“Does the word ‘Ubik’ mean anything to you, Mr. Chip?” Francesca Spanish said.
It took him a moment to absorb what she had said. “Jesus Christ,” he said then. “Can’t you distinguish manifestations of—”
“Francy has dreams,” Tippy Jackson said. “She’s always had them. Tell him your Ubik dream, Francy.” To Joe she said, “Francy will now tell you her Ubik dream, as she calls it. She had it last night.”
“I call it that because that’s what it is,” Francesca Spanish said fiercely; she clasped her hands together in a spasm of excited agitation. “Listen, Mr. Chip, it wasn’t like any dream I’ve ever had before. A great hand came down from the sky, like the arm and hand of God. Enormous, the size of a mountain. And I knew at the time how important it was; the hand was closed, made into a rocklike fist, and I knew it contained something of value so great that my life and the lives of everyone else on Earth depended on it. And I waited for the fist to open, and it did open. And I saw what it contained.”
“An aerosol spray can,” Don Denny said dryly.
“On the spray can,” Francesca Spanish continued, “there was one word, great golden letters, glittering; golden fire spelling out UBIK. Nothing else. Just that strange word. And then the hand closed up again around the spray can and the hand and arm disappeared, drawn back up into a sort of gray overcast. Today before the funeral services I looked in a dictionary and I called the public library, but no one knew that word or even what language it is and it isn’t in the dictionary. It isn’t English, the librarian told me. There’s a Latin word very close to it: ubique. It means—”
“Everywhere,” Joe said.
Francesca Spanish nodded. “That’s what it means. But no Ubik, and that’s how it was spelled in the dream.”
“They’re the same word,” Joe said. “Just different spellings.”
“How do you know that?” Pat Conley said archly.
“Runciter appeared to me yesterday,” Joe said. “In a taped TV commercial that he made before his death.” He did not elaborate; it seemed too complex to explain, at least at this particular time.
“You miserable fool,” Pat Conley said to him.
“Why?” he asked.
“Is that your idea of a manifestation of a dead man? You might as well consider letters he wrote before his death ‘manifestations.’ Or interoffice memos that he transcribed over the years. Or even—”
Joe said, “I’m going inside and take a last look at Runciter.” He departed from the group, leaving them standing there, and made his way up the wide board steps and into the dark, cool interior of the mortuary.
Emptiness. He saw no one, only a large chamber with pewlike rows of seats and, at the far end, a casket surrounded by flowers. Off in a small sideroom an old-fashioned reed pump organ and a few wooden folding chairs. The mortuary smelled of dust and flowers, a sweet, stale mixture that repelled him. Think of all the Iowans, he thought, who’ve embraced eternity in this listless room. Varnished floors, handkerchiefs, heavy dark wool suits… everything but pennies placed over the dead eyes. And the organ playing symmetric little hymns.
He reached the casket, hesitated, then looked down.
A singed, dehydrated heap of bones lay at one end of the casket, culminating in a paper-like skull that leered up at him, the eyes recessed like dried grapes. Tatters of cloth with bristle-like woven spines had collected near the tiny body, as if blown there by wind. As if the body, breathing, had cluttered itself with them by its wheezing, meager processes—inhalation and exhalation which had now ceased. Nothing stirred. The mysterious change, which had also degraded Wendy Wright and Al, had reached its end, evidently a long time ago. Years ago, he thought, remembering Wendy.
Had the others in the group seen this? Or had it happened since the services? Joe reached out, took hold of the oak lid of the casket and shut it; the thump of wood against wood echoed throughout the empty mortuary, but no one heard it. No one appeared.
Blinded by tears of fright, he made his way back out of the dust-stricken, silent room. Back into the weak sunlight of late afternoon.
“What’s the matter?” Don Denny asked him as he rejoined the group.
Joe said, “Nothing.”
“You look scared out of your goony wits,” Pat Conley said acutely.
“Nothing!” He stared at her with deep, infuriated hostility.
Tippy Jackson said to him, “While you were in there did you by any chance happen to see Edie Dorn?”
“She’s missing,” Jon Ild said by way of explanation.
“But she was just out here,” Joe protested.
“All day she’s been saying she felt terribly cold and tired,” Don Denny said. “It may be that she went back to the hotel; she said something about it earlier, that she wanted to lie down and take a nap right after the services, She’s probably all right.”
Joe said, “She’s probably dead.” To all of them he said, “I thought you understood. If any one of us gets separated from the group he won’t survive; what happened to Wendy and Al and Runciter—” He broke off.
“Runciter was killed in the blast,” Don Denny said.
“We were all killed in the blast,” Joe said. “I know that because Runciter told me; he wrote it on the wall of the men’s room back at our New York offices. And I saw it again on—”
“What you’re saying is insane,” Pat Conley said sharply, interrupting him. “Is Runciter dead or isn’t he? Are we dead or aren’t we? First you say one thing, then you say another. Can’t you be consistent?”
“Try to be consistent,” Jon Ild put in. The others, their faces pinched and creased with worry, nodded in mute agreement.
Joe said, “I can tell you what the graffiti said, I can tell you about the worn-out tape recorder, the instructions that came with it; I can tell you about Runciter’s TV commercial, the note in the carton of cigarettes in Baltimore—I can tell you about the label on the flask of Elixir of Ubique. But I can’t make it all add up. In any case, we have to get to your hotel to try to reach Edie Dorn before she withers away and irreversibly expires. Where can we get a taxi?”
“The mortuary has provided us with a car to use while we’re here,” Don Denny said. “That Pierce-Arrow sitting over there.” He pointed.
They hurried toward it.
“We’re not all of us going to be able to fit in,” Tippy Jackson said as Don Denny tugged the solid iron door open and got inside.
“Ask Bliss if we can take the Willys-Knight,” Joe said; he started up the engine of the Pierce-Arrow and, as soon as everyone possible had gotten into the car, drove out onto the busy main street of Des Moines. The Willys-Knight followed close behind, its horn honking dolefully to tell Joe it was there.
Chapter 12
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One by one, Joe Chip said to himself as he piloted the big car through traffic, we’re succumbing. Something is wrong with my theory. Edie, by being with the group, should have been immune. And I—
It should have been me, he thought. Sometime during my slow flight from New York.
“What we’ll have to do,” he said to Don Denny, “is make sure that anyone who feels tired—that seems to be the first warning—tells the rest of us. And isn’t allowed to wander away.”
Twisting around to face those in the back seat, Don said, “Do you all hear that? As soon as any of you feels tired, even a little bit, report it to either Mr. Chip or myself.” He turned back toward Joe. “And then what?” he asked.
“And then what, Joe?” Pat Conley echoed. “What do we do then? Tell us how we do it, Joe. We’re listening.”