Free The Zap Gun by Philip K. Dick

their target but they could get at you emotionally. I go for tearweps; I understand the idea. But localization: that's the essence." He put on, for effect, his clumsy ethnic accent. "You don't got no target, Meester Lars, sir, when you got zap gun which blow up whole world, even though it make lot of plenty fine terror. You got—" He grinned wise-peasantishly. "You got hammer with which you hit yourself over your own head."
    The accent and the attempt at humor were gone, as he said, "The H-bomb was a monstrous, paranoid-logic error. The product of a paranoid nut."
    "There are not nuts like that alive today," Pete said quietly.
    Jack said instantly, "That we know of."
    The three of them glanced at one another.
    Across the continent, Surley G. Febbs said, "A one-way express first-class window-seat ticket on a 66-G noblowby rocket to Festung Washington, D.C. And snap it up, miss." He carefully laid out a ninety poscred note on the brass surface before the TWA clerk's window.

9
    Behind Surley G. Febbs in the line at the TWA ticket-reservations-baggage window a portly, well-cloaked, businessman-type was saying to the individual behind him, "Look at this. Get a load of what's going on overhead behind our backs right this minute. A new satellite in orbit, and by them. Not us." He refolded page one of his morning homeopape, to show.
    "Chrissake," the man behind him said dutifully. Naturally Surley G. Febbs, while he waited for his ticket to Festung Washington, D.C. to be validated, listened in. Naturally.
    "Wonder if it's a hedgehog," the portly businessman-type said.
    "Naw." The individual behind him shook his head vigorously. "We'd object. You suppose a man of General George Nitz' stature would allow that? We'd register an official government protest so fast—"
    Turning, Surley Febbs said, " 'Protest?' Are you kidding? Is that the kind of leaders we have? You actually believe what's needed is words? If Peep-East put that satellite up without officially registering the specs with SINK-PA in advance we'll—" he gestured—"Whammo. Down it comes."
    He received his ticket and change from the clerk.
    Later, in the express jet, first-class accommodation, window seat, he found himself next to the portly, well-cloaked, businessman-type. After a few seconds—the flight in all lasted only fifteen minutes—they resumed their conversation of solemn weight. They were now passing over Colorado and the Rockies could be seen below, briefly, but due to the nobility of their discussion they ignored that great range. It would be there later on, but they might not be. This was urgent.
    Febbs said, "Hedgehog or not, every Peep miss is a men."
    "Eh?" the portly businessman said.
    "Every Peep-East missile is a menace. They're all up to something." Something evil, he said to himself, and glanced at the portly man's 'pape, over his shoulder. "I see it's a type never before seen. God knows what it might contain. Frankly, I think we ought to drop a Garbage-can Banger on New Moscow."
    "What's that?"
    Condescendingly, because he fully realized that the average man had not done research endlessly at the pub-libe as he had, Febbs said, "It's a missile that wide-cracks in the atmosphere. 'Atmosphere,' from the Sanskrit atmen, 'breath.' The word 'Sanskrit' from samskrta, meaning 'cultivated,' which is from sama, meaning 'equal,' plus kr, 'to do,' and krp, 'form.' In the atmosphere, anyhow, above the popcen—the population center—which it's aimed at. We place the Judas Iscariot IV above New Moscow, set to wide-crack at half a mile, and it rains down minned—miniaturized—h'd, that means homeostatic—"
    It was hard to communicate with the ordinary mass man. Nonetheless Febbs did his best to find terms which this portly nonentity—this nont—would comprehend. "They're about the size of gum wrappers. They drift throughout the city, especially into the rings of conapts. You do know what a conapt is, don't you?"
    Spluttering, the portly businessman-type