The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (3 page)

“I’d enjoy trying it sometime,” Miss Jurgens said. She glanced about, lowered her voice, and leaned toward him. “But it’s illegal.”

“It is?” He stared at her.

“You know it is.” The girl looked nettled.

“Listen,” Leo said. “I can get you some.” He would, of course, chew it with her; in concert the users’ minds fused, became a new unity—or at least that was the experience. A few sessions of Can-D chewing in togetherness and he would know all there was to know about Pia Jurgens; there was something about her—beyond the obvious physical, anatomical enormity—that fascinated him; he yearned to be closer to her. “We won’t use a layout.” By an irony he, the creator and manufacturer of the Perky Pat micro-world, preferred to use Can-D in a vacuum; what did a Terran have to gain from a layout, inasmuch as it was a min of the conditions obtaining in the average Terran city? For settlers on a howling, gale-swept moon, huddled at the bottom of a hovel against frozen methane crystals and things, it was something else again; Perky Pat and her layout were an entree back to the world they had been born to. But he, Leo Bulero, he was damn tired of the world he had been born to and still dwelt on. And even Winnie-ther-Pooh Acres, with all its quaint and not-so-quaint diversions did not fill the void. However—

“That Can-D,” he said to Miss Jurgens, “is great stuff, and no wonder it’s banned. It’s like religion; Can-D is the religion of the colonists.” He chuckled. “One plug of it, wouzzled for fifteen minutes, and—” He made a sweeping gesture. “No more hovel. No more frozen methane. It provides a reason for living. Isn’t that worth the risk and expense?”

But what is there of equal value for us? he asked himself, and felt melancholy. He had, by manufacturing the Perky Pat layouts and raising and distributing the lichen-base for the final packaged product Can-D, made life bearable for over one million unwilling expatriates from Terra. But what the hell did he get back? My life, he thought, is dedicated to others, and I’m beginning to kick; it’s not enough. There was his satellite, where Scotty waited; there existed as always the tangled details of his two large business operations, the one legal, the other not…but wasn’t there more in life than this?

He did not know. Nor did anyone else, because like Barney Mayerson they were all engaged in their various imitations of him. Barney with his Miss Rondinella Fugate, small-time replica of Leo Bulero and Miss Jurgens. Wherever he looked it was the same; probably even Ned Lark, the Narcotics Bureau chief, lived this sort of life—probably so did Hepburn-Gilbert, who probably kept a pale, tall Swedish starlet with breasts the size of bowling balls—and equally firm. Even Palmer Eldritch. No, he realized suddenly. Not Palmer Eldritch; he’s found something else. For ten years he’s been in the Prox system or at least coming and going.
What did he find?
Something worth the effort, worth the terminal crash on Pluto?

“You saw the homeopapes?” he asked Miss Jurgens. “About the ship on Pluto? There’s a man in a billion, that Eldritch. No one else like him.”

“I read,” Miss Jurgens said, “that he was practically a nut.”

“Sure. Ten years out of his life, all that agony, and for what?”

“You can be sure he got a good return for the ten years,” Miss Jurgens said. “He’s crazy but smart; he looks out for himself, like everyone else does. He’s not
that
nuts.”

“I’d like to meet him,” Leo Bulero said. “Talk to him, even if only just a minute.” He resolved, then, to do that, go to the hospital where Palmer Eldritch lay, force or buy his way into the man’s room, learn what he had found.

“I used to think,” Miss Jurgens said, “that when the ships first left our system for another star—remember that?—we’d hear that—” She hesitated. “It’s so silly, but I was only a kid then, when Arnoldson made his first trip to Prox and back; I was a kid when he got
back
, I mean. I actually thought maybe by going that far he’d—” She ducked her head, not meeting Leo Bulero’s gaze. “He’d find God.”

Leo thought, I thought so, too. And I was an adult, then. In my mid-thirties. As I’ve mentioned to Barney on numerous occasions.

And, he thought, I still believe that, even now. About the ten-year-flight of Palmer Eldritch.

After lunch, back in his office at P. P. Layouts, he met Rondinella Fugate for the first time; she was waiting for him when he arrived.

