The Simulacra

by Philip K. Dick

Savagely, he went to the TV set and pressed the’s knob; if enough citizens pushed it, the old man would stop entirely—the stop knob meant total cessation of the mumbling speech. Vince waited, but the speech went on. And then it struck him as odd that there should be a speech so early in the morning; after all, it was only eight A.M. Perhaps the entire lunar colony had gone up in a single titanic explosion of its fuel depot. The old man would be telling them that more belt-tightening was required, in order to restock the space program; these and other quaint calamities had to be expected. Or perhaps at last some authentic remains of a sentient race had been unearthed—or was the term unmarsed?—on the fourth planet, hopefully not in the French area but in, as der Alte liked to phrase it, “one’s own.”