Free The Crack In Space by Philip K Dick

don’t pin our hopes on him, at least not entirely. We go ahead with something on our own, just to be certain. And we have to be certain; this is too serious. That Col actually means to shut us down.’
    Both their eyes, now, turned toward the TV screen, and both George and Walt sat back in their special wide couch to listen to the speech.
    In the luxurious apartment which he maintained in Reno, Dr Lurton Sands sat raptly listening to the television set, the Col candidate James Briskin delivering his Chicago speech. He knew what it meant. There was only one place that Briskin could have happened across a ‘lush, virgin world’. Obviously Cally had been found.
    Going to his desk drawer, Lurton Sands got out the small laser pistol which he kept there and thrust it into his coat pocket. I’m amazed he’d do it, Sands thought. Capitalize off my problems—evidently I misjudged him.
    Now so many lives which I could have saved will be forfeited, Sands realized. Due to this. And Briskin is responsible  . . . he’s taken the healing power out of my hands, darkened the force working for the good of man.
    At the vid-phone Sands dialed the local jet’ab company. ‘I want an ‘ab to Chicago. As soon as possible.’ He gave his address, then hurried from his apartment to the elevator. Those that are hounding Cally and me to our deaths, he thought, Myra and her detectives and the homeopapes  . . . now they’ve been joined by Jim Briskin. How could he align himself with them? Haven’t I made clear to everyone what I can do in the service of human need? Briskin must be aware; this can’t be merely ignorance on his part.
    Frantically Sands thought. Could it possibly be that Briskin wants the sick to die? All those waiting for me, needing my help . . . help which no one else, after I’ve been pushed to my death, can possibly provide.
    Touching the laser pistol in his pocket, Sands said aloud, glumly, ‘It certainly is easy to be mistaken about another person.’ They can take you in so easily, he thought. Deliberately mislead you. Yes, deliberately!
    The jet’ab swept up to the curb and slid open its door.

SIX
    When he had finished his speech Jim Briskin sat back and knew that this time he had done, at last, a damn good job. It had been the best speech of his political career, in some respects the only really decent one.
    And now what? he asked himself. Sal is gone, and along with him Patricia. I’ve offended the powerful and immensely wealthy unicephalic brothers George Walt, not to mention Thisbe herself  . . . and Terran Development, which is no small potatoes, will be furious that its break-through has been made public. But none of this matters. Nor does the fact that I’m now committed to naming a well-known private operator as my Attorney General; even that isn’t important. My job was to make that speech as soon as Tito Cravelli brought me that information. And—that’s exactly what I did. To the letter. No matter what the consequences.
    Coming up to him, Phil Danville slapped him warmly on the back. ‘A hell of a good fuss, Jim. You really outdid yourself.’
    ‘Thanks, Phil,’ Jim Briskin murmured. He felt tired. He nodded to the TV camera men and then, with Phil Danville, walked over to join the knot of party brass waiting at the rear of the studio.
    ‘I need a drink,’ Jim said to them as several of them extended their hands, wanting to shake with him. ‘After that.’ I wonder what the opposition will do now, he said to himself. What can Bill Schwarz say? Nothing, actually. I’ve taken the lid off the whole thing, and there’s no putting it back. Now that everyone knows there’s a place we can emigrate to, the rush will be on. By the multitudes. The warehouses will be emptied, thank god. As they should have been long ago.
    I wish I had known about this, he thought abruptly, before I began publicly advocating Bruno Mini’s planet-wetting technique. I could have avoided that—and the break with Sal