The Three Stigmata Of Palmer Eldritch Part 15

You can have more later, Anne said calmly. One session a day is enough. She smiled. Otherwise youd run out of skins; you wouldnt be able to afford any more, and then what the h.e.l.l would you do?

Her smile glinted, the s.h.i.+ny opulence of stainless steel.

The other hovelists, on all sides of him, groaned into wakefulness, recovering by slow, anguished stages; they sat up, mumbled, and tried to orient themselves. Anne had gone somewhere. By himself he managed to get to his feet. Coffee, he thought. Ill bet shes fixing coffee.

Wow, Norm Schein said.

Whered you go? Tod Morris demanded, thick-tongued; blearily he too stood, then a.s.sisted his wife Helen. I was back in my teens, in high school, when I was on my first complete datefirst, you get me, successful one, you follow? He glanced nervously at Helen, then.

Mary Regan said, Its much better than Can-D. Infinitely. Oh, if I could tell you what I was doing She giggled self-consciously. I just cant, though. Her face shone hot and red.

Going off to his own compartment Barney Mayerson locked the door, and got out the tube of toxin that Allen Faine had given him; he held it in his hand, thinking, Now is the time . Butare we back? Did I see nothing more than a residual view of Eldritch, superimposed on Anne? Or perhaps it had been genuine insight, perception of the actual, of their unqualified situation; not just his but all of theirs together.

If so it was not the time to receive the toxin. Instinct offered him that point of observation.

Nevertheless he unscrewed the lid of the tube.

A tiny, frail voice, emanating from the opened tube, piped, Youre being watched, Mayerson. And if youre up to some kind of tactic well be required to step in. You will be severely restricted. Sorry.

He put the lid back on the tube, and screwed it tight with shaking fingers. And the tube had beenempty!

What is it? Anne said, appearing; she had been in the kitchen of his compartment; she wore an ap.r.o.n which she had discovered somewhere. Whats that? she asked, seeing the tube in his hand.

Escape, he grated. From this.

From exactly what? Her normal appearance had rea.s.serted itself; nothing now was amiss. You look positively sick, Barney; you really do. Is it an after-effect of the Chew-Z?

A hangover. Is Palmer Eldritch actually inside this? he wondered, examining the closed tube; he revolved it in the palm of his hand. Is there any way to contact the Faines satellite?

Oh, I imagine so. You probably just put in a vidcall or whatever their means of Go ask Norm Schein to make the contact for me, he said.

Obligingly, Anne departed; the compartment door shut after her.

At once he dug the code book which Faine had presented him from its hiding place beneath the kitchen stove. This would have to be encoded.

The pages of the code book were blank.

Then it wont go in code, he said to himself, and thats that. Ill have to do the best I can and let it go, however unsatisfactory.

The door swung open; Anne appeared and said, Mr. Schein is placing the call for you. They request particular tunes all the time, he says.

He followed her down the corridor and into a cramped little room where Norm sat at a transmitter; as Barney entered he turned his head and said, Ive got Charlottewill that do?

Allen, Barney said.

Okay. Presently Norm said, Now Ive got Ol Eggplant Al. Here. He handed the microphone to Barney. On the tiny screen Allen Faines face, jovial and professional, appeared. A new citizen to talk to you, Norm explained, reclutching the microphone briefly. Barney Mayerson, meet half of the team that keeps us alive and sane here on Mars. To himself he muttered, G.o.d, have I got a headache. Excuse me. He vacated the chair at the transmitter and disappeared totteringly down the hall.

Mr. Faine, Barney said carefully, I was speaking with Mr. Palmer Elditch earlier today. He mentioned the conversation that you and I had. He was aware of it so as far as I can see theres no Coldly, Allen Faine said, What conversation?

