Ubik

Chapter 10

The television announcer said, “And now back to Jim Hunter and the news.”

On the screen the sunny, hairless face of the newscaster appeared. “Glen Runciter came back today to the place of his birth, but it was not the kind of return which gladdened anyone’s heart. Yesterday tragedy struck at Runciter Associates, probably the best-known of Earth’s many prudence organizations. In a terrorist blast at an undisclosed subsurface installation on Luna, Glen Runciter was mortally wounded and died before his remains could be transferred to cold-pac. Brought to the Beloved Brethren Moratorium in Zurich, every effort was made to revive Runciter to half-life, but in vain. In acknowledgment of defeat these efforts have now ceased, and the body of Glen Runciter has been returned here to Des Moines, where it will lie in state at the Simple Shepherd Mortuary.”

The screen showed an old-fashioned white wooden building, with various persons roaming about outside.

I wonder who authorized the transfer to Des Moines, Joe Chip said to himself.

“It was the sad but inexorably dictated decision by the wife of Glen Runciter,” the newscaster’s voice continued, “which brought about this final chapter which we are now viewing. Mrs. Ella Runciter, herself in cold-pac, whom it had been hoped her husband would join—revived to face this calamity. Mrs. Runciter learned this morning of the fate which had overtaken her husband, and gave the decision to abandon efforts to awaken belated half-life in the man whom she had expected to merge with, a hope disappointed by reality.” A still photo of Ella, taken during her lifetime, appeared briefly on the TV screen. “In solemn ritual,” the newscaster continued, “grieving employees of Runciter Associates assembled in the chapel of the Simple Shepherd Mortuary, preparing themselves as best they could, under the circumstances, to pay last respects.”

The screen now showed the roof field of the mortuary; a parked upended ship opened its hatch and men and women emerged. A microphone, extended by newsmen, halted them.

“Tell me, sir,” a newsmanish voice said, “in addition to working for Glen Runciter, did you and these other employees also know him personally? Know him not as a boss but as a man?”

Blinking like a light-blinded owl, Don Denny said into the extended microphone, “We all knew Glen Runciter as a man. As a good individual and citizen whom we could trust. I know I speak for the others when I say this.”

“Are all of Mr. Runciter’s employees, or perhaps I should say former employees, here, Mr. Denny?”

“Many of us are here,” Don Denny said. “Mr. Len Niggelman, Prudence Society chairman, approached us in New York and informed us that he had heard of Glen Runciter’s death. He informed us that the body of the deceased was being brought here to Des Moines, and he said we ought to come here, and we agreed, so he brought us in his ship. This is his ship.” Denny indicated the ship out of which he and the others had stepped. “We appreciated him notifying us of the change of location from the moratorium in Zurich to the mortuary here. Several of us are not here, however, because they weren’t at the firm’s New York offices; I refer in particular to inertials Al Hammond and Wendy Wright and the firm’s field tester, Mr. Chip. The whereabouts of the three of them is unknown to us, but perhaps along with—”

“Yes,” the news announcer with the microphone said. “Perhaps they will see this telecast, which is being beamed by satellite over all of Earth, and will come here to Des Moines for this tragic occasion, as I am sure—and as you undoubtedly are sure—Mr. Runciter and also Mrs. Runciter would want them to. And now back to Jim Hunter at news-room central.”

Jim Hunter, reappearing on the screen, said, “Ray Hollis, whose psionically talented personnel are the object of inertial nullification and hence the target of the prudence organizations, said today in a statement released by his office that he regretted the accidental death of Glen Runciter and would if possible attend the funeral services in Des Moines, It may be, however, that Len Niggelman, representing the Prudence Society (as we told you earlier), will ask that he be barred in view of the implication on the part of some prudence-organization spokesmen that Hollis originally reacted to news of Runciter’s death with ill-disguised relief.” Newscaster Hunter paused, picked up a sheet of paper and said, “Turning now to other news—”

With his foot Joe Chip tripped the pedal which controlled the TV set; the screen faded and the sound ebbed into silence.

This doesn’t fit in with the graffiti on the bathroom walls, Joe reflected. Maybe Runciter is dead, after all. The TV people think so. Ray Hollis thinks so. So does Len Niggelman. They all consider him dead, and all we have that says otherwise is the two rhymed couplets, which could have been scrawled by anyone—despite what Al thought.

