Gather Yourselves Together Read online

  Gather Yourselves Together

  Philip Kindred Dick

  In 1952, a young Philip K. Dick wrote one of his first novels: Gather Yourselves Together. He’d already had success selling numerous SF short stories, but this was a serious, mainstream novel—a steamy, claustrophobic tale of two men and a woman isolated by circumstance, and alienated from each other by their pasts. Set in 1949 amongst the evacuation of American businesses from mainland China, middle-aged Verne Tildon and half-his-age Barbara Mahler are forced to put aside the lingering resentments and frustrations of a previous, stateside love affair in order to do the job they’ve been assigned, preparing a factory compound for transfer to the approaching Communists. Carl Fitter is the unsuspecting young man who finds himself unknowingly embroiled in their tensions, and around whose sexual awakening with Barbara the novel is structured.

  Never before published, this is a competent early novel that reveals Philip K. Dick’s obvious talent and skill in a manner quite unlike any other book he was ever to produce.

  Gather Yourselves Together

  by Philip K. Dick

  Copyright Page

  Gather Yourselves Together

  Copyright © 1994 by the Estate of Philip K. Dick

  except the Afterword © 1994 by Dwight Brown

  All Rights Reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

  Published by WCS Books, Box 968, Herndon, VA 22070

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 94-60500

  ISBN 1-878914-05-7

  Jacket & interior design by James “Kibo” Parry Keyboarding & proofreading by Dwight Brown

  WCS Books would like to acknowledge and thank many people for their help, support, and cooperation: Paul Williams, Russ Galen, Steve Brown, Gregory Lee, Dave Hyde, Paul Di Filippo, Don D’Ammassa, E. Jay O’Connell, and the Estate of Philip K. Dick.

  Distributed by:

  eyeBALL Books

  c/o Science Fiction Eye

  Box 18539

  Asheville, NC 28814

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Edition

  Gather Yourselves Together

  One

  It was early summer, and the day was almost over. It had been warm during the afternoon, but now the sun had set and the evening cold was beginning to come in. Carl Fitter walked down the front stairs of the men’s dormitory, carrying a heavy suitcase and a small package tied with brown cord.

  He paused at the foot of the stairs, stairs of rough wood, painted with grey porch paint that had chipped and peeled with age. They had been painted long before Carl had come to work for the Company. He looked back up. The door at the top was sliding shut slowly. As he watched, it closed tight with a bang. He put his suitcase down and made certain that his wallet was buttoned into his pocket in such a way that it could not possibly fall out.

  “That’s the last time I’ll ever be going down those stairs,” he murmured. “The last time. It’ll be good to see the United States again, after so long.”

  The shades behind the windows had been pulled down. The curtains were gone. Boxed up somewhere. He was not the last person to leave the building; there was still the final locking up to do. But that would be done by the workmen, who would see to it that the windows and doors were tightly boarded, protecting the building until the new owners arrived.

  “How miserable it looks. Not that it was ever such an inspiring sight.”

  He picked up his suitcase and continued down the walk. Clouds covered the setting sun, and only its last rays could be seen. The air, as it often does that time of evening, seemed full of little things; a layer of particles coming into existence for the night. He reached the road and stopped.

  In front of him men and women were assembled around two Company cars. There was a large pile of luggage and boxes, and a workman was stacking them in the back of the two cars. Carl made out Ed Forester standing with a piece of paper in his hand. He walked over to him.

  Forester raised his head. “Carl! What’s the matter? I don’t see your name down here.”

  “What?” Carl looked over his shoulder at the list. He could not make out any of the names in the evening gloom.

  “This is a list of the people going with me. But I can’t find your name here. You see it? Most people spot their own names right away.”

  “I don’t see it.”

  “What did they tell you at the office?”

  Carl looked vaguely around at the people standing about, and at the people already inside the two cars.

  “I said, what did they tell you at the office?”

  Carl shook his head slowly. He set down his things and carried the list over under one of the car headlights. He studied the list silently. His name was really not on it. He turned it over, but there was nothing on the back, only the Company letterhead. He gave the list back.

  “Is this the last group?” he asked.

  “Yes, except for the truckload of workmen. The truck will be leaving tomorrow or the next day.” Forester paused. “Of course, it’s possible—”

  “What’s possible?”

  Forester rubbed his nose thoughtfully. “Carl, maybe you’re one of those who’s supposed to stay behind, until they get here. Why don’t you go over to the office and see if you can find the main traffic sheet?”

  “But I thought the people had been notified who—”

  “Oh, well.” Forester shrugged. “Don’t you know the Company by this time?”

  “But I don’t want to stay here! I’ve already written home. My stuff is all packed. I’m all ready to go.”

  “It’s only for a week or so. Go on over to the office and see. I’ll hold the cars up for a few minutes. Hurry back if you’re supposed to leave with us. Otherwise, wave to me from the porch.”

