The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (6 page)

“Power hungry,” Leo said in a grating voice.

Barney shrugged. Who cared what it was called? It represented the culmination of his career; this was what counted. And they were all in it for this, Leo included. In fact Leo first of all.

“Okay,” Leo said, nodding. “You can ride herd on all the other Pre-Fash consultants; it doesn’t mean anything to me. Now tell me how and when and where—”

“You can meet Palmer Eldritch in three days. One of his own ships, unmarked, will take him off Ganymede the day after tomorrow, to his demesne on Luna; there he’ll continue to recuperate, but no longer in UN territory. Frank Santina won’t have any more authority in this matter so you can forget about him. On the twenty-third at his demesne Eldritch will meet ’pape reporters, and give them his version of what took place on his trip; he’ll be in a good mood—at least so they’ll report. Apparently healthy, glad to be back, recovering satisfactorily…he’ll give a long story about—”

“Just tell me how to get in. There’ll still be a security system by his own boys.”

Barney said, “P. P. Layouts—get this—puts out a trade journal four times a year.
The Mind of Minning
. It’s such a small-scale operation you probably don’t even know it exists.”

“You mean I should go as a reporter from our house organ?” Leo stared at him. “I can get entry to his demesne on
that
basis?” He looked disgusted. “Hell. I didn’t have to pay you for such garbagey information; it would have been announced in the next day or so—I mean, if ’pape reporters are going to be there it must be made public.”

Barney shrugged. He did not bother to answer.

“I guess you got me,” Leo said. “I was too eager. Well,” he added philosophically, “maybe you can tell me what he’s going to give the ’pape reporters by way of an explanation. What
did
he find in the Prox system? Does he mention the lichens he brought back?”

“He does. He claims they’re a benign form, approved by the UN’s Narcotics Control Bureau, which will replace—” He hesitated. “Certain dangerous, habit-forming derivatives now in wide use. And—”

“And,” Leo finished stonily, “he’s going to announce the formation of a company to peddle his narcotic-exempt commodity.”

“Yes.” Barney said. “Called Chew-Z, with the slogan:
be choosy. Chew Chew-Z
.”

“Aw frgawdsake!”

“It was all set up by intersystem radio-laser long ago, through his daughter with the approval of Santina and Lark at the UN, in fact with Hepburn-Gilbert’s own approval. They see this as a way of putting a finish to the Can-D trade.”

There was silence.

“Okay,” Leo said hoarsely, after a time. “It seems a shame you couldn’t have previewed this a couple of years ago, but hell—you’re an employee and no one told you to.”

Barney shrugged.

Grim-faced, Leo Bulero rang off.

So that’s that, Barney said to himself. I violated Rule One of career-oriented functioning: never tell your superior something he doesn’t want to hear. I wonder what the consequences of that will be.

The vidphone all at once came back on; once again Leo Bulero’s clouded features formed. “Listen, Barney. I just had a thought. This is going to make you sore, so get set.”

“I’m set.” He prepared himself.

“I forgot, and I shouldn’t have, that I previously talked to Miss Fugate and she knows about—certain events in the future pertaining to myself and Palmer Eldritch. Events which in any case, if she were to get disturbed—and having you ride herd on her would make her disturbed—she might fly into a fit and do us harm. In fact I got to thinking that potentially all my Pre-Fash consultants could come across this information, so the idea of you supervising all of them—”

“The ‘events,’ ” Barney interrupted, “have to do with your arraignment for the first-degree murder of Palmer Eldritch; correct?”

Leo grunted, wheezed, and stared morosely at him. At last, reluctantly, he nodded.

“I’m not going to let you pull out of the agreement you just now made with me,” Barney said. “You made me certain promises and I expect you to—”

“But,” Leo bleated, “that fool girl—she’s erratic, she’ll run to the UN cops; Barney, she’s got me!”

“So have I,” he pointed out quietly.

