to study jazz with the then great jazz performer, Herbie Mann. After a time he had formed his own jazz combo, he himself playing the flute.
In connection with this he had lived on the West Coast, in San Francisco. At that time, the late 'sixties, the Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of California, James Pike, had been arranging to have jazz masses performed at Grace Cathedral, and one of the groups he had called on was Thomas Peak's combo. At this point, Peak had turned composer; he had written a lengthy jazz mass and it had been a success. Pike's Peak, the local newspaper columnist Herb Caen had dubbed him, then; that had been in 1968. Bishop Pike himself had been an interesting person, too. A former lawyer, active in the A.C.L.U., one of the most brilliant and radical clerical figures of his time, he had become involved in what had been called "social action," the issues of the day: in particular, Negro rights. He had for instance been at Selma with Dr. Martin Luther King. From all this, Thomas Peak had learned. He, too, had become involved in the issues of the day--on a much smaller scale than Bishop Pike, of course. At Bishop Pike's suggestion he had entered seminary school, had become at last an ordained Episcopal priest--and, like James Pike, his bishop, quite radical for those times, although now the doctrines which he advocated had become more or less accepted. It was a case of being ahead of his time.
Peak had, in fact, been charged in a heresy trial, had been booted out of the Episcopal Church; whereupon he had gone on and founded his own. And, when the Free Negro Municipality had been born, he had headed that way; he had made its capital the place of origin for his cult.
There was not much resemblance between Peak's new cult and the Episcopal Church which he had left. The experience of Udi, the group mind, comprised the central--if not the sole-- sacrament, and it was for this that the congregation gathered. Without the hallucinogenic drug employed, the sacrament could not take place; hence, like the North American Indian cult which it resembled, Peak's church depended on the availability, not to mention the legality, of the drug. So a curious relationship between the cult and cooperative authorities had to exist.
As to the Udi experience, the most enlightened reports, based on first-hand testimony of undercover agents, stated categorically that the group-mind fusion was real, not imaginary.
"And what is more--" Appleford churned on, but at this point he was interrupted. Hesitantly, but with determination, Mrs. Hermes spoke up.
"Do you think it would be to the advantage of Ray Roberts to have the Anarch reborn?"
For a time Appleford pondered that; it was a good question, and it showed him that despite her reticence and shyness Mrs. Hermes had a good deal on the ball.
"Because of the Hobart Phase," he said finally, "the tide of history is with the Anarch and against Ray Roberts. The Anarch died in late middle-age; he will be that when he's reborn, and he will develop progressively into greater and greater vitality and creativity--for thirty years, anyhow. Ray Roberts is only twenty-six. The Hobart Phase is carrying him back to adolescence; when Peak is at his prime, Roberts will be a child, searching for a handy womb. _All Peak has to do is wait_. No," he decided, "it wouldn't be to Roberts' advantage." And that, he said to himself, Carl Gantrix had abundantly demonstrated . . . by his avid desire to know where the Anarch's body lay.
"My husband," Mrs. Hermes said in her sweet, earnest voice, "is the owner of a vitarium." She glanced at Officer Tinbane, as if asking him whether she should continue.
Tinbane cleared his throat and said, "I gather that the Flask of Hermes Vitarium anticipates Peak's rebirth momentarily or anyhow within a reasonably short time-period. Technically, it would be incumbent on any vitarium that gets him to offer Peak to the Uditi. But, as we can both gather from Mrs. Hermes' question, there is some doubt--and on good grounds--as to whether that would be in the Anarch's best interest."
"If I understand the way the vitaria operate," Appleford said, "they generally list who they have, and the highest bidder gets it. Is that the case, Mrs. Hermes?"
She ducked her head, nodding yes.
"It's really not up to you," Appleford said, "or your husband, to moralize. You're in business; you locate deaders ready to be reborn, and you sell your product for what the market will carry. Once you start poking into the issue of which _morally_ is the best customer--"
"Our salesman, R.C. Buckley, always looks into the morality," Mrs. Hermes said, with sincerity.
"Or so he says," Tinbane said.
"Oh," she assured him, "I'm positive he does; he spends a lot of his time studying the customers' backgrounds; he really does."
There was an appropriate interval of silence.
"You do not," Appleford said to Mrs. Hermes, "want to know where the Anarch's body lies buried? That's not--"
"Oh, we know that," Mrs. Hermes said in her grave, honest little voice; Tinbane started visibly and looked annoyed.
Appleford said to her, "Mrs. Hermes, you probably shouldn't tell anyone you know that."
"Oh," she said, and flushed. "I'm sorry."
Appleford went on, "Someone from the Uditi was in here just prior to you, trying to find that out. If anyone approaches you--" He leaned toward her, speaking slowly, so as to impress it on her. "-- don't tell them. Don't even tell me."
"Or me," Tinbane said.
Mrs. Hermes, looking as if she was about to cry, said chokingly, "I'm sorry; I guess I screwed everything up. I always do."
To Mrs. Hermes, Officer Tinbane said, "Have you told anybody else, Lotta?"
She shook her head, wordlessly, no.
"Okay." Tinbane nodded to Appleford in shared agreement. "Probably no harm done yet. But they'll be trying to find out. They may canvass all the vitariums; you better discuss this with Seb and with your employees. You understand, Lotta?"
Again she nodded, this time yes; her large dark eyes glinted with repressed tears.









5


Love is the end and quiet cessation of the natural motion of all moving things, beyond which no motion continues.
--Erigena



At three in the afternoon Officer Tinbane reported to his superior, George Gore.
"Well," Gore said, leaning back and picking his teeth, meanwhile eying Tinbane critically, "did you learn a lot about Ray Roberts?"