Not bad-looking, he thought as he shut the office door. Nice figure, and what glorious, luminous eyes. She seemed nervous; she crossed her legs, smoothed her skirt, watched him furtively as he seated himself at his desk facing her. Very young, Leo realized. A child who would speak up and contradict her superior when she thought he was wrong. Touching…

“Do you know why you’re here in my office?” he inquired.

“I guess you’re angry because I contradicted Mr. Mayerson. But I really experienced the futurity in the life-line of those ceramics. So what else could I do?” She half-rose imploringly, then reseated herself.

Leo said, “I believe you. But Mr. Mayerson is sensitive. If you’re living with him, you know he has a portable psychiatrist that he lugs wherever he goes.” Opening his desk drawer he got out his box of Cuesta Reys, the very finest; he offered the box to Miss Fugate, who gratefully accepted one of the slender dark cigars. He, too, took a cigar; he lit hers and then his, and leaned back in his chair. “You know who Palmer Eldritch is?”

“Yes.”

“Can you use your precog powers for something other than Pre-Fash foresight? In another month or so the homeopapes will be routinely mentioning Eldritch’s location. I’d like you to look ahead to those ’papes and then tell me where the man is at this moment. I know you can do it.” You had better be able to, he said to himself, if you want to keep your job here. He waited, smoking his cigar, watching the girl and thinking to himself, with a trace of envy, that if she was as good in bed as she looked—

Miss Fugate said in a soft, halting voice, “I get only the most vague impression, Mr. Bulero.”

“Well, let’s hear it anyhow.” He reached for a pen.

It took her several minutes, and, as she reiterated, her impression was not distinct. Nonetheless he presently had on his note pad the words: James Riddle Veterans’ Hospital, Base III, Ganymede. A UN establishment, of course. But he had anticipated that. It was not decisive; he still might be able to find a way in.

“And he’s not there under that name,” Miss Fugate said, pale and enervated from the effort of foreseeing; she relit her cigar, which had gone out; sitting straighter in her chair, she once more crossed her supple legs. “The homeopapes will say that Eldritch was listed in the hospital records as a Mr.—” She paused, squeezed her eyes shut, and sighed. “Oh hell,” she said. “I can’t make it out. One syllable. Frent. Brent. No, I think it’s Trent. Yes, it’s Eldon Trent.” She smiled in relief; her large eyes sparkled with naïve, childlike pleasure. “They really have gone to a lot of trouble to keep him hidden. And they’re interrogating him, the ’papes will say. So obviously he’s conscious.” She frowned then, all at once. “Wait. I’m looking at a headline; I’m in my own conapt, by myself. It’s early morning and I’m reading the front page. Oh dear.”

“What’s it say?” Leo demanded, bending rigidly forward; he could catch the girl’s dismay.

Miss Fugate whispered, “The headlines say that Palmer Eldritch is dead.” She blinked, looked around her with amazement, then slowly focused on him; she regarded him with a confused mixture of fear and uncertainty, almost palpably edging back; she retreated from him, huddled against her chair, her fingers interlocked. “And you’re accused of having done it, Mr. Bulero. Honest; that’s what the headline says.”

“You mean I’m going to
murder
him?”

She nodded. “But—it’s not a certainty; I only pick it up in some of the futures…do you understand? I mean, we precogs see—” She gestured.

“I know.” He was familiar with precogs; Barney Mayerson had, after all, worked for P. P. Layouts thirteen years, and some of the others even longer. “It could happen,” he said gratingly. Why would I do a thing like that? he asked himself. No way to tell now. Perhaps after he reached Eldritch, talked to him…as evidently he would.

Miss Fugate said, “I don’t think you ought to try to contact Mr. Eldritch in view of this possible future; don’t you agree, Mr. Bulero? I mean, the risk is there—it hangs very large. About—I’d guess—in the neighborhood of forty.”

“What’s ‘forty’?”

“Percent. Almost half the possibilities.” Now, more composed, she smoked her cigar and faced him; her eyes, dark and intense, flickered as she regarded him, undoubtedly speculating with vast curiosity why he would do such a thing.

Rising, he walked to the door of the office. “Thank you, Miss Fugate; I appreciate your assistance in this matter.” He waited, indicating clearly his expectations that she would leave.