“Yeah, but I’ve known you for years.” Leo appeared to be thinking rapidly, appraising the situation with what he enjoyed calling his next-stage-in-the-Homo-sapiens-type-evolved-knowledge powers, or some such thing. “You’re a pal. You wouldn’t do that, what she’d do. And anyhow I can still offer you the percentage of the gross you asked for. Okay?” He eyed Barney anxiously, but with formidable determination; he had made up his mind. “Can we finalize on that, then?”

“We already finalized.”

“But dammit, like I said, I forgot about—”

“If you don’t come through,” Barney said, “I’ll quit. And go somewhere else with my ability.” He had worked too many years to turn back at this point.

“You?” Leo said unbelievingly. “I mean, you’re not just talking about going to the UN police; you’re talking about—switching sides and going over to Palmer Eldritch!”

Barney said nothing.

“You darn snink,” Leo said. “So this is what trying to stay afloat in times like this has done to us. Listen; I’m not so sure Palmer would accept you. Probably he’s got his Pre-Fash people already set up. And if he does he knows the news already, about my—” He broke off. “Yeah, I’ll take the chance; I think you have that Greek sin—what did they call it? Hubris? Pride, like Satan had, reaching too far. Go ahead and reach, Barney. In fact do anything you want; it doesn’t matter to me. And lots of luck, fella. Keep me posted on how you make out, and the next time you feel inclined to blackmail somebody—”

Barney cut the connection. The screen became a formless gray. Gray, he thought, like the world inside me and around me, like reality. He rose and walked stiffly back and forth, hands in his trouser pockets.

My best bet, he decided, at this point—God forbid—is to join with Roni Fugate. Because she’s the one Leo is scared of, and for good reason. There must be a whole galaxy of things she’d do that I wouldn’t. And Leo knows it.

Reseating himself he had Roni paged, brought at last into his office.

“Hi,” she said brightly, colorful in her Peking-style silk dress, sans bra. “What’s up? I tried to reach you a minute ago, but—”

“You just never,” he said, “never have on all your clothes. Shut the door.”

She shut the door.

“However,” he said, “to give you your due, you were very good in bed last night.”

“Thank you.” Her youthful, clear face glowed.

Barney said, “Do you foresee
clearly
that our employer will murder Palmer Eldritch? Or is there doubt?”

Swallowing, she ducked her head and murmured, “You just reek with talent.” She seated herself and crossed her legs, which were, he noticed, bare. “Of course there’s doubt. First of all I think it’s moronic of Mr. Bulero, because of course it means the end of his career. The ’papes don’t—will not—know his motives for it, so I can’t guess; it must be something enormous and dreadful, don’t you think?”

“The end of his career,” Barney said, “and also yours and mine.”

“No,” Roni said, “I don’t think so, dear. Let’s consider a moment. Mr. Palmer Eldritch is going to replace him in the min field; isn’t that Mr. Bulero’s probable motive? And doesn’t that tell us something about the economic reality to come? Even with Mr. Eldritch dead it would appear that his organization will—”

“So we go over to Eldritch? Just like that?”

Screwing up her face in concentration, Roni said laboredly, “No, I don’t
quite
mean that. But we must be wary of losing with Mr. Bulero; we don’t want to find ourselves dragged down with him…I have years ahead of me and to some lesser extent so do you.”

“Thanks,” he said acidly.

“What we must do now is to plan carefully. And if precogs can’t plan for the future—”

“I’ve provided Leo with info that’ll lead to a meeting between him and Eldritch. Had it occurred to you that the two of them might form a syndicate together?” He eyed her intently.

“I—see nothing like that ahead. No ’pape article to that effect.”

“God,” he said with scorn, “it’s not going to get into the ’papes.”

“Oh.” Chastened, she nodded. “That’s so, I guess.”

“And if that happened,” he said, “we’d be nowhere, once we left Leo and marched over to Eldritch. He’d have us back and on his own terms; we’d be better off getting out of the Pre-Fash business entirely.” That was obvious to him and he saw by the expression on Roni Fugate’s face that it was obvious to her, too. “If we approach Palmer Eldritch—”

“ ‘If.’ We’ve got to.”

Barney said, “No we don’t. We can stumble along like we are.” As employees of Leo Bulero, whether he sinks or rises or even completely disappears, he thought to himself. “I’ll tell you what else we can do; we can approach all the other Pre-Fash consultants that work for P. P. Layouts and form a syndicate of our own.” It was an idea he had toyed with for years. “A guild, so to speak, with a monopoly. Then we can dictate terms to both Leo and Eldritch.”

“Except,” Roni said, “that Eldritch has Pre-Fash consultants of his own, evidently.” She smiled at him. “You have no clear conception of what to do, have you, Barney? I can see that. What a shame. And you’ve worked so many years.” She shook her head sadly.

“I can see,” he said, “why Leo was hesitant at the idea of crossing you.”

“Because I tell the truth?” She raised her eyebrows. “Yes, perhaps so; everybody’s afraid of the truth. You, for instance—you don’t like to face the fact that you said no to that poor pot salesman just to get back at the woman who—”

“Shut up,” he said savagely.

“You know where that pot salesman probably is right now? Signed up by Palmer Eldritch. You did him—and your ex-wife—a favor. Whereas if you’d said yes you’d have chained him to a declining company, cut both of them out of their chance to—” She broke off. “I’m making you feel bad.”

Gesturing, he said, “This is just not relevant to what I called you in here for.”

“That’s right.” She nodded. “You called me in here so we could work out a way of betraying Leo Bulero together.”

Baffled, he said, “Listen—”

“But it’s so. You can’t handle it alone; you need me. I haven’t said no. Keep calm. However, I don’t think this is the place or the time to discuss it; let’s wait until we’re home at the conapt. Okay?” She gave him, then, a brilliant smile, one of absolute warmth.

“Okay,” he agreed. She was right.

“Wouldn’t it be sad,” Roni said, “if this office of yours were bugged? Perhaps Mr. Bulero is going to get a tape of everything we’ve said just now.” Her smile continued, even grew; it dazzled him. The girl was afraid of no one and nothing on Earth or in the whole Sol system, he realized.

He wished he felt the same way. Because there was one problem that haunted him, one he had not discussed with either Leo or her, although it was certainly bothering Leo, too…and should, if she were as rational as she seemed, be bothering her.

It had yet to be established that what had come back from Prox, the person or thing that had crashed on Pluto, was really Palmer Eldritch.

FIVE

Set up financially by the contract with the Chew-Z people, Richard Hnatt placed a call to one of Dr. Willy Denkmal’s E Therapy clinics in the Germanies; he picked the central one, in Munich, and began making arrangements for both himself and Emily.

I’m up with the greats, he said to himself as he waited, with Emily, in the swanky gnoff-hide decorated lounge of the clinic; Dr. Denkmal, as was his custom, proposed to interview them initially personally, although of course the therapy itself would be carried out by members of his staff.

“It makes me nervous,” Emily whispered; she held a magazine on her lap but was unable to read. “It’s so—unnatural.”

“Hell,” Hnatt said vigorously, “that’s what it’s not; it’s an acceleration of the
natural
evolutionary process that’s going on all the time anyway, only usually it’s so slow we don’t perceive it. I mean, look at our ancestors in caves; they were covered with body-hair and they had no chins and a very limited frontal-area brain-wise. And they had huge fused molars in order to chew uncooked seeds.”

“Okay,” Emily said, nodding.

“The farther away we can get from them the better. Anyhow, they evolved to meet the Ice Age; we have to evolve to meet the Fire Age, just the opposite. So we need that chitinous-type skin, that rind and the altered metabolism that lets us sleep in midday and also the improved ventilation and the—”

From the inner office Dr. Denkmal, a small, round style of middle-class German with white hair and an Albert Schweitzer mustache, emerged. With him came another man, and Richard Hnatt saw for the first time close-up the effects of E Therapy. And it was not like seeing pics on the society pages of the homeopape. Not at all.