The TV screen relit. Much to his surprise; he had not repressed the pedal switch. And in addition, it changed channels: Images flitted past, of one thing and then another, until at last the mysterious agency was satisfied. The final image remained.

The face of Glen Runciter.

“Tired of lazy tastebuds?” Runciter said in his familiar gravelly voice. “Has boiled cabbage taken over your world of food? That same old, stale, flat, Monday-morning odor no matter how many dimes you put into your stove? Ubik changes all that; Ubik wakes up food flavor, puts hearty taste back where it belongs, and restores fine food smell.” On the screen a brightly colored spray-can replaced Glen Runciter. “One invisible puff-puff whisk of economically priced Ubik banishes compulsive obsessive fears that the entire world is turning into clotted milk, worn-out tape recorders and obsolete iron-cage elevators, plus other, further, as-yet-unglimpsed manifestations of decay. You see, world deterioration of this regressive type is a normal experience of many half-lifers, especially in the early stages when ties to the real reality are still very strong. A sort of lingering universe is retained as a residual charge, experienced as a pseudo environment but highly unstable and unsupported by any ergic substructure. This is particularly true when several memory systems are fused, as in the case of you people. But with today’s new, more-powerful-than-ever Ubik, all this is changed!”

Dazed, Joe seated himself, his eyes fixed on the screen; a cartoon fairy zipped airily in spirals, squirting Ubik here and there. A hard-eyed housewife with big teeth and horse’s chin replaced the cartoon fairy; in a brassy voice she bellowed, “I came over to Ubik after trying weak, out-of-date reality supports. My pots and pans were turning into heaps of rust. The floors of my conapt were sagging. My husband Charley put his foot right through the bedroom door. But now I use economical new powerful today’s Ubik, and with miraculous results. Look at this refrigerator.” On the screen appeared an antique turret-top G.E. refrigerator. “Why, it’s devolved back eighty years.”

“Sixty-two years,” Joe corrected reflexively.

“But now look at it,” the housewife continued, squirting the old turret top with her spray can of Ubik. Sparkles of magic light lit up in a nimbus surrounding the old turret top and, in a flash, a modern six-door pay refrigerator replaced it in splendid glory.

“Yes,” Runciter’s dark voice resumed, “by making use of the most advanced techniques of present-day science, the reversion of matter to earlier forms can be reversed, and at a price any conapt owner can afford. Ubik is sold by leading home-art stores throughout Earth. Do not take internally. Keep away from open flame. Do not deviate from printed procedural approaches as expressed on label. So look for it, Joe. Don’t just sit there; go out and buy a can of Ubik and spray it all around you night and day.”

Standing up, Joe said loudly, “You know I’m here. Does that mean you can hear and see me?”

“Of course, I can’t hear you and see you. This commercial message is on videotape; I recorded it two weeks ago, specifically, twelve days before my death. I knew the bomb blast was coming; I made use of precog talents.”

“Then you are really dead.”

“Of course, I’m dead. Didn’t you watch the telecast from Des Moines just now? I know you did, because my precog saw that too.”

“What about the graffiti on the men’s-room wall?”

Runciter, from the audio system of the TV set, boomed, “Another deterioration phenomenon. Go buy a can of Ubik and it’ll stop happening to you; all those things will cease.”

“Al thinks we’re dead,” Joe said.

“Al is deteriorating.” Runciter laughed, a deep, re-echoing pulsation that made the conference room vibrate. “Look, Joe, I recorded this goddam TV commercial to assist you, to guide you—you in particular because we’ve always been friends. And I knew you’d be very confused, which is exactly what you are right now, totally confused. Which isn’t very surprising, considering your usual condition. Anyhow, try to hang on; maybe once you get to Des Moines and see my body lying in state you’ll calm down.”

“What’s this ‘Ubik’?” Joe asked.

“I think, though, it’s too late to help Al.”

Joe said, “What is Ubik made of? How does it work?”

“As a matter of fact, Al probably induced the writing on the men’s-room wall. You wouldn’t have seen it except for him.”

“You really are on videotape, aren’t you?” Joe said. “You can’t hear me. It’s true.”