  Carl began to gather up his things again. “I can’t understand it. I’m all packed. There certainly must be some mistake about this.”

  “It’s six o’clock, Mister Forester,” the workman called. “We’re all loaded up.”

  “Good.” Forester looked at his watch.

  “Am I supposed to get in now?” one of the women asked.

  “Get in. We have to catch up with the main group at the other side of the mountains. So we have to leave right on time.”

  “Goodbye, Forester.” Carl put out his hand. “I’ll run over to the office and see what the story is.”

  “We won’t drive off until you come back, or we see you wave. Good luck.”

  Carl hurried off along the gravel path, into the gloom, toward the office building.

  Forester watched him go up the stairs and through the door. After a few minutes he began to get impatient. The cars were loaded and the people were beginning to become uncomfortable and restless.

  “Get your motors started,” he said to the first driver. “We’ll be taking off in a second.”

  He got inside the other car and slid behind the driver’s seat. He turned to the people in the back seat.

  “Did any of you notice somebody wave from the office?” They all shook their heads. “Damn him. I wish he’d do something. We can’t sit here forever.”

  “Wait!” a woman said. “There’s someone on the porch now. It’s hard to see.”

  Forester peered out. Was Carl coming? Or was he waving? “He’s waving.” Forester spread himself out behind the wheel, making himself comfortable.

  The other car started up and came abreast. It passed down along the road, its headlights blazing. Forester blinked and pushed his foot down on the starter.

  “Poor kid,” he murmured. The car moved under him. “It’s going to be a long week.”

  He caught up with the other car.r />
  * * * * *

  Standing on the office porch, Carl watched the two cars drive slowly down the road away from the buildings, through the metal gates and out onto the main highway. It was very quiet, except for the sound of workmen somewhere, a long way off, nailing and pounding in the darkness.

  Two

  “It doesn’t matter a bit to me,” Barbara Mahler said. “I’m just a Company minion. I might as well stay here another week.”

  “It might even be over a week. It might be two weeks. We don’t know when they’re coming.”

  “So it’s two weeks. Three, even. I’ve been here two years. I don’t even remember what the United States looks like.”

  Verne could not tell if she were being sarcastic. The girl was standing at the window looking out at the machinery beyond. In the darkening fog of early evening the machinery looked like columns and pillars of ancient buildings that had been ruined by some natural catastrophe, so that nothing remained but these massive and useless supports. They were sprawled hither and yon, some one way, some another. Meaningless, sightless constructions from which everything valuable had already been removed and packed up in crates, stored away somewhere.

  Dimly, the figures of two workmen appeared and passed by the window carrying some metal sections between them. They struggled silently, and disappeared into the darkness.

  Barbara turned away. “What season is it?”

  “Where?”

  “In the United States. What time of year?”

  “I don’t know. Fall? Summer? No, it’s summer here. What does it matter? Is it important?”

  “I suppose not. Did you know there are people in the United States who voluntarily live in San Francisco?”

  “Why not?”

  “The fog.” She gestured toward the window.

  Verne nodded. “It bothers you? I’m surprised. You wouldn’t be happier if it went away.”

  “I wouldn’t?”

  “I doubt it. You know what it looks like around here, behind the fog? The city dump. Or someone’s old back yard. This is the back yard of the world. There’s junk stacked up here going back— I don’t know. The Company’s been around a long time.” He reached up and clicked on the overhead light. The office filled with a pale yellow glow.

  “It’s leaving now.”

  “It’s leaving here. But it’s arriving someplace else.”

  “Really?”

  “You’re a funny person. It’s hard to tell what’s going on in your mind. Maybe you’re not thinking at all. At least, not like I conceive it. Women are like that.”

  “Oh, yes.” Barbara walked away from the window. “I’ll tell you what’s on my mind. It’s not our staying that bothers me.”

  “What, then?”

  “It’s their going. All of them pulling out.”

  “What else can they do?”

  “They could put up some kind of a fight.”

  “Four hundred fifty million people are a lot to have to fight. Anyhow, let’s face it. This whole region is Chinese. It doesn’t belong to us. We have no legal claim to it. They’ve voided all contracts of this kind, all over China. As soon as the Revolution was over our goose was cooked. Everybody knew they’d throw out all the foreign business firms. Except maybe the Russians. Our days have been numbered since the fall of Shanghai. A lot of other companies are doing just what we’re doing.”

  “I suppose.”

  “We’re lucky. We’re far enough south to get across the mountains into India. That means we’ll at least get out. Some of them in the north haven’t been so lucky.” Verne waved at the calendar on the wall. “1949 is going to go down on the books as a bad year for business. At least, in this part of the world.”

  “The people in Washington could do something.”

  “Maybe. I doubt it. It’s the times. Trends in the great ebb and flow of history. Asia is no place for Western business firms to be hanging around. Anybody with half an eye could see this coming years ago. This stuff was brewing in 1900.”