For an interval Barney was silent. Evidently they had an infrared camera going, he continued at last. Probably in a satellite that was making its pa.s.s. However, the contents of our conversation, it would appear, is still not Youre a nut, Faine said. I dont know you; I never had any conversation with you. Well, man, have you a request or not? His face was impa.s.sive, oblique with detachment, and it did not seem simulated.

You dont know who I am? Barney said, unbelievingly.

Faine cut the connection at his end and the tiny vidscreen fused over, now showing only emptiness, the void. Barney shut off the transmitter. He felt nothing. Apathy. He walked past Anne and out into the corridor; there he halted, got out his package was it the last?of Terran cigarettes, and lit up, thinking, What Eldritch did to Leo on Luna or Sigma 14-B or wherever hes done to me, too. And eventually h.e.l.l snare us all. Just like this. Isolated. The communal world is gone. At least for me; he began with me.

And, he thought, Im supposed to fight back with an empty tube that once may or may not have contained a rare, expensive, brain-disorganizing toxinbut which now contains only Palmer Eldritch, and not even all of him. Just his voice.

The match burned his fingers. He ignored it.

ELEVEN.

Referring to his bundle of notes Felix Blau stated, Fifteen hours ago a UN-approved Chew-Z-owned s.h.i.+p landed on Mars and distributed its initial bindles to the hovels in the Fineburg Crescent.

Leo Bulero leaned toward the screen, folded his hands, and said, Including Chicken Pox Prospects?

Briefly, Felix nodded.

By now, Leo said, he should have consumed the dose of that brain-rotting filth and we should have heard from him via the satellite system.

I fully realize that.

William C. Clarke is still standing by? Clarke was P. P. Layouts top legal man on Mars.

Yes, Felix said, but Mayerson hasnt contacted him either; he hasnt contacted anybody . He shoved his doc.u.ments aside. That is all, absolutely all, I have at this point.

Maybe he died, Leo said. He felt morose; the whole thing depressed him. Maybe he had such a severe convulsion that But then wed have heard, because one of the three UN hospitals on Mars would have been notified.

Where is Palmer Eldritch?

No one in my organization knows, Felix said. He left Luna and disappeared. We simply lost him.

Id give my right arm, Leo said, to know whats going on down in that hovel, that Chicken Pox Prospects where Barney is.

Go to Mars yourself.

Oh no, Leo said at once. Im not leaving P. P. Layouts, not after what happened to me on Luna. Cant you get a man in there from your organization who can report directly to us?

We have that girl, that Anne Hawthorne. But she hasnt checked in either. Maybe Ill go to Mars. If youre not.

Im not, Leo repeated.

Felix Blau said, Itll cost you.

Sure, Leo said. And Ill pay. But at least well have some sort of chance; I mean, as it stands weve got nothing. And were finished , he said to himself. Just bill me, he said.

But do you have any idea what it would cost you if I died, if they got me there on Mars? My organization would Please, Leo said. I dont want to talk about that; what is Mars, a graveyard that Eldritch is digging? Eldritch probably ate Barney Mayerson. Okay, you go; you show up at Chicken Pox Prospects. He rang off.

Behind him Roni Fugate, his acting New York Pre-Fash consultant, sat intently listening. Taking it all in, Leo said to himself.

Did you get a good earful? he demanded roughly.

Roni said, Youre doing the same thing to him that he did to you.

Who? What?

Barney was afraid to follow you when you disappeared on Luna. Now youre afraid Its just not wise. All right , he said. Im too G.o.ddam scared of Palmer to set foot outside this building; of course Im not going to Mars and what you say is absolutely true.

But no one, Roni said softly, is going to fire you. The way you did Barney.

Im firing myself. Inside. It hurts.

But not enough to make you go to Mars.

All right! Savagely he snapped the vidset back on again and dialed Felix Blau. Blau, I take it all back. Im going myself. Although its insane.

Frankly, Felix Blau said, in my opinion youre doing exactly what Palmer Eldritch wants. All questions of bravery versus Eldritchs power works through that drug, Leo said. As long as he cant administer any to me Im fine. Ill take a few company guards along to watch that Im not slipped an injection like last time. Hey, Blau. You still come along; okay? He swung to face Roni. Is that all right?

