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Rautavaara's Case
The three technicians of the floating globe monitored fluctuations in interstellar magnetic fields, and they did a good job up until the moment they died. Basalt fragments, traveling at enormous velocity in relation to their globe, ruptured their barrier and abolished their air supply. The two males were slow to react and did nothing. The young female technician from Finland, Agneta Rautavaara, managed to get her emergency helmet on in time, but the hoses tangled; she aspirated and died: a melancholy death, strangling on her own vomit. Herewith ended the survey task of EX208, their floating globe. In another month, the technicians would have been relieved and returned to Earth.
9 pages, ebook
First published October 1, 1980
About the author
Philip K. Dick
1,934 books23.1k followersPhilip Kindred Dick was a prolific American science fiction author whose work has had a lasting impact on literature, cinema, and popular culture. Known for his imaginative narratives and profound philosophical themes, Dick explored the nature of reality, the boundaries of human identity, and the impact of technology and authoritarianism on society. His stories often blurred the line between the real and the artificial, challenging readers to question their perceptions and beliefs.
Raised in California, Dick began writing professionally in the early 1950s, publishing short stories in various science fiction magazines. He quickly developed a distinctive voice within the genre, marked by a fusion of science fiction concepts with deep existential and psychological inquiry. Over his career, he authored 44 novels and more than 100 short stories, many of which have become classics in the field.
Recurring themes in Dick's work include alternate realities, simulations, corporate and government control, mental illness, and the nature of consciousness. His protagonists are frequently everyday individuals—often paranoid, uncertain, or troubled—caught in surreal and often dangerous circumstances that force them to question their environment and themselves. Works such as Ubik, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, and A Scanner Darkly reflect his fascination with perception and altered states of consciousness, often drawing from his own experiences with mental health struggles and drug use.
One of Dick's most influential novels is Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which served as the basis for Ridley Scott's iconic film Blade Runner. The novel deals with the distinction between humans and artificial beings and asks profound questions about empathy, identity, and what it means to be alive. Other adaptations of his work include Total Recall, Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly, and The Man in the High Castle, each reflecting key elements of his storytelling—uncertain realities, oppressive systems, and the search for truth. These adaptations have introduced his complex ideas to audiences well beyond the traditional readership of science fiction.
In the 1970s, Dick underwent a series of visionary and mystical experiences that had a significant influence on his later writings. He described receiving profound knowledge from an external, possibly divine, source and documented these events extensively in what became known as The Exegesis, a massive and often fragmented journal. These experiences inspired his later novels, most notably the VALIS trilogy, which mixes autobiography, theology, and metaphysics in a narrative that defies conventional structure and genre boundaries.
Throughout his life, Dick faced financial instability, health issues, and periods of personal turmoil, yet he remained a dedicated and relentless writer. Despite limited commercial success during his lifetime, his reputation grew steadily, and he came to be regarded as one of the most original voices in speculative fiction. His work has been celebrated for its ability to fuse philosophical depth with gripping storytelling and has influenced not only science fiction writers but also philosophers, filmmakers, and futurists.
Dick's legacy continues to thrive in both literary and cinematic spheres. The themes he explored remain urgently relevant in the modern world, particularly as technology increasingly intersects with human identity and governance. The Philip K. Dick Award, named in his honor, is presented annually to distinguished works of science fiction published in paperback original form in the United States. His writings have also inspired television series, academic studies, and countless homages across media.
Through his vivid imagination and unflinching inquiry into the nature of existence, Philip K. Dick redefined what science fiction could achieve. His wor
Raised in California, Dick began writing professionally in the early 1950s, publishing short stories in various science fiction magazines. He quickly developed a distinctive voice within the genre, marked by a fusion of science fiction concepts with deep existential and psychological inquiry. Over his career, he authored 44 novels and more than 100 short stories, many of which have become classics in the field.
Recurring themes in Dick's work include alternate realities, simulations, corporate and government control, mental illness, and the nature of consciousness. His protagonists are frequently everyday individuals—often paranoid, uncertain, or troubled—caught in surreal and often dangerous circumstances that force them to question their environment and themselves. Works such as Ubik, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, and A Scanner Darkly reflect his fascination with perception and altered states of consciousness, often drawing from his own experiences with mental health struggles and drug use.
One of Dick's most influential novels is Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which served as the basis for Ridley Scott's iconic film Blade Runner. The novel deals with the distinction between humans and artificial beings and asks profound questions about empathy, identity, and what it means to be alive. Other adaptations of his work include Total Recall, Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly, and The Man in the High Castle, each reflecting key elements of his storytelling—uncertain realities, oppressive systems, and the search for truth. These adaptations have introduced his complex ideas to audiences well beyond the traditional readership of science fiction.