However, Miss Fugate remained seated. He was encountering the same peculiar streak of firmness that had upset Barney Mayerson. “Mr. Bulero,” she said quietly, “I think I’d really have to go to the UN police about this. We precogs—”

He reshut the office door. “You precogs,” he said, “are too preoccupied with other people’s lives.” But she had him. He wondered what she would manage to do with her knowledge.

“Mr. Mayerson may be drafted,” Miss Fugate said. “You knew that, of course. Are you going to try to influence them to let him off?”

Candidly, he said, “I had some intentions in the direction of helping him beat it, yes.”

“Mr. Bulero,” she said in a small, steady voice, “I’ll make a deal with you. Let them draft him. And then I’ll be your New York Pre-Fash consultant.” She waited; Leo Bulero said nothing. “What do you say?” she asked. Obviously she was unaccustomed to such negotiations. However, she intended to make it stick if possible; after all, he reflected, everyone, even the smartest operator, had to begin somewhere. Perhaps he was seeing the initial phase of what would be a brilliant career.

And then he remembered something. Remembered why she had been transferred from the Peking office to come here to New York as Barney Mayerson’s assistant. Her predictions had proved erratic. Some of them—too many of them, in fact—had proved erroneous.

Perhaps her preview of the headline relating his indictment as the alleged murderer of Palmer Eldritch—assuming that she was being truthful, that she had really experienced it—was only another of her errors. The faulty precognition which had brought her here.

Aloud he said, “Let me think it over. Give me a couple of days.”

“Until tomorrow morning,” Miss Fugate said firmly.

Leo laughed. “I see why Barney was so riled up.” And Barney probably sensed with his own precog faculty, at least nebulously, that Miss Fugate was going to make a decisive strike at him, jeopardizing his whole position. “Listen.” He walked over to her. “You’re Mayerson’s mistress. How’d you like to give that up? I can offer you the use of an entire satellite.” Assuming, of course, that he could pry Scotty out of there.

“No thank you,” Miss Fugate said.

“Why?” He was amazed. “Your career—”

“I like Mr. Mayerson,” she said. “And I don’t particularly care for bub—” She caught herself. “Men who’ve evolved in those clinics.”

Again he opened the office door. “I’ll let you know by tomorrow morning.” As he watched her pass through the doorway and out into the receptionist’s office he thought, That’ll give me time to reach Ganymede and Palmer Eldritch; I’ll know more, then. Know if your foresight seems spurious or not.

Shutting the door behind the girl, he turned at once to his desk, and clicked the vidphone button connecting him with the outside. To the New York City operator he said, “Get me the James Riddle Veterans’ Hospital at Base III on Ganymede; I want to speak to a Mr. Eldon Trent, a patient there. Person to person.” He gave his name and number, then rang off, jiggled the hook, and dialed Kennedy Spaceport.

He booked passage for the express ship leaving New York for Ganymede that evening, then paced about his office, waiting for the call-back from James Riddle Veterans’ Hospital.

Bubblehead, he thought. She’d call even her employer that.

Ten minutes later the call came.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Bulero,” the operator apologized. “Mr. Trent is not receiving calls, by doctors’ orders.”

So Rondinella Fugate was right; an Eldon Trent did exist at James Riddle and in all probability he was Palmer Eldritch. It was certainly worth making the trip; the odds looked good.

—Looked good, he thought wryly, that I’ll encounter Eldritch, have some kind of altercation with him, God knows what, and eventually bring about his death. A man that at this point in time I don’t even know. And I’ll find myself arraigned; I won’t get away with it. What a prospect.

But his curiosity was aroused. In all his manifold operations he had never found the need of killing anyone under any circumstances. Whatever it was that would occur between him and Palmer Eldritch had to be unique; definitely a trip to Ganymede was indicated.

It would be difficult to turn back now. Because he had the acute intuition that this would turn out to be what he hoped. And Rondinella Fugate had only said that he would be accused of the murder; there was no datum as to a successful conviction.

Convicting a man of his stature of a capital crime, even through the UN authorities, would take some doing.

He was willing to let them try.

THREE

In a bar hard by P. P. Layouts, Richard Hnatt sat sipping a Tequila Sour, his display case on the table before him. He knew goddamn well there was nothing wrong with Emily’s pots; her work was saleable. The problem had to do with her ex-husband and his position of power.

And Barney Mayerson had exercised that power.

I have to call Emily and tell her, Hnatt said to himself. He started to his feet.

A man blocked his way, a peculiar round specimen mounted on spindly legs.

“Who are you?” Hnatt said.

The man bobbed toylike in front of him, meanwhile digging into his pocket as if scratching at a familiar microorganism that possessed parasitic proclivities that had survived the test of time. However, what he produced at last was a business card. “We’re interested in your ceramic ware, Mr. Hatt. Natt. However you say it.”

“Icholtz,” Hnatt said, reading the card; it gave only the name, no further info, not even a vidnumber. “But what I have with me are just samples. I’ll give you the names of retail outlets stocking our line. But these—”

“Are for minning,” the toylike man, Mr. Icholtz, said, nodding. “And that’s what we want. We intend to min your ceramics, Mr. Hnatt; we believe that Mayerson is wrong—they will become fash, and very soon.”

Hnatt stared at him. “You want to min, and you’re not from P. P. Layouts?” But no one else minned. Everyone knew P. P. Layouts had a monopoly.

Seating himself at the table beside the display case, Mr. Icholtz brought out his wallet and began counting out skins. “Very little publicity will be attached to this at first. But eventually—” He offered Hnatt the stack of brown, wrinkled, truffle-skins which served as tender in the Sol system: the only molecule, a unique protein amino acid, which could not be duplicated by the Printers, the Biltong life forms employed in place of automated assembly lines by many of Terra’s industries.

“I’ll have to check with my wife,” Hnatt said.

“Aren’t you the representative of your firm?”

“Y-yes.” He accepted the pile of skins.

“The contract.” Icholtz produced a document, spread it flat on the table; he extended a pen. “It gives us an exclusive.”

As he bent to sign, Richard Hnatt saw the name of Icholtz’ firm on the contract. Chew-Z Manufacturers of Boston. He had never heard of them. Chew-Z…it reminded him of another product, exactly which he could not recall. It was only after he had signed and Icholtz was tearing loose his copy that he remembered.

The illegal hallucinogenic drug Can-D, used in the colonies in conjunction with the Perky Pat layouts.

He had an intuition compounded by deep unease. But it was too late to back out. Icholtz was gathering up the display case; the contents belonged to Chew-Z Manufacturers of Boston, U.S.A., Terra, now.

“How—can I get in touch with you?” Hnatt asked, as Icholtz started away from the table.

“You won’t be getting in touch with us. If we want you we’ll call you.” Icholtz smiled briefly.

How in hell was he going to tell Emily? Hnatt counted the skins, read the contract, realized by degrees exactly how much Icholtz had paid him; it was enough to provide him and Emily with a five-day vacation in Antarctica, at one of the great, cool resort cities frequented by the rich of Terra, where no doubt Leo Bulero and others like him spent the summer…and these days summer lasted all year round.

Or—he pondered. It could do even more; it could get himself and his wife into the most exclusive establishment on the planet—assuming he and Emily wanted it. They could fly to the Germanies and enter one of Dr. Willy Denkmal’s E Therapy clinics. Wowie, he thought.

He shut himself up in the bar’s vidphone booth and called Emily. “Pack your bag. We’re going to Munich. To—” He picked the name of a clinic at random; he had seen this one advertised in exclusive Paris magazines. “To Eichenwald,” he told her. “Dr. Denkmal is—”

“Barney took them,” Emily said.

“No. But there’s someone else in the field of minning, now, besides P. P. Layouts.” He felt elated. “So Barney turned us down; so what? We did better with this new outfit; they must have plenty. I’ll see you in half an hour; I’ll arrange for accommodations on TWA’s express flight. Think of it: E Therapy for both of us.”

In a low voice Emily said, “I’m not sure I want to evolve, when it comes right down to it.”

Staggered, he said, “Sure you do. I mean, it could save our lives, and if not ours then our kids’—our potential kids that we might be having, someday. And even if we’re only there a short time and only evolve a little, look at the doors it’ll open to us; we’ll be personae gratae everywhere. Do
you
personally know anyone who’s had E Therapy? You read about so-and-so in the homeopapes all the time, society people…but—”

“I don’t want that hair all over me,” Emily said. “And I don’t want to have my head expand. No. I won’t go to Eichenwald Clinic.” She sounded completely decided; her face was placid.