  “What happened then?”

  “The Boxer Rebellion. The same as this. The start. We won that. But it’s been only a question of time. Let the yuks take over. The Company will have to chalk it up to profit and loss, whether it wants to or not.”

  “Anyhow, we’ll be going back home.”

  “It’ll be good to be out of here. You can feel it in the air. The tension. It’ll be good to get out of it. We’re too damn tired to keep this sort of thing going for long. It’s too much of a drain. We’re personae non gratae. Guests at the wrong party. Somebody else’s party. We’re not wanted. Can’t you feel them all looking at us? We’re in the wrong place.”

  “Is that how you feel?”

  “That’s how we all feel, out here. We’re worn out. Our professional smile is beginning to wear a little thin. It’s time we started edging toward the door.”

  “I don’t like to get pushed.”

  “It’s our own fault. We’re being pushed because we stayed too long. We should have left fifty years ago.”

  Barbara nodded absently. She was not listening to what Verne was saying. She was wandering around the office. “You know, it looks terrible without the curtains.”

  “The curtains?”

  “They’re gone. They took them down. Didn’t you notice?” The office was shabby and bleak. The plaster walls were stained and scarred.

  “I never noticed.” Verne grinned. “Don’t you remember? I never notice things like that.”

  Barbara turned her back to him and gazed out the window again. Outside, as the fog settled down from above, the great columns dissolved and grew even more vague and indistinct in the gloom.

  “Don’t you want to talk?” Verne said.

  She did not answer.

  “The last two cars are leaving about now. Want to go down and say goodbye to the lucky ones?”

  Barbara shook her head. “No. I’m going over to the woman’s dorm and start getting my room back in shape. They just now told me I was staying.”

  “They picked our names at random,” Verne said. “Just luck. Or divine intervention. We stay—they go. Isn’t it nice, you and I together? And one other person. I wonder who. Probably some lumphead.”

  Barbara went outside, down the porch steps.

  * * * * *

  Barbara walked slowly up the path to the dormitory building and stopped. A small group of workmen were putting a chain on the front door, with a large padlock.

  “Hold on!” she said. “You can put your lock someplace else. This is an exception.”

  “We were only supposed to leave the office building and part of one of the men’s dorms open,” a workman said.

  “Well, I’m not staying in the men’s dorm. I’m staying here.”

  “We were told—”

  “I don’t care what you were told. This is my place. I’m staying here”

  The workmen considered, grouping together.

  “Okay,” the foreman said. They took the lock and chain back off again. “How’s that?”

  “What about the windows? Are you going to take the boards off?”

  The workmen gathered their tools up. “Maybe one of your men can do it. We have a schedule. We have to get out of here this evening.”

  “I thought you were going to work through tomorrow.”

  The men laughed. “Are you kidding? There are yuks all around. We don’t want to be here when they move in.”

  “You don’t like them?”

  “They smell like sheep.”

  “That’s what they say about us. Oh, the hell with it. Go on, take off.”

  The workmen disappeared down the path.

  “Yuks couldn’t be any worse.” Barbara went up the steps, inside the great, stark building. Once, it had been clean and white. Now it was grey; water had dripped down from the roof and formed long brown stains on the walls. The window frames were rusty, under the newly nailed boards.

  “But it’s what I have in place of a
home. The god damn dirty old place.”

  She looked around, feeling for the light switch in the darkness. Her fingers touched it and she flicked it down. The hall lights came on. Barbara shook her head. The walls were covered with splotches of old scotch tape, from endless posters and notices. One notice alone remained.

  NO SMOKING WITHOUT AUTHORIZED PERMIT

  “Says you” had been pencilled underneath.

  Barbara went on, up to the second floor. The doors leading off the hall were locked. She came to her own door, getting her key from her purse. She unlocked the door and went inside the room, crossing to the lamp. The lamp came on. The room was empty and dismal.

  “My poor little room,” Barbara said. Nothing remained but the iron bed, Company property, and the wood end table with its lamp. The painted floor showed an outline, where the rug had been. Not so much as a single spot of color had been left.

  Barbara sat down on the bed. The springs creaked under her weight. She took a cigarette from her purse and lit it. For a time she sat smoking. But the barren room was too depressing. She got to her feet and walked restlessly back and forth.

  “Christ.”

  At last she went back downstairs. She passed out into the darkness, down the steps, onto the path. By lighting matches she managed to find her way to the place where the baggage had been collected and stacked, by the side of the road. Most of it was gone. The great mound had shrunk to a tiny stack, a few wood crates and three suitcases. She found her own suitcase and pulled it away from the others. It was damp with mildew. And heavy.

  She carried it back along the path, all the way to the women’s dorm.

  On the porch she stopped to catch her breath, resting the suitcase beside her. How dark the night was! Pitch black. Nothing stirred. They had all left, even the workmen. Cleared out as fast as they could. Everything was deserted, without sign of life.