Yes. She nodded.

See? She says its okay. So will you come along with me to Mars and you know, hold my hand?

Sure, Leo, Felix Blau said. And if you faint Ill fan you back to consciousness. Ill meet you at your office in He examined his wrist.w.a.tch. Two hours. Well map out details. Have a fast s.h.i.+p ready. And Ill bring a couple of men along I have confidence in, too.

Thats it, Leo said to Roni as he broke the connection. Look what you got me to do. You seized Barneys job and if I dont get back from Mars maybe you can nail down my job, too. He glared at her. Women can get a man to do anything, he realized. Mother, wife, even employee; they twist us like hot little bits of thermoplastic.

Roni said, Is that really why I said it, Mr. Bulero? Do you really believe that?

He took a good, long, hard look at her. Yes. Because youre insatiably ambitious. I really believe that.

Youre wrong.

If I dont come back from Mars will you come after me? He waited but she did not answer; he saw hesitation on her face, and at that he loudly laughed. Of course not, he said.

Stonily, Roni Fugate said, I must get back to my office; I have new flatware to judge. Modern patterns from Capetown. Rising, she departed; he watched her go, thinking, Shes the real one. Not Palmer Eldritch . If I do get back Ive got to find some method of quietly dumping her. I dont like to be manipulated.

Palmer Eldritch, he thought suddenly, appeared in the form of a small girl, a little childnot to mention later on when he was that dog. Maybe there is no Roni Fugate; maybe its Eldritch.

The thought chilled him.

What we have here, he realized, is not an invasion of Earth by Proxmen, beings from another system. Not an invasion by the legions of a pseudo human race. No. Its Palmer Eldritch whos everywhere, growing and growing like a mad weed. Is there a point where h.e.l.l burst, grow too much? All the manifestations of Eldritch, all over Terra and Luna and Mars, Palmer puffing up and burstingpop, pop, POP! Like Shakespeare says, some d.a.m.n thing about sticking a mere pin in through the armor, and goodbye king.

But, he thought, what in this case is the pin? And is there an open spot into which we can thrust it? I dont know and Felix doesnt know and Barney; Ill make book that he doesnt have the foggiest idea of how to cope with Eldritch. Kidnap Zoe, the mans elderly, ugly daughter? Palmer wouldnt care. Unless Palmer is also Zoe; maybe there is no Zoe, independent of him. And thats the way well all wind up unless we figure out how to destroy him, he realized. Replicas, extensions of the man, inhabiting three planets and six moons. The mans a protoplasm, spreading and reproducing and dividing, and all through that d.a.m.n lichen-derived non-Terran drug, that horrible, miserable Chew-Z.

Once more at the vidset he dialed Allen Faines satellite. Presently, a trifle insubstantial and weak but nevertheless there, the face of his prime disc jockey appeared. Yes, Mr. Bulero.

Youre positive Mayerson hasnt contacted you? Hes got the code book, hasnt he?

Got the book, but still nothing from him. Weve been monitoring every transmission from Chicken Pox Prospects. We saw Eldritchs s.h.i.+p land near the hovelthat was hours agoand we saw Eldritch get out and go up to the hovelists, and although our cameras didnt pick this up Im sure the transaction was consummated at that instant. Faine added, And Barney Mayerson was one of the hovelists who met Eldritch at the surface.

I believe I know what happened, Leo said. Okay, thanks, Al. He rang off. Barney went below with the Chew-Z, he realized. And right away they all sat down and chewed; that was the end, just as it was for me on Luna. Our tactics required that Barney chew away, Leo realized, and so we played right into Palmers dirty, semimechanical hands; once he had the drug in Barneys system we were through. Because Eldritch somehow controls each of the hallucinatory worlds induced by the drug; I know it know it!that the skunk is in all of them.