Runciter said, “And in addition, Al—”

“Rats,” Joe said in weary disgust. It was no use. He gave up.

The horse-jawed housewife returned to the TV screen, winding up the commercial; her voice softer now, she trilled, “If the home-art store that you patronize doesn’t yet carry Ubik, return to your conapt, Mr. Chip, and you’ll find a free sample has arrived by mail, a free introductory sample, Mr. Chip, that will keep you going until you can buy a regular-size can.” She then faded out. The TV set became opaque and silent. The process that had turned it on had turned it back off.

So I’m supposed to blame Al, Joe thought. The idea did not appeal to him; he sensed the peculiarity of the logic, its perhaps deliberate misdirectedness. Al the fall-guy; Al made into the patsy, everything explained in terms of Al. Senseless, he said to himself. And—had Runciter been able to hear him? Had Runciter only pretended to be on videotape? For a time, during the commercial, Runciter had seemed to respond to his questions; only at the end had Runciter’s words become malappropriate. He felt all at once like an ineffectual moth, fluttering at the windowpane of reality, dimly seeing it from outside.

A new thought struck him, an eerie idea. Suppose Runciter had made the videotape recording under the assumption, based on inaccurate precog information, that the bomb blast would kill him and leave the rest of them alive. The tape had been made honestly but mistakenly; Runciter had not died: They had died, as the graffiti on the men’s-room wall had said, and Runciter still lived. Before the bomb blast he had given instructions for the taped commercial to be played at this time, and the network had so done, Runciter having failed to countermand his original order. That would explain the disparity between what Runciter had said on the tape and what he had written on the bathroom walls; it would in fact explain both. Which, as far as he could make out, no other explanation would.

Unless Runciter was playing a sardonic game with them, trifling with them, first leading them in one direction, then the other. An unnatural and gigantic force, haunting their lives. Emanating either within the living world or the half-life world; or, he thought suddenly, perhaps both. In any case, controlling what they experienced, or at least a major part of it. Perhaps not the decay, he decided. Not that. But why not? Maybe, he thought, that, too. But Runciter wouldn’t admit it. Runciter and Ubik. Ubiquity, he realized all at once; that’s the derivation of the made-up word, the name of Runciter’s alleged spray-can product. Which probably did not even exist. It was probably a further hoax, to bewilder them that much more.

And, in addition, if Runciter were alive, then not one but two Runciters existed: the genuine one in the real world who was striving to reach them, and the phantasmagoric Runciter who had become a corpse in this half-life world, the body lying in state in Des Moines, Iowa. And, to carry the logic of this out to its full extent, other persons here, such as Ray Hollis and Len Niggelman, were also phantasmagoria—while their authentic counterparts remained in the world of the living.

Very confusing, Joe Chip said to himself. He did not like it at all. Granted it had a satisfying symmetrical quality, but on the other hand, it struck him as untidy.

I’ll zip over to my conapt, he decided, pick up the free sample of Ubik, then head for Des Moines. After all, that’s what the TV commercial urged me to do. I’ll be safer carrying a can of Ubik with me, as the ad pointed out in its own jingly, clever way.

One has to pay attention to such admonitions, he realized, if one expects to stay alive—or half-alive.

Whichever it is.

The taxi let him off on the roof field of his conapt building; he descended by moving ramp and arrived at his own door. With a coin that someone had given him—Al or Pat, he could not knowingly remember—he opened the door and entered.

The living room smelled faintly of burned grease, an odor he had not come across since childhood. Going into the kitchen he discovered the reason. His stove had reverted. Back to an ancient Buck natural-gas model with clogged burners and encrusted oven door which did not close entirely. He gazed at the old, much-used stove dully—then discovered that the other kitchen appliances had undergone similar metamorphoses. The homeopape machine had vanished entirely. The toaster had dissolved sometime during the day and reformed itself as a rubbishy, quaint, nonautomatic model. Not even pop-up, he discovered as he poked bleakly at it. The refrigerator that greeted him was an enormous belt-driven model, a relic that had floated into being from god knew what distant past; it was even more obsolete than the turret-top G.E. shown in the TV commercial. The coffee-pot had undergone the least change; as a matter of fact, in one respect it had improved—it lacked the coin slot, operating obviously toll-free. This aspect was true of all the appliances, he realized. All that remained, anyhow. Like the homeopape machine, the garbage-disposal unit had entirely vanished. He tried to remember what other appliances he had owned, but already memory had become vague; he gave up and returned to the living room.

