Free The Eye of the Sibyl and Other Classic Strories by Philip K. Dick Page A

Milt. He could have helped you.” Her voice was oddly hard.
    “I have no doubt of that,” Milt Biskle agreed as they re-entered the parked ‘copter.
     
    When they arrived back at Mary’s conapt he found his Martian wug-plant dead. It had evidently perished of dehydration.
    “Don’t try to explain this,” he said to Mary as the two of them stood gazing down at the parched, dead stalks of the once active plant. “You know what it shows. Terra is supposedly more humid than Mars, even reconstructed Mars at its best. Yet this plant has completely dried out. There’s no moisture left on Terra because I suppose the Prox blasts emptied the seas. Right?”
    Mary said nothing.
    “What I don’t understand,” Milt said, “is why it’s worth it to you people to keep the illusion going. I’ve finished my job .”
    After a pause Mary said, “Maybe there’re more planets requiring reconstruct work, Milt.”
    “Your population is that great?”
    “I was thinking of Terra. Here,” Mary said. “Reconstruct work on it will take generations; all the talent and ability you reconstruct engineers possess will be required.” She added, “I’m just following your hypothetical logic, of course.”
    “So Terra’s our next job. That’s why you let me come here. In fact I’m going to stay here.” He realized that, thoroughly and utterly, in a flash of insight. “I won’t be going back to Mars and I won’t see Fay again. You’re replacing her.” It all made sense.
    “Well,” Mary said, with a faint wry smile, “let’s say I’m attempting to.” She stroked his arm. Barefoot, still in her sunsuit, she moved slowly closer and closer to him.
    Frightened, he backed away from her. Picking up the dead wug-plant he numbly carried it to the apt’s disposal chute and dropped the brittle, dry remains in. They vanished at once.
    “And now,” Mary said busily, “we’re going to visit the Museum of Modern Art in New York and then, if we have time, the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. They’ve asked me to keep you busy so you don’t start brooding.”
    “But I am brooding,” Milt said as he watched her change from her sunsuit to a gray wool knit dress. Nothing can stop that, he said to himself. And you know it now. And as each reconstruct engineer finishes his area it’s going to happen again. I’m just the first.
    At least I’m not alone, he realized. And felt somewhat better.
    “How do I look?” Mary asked as she put on lipstick before the bedroom mirror.
    “Fine,” he said listlessly, and wondered if Mary would meet each reconstruct engineer in turn, become the mistress of each. Not only is she not what she seems, he thought, but I don’t even get to keep her.
    It seemed a gratuitous loss, easily avoided.
    He was, he realized, beginning to like her. Mary was alive ; that much was real. Terran or not. At least they had not lost the war to shadows; they had lost to authentic living organisms. He felt somewhat cheered.
    “Ready for the Museum of Modern Art?” Mary said briskly, with a smile.
     
    Later, at the Smithsonian, after he had viewed the Spirit of St. Louis and the Wright brothers’ incredibly ancient plane—it appeared to be at least a million years old—he caught sight of an exhibit which he had been anticipating.
    Saying nothing to Mary—she was absorbed in studying a case of semiprecious stones in their natural uncut state—he slipped off and, a moment later, stood before a glass-walled section entitled
     
PROX MILITARY OF 2014
     
    Three Prox soldiers stood frozen, their dark muzzles stained and grimy, side arms ready, in a makeshift shelter composed of the remains of one of their transports. A bloody Prox flag hung drably. This was a defeated enclave of the enemy; these three creatures were about to surrender or be killed.
    A group of Terran visitors stood before the exhibit, gawking. Milt Biskle said to the man nearest him, “Convincing, isn’t it?”
    “Sure is,” the man, middle-aged,