In the 1970s, Dick underwent a series of visionary and mystical experiences that had a significant influence on his later writings. He described receiving profound knowledge from an external, possibly divine, source and documented these events extensively in what became known as The Exegesis, a massive and often fragmented journal. These experiences inspired his later novels, most notably the VALIS trilogy, which mixes autobiography, theology, and metaphysics in a narrative that defies conventional structure and genre boundaries.
Throughout his life, Dick faced financial instability, health issues, and periods of personal turmoil, yet he remained a dedicated and relentless writer. Despite limited commercial success during his lifetime, his reputation grew steadily, and he came to be regarded as one of the most original voices in speculative fiction. His work has been celebrated for its ability to fuse philosophical depth with gripping storytelling and has influenced not only science fiction writers but also philosophers, filmmakers, and futurists.
Dick's legacy continues to thrive in both literary and cinematic spheres. The themes he explored remain urgently relevant in the modern world, particularly as technology increasingly intersects with human identity and governance. The Philip K. Dick Award, named in his honor, is presented annually to distinguished works of science fiction published in paperback original form in the United States. His writings have also inspired television series, academic studies, and countless homages across media.
Through his vivid imagination and unflinching inquiry into the nature of existence, Philip K. Dick redefined what science fiction could achieve. His wor
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
June 13, 2022
Alien entities try to wire their theology onto the brain of a female space traveler on the verge of death, as an experiment. The female's subsequent experiences are a mix of her own belief systems learned from earth and that of the alien entities. I guess you've got to have read the Bible to truly appreciate this one. But this short story is a once again a testament to PKD's tremendous imagination. How much he packs into less than ten pages. At one point in this short story, the female space travelers two dead male companions comeback to life due to time perturbation and the three of them see Jesus Christ in front of them.
July 30, 2020
“Blame is a mere cultural matter.”
With Rautavaara’s Case, which was published in 1980, PKD showed that science fiction can teach us a lesson about society as much as it can about science, and although there were moments when I as someone who embraces certain Christian notions was slightly disgusted with the tale, I think this was part of the lesson.
When three Terran technicians in a science globe near the Proxima Centaurus System get killed in an accident, it is aliens from Proxima who first learn of this and who find that one of the victims, the Finnish technician Agneta Rautavaara, still has rudimentary brain activity. The Proximans send a robot which uses the nutrients from Rautavaara’s own body to keep her brain alive – at this stage, it is probably important to know that the Proximans, unlike the Terrans, have no physical bodies but consist entirely of plasma, so that, unlike the Earth people who later learn of what was being done, they do not feel appalled at the notion of keeping a person’s brain alive by feeding its own body to it. When the Earth people have got in touch with them, they have already stabilized the brain and can witness Rautavaara’s transition into the world beyond, which actually implies witnessing Jesus beckoning to her and her two fellow technicians to follow Him. The Proximans are intellectually curious about knowing what would happen if Rautavaara were confronted with their own deity, and so they manipulate her brain, only in order to make Jesus change into a carnivorous Juggernaut who eats one of Rautavaara’s colleagues. Since the Proximans have no bodies, their notion of redemption is to be eaten by their god and thus being enabled to die – all of these particulars being mirror-inverted to Christianity, where believers consume the blood and flesh of their God in order to obtain eternal life. On a side note, it may be remarked that the Proximan ceremony is slightly illogical in that the Proximans have no physical bodies, which will make it rather difficult for them to feed their god and give him eternal life, achieving oblivion for themselves, but that may be neither here nor there.
The interesting thing about this story is not its theology, which is not very convincing at any rate, but rather its sociological aspects. Earth people are understandably disgusted with the Proximan concept of religion, whereas the Proximans find it ridiculous that believers should consume their god, since in their view of things the higher being should feed on the lower. Besides, the Terrans also blame them for the experiments they do on Rautavaara’s brain, whereas to the Proximans it is the mind that matters, and the notion of a mind without a body is not at all repellent or bewildering to them. In their frame of reference, they have actually helped Rautavaara to live on and cannot understand why the Earth people, by whom they feel despised as freaks of nature anyway, get so upset about this. Dick enhances this feeling of cultural estrangement by telling parts of the story from the point of view of the aliens, a position the reader may find to sit slightly awkwardly.
Of course, we need not go into space to find examples of cultural chasms which seem challenging to bridge, especially in what is called our globalized world but the science fiction setting chosen by Dick makes the pessimism of this tale even more palpable: What lies out there, the story seems to whisper, may be even more conflicts, more potential for war and oppression and discrimination. Apparently, the development of technology does not give us the exit door key to these circles of strife and dissension, and we humans may be able to invent machines that reduce the distance between places, but that will help us little to reduce the distance between minds.
With Rautavaara’s Case, which was published in 1980, PKD showed that science fiction can teach us a lesson about society as much as it can about science, and although there were moments when I as someone who embraces certain Christian notions was slightly disgusted with the tale, I think this was part of the lesson.
