The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (8 page)

I know what’s going on, he realized. This is Palmer’s way of gaining domination over my mind; this is a form of what they used to call brainwashing. He’s got me running scared. Carefully measuring his steps, he continued on without looking back.

It was a near-fatal mistake. Something—he caught sight of it out of the corner of his eye—launched itself at his legs; he leaped aside and it passed him, circling back at once as it reoriented itself, and picked him up again as its prey.

“The rats can’t see you,” the girl called, “but the glucks can! You better run!”

Without clearly seeing it—he had seen enough—he ran.

And what he had seen he could not blame on Chew-Z. Because it was not an illusion, not a device of Palmer Eldritch’s to terrorize him. The gluck, whatever it was, did not originate on Terra nor from a Terran mind.

Behind him, leaving the suitcase, the girl ran, too.

“What about me?” Dr. Smile called anxiously.

No one came back for him.

On the vidscreen the image of Felix Blau said, “I’ve processed the material you gave me, Mr. Mayerson. It adds up to a convincing case that your employer Mr. Bulero—who is also a client of mine—is at present on a small artificial satellite orbiting Earth, legally titled Sigma 14-B. I have consulted the records of ownership and it appears to belong to a rocket-fuel manufacturer in St. George, Utah.” He inspected the papers before him. “Robard Lethane Sales. Lethane is their trade-name for their brand of—”

“Okay,” Barney Mayerson said. “I’ll contact them.” How in God’s name had Leo Bulero gotten
there?

“There is one further item of possible interest. Robard Lethane Sales incorporated the same day, four years ago, as Chew-Z Manufacturers of Boston. It seems more than a coincidence to me.”

“What about getting Leo off the satellite?”

“You could file a write of mandamus with the courts demanding—”

“Too much time,” Barney said. He had a deep, ill sense of personal responsibility for what had happened. Evidently Palmer Eldritch had set up the news conference with the ’pape reporters as a pretext by which to lure Leo to the Lunar demesne—and he, precog Barney Mayerson, the man who could perceive the future, had been taken in, had expertly done his part to get Leo there.

Felix Blau said, “I can supply you with about a hundred men, from various offices of my organization. And you ought to be able to raise fifty more from P. P. Layouts. You could try to invest the satellite.”

“And find him dead.”

“True.” Blau appeared to pout. “Well, you could go to Hepburn-Gilbert and plead for UN assistance. Or try to contact—and this sticks in the craw even worse—contact Palmer or whatever’s taking Palmer’s place, and deal directly with
it
. See if you can buy Leo back.”

Barney cut the circuit. He at once dialed for an outplan line, saying, “Get me Mr. Palmer Eldritch on Luna. It’s an emergency; I’d like you to hurry it up, miss.”

As he waited for the call to be put through, Roni Fugate said from the far end of the office, “Apparently we’re not going to have time to sell out to Eldritch.”

“It does look that way.” How smoothly it had all been handled; Eldritch had let his adversary do the work. And us, too, he realized, Roni and I; he’ll probably get us the same way. In fact Eldritch could indeed be waiting for our flight to the satellite; that would explain his supplying Leo with Dr. Smile.

“I wonder,” Roni said, fooling with the clasp of her blouse, “if we want to work for a man that clever. If it is a man. It looks more and more to me as if it’s not actually Palmer who came back but one of them; I think we’re going to have to accept that. The next thing we can look forward to is Chew-Z flooding the market. With UN sanction.” Her tone was bitter. “And Leo, who at least is one of us and who just wants to make a few skins, will be dead or driven out—” She stared straight ahead in fury.

“Patriotism,” Barney said.

“Self-preservation. I don’t want to find myself, some morning, chewing away on the stuff, doing whatever you do when you chew it instead of Can-D. Going—not to Perky Pat land; that’s for sure.”

The vidphone operator said, “I have a Miss Zoe Eldritch on the line, sir. Will you speak to her?”

“Okay,” Barney said, resigned.

