Free Clans of the Alphane Moon by Philip K. Dick Page B

film. Anyhow, what do you care? It’s merely a technical device by which Mary can obtain the decree; there has to be the formal presentation of evidence. And I fail to see how you’ll be hurt.”
    Baffled, Chuck turned. “This invasion of privacy—”
    “You know there hasn’t been any privacy for anybody for the last fifty years,” Alfson said. “You work for an intelligence agency; don’t kid me, Rittersdorf.” He strolled out into the hall, passed by Chuck and made his way unhurriedly to the elevator. “If you want a print of the film—”
    “No,” Chuck said. He stood watching the attorney until he was gone from sight.
    Joan said, “You might as well come on in. He’s got it on the film anyhow.” She held the conapt door open for him and at last, reluctantly, he entered. “What he did is illegal, of course. But I guess it goes on all the time in court cases.” Going into the kitchen she began fixing drinks; he heard the clink of glasses. “How about Mercury Slumps? I’ve got a full bottle of—”
    “Anything,” Chuck said, roughly.
    Joan brought him his drink; he accepted it reflexively.
    I’ll get back at her for this, he said to himself. Now it’s decided;
I’m fighting for my life.
    “You look so grim,” Joan said. “That really upset you, didn’t it, that man here waiting for us with apotent-camera. Prying into our lives. First Lord Running Clam and now just when—”
    “It’s still possible,” Chuck said, “to perform an act in secret. That no one else knows about.”
    “Like what?”
    He said nothing; he sipped his drink.

SIX
    From head-high shelves, cats hopped down, three old orange toms and a mottled Manx, then several part-Siamese kittens with fuzzy, whiskery faces, a supple black young tom, and, with great difficulty, a heavy-with-young calico female; the cats, joined by a small dog, clustered around Ignatz Ledebur’s feet, impeding his progress as he attempted to leave the shack.
    Ahead lay parts of a dead rat; the dog, a ratting terrier, had caught it and the cats had eaten what they wished. Ignatz had heard them, at dawn, growling. He felt sorry for the rat, which had probably been after the garbage heaped on both sides of the shack’s single door. After all, the rat had a right to life, too, as much so as any human. But, of course, the dog did not grasp that; to kill was an instinct implanted in the dog’s weak flesh. So no moral blame was involved, and anyhow the rats frightened him; unlike their counterparts back on Terra these had agile hands, could—and did—fashion crude weapons. They were smart.
    Ahead of Ignatz stood the rusting remains of an autonomic tractor, long out of service; it had been deposited here several years ago with the vague idea that it might be repaired. In the meantime Ignatz’s fifteen (or was it sixteen?) children played on it, inducingwhat remained of its commune-circuit to converse with them.
    He did not see what he was searching for: an empty plastic milk carton by which to start his morning fire. So instead he would have to break up a board. Among the great mound of discarded lumber next to his shack, he began to pick about, seeking a board frail enough for him to break by jumping on it, as it lay propped against the shack’s porch.
    The morning air was cold and he shivered, wishing that he had not lost his wool jacket; on one of his long walks he had lain down to rest, placing the jacket under his head as a pillow… when he had awakened he had forgotten it and left it there. So much for the jacket. He could not, of course, remember where that had been; he knew only vaguely that it lay toward Adolfville, perhaps ten days’ walk.
    A woman from a nearby shack—she had been his, briefly, but he had gotten tired of her after fathering two children by her—appeared and yelled in a frenzy at a big white goat who had gotten into the vegetable garden. The goat continued to eat, almost until the woman had reached him, and then he bucked,