The TV set had receded back a long way; he found himself confronted by a dark, wood-cabinet, Atwater-Kent tuned radio-frequency oldtime AM radio, complete with antenna and ground wires. God in heaven, he said to himself, appalled.

But why hadn’t the TV set reverted instead to formless metals and plastics? Those, after all, were its constituents; it had been constructed out of them, not out of an earlier radio. Perhaps this weirdly verified a discarded ancient philosophy, that of Plato’s ideal objects, the universals which, in each class, were real. The form TV set had been a template imposed as a successor to other templates, like the procession of frames in a movie sequence. Prior forms, he reflected, must carry on an invisible, residual life in every object. The past is latent, is submerged, but still there, capable of rising to the surface once the later imprinting unfortunately—and against ordinary experience—vanished. The man contains—not the boy—but earlier men, he thought. History began a long time ago.

The dehydrated remnants of Wendy. The procession of forms that normally takes place—that procession ceased. And the last form wore off, with nothing subsequent: no newer form, no next stage of what we see as growth, to take its place. This must be what we experience as old age; from this absence comes degeneration and senility. Only in this instance it happened abruptly—in a matter of hours.

But this old theory—didn’t Plato think that something survived the decline, something inner not able to decay? The ancient dualism: body separated from soul. The body ending as Wendy did, and the soul—out of its nest the bird, flown elsewhere. Maybe so, he thought. To be reborn again, as the Tibetan Book of the Dead says. It really is true. Christ, I hope so. Because in that case we all can meet again. In, as in Winnie-the-Pooh, another part of the forest, where a boy and his bear will always be playing… a category, he thought, imperishable. Like all of us. We will all wind up with Pooh, in a clearer, more durable new place.

For curiosity’s sake he turned on the prehistoric radio set; the yellow celluloid dial glowed, the set gave off a loud sixty-cycle hum, and then, amid static and squeals, a station came on.

“Time for Pepper Young’s Family,” the announcer said, and organ music gurgled. “Brought to you by mild Camay, the soap of beautiful women. Yesterday Pepper discovered that the labor of months had come to an unexpected end, due to the—”

Joe shut the radio off at that point. A pre-World War Two soap opera, he said to himself, marveling. Well, it followed the logic of the form reversions taking place in this, the dying half-world—or whatever it was.

Looking around the living room he discovered a baroque-legged, glass-topped coffee table on which a copy of Liberty magazine rested. Also pre-World War Two; the magazine featured a serial entitled “Lightning in the Night,” a futuristic fantasy supposing an atomic war. He turned the pages numbly, then studied the room as a whole, seeking to identify other changes.

The tough, neutral-colored floor had become wide, soft-wood boards; in the center of the room a faded Turkish rug lay, impregnated with years of dust.

One single picture remained on the wall, a glass-covered framed print in monochrome showing a dying Indian on horseback. He had never seen it before. It stirred no memories. And he did not care for it one bit.

The vidphone had been replaced by a black, hook-style, upright telephone. Pre-dial. He lifted the receiver from the hook and heard a female voice saying, “Number, please.” At that he hung up.

The thermostatically controlled heating system had evidently departed. At one end of the living room he perceived a gas heater, complete with large tin flue running up the wall almost to the ceiling.

Going into the bedroom, he looked in the closet, rummaged, then assembled an outfit: black Oxfords, wool socks, knickers, blue cotton shirt, camel’s-hair sports coat and golf cap. For more formal wear he laid out on the bed a pin-striped, blue-black, double-breasted suit, suspenders, wide floral necktie and white shirt with celluloid collar. Jeez, he said to himself in dismay as, in the closet, he came across a golf bag with assorted clubs. What a relic.

Once more he returned to the living room. This time he noticed the spot where his polyphonic audio components had formerly been assembled. The multiplex FM tuner, the high-hysteresis turntable and weightless tracking arm—speakers, horns, multitrack amplifier, all had vanished. In their place a tall, tan wooden structure greeted him; he made out the crank handle and did not need to lift the lid to know what his sound system now consisted of Bamboo needles, a pack of them on the bookcase beside the Victrola. And a ten-inch 78-speed black-label Victor record of Ray Noble’s orchestra playing “Turkish Delight.” So much for his tape and LP collection.