A smartly dressed woman, sharp-eyed, with heavy hair pulled back in a bun, gazed at him in miniature. “Yes?”

“This is Mayerson at P. P. Layouts. What do we have to do to get Leo Bulero back?” He waited. No response. “You do know what I’m talking about, don’t you?” he said.

Presently she said, “Mr. Bulero arrived here at the demesne and was taken sick. He’s resting in our infirmary. When he’s better—”

“May I dispatch an official company physician to examine him?”

“Of course.” Zoe Eldritch did not bat an eye.

“Why didn’t you notify us?”

“It just now occurred. My father was about to call. It seems to be nothing more than a reaction to the change of gravity; actually it’s very common with older persons who arrive here. We haven’t tried to approximate Earth gravity as Mr. Bulero has at his satellite, Winnie-ther-Pooh Acres. So you see it’s really quite simple.” She smiled slightly. “You’ll have him back sometime later today at the very latest. Did you suspect something else?”

“I suspect,” Barney said, “that Leo is not on Luna any longer. That he’s on an Earth-satellite called Sigma 14-B which belongs to a St. George firm that you own. Isn’t that the case? And what we’ll find in your infirmary at the demesne will not be Leo Bulero.”

Roni stared at him.

“You’re welcome to see for yourself,” Zoe said stonily. “It
is
Leo Bulero, at least as far as we know. It’s what arrived here with the homeopape reporters.”

“I’ll come to the demesne,” Barney said. And knew he was making a mistake. His precog ability told him that. And, at the far end of the office, Roni Fugate hopped to her feet and stood rigid; her ability had picked it up, too. Shutting off the vidphone he turned to her and said, “P. P. Layouts employee commits suicide. Correct? Or some such wording. The ’papes tomorrow morning.”

“The exact wording—” Roni began.

“I don’t care to hear the exact wording.” But it would be by exposure, he knew. Man’s body found on pedestrian ramp at noon; dead from excessive solar radiation. Downtown New York somewhere. At whatever spot the Eldritch organization had dropped him off. Would drop him off.

He could have done without his precog faculty, in this. Since he did not intend to act on its foresight.

What disturbed him the most was the pic on the ’pape page, a close-up view of his sun-shriveled body.

At the office door he stopped and simply stood.

“You can’t go,” Roni said.

“No.” Not after previewing the pic. Leo, he realized, will have to take care of himself. Returning to his desk he reseated himself.

“The only problem,” Roni said, “is that if he does get back he’s going to be hard to explain the situation to. That you didn’t do anything.”

“I know.” But that was not the only problem; in fact that was barely an issue at all.

Because Leo would probably not be getting back.

SIX

The gluck had him by the ankle and it was trying to drink him; it had penetrated his flesh with tiny tubes like cilia. Leo Bulero cried out—and then, abruptly, there stood Palmer Eldritch.

“You were wrong,” Eldritch said. “I did
not
find God in the Prox system. But I found something better.” With a stick he poked at the gluck; it reluctantly withdrew its cilia, and contracted into itself until at last it was no longer clinging to Leo; it dropped to the ground and traveled away, as Eldritch continued to prod it. “God,” Eldritch said, “promises eternal life. I can do better;
I can deliver it
.”

“Deliver it how?” Trembling and weak with relief, Leo dropped to the grassy soil, seated himself, and gasped for breath.

“Through the lichen which we’re marketing under the name Chew-Z,” Eldritch said. “It bears very little resemblance to your own product, Leo. Can-D is obsolete, because what does it do? Provides a few moments of escape, nothing but fantasy. Who wants it? Who needs that when they can get the genuine thing from me?” He added, “We’re there, now.”

“So I assumed. And if you imagine people are going to pay out skins for an experience like this—” Leo gestured at the gluck, which still lurked nearby keeping an eye on both himself and Eldritch. “You’re not just out of your body; you’re out of your mind, too.”

“This is a special situation. To prove to you that this is authentic. Nothing excels physical pain and terror in that respect; the glucks showed you with absolute clarity that this is
not
a fantasy. They could actually have killed you. And if you died here that would be it. Not like Can-D, is it?” Eldritch was probably enjoying the situation. “When I discovered the lichen in the Prox system I couldn’t believe it. I’ve lived a hundred years, Leo, already, using it in the Prox system under the direction of their medical people; I’ve taken it orally, intravenously, in suppository form—I’ve burned it and inhaled the fumes, made it into a water-soluble solution and boiled it, sniffed the vapors: I’ve experienced it every way possible and it hasn’t hurt me. The effect on Proxers is minor, nothing like what it does to us; to them it’s less of a stimulant than their very best grade tobacco. Want to hear more?”

“Not particularly.”

Eldritch seated himself nearby, rested his artificial arm on his bent knees, and idly swung his stick from side to side, scrutinizing the gluck, which had still not departed. “When we return to our former bodies—you notice the use of the word ‘former,’ a term you wouldn’t apply with Can-D, and for good reason—
you’ll find that no time has passed
. We could stay here fifty years and it’d be the same; we’d emerge back at the demense on Luna and find everything unchanged, and anyone watching us would see no lapse of consciousness, as you have with Can-D, no trance, no stupor. Oh, maybe a flicker of the eyelids. A split second; I’m willing to concede that.”

“What determines our length of time here?” Leo asked.

“Our attitude. Not the quantity taken. We can return whenever we want to. So the amount of the drug need not be—”

“That’s not true. Because I’ve wanted out of here for some time, now.”

“But,” Eldritch said, “you didn’t construct this—establishment, here; I did and it’s mine. I created the glucks, this landscape—” He gestured with his stick. “Every damn thing you see, including your body.”

“My body?” Leo examined himself. It was his regular, familiar body, known to him intimately; it was his, not Eldritch’s.

“I willed you to emerge here exactly as you are in our universe,” Eldritch said. “You see, that’s the point that appealed to Hepburn-Gilbert, who of course is a Buddhist. You can reincarnate in any form you wish, or that’s wished for you, as in this situation.”

“So that’s why the UN bit,” Leo said. It explained a great deal.

“With Chew-Z one can pass from life to life, be a bug, a physics teacher, a hawk, a protozoon, a slime mold, a street-walker in Paris in 1904, a—”

“Even,” Leo said, “a gluck. Which one of us is the gluck, there?”

“I told you; I made it out of a portion of myself. You could shape something. Go ahead—project a fraction of your essence; it’ll take material form on its own. What you supply is the logos. Remember that?”

“I remember,” Leo said. He concentrated, and presently there formed not far off an unwieldy mass of wires and bars and gridlike extensions.

“What the hell is that?” Eldritch demanded.

“A gluck trap.”

Eldritch put his head back and laughed. “Very good. But please don’t build a Palmer Eldritch trap; I still have things I want to say.” He and Leo watched the gluck suspiciously approach the trap, sniffing. It entered and the trap banged shut. The gluck was caught, and now the trap dispatched it; one quick sizzle, a small plume of smoke, and the gluck had vanished.

In the air before Leo a small section shimmered; out of it emerged a black book, which he accepted, thumbed through, then, satisfied, put down on his lap.

“What’s that?” Eldritch asked.

“A King James Bible. I thought it might help protect me.”

“Not here,” Eldritch said. “This is my domain.” He gestured at the bible and it vanished. “You could have your own, though, and fill it with bibles. As can everyone. As soon as our operations are underway. We’re going to have layouts, of course, but that comes later with our Terran activities. And anyhow that’s a formality, a ritual to ease the transition. Can-D and Chew-Z will be marketed on the same basis, in open competition; we’ll claim nothing for Chew-Z that you don’t claim for your product. We don’t want to scare people away; religion has become a touchy subject. It will only be after a few tries that they realize the two different aspects: the lack of a time lapse and the other, perhaps the more vital. That it isn’t fantasy, that they enter a genuine new universe.”

“Many persons feel that about Can-D,” Leo pointed out. “They hold it as an article of faith that they’re actually on Earth.”

“Fanatics,” Eldritch said with disgust. “Obviously it’s illusion because there is no Perky Pat and no Walt Essex and anyhow the structure of their fantasy environment is limited to the artifacts actually installed in their layout; they can’t operate the automatic dishwasher in the kitchen unless a min of one was installed in advance. And a person who doesn’t participate can watch and see that the two dolls don’t go anywhere; no one is in them. It can be demonstrated—”

“But you’re going to have trouble convincing those people,” Leo said. “They’ll stay loyal to Can-D. There’s no real dissatisfaction with Perky Pat; why should they give up—”

“I’ll tell you,” Eldritch said. “Because however wonderful being Perky Pat and Walt is for a while, eventually they’re forced to return to their hovels. Do you know how that feels, Leo? Try it sometime; wake up in a hovel on Ganymede after you’ve been freed for twenty, thirty minutes. It’s an experience you’ll never forget.”

“Hmm.”

“And there’s something else—and you know what it is, too. When the little period of escape is over and the colonist returns…he’s not fit to resume a normal, daily life. He’s demoralized. But if instead of Can-D he’s chewed—”

He broke off. Leo was not listening; he was involved in constructing another artifact in the air before him.

A short flight of stairs appeared, leading into a luminous hoop. The far end of the flight of stairs could not be seen.

“Where does that go?” Eldritch demanded, an irritated expression on his face.

“New York City,” Leo said. “It’ll take me back to P. P. Layouts.” He rose and walked to the flight of stairs. “I have a feeling, Eldritch,
that something’s wrong,
some aspect of this Chew-Z product. And we won’t discover what it is until too late.” He began climbing the stairs and then he remembered the girl, Monica; he wondered if she was all right, here in Palmer Eldritch’s world. “What about the child?” He stopped his climb. Below him, but seemingly far off, he could make out Eldritch, still seated with his stick on the grass. “The glucks didn’t get her, did they?”

Eldritch said, “I was the little girl. That’s what I’m trying to explain to you; that’s why I say it means genuine reincarnation, triumph over death.”

Blinking, Leo said, “Then the reason she was familiar—” He ceased, and looked again.

On the grass Eldritch was gone. The child Monica, with her suitcase full of Dr. Smile, sat there instead. So it was evident, now.

He was telling—she, they were telling—the truth.

Slowly, Leo walked back down the stairs and out onto the grass once more.

The child, Monica, said, “I’m glad you’re not leaving, Mr. Bulero. It’s nice to have someone smart and evolved like you to talk to.” She patted the suitcase resting on the grass beside her. “I went back and got him; he was terrified of the glucks. I see you found something that would handle them.” She nodded toward his gluck trap, which now, empty, awaited another victim. “Very ingenious of you. I hadn’t thought of it; I just got the hell out of there. A diencephalic panic-reaction.”

To her Leo said hesitantly, “You’re Palmer, are you? I mean, down underneath? Actually?”

“Take the medieval doctrine of substance versus accidents,” the child said pleasantly. “My accidents are those of this child, but my substance, as with the wine and the wafer in transubstantiation—”

“Okay,” Leo said. “You’re Eldritch; I believe you. But I still don’t like this place. Those glucks—”

“Don’t blame them on Chew-Z,” the child said. “Blame them on me; they’re a product of my mind, not of the lichen. Does every new universe constructed have to be
nice?
I like glucks in mine; they appeal to something in me.”

“Suppose I want to construct my own universe,” Leo said. “Maybe there’s something evil in me, too, some aspect of my personality I don’t know about. That would cause me to produce a thing even more ugly than what you’ve brought into being.” At least with the Perky Pat layouts one was limited to what one had provided in advance, as Eldritch himself had pointed out. And—there was a certain safety in this.