When three Terran technicians in a science globe near the Proxima Centaurus System get killed in an accident, it is aliens from Proxima who first learn of this and who find that one of the victims, the Finnish technician Agneta Rautavaara, still has rudimentary brain activity. The Proximans send a robot which uses the nutrients from Rautavaara’s own body to keep her brain alive – at this stage, it is probably important to know that the Proximans, unlike the Terrans, have no physical bodies but consist entirely of plasma, so that, unlike the Earth people who later learn of what was being done, they do not feel appalled at the notion of keeping a person’s brain alive by feeding its own body to it. When the Earth people have got in touch with them, they have already stabilized the brain and can witness Rautavaara’s transition into the world beyond, which actually implies witnessing Jesus beckoning to her and her two fellow technicians to follow Him. The Proximans are intellectually curious about knowing what would happen if Rautavaara were confronted with their own deity, and so they manipulate her brain, only in order to make Jesus change into a carnivorous Juggernaut who eats one of Rautavaara’s colleagues. Since the Proximans have no bodies, their notion of redemption is to be eaten by their god and thus being enabled to die – all of these particulars being mirror-inverted to Christianity, where believers consume the blood and flesh of their God in order to obtain eternal life. On a side note, it may be remarked that the Proximan ceremony is slightly illogical in that the Proximans have no physical bodies, which will make it rather difficult for them to feed their god and give him eternal life, achieving oblivion for themselves, but that may be neither here nor there.
The interesting thing about this story is not its theology, which is not very convincing at any rate, but rather its sociological aspects. Earth people are understandably disgusted with the Proximan concept of religion, whereas the Proximans find it ridiculous that believers should consume their god, since in their view of things the higher being should feed on the lower. Besides, the Terrans also blame them for the experiments they do on Rautavaara’s brain, whereas to the Proximans it is the mind that matters, and the notion of a mind without a body is not at all repellent or bewildering to them. In their frame of reference, they have actually helped Rautavaara to live on and cannot understand why the Earth people, by whom they feel despised as freaks of nature anyway, get so upset about this. Dick enhances this feeling of cultural estrangement by telling parts of the story from the point of view of the aliens, a position the reader may find to sit slightly awkwardly.
Of course, we need not go into space to find examples of cultural chasms which seem challenging to bridge, especially in what is called our globalized world but the science fiction setting chosen by Dick makes the pessimism of this tale even more palpable: What lies out there, the story seems to whisper, may be even more conflicts, more potential for war and oppression and discrimination. Apparently, the development of technology does not give us the exit door key to these circles of strife and dissension, and we humans may be able to invent machines that reduce the distance between places, but that will help us little to reduce the distance between minds.
November 3, 2022
Philip Dick is a master of Sci-Fi "what ifs" and this story is a perfect example. Aliens, afterlife, theology, morality, all entwined with a subtle humour.
December 26, 2018
"Rautavaara's Case" is the second-to-last story published by PKD in his lifetime. It deals, like Ubik, the question of preservation of the bodies after they have died.
You can find this story in book 5 of his Complete Story Collection.
You can find this story in book 5 of his Complete Story Collection.
December 11, 2017
“Rautavaara's Case” (1980)
Deeply philosophical. He pushes the reader to 'step-out' of our own bubbles and review what we assume is our correct understand of ourselves, our world and spirituality.
Agneta Rautavaara, a young Finnish technician, who dies in an accident while working on a space vessel with two other technicians. However, a rescue team from Proxima Centauri gets there in time to save Rautavaara's brain and impose artificial life support on it. In her damaged brain, Rautavaara goes through a series of experiences that draw on the conceptions of afterlife held by herself on the one hand and the Proxima Centauri natives on the other.
A theme of the story is whether it is ethically right to keep a human on life-support if they exist only as a mind, with their body paralyzed or otherwise destroyed.
- - -
“Agneta removed her helmet. She stepped out of her boots, picked them up … and then saw the Figure.
The Figure stood behind the three of them. It was Christ.”
- - -
* polyencephalic = Polyencephalic (from the Greek. polios grey + encephalitis - inflammation of the gray matter of the brain.
- - -
“We could introduce into Rautavaara's brain our own conception of the Guide of the Soul, and thereby see how our rendition differed practically from the puerile one of the Earth persons'.”
- - -
* exculpated = show or declare that (someone) is not guilty of wrongdoing.
- - -
* puerile = childishly silly and immature.
- - -
“Blame is a mere cultural matter.”