He said, “Then I’ll go alone.” It would still be of economic value; after all, it was he who dealt with buyers. And he could stay at the clinic twice as long, evolve twice as much…assuming that the treatments took. Some people did not respond, but that was hardly Dr. Denkmal’s fault; the capacity for evolution was not bestowed on everyone alike. About himself he felt certitude; he’d evolve remarkably, catch up with the big shots, even pass some of them, in terms of the familiar horny rind which Emily out of mistaken prejudice had called “hair.”

“What am I supposed to do while you’re gone? Just make pots?”

“Right,” he said. Because orders would be arriving thick and fast; otherwise Chew-Z Manufacturers of Boston would have no interest in the min. Obviously they employed their own Pre-Fash precogs as P. P. Layouts did. But then he remembered; Icholtz had said
very little publicity at first
. That meant, he realized, that the new firm had no network of disc jockeys circling the colony moons and planets; unlike P. P. Layouts, they had no Allen and Charlotte Faine to flash the news to.

But it took time to set up disc jockey satellites. This was natural.

And yet it made him uneasy. He thought all at once in panic, Could they be an illegal firm? Maybe Chew-Z, like Can-D, is banned; maybe I’ve got us into something dangerous.

“Chew-Z,” he said aloud to Emily. “Ever heard of it?”

“No.”

He got the contract out and once more examined it. What a mess, he thought. How’d I get into it? If only that damn Mayerson had said yes on the pots…

At ten in the morning a terrific horn, familiar to him, hooted Sam Regan out of his sleep, and he cursed the UN ship upstairs; he knew the racket was deliberate. The ship, circling above the hovel Chicken Pox Prospects, wanted to be certain that colonists—and not merely indigenous animals—got the parcels that were to be dropped.

We’ll get them, Sam Regan muttered to himself as he zipped his insulated overalls, put his feet into high boots, and then grumpily sauntered as slowly as possible toward the ramp.

“He’s early today,” Tod Morris complained. “And I’ll bet it’s all staples, sugar and food-basics like lard—nothing interesting such as, say, candy.”

Putting his shoulders against the lid at the top of the ramp, Norman Schein pushed; bright cold sunlight spilled down on them and they blinked.

The UN ship sparkled overhead, set against the black sky as if hanging from an uneasy thread. Good pilot, this drop, Tod decided. Knows the Fineburg Crescent area. He waved at the UN ship and once more the huge horn burst out its din, making him clap his hands to his ears.

A projectile slid from the under part of the ship, extended stabilizers, and spiraled toward the ground.

“Sheoot,” Sam Regan said with disgust. “It is staples; they don’t have the parachute.” He turned away, not interested.

How miserable the upstairs looked today, he thought as he surveyed the landscape of Mars. Dreary. Why did we come here? Had to, were forced to.

Already the UN projectile had landed; its hull cracked open, torn by the impact, and the three colonists could see cannisters. It looked to be five hundred pounds of salt. Sam Regan felt even more despondent.

“Hey,” Schein said, walking toward the projectile and peering. “I believe I see something we can use.”

“Looks like radios in those boxes,” Tod said. “Transistor radios.” Thoughtfully he followed after Schein. “Maybe we can use them for something new in our layouts.”

“Mine’s already got a radio,” Schein said.

“Well, build an electronic self-directing lawn mower with the parts,” Tod said. “You don’t have that, do you?” He knew the Scheins’ Perky Pat layout fairly well; the two couples, he and his wife with Schein and his, had fused together a good deal, being compatible.

Sam Regan said, “Dibs on the radios, because I can use them.” His layout lacked the automatic garage-door opener that both Schein and Tod had; he was considerably behind them. Of course all those items could be purchased. But he was out of skins. He had used his complete supply in the service of a need which he considered more pressing. He had, from a pusher, bought a fairly large quantity of Can-D; it was buried, hidden out of sight, in the earth under his sleep-compartment at the bottom level of their collective hovel.