And by tomorrow he would probably find himself equipped with a cylinder phonograph, screw-driven. And, to play on it, a shouted recitation of the Lord’s Prayer.

A fresh-looking newspaper lying at the far end of the overstuffed sofa attracted his attention. He picked it up and read the date: Tuesday, September 12, 1939. He scanned the headlines.

Interesting, he said to himself. World War Two had just begun. And the French thought they were winning it. He read another headline.

The newspaper had cost three cents. That interested him too. What could you get now for three cents? he asked himself. He tossed the newspaper back down, and marveled once again at its freshness. A day or so old, he guessed. No more than that. So I now have a time fix; I know precisely how far back the regression has carried.

Wandering about the conapt, searching out the various changes, he found himself facing a chest of dresser drawers in the bedroom. On the top rested several framed, glass-covered photographs.

All were of Runciter. But not the Runciter he knew. These were of a baby, a small boy, then a young man. Runciter as he once had been, but still recognizable.

Getting out his wallet, he found only snapshots of Runciter, none of his family, none of friends. Runciter everywhere! He returned the wallet to his pocket, then realized with a jolt that it had been made of natural cowhide, not plastic. Well, that fitted. In the old days there had been organic leather available. So what? he said to himself. Bringing the wallet out once more, he somberly scrutinized it; he rubbed the cowhide and experienced a new tactile sensation, a pleasant one. Infinitely superior to plastic, he decided.

Back in the living room again, he poked about, searching for the familiar mail slot, the recessed wall cavity which should have contained today’s mail. It had vanished; it no longer existed. He pondered, trying to envision oldtime mail practices. On the floor outside the conapt door? No. In a box of some kind; he recalled the term mailbox. Okay, it would be in the mailbox, but where had mailboxes been located? At the main entrance of the building? That—dimly—seemed right. He would have to leave his conapt. The mail would be found on the ground floor, twenty stories below.

“Five cents, please,” his front door said when he tried to open it. One thing, anyhow, hadn’t changed. The toll door had an innate stubbornness to it; probably it would hold out after everything else. After everything except it had long since reverted, perhaps in the whole city… if not the whole world.

He paid the door a nickel, hurried down the hall to the moving ramp which he had used only minutes ago. The ramp, however, had now reverted to a flight of inert concrete stairs. Twenty flights down, he reflected. Step by step. Impossible; no one could walk down that many stairs. The elevator. He started toward it, then remembered what had happened to Al. Suppose this time I see what he saw, he said to himself. An old iron cage hanging from a wire cable, operated by a senile borderline moron wearing an official elevator-operator’s cap. Not a vision of 1939 but a vision of 1909, a regression much greater than anything I’ve run into so far.

Better not to risk it. Better to take the stairs.

Resigned, he began to descend.

He had gotten almost halfway down when something ominous flicked alive in his brain. There was no way by which he could get back up—either to his conapt or to the roof field where the taxi waited. Once on the ground floor he would be confined there, maybe forever. Unless the spray can of Ubik was potent enough to restore the elevator or the moving ramp. Surface travel, he said to himself. What the hell will that consist of by the time I get down there? Train? Covered wagon?

Clattering down two steps at a time, he morosely continued his descent. Too late now to change his mind.

When he reached ground level he found himself confronted by a large lobby, including a marble-topped table, very long, on which two ceramic vases of flowers—evidently iris—rested. Four wide steps led down to the curtained front door; he grasped the faceted glass knob of the door and swung it open.

More steps. And, on the right, a row of locked brass mail-boxes, each with a name, each requiring a key. He had been right; this was as far as the mail was brought. He located his own box, finding a strip of paper at the bottom of it reading JOSEPH CHIP 2075, plus a button which, when pressed, evidently rang upstairs in his conapt.

The key. He had no key. Or did he? Fishing in his pockets, he discovered a ring on which several diversely shaped metal keys dangled; perplexed, he studied them, wondering what they were for. The lock on the mailbox seemed unusually small; obviously, it took a similar-size key. Selecting the most meager key on the ring, he inserted it in the lock of the mailbox, turned it. The brass door of the box fell open. He peered inside.

Within the box lay two letters and a square package wrapped in brown paper, sealed with brown tape. Purple three-cent stamps with a portrait of George Washington; he paused to admire these unusual memorabilia from the past and then, ignoring the letters, tore open the square package, finding it rewardingly heavy. But, he realized suddenly, it’s the wrong shape for a spray can; it’s not tall enough. Fear touched him. What if it was not a free sample of Ubik? It had to be; it just had to be. Otherwise—Al all over again. Mors certa et hora certa, he said to himself as he dropped the brown-paper wrappings and examined the pasteboard container within.

Inside the container he found a blue glass jar with a large lid. The label read:

This is insane, Joe said to himself. He read the list of ingredients once more, feeling growing, baffled anger. And a mounting helpless sensation that took root and spread through every part of him. I’m finished, he said to himself. This stuff isn’t what Runciter advertised on TV; this is some arcane mixture of old-time patent medicines, skin salves, pain killers, poisons, inert nothings—plus, of all things, cortisone. Which didn’t exist before World War Two. Obviously, the Ubik which he described to me in the taped TV commercial, this sample of it anyhow, has reverted. An irony that is just plain too much: The substance created to reverse the regressive change process has itself regressed. I should have known as soon as I saw the old purple three-cent stamps.

He looked up and down the street. And saw, parked at the curb, a classic, museum-piece surface car. A LaSalle.

Can I get to Des Moines in a 1939 LaSalle automobile? he asked himself. Eventually, if it remains stable, perhaps a week from now. But by then it won’t matter. And, anyhow, the car won’t remain stable. Nothing—except maybe my front door—will.

However, he walked over to the LaSalle to examine it at close range. Maybe it’s mine, he said to himself; maybe one of my keys fits its ignition. Isn’t that how surface cars operated? On the other hand, how am I going to drive it? I don’t know how to pilot an oldtime automobile, especially one with—what did they call it?—manual transmission. He opened the door and slid onto the seat behind the driver’s steering wheel; there he sat, plucking aimlessly at his lower lip and trying to think the situation through.

Maybe I ought to drink down a tablespoon of Ubik liver and kidney balm, he said to himself grimly. With those ingredients it ought to kill me fairly thoroughly. But it did not strike him as the kind of death he could welcome. The cobalt chloride would do it, very slowly and agonizingly, unless the digitalis managed it first. And there were, of course, the oleander leaves. They could hardly be overlooked. The whole combination would melt his bones into jelly. Inch by inch.

Wait a minute, he thought. Air transportation existed in 1939. If I could get to the New York Airport—possibly in this car—I could charter a flight. Rent a Ford trimotor plane complete with pilot. That would get me to Des Moines.

He tried his various keys and at last found one which switched on the car’s ignition. The starter motor cranked away, and then the engine caught; with a healthy rumble the engine continued to turn over, and the sound of it pleased him. Like the genuine cowhide wallet, this particular regression struck him as an improvement; being completely silent, the transportation of his own time lacked this palpable touch of sturdy realism.

Now the clutch, he said to himself. Over on the left. With his foot he located it. Clutch down to the floor, then shift the lever into gear. He tried it—and obtained a horrid clashing noise, metal whirring against metal. Evidently, he had managed to let up on the clutch. He tried it again. This time he successfully got it into gear.

Lurching, the car moved forward; it bucked and shuddered but it moved. It limped erratically up the street, and he felt within him a certain measured renewal of optimism. And now let’s see if we can find the goddam airfield, he said to himself. Before it’s too late, before we’re back to the days of the Gnome rotary engine with its revolving outside cylinders and its castor-oil lubricant. Good for fifty miles of hedge-hopping flight at seventy-five miles per hour.

An hour later he arrived at the airfield, parked and surveyed the hangars, the windsock, the old biplanes with their huge wooden props. What a sight, he reflected. An indistinct page out of history. Recreated remnants of another millennium, lacking any connection with the familiar, real world. A phantasm that had drifted into sight only momentarily; this, too, would be gone soon: it would no more survive than had contemporary artifacts. The process of devolution would sweep this away like it had everything else.

