Martian Time-Slip

by Philip K. Dick

“What’s your destination?” Jack asked them. The young Bleekman named an oasis very far to the south. “You think you can make it?” Jack asked. He pointed to the old couple. “Can they?” “Yes, Mister,” the young Bleekman answered. “We can make it now, with the food and water yourself and the other Mister gave us.” I wonder if they can, Jack said to himself. Naturally they’d say it, even if they knew it wasn’t possible. Racial pride, I guess. “Mister,” the young Bleekman said, “we have a present for you because you stopped.” He held out something to Jack. Their possessions were so meager that he could not believe they had anything to spare. He held his hand out, however, and the young Bleekman put something small and cold into it, a dark, wrinkled, dried bit of substance that looked to Jack like a section of tree root. “It is a water witch,” the Bleekman said. “Mister, it will bring you water, the source of life, any time you need.” “It didn’t help you, did it?” Jack said. With a sly smile the young Bleekman said, “Mister, it helped; it brought you.”