- - -
“.. theology … For example, in terms of the basic relationship to God, the Earth race held a diametrically opposite view from us. This of course must be attributed to the fact that they are a somatic race and we are a plasma. They drink the blood of their God; they eat his flesh; that way they become immortal. To them, there is no scandal. This they find perfectly natural. Yet, to us it is dreadful. That worshiper should eat and drink its God? Awful to us; awful indeed. A disgrace and a shame – an abomination. The higher should always prey on the lower; the God should consume the worshipper.”
- - -
Final line:
“And we live now, too, under than ban of unnecessary moral blame.”
- - -
Deeply philosophical. He pushes the reader to 'step-out' of our own bubbles and review what we assume is our correct understand of ourselves, our world and spirituality.
Agneta Rautavaara, a young Finnish technician, who dies in an accident while working on a space vessel with two other technicians. However, a rescue team from Proxima Centauri gets there in time to save Rautavaara's brain and impose artificial life support on it. In her damaged brain, Rautavaara goes through a series of experiences that draw on the conceptions of afterlife held by herself on the one hand and the Proxima Centauri natives on the other.
A theme of the story is whether it is ethically right to keep a human on life-support if they exist only as a mind, with their body paralyzed or otherwise destroyed.
- - -
“Agneta removed her helmet. She stepped out of her boots, picked them up … and then saw the Figure.
The Figure stood behind the three of them. It was Christ.”
- - -
* polyencephalic = Polyencephalic (from the Greek. polios grey + encephalitis - inflammation of the gray matter of the brain.
- - -
“We could introduce into Rautavaara's brain our own conception of the Guide of the Soul, and thereby see how our rendition differed practically from the puerile one of the Earth persons'.”
- - -
* exculpated = show or declare that (someone) is not guilty of wrongdoing.
- - -
* puerile = childishly silly and immature.
- - -
“Blame is a mere cultural matter.”
- - -
“.. theology … For example, in terms of the basic relationship to God, the Earth race held a diametrically opposite view from us. This of course must be attributed to the fact that they are a somatic race and we are a plasma. They drink the blood of their God; they eat his flesh; that way they become immortal. To them, there is no scandal. This they find perfectly natural. Yet, to us it is dreadful. That worshiper should eat and drink its God? Awful to us; awful indeed. A disgrace and a shame – an abomination. The higher should always prey on the lower; the God should consume the worshipper.”
- - -
Final line:
“And we live now, too, under than ban of unnecessary moral blame.”
- - -
January 23, 2024
Outstanding. Truly truly exceptional. One of my favorite of his so far, although I have many.
PKD was a man of many influences: history, noir, speculative futurism, politics, ethics, character drama, etc. All of his stories using these influences are wonderful (eg. The Man in the High Castle), but where I think he truly shines is his unabashed surrealism. The best PKD works are not logical stories so much as barely controlled acid trips (eg. Ubik). This is a story in that vein. Pulling together elements of religious philosophy, theoretical psychology, and his many many extreme drug experiences, this short story explores an extended human near-death-experience from the perspective of gaseous alien scientists.
PKD was a man of many influences: history, noir, speculative futurism, politics, ethics, character drama, etc. All of his stories using these influences are wonderful (eg. The Man in the High Castle), but where I think he truly shines is his unabashed surrealism. The best PKD works are not logical stories so much as barely controlled acid trips (eg. Ubik). This is a story in that vein. Pulling together elements of religious philosophy, theoretical psychology, and his many many extreme drug experiences, this short story explores an extended human near-death-experience from the perspective of gaseous alien scientists.
January 15, 2024
Magnífico. Es de la clase de cuentos filosófico existenciales que me fascinan. Es corto, de narrativa que atrapa desde el comienzo y te deja pensando, dándole vuelta a la cosa.
Para destacar: "La culpa es un mero problema cultural; no traspone las fronteras de las
especies"
Imperdible. Para rumiarlo.
Para destacar: "La culpa es un mero problema cultural; no traspone las fronteras de las
especies"
Imperdible. Para rumiarlo.
February 15, 2020
Very interesting concept of the afterlife, or the 'almost'-afterlife. How the brain response on certain things, we may never fully understand it.
April 28, 2020
Great original perspective on concept of the Divine and good intentions.
October 1, 2023
God I wish that were me
Read
October 23, 2023The story spoke of entire worlds and realities in a few brief pages.
September 7, 2025
What a weird little story.
Read
June 15, 2026PKD so prolific that he can do that same thing fifteen times and you give him a pass because it still only makes up like 5% of his library
February 14, 2025
A small story about a woman, who dies, but is then revived to life by a robot controlled by alien. Contains some discussions about the nature of religion and how strange it would look to other civilizations, but ultimately is too short to present a point and ends abruptly.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 10, 2023
It's a story about space aliens messing with a (near) dead woman's brain and making her see cannibal Jesus what more could you want.
Grade: B+
Recommended for: A light scifi story with interesting implications.
Grade: B+
Recommended for: A light scifi story with interesting implications.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews