Stability (short story)

Short science fiction story by Philip K. Dick (published 1987)

"Stability" is a short science fiction story by Philip K. Dick, first written around 1947, but not published until 1987 in Volume I of The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick.[1] The story is set in the far future, where civilization never progresses; the government has determined it to have reached its peak, and to prevent declination, society is forcibly kept in a state of "Stability".

## Plot summary

[edit]

Robert Benton, through the use of his gigantic, detachable white wings, leaps off a roof and flies into the darkness of the night sky. He sees many others who are flying in the darkness as well. The others invite him to participate in night races, but he declines. Instead, he continues to move upward into the “higher air”, coasting on air currents until he arrives at the “City of Lightness” where he is summoned to a meeting at the Control Office via a bright “winking” light, which he spots from above and then flies down to meet.

At the Control Office, Benton is informed that a patent application he filed for an invention has been unsuccessful, as the invention could threaten Stability. Benton is surprised, because as far as he was aware he had not filed any such application. Returning home with a set of plans and prototype device given "back" to him by the office, he discovers it to be a time machine.

Activating the device, Benton finds himself transported to an unknown point in history and confronted with what appears to be a living city contained in a glass globe. Despite being warned not to by a mysterious voice claiming to be a "guardian" against evil, Benton feels compelled to take the globe; it then telepathically informs him how to use the machine to return to his own time. Benton does so, but travels to a point in time shortly before he originally left, and deposits his "invention" and the plans at the Control office as a patent application, creating a bootstrap paradox.

After Benton leaves, the Controllers deduce what has happened and go to Benton's home in order to end the threat to Stability. Discovering Benton and the city, one Controller recounts hearing an ancient story of an evil city that had been enclosed in glass for the protection of everyone else. The Controllers attempt to take the globe from Benton, but it breaks, releasing a strange mist, and Benton loses consciousness.

Benton awakes to find himself living in a city where the human inhabitants exist only to service "their Machines". However, neither he nor anyone else has any memory of things being any different; as far as they are aware, life has always been like this.

## References

[edit]

1. ^ von Ruff, Al. "Bibliography: Stability". ISFDB. Retrieved October 17, 2012.[self-published source]

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Philip K. Dick

* Bibliography
* Lost works

Novels|

* Gather Yourselves Together (1950)
* Voices from the Street (1952)
* Solar Lottery (1954)
* Mary and the Giant (1954)
* The World Jones Made (1954)
* Eye in the Sky (1955)
* The Man Who Japed (1955)
* A Time for George Stavros (1956)
* Pilgrim on the Hill (1956)
* The Broken Bubble (1956)
* The Cosmic Puppets (1957)
* Puttering About in a Small Land (1957)
* Nicholas and the Higs (1958)
* Time Out of Joint (1958)
* In Milton Lumky Territory (1958)
* Confessions of a Crap Artist (1959)
* The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike (1960)
* Humpty Dumpty in Oakland (1960)
* Vulcan's Hammer (1960)
* Dr. Futurity (1960)
* The Man in the High Castle (1961)
* We Can Build You (1962)
* Martian Time-Slip (1962)
* Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb (1963)
* The Game-Players of Titan (1963)
* The Simulacra (1963)
* The Crack in Space (1963)
* Clans of the Alphane Moon (1964)
* The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1964)
* The Zap Gun (1964)
* The Penultimate Truth (1964)
* The Unteleported Man (1964)
* The Ganymede Takeover (1965)
* Counter-Clock World (1965)
* Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1966)
* Nick and the Glimmung (1966)
* Now Wait for Last Year (1966)
* Ubik (1966)
* Galactic Pot-Healer (1968)
* A Maze of Death (1968)
* Our Friends from Frolix 8 (1969)
* Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said (1974)
* Deus Irae (1976)
* Radio Free Albemuth (1976; published 1985)
* A Scanner Darkly (1977)
* Valis (1981)
* The Divine Invasion (1981)
* The Transmigration of Timothy Archer (1982)
* The Owl in Daylight (unfinished)

Collections|

* A Handful of Darkness (1955)
* The Variable Man (1956)
* The Preserving Machine (1969)
* The Book of Philip K. Dick (1973)
* The Best of Philip K. Dick (1977)
* The Golden Man (1980)
* Robots, Androids, and Mechanical Oddities (1984)
* I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon (1985)
* The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick (1987)
* Beyond Lies the Wub (1988)
* The Dark Haired Girl (1989)
* The Father-Thing (1989)
* Second Variety (1989)
* The Days of Perky Pat (1990)
* The Little Black Box (1990)
* The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford (1990)
* We Can Remember It for You Wholesale (1990)
* The Minority Report (1991)
* Second Variety (1991)
* The Eye of the Sibyl (1992)
* The Philip K. Dick Reader (1997)
* Minority Report (2002)
* Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick (2002)
* Paycheck (2004)
* Vintage PKD (2006)
* The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick (2011)