He himself was a believer; he affirmed the miracle of translation—the near-sacred moment in which the miniature artifacts of the layout no longer merely represented Earth but
became
Earth. And he and the others, joined together in the fusion of doll-inhabitation by means of the Can-D, were transported outside of time and local space. Many of the colonists were as yet unbelievers; to them the layouts were merely symbols of a world which none of them could any longer experience. But, one by one, the unbelievers came around.

Even now, so early in the morning, he yearned to go back down below, chew a slice of Can-D from his hoard, and join with his fellows in the most solemn moment of which they were capable.

To Tod and Norm Schein he said, “Either of you care to seek transit?” That was the technical term they used for participation. “I’m going back below,” he said. “We can use my Can-D; I’ll share it with you.”

An inducement like that could not be ignored; both Tod and Norm looked tempted. “So early?” Norm Schein said. “We just got out of bed. But I guess there’s nothing to do anyhow.” He kicked glumly at a huge semi-autonomic sand dredge; it had remained parked near the entrance of the hovel for days now. No one had the energy to come up to the surface and resume the clearing operations inaugurated earlier in the month. “It seems wrong, though,” he muttered. “We ought to be up here working in our gardens.”

“And that’s some garden you’ve got,” Sam Regan said, with a grin. “What is that stuff you’ve got growing there? Got a name for it?”

Norm Schein, hands in the pockets of his coveralls, walked over the sandy, loose soil with its sparse vegetation to his once carefully maintained vegetable garden; he paused to look up and down the rows, hopeful that more of the specially prepared seeds had sprouted. None had.

“Swiss chard,” Tod said encouragingly. “Right? Mutated as it is, I can still recognize the leaves.”

Breaking off a leaf Norm chewed it, then spat it out; the leaf was bitter and coated with sand.

Now Helen Morris emerged from the hovel, shivering in the cold Martian sunlight. “We have a question,” she said to the three men. “I say that psychoanalysts back on Earth were charging fifty dollars an hour and Fran says it was for only forty-five minutes.” She explained, “We want to add an analyst to our layout and we want to get it right, because it’s an authentic item, made on Earth and shipped here, if you remember that Bulero ship that came by last week—”

“We remember,” Norm Schein said sourly. The prices that the Bulero salesman had wanted. And all the time in their satellite Allen and Charlotte Faine talked up the different items so, whetting everyone’s appetite.

“Ask the Faines,” Helen’s husband Tod said. “Radio them the next time the satellite passes over.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “In another hour. They have all the data on authentic items; in fact that particular datum should have been included with the item itself, right in the carton.” It perturbed him because it had of course been his skins—his and Helen’s together—that had gone to pay for the tiny figure of the human-type psychoanalyst, including the couch, desk, carpet, and bookcase of incredibly well-minned impressive books.

“You went to the analyst when you were still on Earth,” Helen said to Norm Schein. “What was the charge?”

“Well, I mostly went to group therapy,” Norm said. “At the Berkeley State Mental Hygiene Clinic, and they charged according to your ability to pay. And of course Perky Pat and her boyfriend go to a private analyst.” He walked down the length of the garden solemnly deeded to him, between the rows of jagged leaves, all of which were to some extent shredded and devoured by microscopic native pests. If he could find one healthy plant, one untouched—it would be enough to restore his spirits. Insecticides from Earth simply had not done the job, here; the native pests thrived. They had been waiting ten thousand years, biding their time, for someone to appear and make an attempt to raise crops.

Tod said, “You better do some watering.”

“Yeah,” Norm Schein agreed. He meandered gloomily in the direction of Chicken Pox Prospects’ hydro-pumping system; it was attached to their now partially sand-filled irrigation network which served all the gardens of their hovel. Before watering came sand-removal, he realized. If they didn’t get the big Class-A dredge started up soon they wouldn’t be able to water even if they wanted to. But he did not particularly want to.

And yet he could not, like Sam Regan, simply turn his back on the scene up there, return below to fiddle with his layout, build or insert new items, make improvements…or, as Sam proposed, actually get out a quantity of the carefully hidden Can-D and begin the communication. We have responsibilities, he realized.

To Helen he said, “Ask my wife to come up here.” She could direct him as he operated the dredge; Fran had a good eye.

“I’ll get her,” Sam Regan agreed, starting back down below. “No one wants to come along?”