Free Galactic Pot-Healer by Philip K. Dick

described Glimmung as infirm,” Miss Yojez said evenly, “I’d be interested to know what else it said. I’m just curious to see how far your knowledge of Plowman’s Planet departs from the reality situation.”
    With growing discomfort, Joe said, “Dormant. Advanced age; hence senile. Hence harmless.” And harmlessness had not been apparent in Glimmung, at least as he had appeared to Joe. And to the others.
    Standing, Mali Yojez said, “If you’ll please excuse me—I think I’ll go sit in the lounge and perhaps read a magazine or nap.” In brisk, short steps she departed from the passenger compartment.
    “I think,” the plump woman busily knitting said, without looking up from her work, “that Mr. Fernwright ought to go to the lounge and apologize to Miss Whateverhernameis.”
    His ears red, and the back of his neck prickling, Joe got to his feet and followed after Mali Yojez.
    As he descended the three carpeted steps an eerie feeling came over him. As if, he thought, I’m going to my death. Or is it life, for the first time? The process of being born?
    Someday he would know. But not now.

6
    He found Miss Yojez, as she had declared, seated in one of the great soft couches of the lounge, reading
Ramparts
. She did not look up at him, but he took it for granted that she was aware of him. Therefore he said, “How—do you happen to know so much about Plowman’s Planet, Miss Yojez? I mean, you didn’t get your knowledge out of the encyclopedia. Obviously. As I did.”
    Reading on, she said nothing.
    After a pause Joe seated himself near her, hesitated, then, wondering what to say. Why had her statements about the society on Plowman’s Planet angered him so? He didn’t know; it seemed as irrational to him now as it had seemed to the others. “We have a new game,” he said, finally. She continued reading. “You search the archives for the funniest headlines ever printed, each player topping the others.” She still did not speak. “I’ll tell you the headline that struck me as the funniest,” he said. “It was hard to find; I had to look all the way back to 1962.”
    Mali glanced up. Her face showed no great emotion, no resentment. Merely detached curiosity, of a social nature.No more. “And what was your headline, Mr. Fernwright?”
    “ELMO PLASKETT SINKS GIANTS,” Joe said.
    “Who was Elmo Plaskett?”
    “That’s the point,” Joe said. “He came up from the minors; nobody ever heard of him. That’s what makes it funny. I mean, Elmo Plaskett—he came up for one day, hit one home run—”
    “Basketball?” Miss Yojez asked.
    “Baseball.”
    “Oh yes. The game of inches.”
    Joe said, “You have been on Plowman’s Planet?”
    For a moment she did not answer and then she said, simply, “Yes.” He noticed that she had rolled the magazine into a tight cylinder, holding it with both hands, very tightly. And her face showed severe stress.
    “So you know firsthand what it’s like. And you encountered Glimmung?”
    “Not really. We knew he was there, half-dead or half-alive; whichever way you’d put it … I don’t know. Excuse me.” She turned away.
    Joe started to say something further. And then he saw, in a corner of the lounge, what appeared to be an SSA machine. Getting to his feet he went over to it and inspected it.
    “May I be of help, sir?” a stewardess said, and approached him. “Would you like me to seal the lounge off so that you and Miss Yojez can make love?”
    “No,” he said. “I’m interested in this.” He touched the control panel of the SSA machine. “How much does it cost to use it?”
    “SSA service is free during your flight for one time,” the stewardess said. “After that it takes two genuine dimes. Do you want me to set it up for you and Miss Yojez?”
    “I’m uninterested,” Mali Yojez spoke up.
    “How unfair to Mr. Fernwright,” the stewardess said, still smiling, but, in her voice, conveying a reprimand. “He can’t use it alone, you