The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (4 page)

No one followed him; Tod and Helen Morris had gone over to inspect their own garden, now, and Norm Schein was busy pulling the protective wrapper from the dredge, preparatory to starting it up.

Back below, Sam Regan hunted up Fran Schein; he found her crouched at the Perky Pat layout which the Morrises and the Scheins maintained together, intent on what she was doing.

Without looking up, Fran said, “We’ve got Perky Pat all the way downtown in her new Ford hardtop convert and parked and a dime in the meter and she’s shopped and now she’s in the analyst’s office reading
Fortune
. But what does she pay?” She glanced up, smoothed back her long dark hair, and smiled at him. Beyond a doubt Fran was the handsomest and most dramatic person in their collective hovel; he observed this now, and not for anything like the first time.

He said, “How can you fuss with that layout and not chew—” He glanced around; the two of them appeared to be alone. Bending down he said softly to her, “Come on and we’ll chew some first-rate Can-D. Like you and I did before. Okay?” His heart labored as he waited for her to answer; recollections of the last time the two of them had been translated in unison made him feel weak.

“Helen Morris will be—”

“No, they’re cranking up the dredge, above. They won’t be back down for an hour.” He took hold of Fran by the hand, led her to her feet. “What arrives in a plain brown wrapper,” he said as he steered her from the compartment out into the corridor, “should be used, not just buried. It gets old and stale. Loses its potency.” And we pay a lot for that potency, he thought morbidly. Too much to let it go to waste. Although some—not in this hovel—claimed that the power to insure translation did not come from the Can-D but from the accuracy of the layout. To him this was a nonsensical view, and yet it had its adherents.

As they hurriedly entered Sam Regan’s compartment Fran said, “I’ll chew in unison with you, Sam, but let’s not do anything while we’re there on Terra that—you know. We wouldn’t do here. I mean, just because we’re Pat and Walt and not ourselves that doesn’t give us license.” She gave him a warning frown, reproving him for his former conduct and for leading her to that yet unasked.

“Then you admit we really go to Earth.” They had argued this point—and it was cardinal—many times in the past. Fran tended to take the position that the translation was one of appearance only, of what the colonists called
accidents
—the mere outward manifestations of the places and objects involved, not the essences.

“I believe,” Fran said slowly, as she disengaged her fingers from his and stood by the hall door of the compartment, “that whether it’s a play of imagination, of drug-induced hallucination, or an actual translation from Mars to Earth-as-it-was by an agency we know nothing of—” Again she eyed him sternly. “I think we should abstain. In order not to contaminate the experience of communication.” As she watched him carefully remove the metal bed from the wall and reach, with an elongated hook, into the cavity revealed, she said, “It should be a purifying experience. We lose our fleshly bodies, our corporeality, as they say. And put on imperishable bodies instead, for a time anyhow. Or forever, if you believe as some do that it’s outside of time and space, that it’s eternal. Don’t you agree, Sam?” She sighed. “I know you don’t.”

“Spirituality,” he said with disgust as he fished up the packet of Can-D from its cavity beneath the compartment. “A denial of reality, and what do you get instead? Nothing.”

“I admit,” Fran said as she came closer to watch him open the packet, “that I can’t
prove
you get anything better back, due to abstention. But I do know this. What you and other sensualists among us don’t realize is that when we chew Can-D and leave our bodies
we die
. And by dying we lose the weight of—” She hesitated.

“Say it,” Sam said as he opened the packet; with a knife he cut a strip from the mass of brown, tough, plant-like fibers.

Fran said, “Sin.”

Sam Regan howled with laughter. “Okay—at least you’re orthodox.” Because most colonists would agree with Fran. “But,” he said, redepositing the packet back in its safe place, “that’s not why I chew it; I don’t want to lose anything…I want to gain something.” He shut the door of the compartment, then swiftly got out his own Perky Pat layout, spread it on the floor, and put each object in place, working at eager speed. “Something to which we’re not normally entitled,” he added, as if Fran didn’t know.

