Данный рассказ был отправлен в марте 2018 Крису Муру и вот что он ответил:
"Дорогой Борис.
Спасибо за ваше сообщение и рассказ. Я думаю, что это потрясающе. Мне очень польстило то, что я стал частью вашей истории, и удостоился внимания наравне с Филипом Диком. Всегда являлось привилегией быть ассоциированным с одним из ведущих писателей в области научной фантастики всех времен. Прочтя вашу историю, я захотел, чтобы это было так, но, к сожалению, этого не было. Я никогда не встречался с Филипом Диком, только по заказу издателя готовил обложки для его книг. Главным человеком, кто отвечал за это, был человек по имени Малькольм Эдвардс, кто работал редактором в издательстве Харпер Коллинз в 1980-х годах. Он выбрал меня почти в исключительном порядке, когда он был в Харперс, а затем в издательстве Орион, и всякий раз, когда переиздавали романы Дика, я получал комиссию. Малькольм теперь далеко в стороне от размышлений над дизайном обложки, так как находится в высших слоях издательского дела: неплохо для того, кто начинал, как мальчик-разносчик чая и фанат SF!
Человеком, кто в первую очередь несет ответственность за то, что я стал заниматься SF, был Питер Беннет, арт-директор Магнум Пэйпербакс. На многие годы он стал моим другом, и теперь он давно уже на пенсии.
Я занимался обложками к сочинениям Дика, начиная с середины 1970-х годов, но, на самом деле, редко когда имел время для их прочтения, поэтому многие из обложек в значительной степени созданы без знания содержания книги. Я читал резюме или выдержки из ранее опубликованной книги. Иногда дискутировал с автором или редактором, чтобы получить представление об изложенном в книге материале, и над некоторыми обложками приходилось хорошенько подумать, чтобы они передавали суть книги. Если это детективный жанр или рядовой роман, или то, что они часто называют техно-триллерами, то обложка требует немного размышлений, но с SF можно отпустить на свободу ваше воображение.
Мне повезло в жизни: я ходил в правильные колледжи, я находился в нужном месте в нужное время на протяжении всей моей карьеры, я женат на замечательной женщине и имею четырех прекрасных детей, и в возрасте 70 лет я всё ещё в хорошем состоянии, и я еще работаю, так что, слава Богу.
Спасибо за ваш рассказ. Я поделился им с несколькими друзьями, чьё мнение я ценю, и надеюсь, что вы не возразите, чтобы я взял его на моё следующее SF-заседание, которое состоится в следующие выходные в Харрогейте, Йоркшир, чтобы поделиться им с моими друзьями, являющимися большими фанатами Филипа Дика. Мы нашли его (рассказ) очень очаровательным и занятным.
С наилучшими пожеланиями, Крис Мур".
The Author – Boris Milovzorov
Interpreter – Andrey Katkov
DICK’S UBIK. (УБИК ДИКА)
2 march, 1982, in the evening, Chris Moore was picking up the guitar strings, looking at the music sheet. The new blues was difficult, but beautiful, the friends in the pub would be delighted, but they had some problems with only one of the chords. Chris patiently and imperturbably repeated it, sometimes drinking of whiskey in a glass.
The phone was obsessively and foreign calling on the table, Moore winced: at some time he stayed in the big house alone, the wife and children went to visit their parents. He waited, hypnotizing the device, but it did not stop and he had to put the guitar aside.
- Yes!
"Chris, I want to talk to you." The voice in the receiver sounded brash and slightly mocking, as if he had no doubt about his right to interfere in someone else's life, Moore was even slightly taken aback.
- Who are you? - After a pause, he finally picked up the question.
- Philip Dick, writer.
Moore loved science fiction, so he heard about this American science fiction, but that he suddenly called him!
“Selfsame?”
"I'm not far from your estate, let me in?"
- Come in? "Did Moore look at the phone in confusion, in their prudish England, the stranger's visits home?" It was unbelievable!
"I do not have much time, Chris."
"Very well, come."
Moore stood up and puzzled rubbed the bald spot on his head, he did not understand how he could agree to visit the impostor, and who else could this voice belong to? He did not have time to think of it, the door-bell cynically and loudly announced the invasion. "Okay, I'll go, I'll look," - decided the owner of the house, remembering which corner of the hallway his beat was.
On the threshold stood a stocky bearded man in a broad-brimmed hat and a wet light raincoat, although there was no rain on the street. The stranger smiled toothlessly and raised his hat.
"It was I who called."
Moore immediately remembered that a few years ago he saw a photograph of this man in the magazine, he was awarded the British Science Fiction Award and this was undoubtedly Philip Dick himself.
- Recognized?
"Yes." Moore stepped aside and quietly slammed the bat out the door. "Come on in."
Dick looked at the dark-polished living room filled with photos of his wife, children, the dogs of the owner of the house, noticed a bottle with a knight on the label and nodded approvingly.
"Would you like some Whiskey?" Invited Chris.
- It would be great!
"Ice, Scotch?”
"Like you, just alcohol."
Moore handed the glass to an unexpected guest and sat opposite, Dick happily sniffed the drink, took a sip.
- Great!
- Sorry….
"You could just be Phil."
- Your visit is so unexpected.
"Yes, indeed," Dick took another sip. - I will explain. You see, Chris, I really like your illustrations.
- Thank you.
"My publisher wants to reprint four of my novels; I want you to illustrate them."
"Phil, it's an honor for me, but you know the rules ..."
"Believe me, Chris, the conditions will be good."
"Well, I'm happy to read your books."
"You will be delivered soon," Dick nodded. "And since I'm here, I want to personally express my wishes."
"Phil, I'm listening carefully."
- Draw so that my books become visible!
- Actually, this is my task, I will attach...
"Chris!" Interrupted Dick. - You are a master of the brush, but this is not enough, you must express the essence of the novel. Can I talk about my approach?
- Yes, of course, - Chris became bored: the next author tries to teach him how to work with the material. In vain he poured out his whiskey. Meanwhile Dick jumped up excitedly.
"Chris, do not think of me as a bore, listen. I write not just science fiction, I create worlds! To my great sorrow, after the end of the novels, my characters live in these worlds without me, so my dream is to meet with them again!
- But where am I, a simple artist?
- With my novels you can become a magician! You see, - Dick waved his hands, his eyes burned, - our universe, this is a small part of the worlds surrounding us. - The writer intercepted the guarded look of the artist. "Do you think I’m crazy?"
"No, no," Chris said, embarrassed.
"You think, my friend," Dick grinned, and significantly turned his beard, "but do you know that there is a sanity?" Outstanding psychologists cannot definitively determine this, but the question is only in the phases of perception and medication state...
Seeing Moore's rounded eyes, Philip Dick waved his hand, sat down and kissed the glass from the whiskey.
"It does not matter, Chris, listen further. Do you want or do not want, but our world is surrounded by virtual worlds, for each of which we are also virtual. I wrote a bunch of novels, trying to describe them ... You know, Chris, I sometimes ask myself, why do I write? After all, science fiction writers get paid so little! - Dick again jumped up and went around the living room. - For an average romance give from one and a half to two thousand dollars and, since the writer is able to create two novels a year, then selling them, he will be able to get from three to four thousand. How can you live with that kind of money? For masterpieces pay much more expensive, but the publisher does not admit that you wrote a masterpiece! Why should we, the writers, ask you? And I will answer: the act of creating a novel is life! When I do this, at that very moment, I live in the world I'm writing about. It is real for me, absolutely and perfectly. Then, when I finish, I stop and leave the new world forever, my heroes no longer speak to me, and I return here. - Dick eloquently led around his hands. "No matter how much I love my wives and children, this is not enough," he chewed on his lips, as if trying a word to taste: "It's not enough."
He turned to the artist and eloquently moved a desolate glass to his side in the direction of the table.
"This vacuum is terrible," he continued, sitting down with a new portion of whiskey in the armchair. - Every time I promise myself never to write novels again, do not invent people, the parting with which causes me so much pain. I say this to myself ... and gradually, carefully, I start writing another novel. - Dick sipped from a glass and smiled broadly. - My friend, remember this, and do not write novels for sale, better sell shoelaces.
"So I do not write, I paint," Moore said quietly.
- Oh sure! - Dick completely inopportunely announced, slapping his free hand on the armrest. "I tired you, and I just wanted to say a few words." You are likable to me, Chris, so I want to share my inmost: I dream to see my heroes in the cinema.
"You are so famous, Phil, that, probably, some producer ...."