He got shakily from the LaSalle—feeling acutely carsick—and trudged toward the main buildings of the airfield.

“What can I charter with this?” he asked, laying all his money out on the counter before the first official-looking person he caught sight of. “I want to get to Des Moines as quickly as possible. I want to take off right away.”

The field official, bald-headed, with a waxed mustache and small, round, gold-rimmed eyeglasses, inspected the bills silently. “Hey, Sam,” he called with a turn of his apple-like round head. “Come here and look at this money.”

A second individual, wearing a striped shirt with billowing sleeves, shiny seersucker trousers and canvas shoes, stumped over. “Fake money,” he said after he had taken his look. “Play money. Not George Washington and not Alexander Hamilton.” Both officials scrutinized Joe.

Joe said, “I have a ’39 LaSalle parked in the parking lot. I’ll trade it for a one-way flight to Des Moines on any plane that’ll get me there. Does that interest you?”

Presently the official with the little gold-rimmed glasses said meditatively, “Maybe Oggie Brent would be interested.”

“Brent?” the official in the seersucker pants said, raising his eyebrows. “You mean that Jenny of his? That plane’s over twenty years old. It wouldn’t get to Philadelphia.”

“How about McGee?”

“Sure, but he’s in Newark.”

“Then, maybe Sandy Jespersen. That Curtiss-Wright of his would make it to Iowa. Sooner or later.” To Joe the official said, “Go out by hangar three and look for a red and white Curtiss biplane. You’ll see a little short guy, sort of fat, fiddling around with it. If he don’t take you up on it nobody here will, unless you want to wait till tomorrow for Ike McGee to come back here in his Fokker trimotor.”

“Thanks,” Joe said, and left the building. He strode rapidly toward hangar three, already seeing what looked like a red and white Curtiss-Wright biplane. At least I won’t be making the trip in a World War JN training plane, he said to himself. And then he thought, How did I know that “Jenny” is a nickname for a JN trainer? Good god, he thought. Elements of this period appear to be developing corresponding coordinates in my mind. No wonder I was able to drive the LaSalle; I’m beginning to phase mentally with this time-continuum in earnest!

A short fat man with red hair puttered with an oily rag at the wheels of his biplane; he glanced up as Joe approached.

“Are you Mr. Jespersen?” Joe asked.

“That’s right.” The man surveyed him, obviously mystified by Joe’s clothes, which had not reverted. “What can I do for you?” Joe told him.

“You want to trade a LaSalle, a new LaSalle, for a one-way trip to Des Moines?” Jespersen cogitated, his brows knitting. “Might as well be both ways; I got to fly back here anyway. Okay, I’ll take a look at it. But I’m not promising anything; I haven’t made up my mind.”

Together they made their way to the parking lot.

“I don’t see any ’39 LaSalle,” Jespersen said suspiciously.

The man was right. The LaSalle had disappeared. In its place Joe saw a fabric-top Ford coupe, a tinny and small car, very old, 1929, he guessed. A black 1929 Model-A Ford. Nearly worthless; he could tell that from Jespersen’s expression.

Obviously, it was now hopeless. He would never get to Des Moines. And, as Runciter had pointed out in his TV commercial, this meant death—the same death that had overtaken Wendy and Al.

It would be only a matter of time.

Better, he thought, to die another way. Ubik, he thought. He opened the door of his Ford and got in.

There, on the seat beside him, rested the bottle which he had received in the mail. He picked it up—

And discovered something which did not really surprise him. The bottle, like the car, had again regressed. Seamless and flat, with scratch marks on it, the kind of bottle made in a wooden mold. Very old indeed; the cap appeared to be handmade, a soft tin screw-type dating from the late nineteenth century. The label, too, had changed; holding the bottle up, he read the words printed on it.

And, in smaller type, a further inscription; he had to squint in order to read the smudged, minute script.

Runciter, he realized. Still playing his sadistic cat-and-mouse games with us. Goading us into keeping going a little longer. Delaying the end as long as possible. God knows why. Maybe, he thought, Runciter enjoys our torment. But that isn’t like him; that’s not the Glen Runciter I knew.

However, Joe put the Elixir of Ubique bottle down, abandoning the idea of making use of it.

And wondered what Runciter’s elusive, hinted at other way might be.