The man’s head reminded Hnatt of a photograph he had once seen in a textbook; the photo had been labeled
hydrocephalic
. The same enlargement above the browline; it was clearly domelike and oddly fragile-looking and he saw at once why these well-to-do persons who had evolved were popularly called
bubbleheads
. Looks about to burst, he thought, impressed. And—the massive rind. Hair had given way to the darker, more uniform pattern of chitinous shell. Bubblehead? More like a coconut.

“Mr. Hnatt,” Dr. Denkmal said to Richard Hnatt, pausing. “And Frau Hnatt, too. I’ll be with you in a moment.” He turned back to the man beside him. “It’s just chance that we were able to squeeze you in today, Mr. Bulero, on such short notice. Anyhow you haven’t lost a bit of ground; in fact you’ve gained.”

However, Mr. Bulero was gazing at Richard Hnatt. “I’ve heard your name before. Oh, yes. Felix Blau mentioned you.” His supremely intelligent eyes became dark and he said, “Did you recently sign a contract with a Boston firm called—” The elongated face, distorted as if by a permanent optically impaired mirror, twisted. “Chew-Z Manufacturers?”

“N-nuts to you,” Hnatt stammered. “Your Pre-Fash consultant turned us down.”

Leo Bulero eyed him, then with a shrug turned back to Dr. Denkmal. “I’ll see you in two weeks.”

“Two! But—” Denkmal gestured protestingly.

“I can’t make it next week; I’ll be off Terra again.” Again Bulero eyed Richard and Emily Hnatt, lingeringly, then strode off.

Watching him go, Dr. Denkmal said, “Very evolved, that man. Both physically and spiritually.” He turned to the Hnatts. “Welcome to Eichenwald Clinic.” He beamed.

“Thank you,” Emily said nervously. “Does—it hurt?”

“Our therapy?” Dr. Denkmal tittered with amusement. “Not in the slightest, although it may shock—in the figurative sense—at first. As you experience a growth of your cortex area. You’ll have many new and exciting concepts occur to you, especially of a religious nature. Oh, if only Luther and Erasmus were alive today; their controversies could be solved so easily now, by means of E Therapy. Both would see the truth, as
zum Beiszspiel
regard transubstantiation—you know, the
Blut und
—” He interrupted himself with a cough. “In English, blood and wafer; you know, in the Mass. Is very much like the takers of Can-D; have you noticed that affinity? But come on; we begin.” He slapped Richard Hnatt on the back and led the two of them into his inner office, eyeing Emily with what seemed to Richard to be a rather unspiritual, covetous look.

They faced a gigantic chamber of scientific gadgets and two Dr. Frankenstein tables, complete with arm and leg brackets. At the sight Emily moaned and shrank back.

“Nothing to fear, Frau Hnatt. Like electro-convulsive shock, causes certain musculature reactions; reflex, you know?” Denkmal giggled. “Now you must, ah, you know: take off your clothes. Each of you in private, of course; then don smocks and
auskommen
—understand? A nurse will assist you. We have your medical charts from Nord Amerika already; we know your histories. Both quite healthy, virile; good Nord Amerikanische people.” He led Richard Hnatt to a side room, secluded by a curtain; there he left him off and returned to Emily. As he entered the side room Richard heard Dr. Denkmal talking to Emily in a soothing but commanding tone; the combination was a neat bit of business and Hnatt felt both envious and suspicious and then, at last, glum. It was not quite as he had pictured it, not quite big-time enough to suit him.

However, Leo Bulero had emerged from this room so that proved it was authentic big-time; Bulero would never have settled for less.

Heartened, he began to undress.

Somewhere out of sight Emily squeaked.