- You are right; the first film "Runner on the Blade" will soon be released. It's so intriguing, fascinating! I want to continue! Chris, draw the illustrations so that if you just glance at them, the film immediately appeared! Can you do it?
"Phil, you are setting a difficult task for me!"
- The road to magic, a colleague, a bumpkin, but I'll help you. Among the selected novels will certainly be "Ubik".
"Ubik?" And what is this?
"It's a long time to explain," Dick glanced at the wall clock, "and there's less time." Cursed my language, takes me to the jungle of philosophy.... I will say briefly, Ubik is the quintessence of over minded intervention.
"This is God?"
- Not really, although not exclusive.... I call it VALIS - Extensive System of Active Vital Intelligence (Vast Active Living Intelligence System or VALIS). My last novel, it's about this in detail ... true, not quite.... Dick sighed and looked sadly at Moore. - Do you have unfinished work?
- Of course, every artist has sketches, plans for the future.
- Show.
It was not a question, a demand, but for some reason it did not hurt Chris, he took a folder with sketches from the last shelf and put it on the table. Dick began to look through the drawings with interest, accompanying the review with cheers. Above one of the drawings he froze. On it, in sandy tones, the landscape of a certain planet with strange barrows was drawn, from which smoke was smoking along the yellowish sky and against this background the face of an unusual girl with a determined look and copper skin was painted. She was not beautiful, but at the same time radiated beauty.
- That's her! Whisper Dick.
"Who is?" Moore could not resist.
- This is Pat Conley from Ubika. That's how I imagined it, except that the eyes are larger, but these are also good! Now, Chris, this is the finished cover for my novel Ubik.
- Phil, and where is the action of the novel?
"On Earth and a little on the Moon," Dick said, continuing to admire the girl.
- But then this landscape does not fit!
- Nonsense, - Dick snapped, - draws a spaceship and it will be super!
- But....
- Yes, and still draw somewhere a cistern with nitrogen.
- With what?
"With nitrogen, to put it more simply," Dick measured the artist with a glance, calculating the depth of his intellect. - In my novel, nitrogen is used for quick freezing.
- Frosts of what? Asked again Moore.
"Corpses," the writer explained unperturbedly, "half dead cops."
Dick again glanced at his watch and stood up.
"Are you by the car?" Asked Moore.
"You could say that," Dick nodded. "Good-bye, Chris, I was glad to visit you."
- Mutually, Phil.
"Chris, do not show me off, I've already taken a lot of your time."
The host looked at the writer's back and felt tired. The front door slammed, he was alone again.
Moore woke up from the sunbeam, breaking into the gap between the curtains, and lifted his heavy head. He sat on the couch on which he slept dressed and saw on the table a glass and a half-empty bottle of whiskey. The artist expected to see a folder with drawings and a second glass, but they were not. "What’s a hell?" - He thought puzzled and at that moment the phone rang.
"Yes," Moore said hoarsely.
"Hello, Chris!" - In the tube the cheerful voice of the eternal optimist of the House of Rodi was heard. "Are you still asleep?"
"I want to sleep," Moore said, looking at his watch in surprise, almost an hour's time. - Wow! - broke out from him.
- Another "Wow"! Chris, I've made you a smart order!
"Spill it out," Moore said.
- Registration of four fantastic novels!
"Philip Dick?"
- How do you know that?
- So he was with me last night, we discussed the illustrations.
There was a pause in the receiver, the connection was not interrupted, Chris could clearly hear Rodi's breathing.
"The house!" He called to his old friend.
"Chris, I got it right: Dick came to see you last night?"
- So what? A bit extravagant, but....
"Chris, Philip Dick died yesterday."
“How now” Moore choked.
"I think you dreamed of it?" Rodi asked hopefully.
"Of course, House, it was a dream," Moore prompted.
"Come," Rodi breathed, relieved. "I already have a contract."
The artist carefully returned the receiver to the phone's levers and went to the closet with his works. From the top shelf, he took a wide folder, overturning a sheaf of dust. After shaking, Chris began to sort through his half-forgotten work. Here he was looked at by a copper-skinned beauty with strong-willed dark eyes. He carefully turned the drawing; on the back with a pencil it was written: "Ubik." Moore found a pencil and wrote the same word next to it. However, even without this it was clear, this is someone else's handwriting and, it seems, he knew whose.