Short stories|

* "Beyond Lies the Wub" (1952)
* "The Gun" (1952)
* "The Skull" (1952)
* "The Little Movement" (1952)
* "The Defenders" (1953)
* "Mr. Spaceship" (1953)
* "Piper in the Woods" (1953)
* "Roog" (1953)
* "The Infinites" (1953)
* "Second Variety" (1953)
* "Colony" (1953)
* "The Cookie Lady" (1953)
* "Impostor" (1953)
* "Paycheck" (1953)
* "The Preserving Machine" (1953)
* "Expendable" (1953)
* "The Indefatigable Frog" (1953)
* "The Commuter" (1953)
* "Out in the Garden" (1953)
* "The Great C" (1953)
* "The King of the Elves" (1953)
* "The Trouble with Bubbles" (1953)
* "The Variable Man" (1953)
* "The Impossible Planet" (1953)
* "Planet for Transients" (1953)
* "The Builder" (1953)
* "Tony and the Beetles" (1953)
* "The Hanging Stranger" (1953)
* "Prize Ship" (1954)
* "Beyond the Door" (1954)
* "The Crystal Crypt" (1954)
* "The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford" (1954)
* "The Golden Man" (1954)
* "Sales Pitch" (1954)
* "Breakfast at Twilight" (1954)
* "The Crawlers" (1954)
* "Exhibit Piece" (1954)
* "Adjustment Team" (1954)
* "Shell Game" (1954)
* "Meddler" (1954)
* "A World of Talent" (1954)
* "The Last of the Masters" (1954)
* "Upon the Dull Earth" (1954)
* "The Father-thing" (1954)
* "Strange Eden" (1954)
* "The Turning Wheel" (1954)
* "Foster, You're Dead!" (1955)
* "Human Is" (1955)
* "War Veteran" (1955)
* "Captive Market" (1955)
* "Nanny" (1955)
* "The Chromium Fence" (1955)
* "Service Call" (1955)
* "The Mold of Yancy" (1955)
* "Autofac" (1955)
* "Psi-man Heal My Child!" (1955)
* "The Hood Maker" (1955)
* "The Minority Report" (1956)
* "Pay for the Printer" (1956)
* "A Glass of Darkness (The Cosmic Puppets)" (1956)
* "The Unreconstructed M" (1957)
* "Null-O" (1958)
* "Explorers We" (1959)
* "Recall Mechanism" (1959)
* "Fair Game" (1959)
* "War Game" (1959)
* "All We Marsmen" (1963)
* "What'll We Do with Ragland Park?" (1963)
* "The Days of Perky Pat" (1963)
* "If There Were No Benny Cemoli" (1963)
* "Waterspider" (1964)
* "Novelty Act" (1964)
* "Oh, to Be a Blobel!" (1964)
* "The War with the Fnools" (1964)
* "What the Dead Men Say" (1964)
* "Orpheus with Clay Feet" (1964)
* "Cantata 140" (1964)
* "The Unteleported Man" (1964)
* "The Little Black Box" (1964)
* "Retreat Syndrome" (1965)
* "Project Plowshare (later "The Zap Gun")" (1965)
* "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" (1966)
* "Holy Quarrel" (1966)
* "Faith of Our Fathers" (1967)
* "Not by Its Cover" (1968)
* "The Electric Ant" (1969)
* "A. Lincoln, Simulacrum" (1969)
* "The Pre-persons" (1974)
* "A Little Something for Us Tempunauts" (1974)
* "The Exit Door Leads In" (1979)
* "Rautavaara's Case" (1980)
* "I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon" (1980)
* "The Eye of the Sibyl" (1987)
* "Stability" (1987)

Speeches|

* "The Android and the Human" (1972)
* "If You Find This World Bad, You Should See Some of the Others" (1977)

Adaptations|

| Films|

* Blade Runner (1982)
* Total Recall (1990)
* Barjo (1992)
* Screamers (1995)
* Impostor (2001)
* Minority Report (2002)
* Paycheck (2003)
* A Scanner Darkly (2006)
* Next (2007)
* Screamers: The Hunting (2009)
* Radio Free Albemuth (2010)
* The Adjustment Bureau (2011)
* Total Recall (2012)
* Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

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Short films|

* 2036: Nexus Dawn (2017)
* 2048: Nowhere to Run (2017)
* Blade Runner Black Out 2022 (2017)

TV series|

* Total Recall 2070 (1999)
* The Man in the High Castle (2015–2019)
* Minority Report (2015)
* Electric Dreams (2017–2018)
* Blade Runner: Black Lotus (2021–2022)
* Blade Runner 2099 (upcoming)

Franchise|

* Blade Runner franchise

Works about|

* Only Apparently Real (1986 biography)
* I Am Alive and You Are Dead (1993 biography)
* Your Name Here (2008 drama film)

Related|

* Isa Dick Hackett (daughter)
* Philip K. Dick Award

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