He redressed and left the side room, boiling with concern. However, he found Denkmal at a desk, reading Emily’s medical chart; she was off, he realized, with a female nurse, so everything was all right.

Criminy, he thought, I certainly am edgy. Once more entering the side room he resumed undressing; his hands, he found, were shaking.

Presently he lay strapped to one of the twin tables, Emily in a similar state beside him. She, too, seemed frightened; she was very pale and quiet.

“Your glands,” Dr. Denkmal explained, jovially rubbing his hands together and wantonly eyeing Emily, “will be stimulated by this, especially Kresy’s Gland, which controls rate of evolution,
nicht Wahr?
Yes, you know that; every schoolchild knows that, is taught now what we’ve discovered here. Today what you will notice is no growth of chitinous shell or brainshield or loss of fingernails and toenails—you didn’t know that, I bet!—but only a slight but very, very important change in the frontal lobe…it will smart; that is a pun, you know? It smarts and you become, ah, smart.” Again he giggled. Richard Hnatt felt miserable; he waited like some hog-tied animal for whatever they had in store for him. What a way to make business contacts, he said ruefully to himself, and shut his eyes.

A male attendant materialized and stood by him, looking blond, Nordic, and without intelligence.

“We play soothing
Musik,
” Dr. Denkmal said, pressing a button. Multiphonic sound, from every corner of the room, filtered out, an insipid orchestral version of some popular Italian opera, Puccini or Verdi; Hnatt did not know. “Now
höre
, Herr Hnatt.” Denkmal bent down beside him, suddenly serious. “I want you to understand; every now and then this therapy—what do you say?—
blasts back
.”

“Backfires,” Hnatt said gratingly. He had been expecting this.

“But mostly we have successes. Here, Herr Hnatt, is what the backfires consist of, I am afraid; instead of evoluting the Kresy Gland is very stimulated to—regress. Is that correct in English?”

“Yes,” Hnatt muttered. “Regress how far?”

“Just a trifle. But it could be unpleasant. We would catch it quickly, of course, and cease therapy. And generally that stops the regression. But—not always. Sometimes once the Kresy Gland has been stimulated to—” He gestured. “It keeps on. I should tell you this in case you might have scruples. Right?”

“I’ll take the chance,” Richard Hnatt said. “I guess. Everyone else does, don’t they? Okay, go ahead.” He squirmed, saw Emily, even paler now, almost imperceptibly nodding; her eyes were glassy.

What’ll probably happen, he thought fatalistically, is that one of us will evolve—probably Emily—and the other, me, will devolve back to Sinanthropus. Back to fused molars, tiny brain, bent legs, and cannibalistic tendencies. I’ll have a hell of a time closing sales that way.

Dr. Denkmal clamped a switch shut, whistling along with the opera happily to himself.

The Hnatts’ E Therapy had begun.

He seemed to feel a loss of weight, nothing more, at least not at first. And then his head ached as if rapped by a hammer. With the ache came almost instantly a new and acute comprehension; it was a dreadful risk he and Emily were taking, and it wasn’t fair to her to subject her to this, just to further sales. Obviously she didn’t want this; suppose she evolved back just enough to lose her ceramic talent? And they both would be ruined; his career hung on seeing Emily remain one of the planet’s top ceramists.

“Stop,” he said aloud, but the sound did not seem to emerge; he did not hear it, although his vocal apparatus seemed to function—he felt the words in his throat. And then it came to him. He was evolving; it was functioning. His insight was due to the change in his brain metabolism. Assuming Emily was all right then everything was all right.

He perceived, too, that Dr. Willy Denkmal was a cheap little pseudo-quack, that this whole business preyed off the vanity of mortals striving to become more than they were entitled to be, and in a purely earthly, transitory way. The hell with his sales, his contacts; what did that matter in comparison to the possibility of evolving the human brain to entire new orders of conception? For instance—

Below lay the tomb world, the immutable cause-and-effect world of the demonic. At median extended the layer of the human, but at any instant a man could plunge—descend as if sinking—into the hell-layer beneath. Or: he could ascend to the ethereal world above, which constituted the third of the trinary layers. Always, in his middle level of the human, a man risked the sinking. And yet the possibility of ascent lay before him; any aspect or sequence of reality
could become either,
at any instant. Hell and heaven, not after death but now! Depression, all mental illness, was the sinking. And the other…how was it achieved?