“Whatever it was could be abolished,” the child said indifferently. “If you found you didn’t like it. And if you did like it—” She shrugged. “Keep it, then. Why not? Who’s hurt? You’re alone in your—” Instantly she broke off, clapping her hand to her mouth.

“Alone,” Leo said. “You mean each person goes to a different subjective world? It’s not like the layouts, then, because everyone in the group who takes Can-D goes to the layout, the men to Walt, the women into Perky Pat. But that means you’re not here.” Or, he thought, I’m not here. But in that case—

The child watched him intently, trying to gauge his reaction.

“We haven’t taken Chew-Z,” Leo said quietly. “This is all a hypnogogic, absolutely artificially induced pseudo-environment. We’re not anywhere except where we started from; we’re still at your demesne on Luna. Chew-Z doesn’t create any new universe and you know it. There’s no bona fide reincarnation with it. This is all just one big snow-job.”

The child was silent. But she had not taken her eyes from him; her eyes burned, cold and bright, unwinking.

Leo said, “Come on, Palmer; what does Chew-Z
really
do?”

“I told you.” The child’s voice was harsh.

“This is not even as real as Perky Pat, as the use of our own drug. And even
that
is open to the question as regards the validity of the experience, its authenticity versus it as purely hypnogogic or hallucinatory. So obviously there won’t be any discussion about this; it’s patently the latter.”

“No,” the child said. “And you better believe me, because if you don’t you won’t get out of this world alive.”

“You can’t die in a hallucination,” Leo said. “Any more than you can be born again. I’m going back to P. P. Layouts.” Once more he started toward the stairs.

“Go ahead and climb,” the child said from behind him. “See if I care. Wait and see where it gets you.”

Leo climbed the stairs, and passed through the luminous hoop.

Blinding, ferociously hot sunlight descended on him; he scuttled from the open street to a nearby doorway for shelter.

A jet cab, from the towering high buildings, swooped down, spying him. “A ride, sir? Better get indoors; it’s almost noon.”

Gasping, almost unable to breathe, Leo said, “Yes, thanks. Take me to P. P. Layouts.” He unsteadily got into the cab, and fell back at once against the seat, panting in the coolness provided by its antithermal shield.

The cab took off. Presently it was descending at the enclosed field of his company’s central building.

As soon as he reached his outer office he said to Miss Gleason, “Get hold of Mayerson. Find out why he didn’t do anything to rescue me.”

“Rescue you?” Miss Gleason said, in consternation. “What was the matter, Mr. Bulero?” She followed him to the inner office. “Where were you and in what way—”

“Just get Mayerson.” He seated himself at his familiar desk, relieved to be back here. The hell with Palmer Eldritch, he said to himself, and reached into the desk drawer for his favorite English briar pipe and half-pound can of Sail tobacco, a Dutch cavendish mix.

He was busy lighting his pipe when the door opened and Barney Mayerson appeared, looking sheepish and worn.

“Well?” Leo said. He puffed energetically on his pipe.

Barney said, “I—” He turned to Miss Fugate, who had come in after him; gesturing, he turned again to Leo and said, “Anyhow you’re back.”

“Of course I’m back. I built myself a stairway to here. Aren’t you going to answer as to why you didn’t do anything? I guess not. But as you say, you weren’t needed. I’ve now got an idea of what this new Chew-Z substance is like. It’s definitely inferior to Can-D. I have no qualms in saying that emphatically. You can tell without doubt that it’s merely a hallucinogenic experience you’re undergoing. Now let’s get down to business. Eldritch has sold Chew-Z to the UN by claiming that it induces genuine reincarnation, which ratifies the religious convictions of more than half the governing members of the General Assembly, plus that Indian skunk Hepburn-Gilbert himself. It’s a fraud, because Chew-Z doesn’t do that. But the worst aspect of Chew-Z is the solipsistic quality. With Can-D you undergo a valid interpersonal experience, in that the others in your hovel are—” He paused irritably. “What is it, Miss Fugate? What are you staring at?”