The fantasy world that Chew-Z induces, he thought, are in Palmer Eldritchs head . As I found out personally.

And the trouble is, he thought, that once you get into one of them you cant quite scramble back out; it stays with you, even when you think youre free. Its a one-way gate, and for all I know Im still in it now .

However that did not seem likely. And yet, he thought, it shows how afraid I amas Roni Fugate pointed out. Afraid enough to (Ill admit it) abandon Barney there like he abandoned me. And Barney was using his precog ability, so he had foresight, almost to the point where it was like what I have now, like hindsight. He knew in advance what I had to learn by experience. No wonder he balked.

Who gets sacrificed?Leo asked himself. Me, Barney, Felix Blauwhich of us gets melted down for Palmer to guzzle? Because thats what we are potentially for him: food to be consumed. Its an oral thing that arrived back from the Prox system, a great mouth, open to receive us.

But Palmers not a cannibal. Because I know hes not human; thats not a man there in that Palmer Eldritch skin.

But what it was he had no concept at all. So much could happen in the vast expanses between Sol and Proxima, either going or coming. Maybe it happened , he thought, when Palmer was going; maybe he ate the Proxmen during those ten years, cleaned the plate there, and so then came back to us. Ugh . He s.h.i.+vered.

Well, he thought, two more hours of independent life, plus the time it takes to travel to Mars. Maybe ten hours of private existence, and thenswallowed. And all over Mars that hideous drug is being distributed; think, picture, the numbers confined to Palmers illusory worlds, his nets that he casts. What do those Buddhists in the UN like Hepburn-Gilbert call it? Maya. The veil of illusion. Sheoot , he thought dismally, and reached to snap on his intercom in order to requisition a fast s.h.i.+p for the flight. And I want a good pilot, he remembered; too many autonomic landings of late have been failures: I dont intend to be splattered all over the countrysideespecially that countryside.

To Miss Gleason he said, Whos the best interplan pilot we have?

Don Davis, Miss Gleason said promptly. He has a perfect record inyou know. His flights from Venus. She did not refer explicitly to their Can-D enterprise; even the intercom might be tapped.

Ten minutes later the travel arrangements had all been made.

Leo Bulero leaned back in his chair, lit a large green Havana-leaf claro cigar which had been housed in a helium-filled humidor, probably for years the cigar, as he bit the end off, seemed dry and brittle; it cracked under the pressure of his teeth and he felt disappointment. It had appeared so good, so perfectly preserved in its coffin. Well, you never know , he informed himself. Until you get right to it .

His office door opened. Miss Gleason, the s.h.i.+p-requisition papers in her hands, entered.

The hand which held the papers was artificial; he made out the glint of undisguised metal and at once he raised his head to scrutinize her face, the rest of her. Neanderthal teeth , he thought; thats what those giant stainless steel molars look like. Reversion, two hundred thousand years back; revolting. And the luxvid or vidlux or whatever they were eyes , without pupils, only slits. Jensen Labs of Chicagos product, anyhow.

G.o.dd.a.m.n you, Eldritch, he said.

Im your pilot, too, Palmer Eldritch, from within the shape of Miss Gleason, said. And I was thinking of greeting you when you land. But thats too much, too soon.

Give me the papers to sign, Leo said, reaching out.

Surprised, Palmer Eldritch said, You still intend to make the trip to Mars? He looked decidedly taken aback.

Yes, Leo said, and waited patiently for the requisition papers.

Once youve taken Chew-Z youre delivered over. At least thats how dogmatic, devout, fanatical Anne Hawthorne would phrase it. Like sin, Barney Mayerson thought; its the condition of slavery. Like the Fall. And the temptation is similar.

But whats missing here is a way by which we can be freed. Would we have to go to Prox to find it? Even there it may not exist. Not in the universe anywhere.

Anne Hawthorne appeared at the door of the hovels transmitter room. Are you all right?