Through empathy. Grasping another, not from outside but from the inner. For example, had he ever really looked at Emily’s pots as anything more than merchandise for which a market existed? No. What I ought to have seen in them, he realized, is the artistic intention, the spirit she’s revealing intrinsically.

And that contract with Chew-Z Manufacturers, he realized; I signed without consulting her—how unethical can one become? I chained her to a firm which she may not want as a minner of her products…we have no knowledge of the worth of their layouts. They may be shoddy. Substandard. But too late, now; the road to the hell-layer is paved with second-guessing. And they may be involved in the illegal manufacture of a translation drug; that would explain the name Chew-Z…it would correspond with Can-D. But—the fact that they’ve selected that name openly suggests they have nothing illegal in mind.

With a lightning leap of intuition it came to him: someone had found a translation drug which satisfied the UN’s narcotics agency. The agency had already passed on Chew-Z, would allow it on the open market. So, for the first time, a translation drug would be available on thoroughly policed Terra, not in the remote, unpoliced colonies only.

And this meant that Chew-Z’s layouts—unlike Perky Pat—would be marketable on Terra, along with the drug. And as the weather worsened over the years, as the home planet became more of an alien environment, the layouts would sell faster. The market which Leo Bulero controlled was pitifully meager compared to what lay eventually—but not now—before Chew-Z Manufacturers.

So he had signed a good contract after all. And—no wonder Chew-Z had paid him so much. They were a big outfit, with big plans; they had, obviously, unlimited capital backing them.

And where would they obtain unlimited capital? Nowhere on Terra; he intuited that, too. Probably from Palmer Eldritch, who had returned to the Sol system after having joined economically with the Proxers; it was they who were behind Chew-Z. So, for the chance to ruin Leo Bulero, the UN was allowing a non-Sol race to begin operations in the system.

It was a bad, perhaps even terminal, exchange.

The next he knew, Dr. Denkmal was slapping him into wakefulness. “How goes it?” Denkmal demanded, peering at him. “Broad, all-inclusive preoccupations?”

“Y-yes,” he said, and managed to sit up; he was unstrapped.

“Then we have nothing to fear,” Dr. Denkmal said, and beamed, his white mustache twitching like antennae. “Now we will consult with Frau Hnatt.” A female attendant was already unstrapping her; Emily sat up groggily and yawned. Dr. Denkmal looked nervous. “How do you feel, Frau?” he inquired.

“Fine,” Emily murmured. “I had all sorts of pot ideas. One after another.” She glanced timidly at first him and then at Richard. “Does that mean anything?”

“Paper,” Dr. Denkmal said, producing a tablet. “Pen.” He extended them to Emily. “Put down your ideas, Frau.”

Tremblingly, Emily sketched her pot ideas. She seemed to have difficulty controlling the pen, Hnatt noticed. But presumably that would pass.

“Fine,” Dr. Denkmal said, when she had finished. He showed the sketches to Richard Hnatt. “Highly organized cephalic activity. Superior inventiveness, right?”

The pot sketches were certainly good, even brilliant. And yet Hnatt felt there was something wrong. Something about the sketches. But it was not until they had left the clinic, were standing together under the antithermal curtain outside the building, waiting for their jet-express cab to land, that he realized what it was.

The ideas were good—but Emily had done them already. Years ago, when she had designed her first professionally adequate pots: she had shown him sketches of them and then the pots themselves, even before the two of them were married. Didn’t she remember this? Obviously not.

He wondered why she didn’t remember and what it meant; it made him deeply uneasy.