Her husband—or his wife or both of them or everyone in the entire hovel—could show up while he and Fran were in the state of translation. And their two bodies would be seated at proper distance one from the other; no wrong-doing could be observed, however prurient the observers were. Legally this had been ruled on; no cohabitation could be proved, and legal experts among the ruling UN authorities on Mars and the other colonies had tried—and failed. While translated one could commit incest, murder, anything, and it remained from a juridical standpoint a mere fantasy, an impotent wish only.

This highly interesting fact had long inured him to the use of Can-D; for him life on Mars had few blessings.

“I think,” Fran said, “you’re tempting me to do wrong.” As she seated herself she looked sad; her eyes, large and dark, fixed futilely on a spot at the center of the layout, near Perky Pat’s enormous wardrobe. Absently, Fran began to fool with a mink sable coat, not speaking.

He handed her half of a strip of Can-D, then popped his own portion into his mouth and chewed greedily.

Still looking mournful, Fran also chewed.

He was Walt. He owned a Jaguar XXB sports ship with a flatout velocity of fifteen thousand miles an hour. His shirts came from Italy and his shoes were made in England. As he opened his eyes he looked for the little G.E. clock TV set by his bed; it would be on automatically, tuned to the morning show of the great newsclown Jim Briskin. In his flaming red wig Briskin was already forming on the screen. Walt sat up, touched a button which swung his bed, altered to support him in a sitting position, and lay back to watch for a moment the program in progress.

“I’m standing here at the corner of Van Ness and Market in downtown San Francisco,” Briskin said pleasantly, “and we’re just about to view the opening of the exciting new subsurface conapt building Sir Francis Drake, the first to be
entirely underground
. With us, to dedicate the building, standing right by me is that enchanting female of ballad and—”

Walt shut off the TV, rose, and walked barefoot to the window; he drew the shades, saw out then onto the warm sparkling early-morning San Francisco street, the hills and white houses. This was Saturday morning and he did not have to go to his job down in Palo Alto at Ampex Corporation; instead—and this rang nicely in his mind—he had a date with his girl, Pat Christensen, who had a modern little apt over on Potrero Hill.

It was always Saturday.

In the bathroom he splashed his face with water, then squirted on shave cream, and began to shave. And, while he shaved, staring into the mirror at his familiar features, he saw a note tacked up, in his own hand.

THIS IS AN ILLUSION. YOU ARE SAM REGAN, A COLONIST ON MARS. MAKE USE OF YOUR TIME OF TRANSLATION, BUDDY BOY. CALL UP PAT PRONTO!

And the note was signed Sam Regan.

An illusion, he thought, pausing in his shaving. In what way? He tried to think back; Sam Regan and Mars, a dreary colonists’ hovel…yes, he could dimly make the image out, but it seemed remote and vitiated and not convincing. Shrugging, he resumed shaving, puzzled, now, and a little depressed. All right, suppose the note was correct; maybe he did remember that other world, that gloomy quasi-life of involuntary expatriation in an unnatural environment. So what? Why did he have to wreck this? Reaching, he yanked down the note, crumpled it and dropped it into the bathroom disposal chute.

As soon as he had finished shaving he vidphoned Pat.

“Listen,” she said at once, cool and crisp; on the screen her blonde hair shimmered: she had been drying it. “I don’t want to see you, Walt. Please. Because I know what you have in mind and I’m just not interested; do you understand?” Her blue-gray eyes were cold.

“Hmm,” he said, shaken, trying to think of an answer. “But it’s a terrific day—we ought to get outdoors. Visit Golden Gate Park, maybe.”

“It’s going to be too hot to go outdoors.”

“No,” he disagreed, nettled. “That’s later. Hey, we could walk along the beach, splash around in the waves. Okay?”

She wavered, visibly. “But that conversation we had just before—”

“There was no conversation. I haven’t seen you in a week, not since last Saturday.” He made his tone as firm and full of conviction as possible. “I’ll drop by your place in half an hour and pick you up. Wear your swimsuit, you know, the yellow one. The Spanish one that has a halter.”

“Oh,” she said disdainfully, “that’s completely out of fash now. I have a new one from Sweden; you haven’t seen it. I’ll wear that, if it’s permitted. The girl at A & F wasn’t sure.”

“It’s a deal,” he said, and rang off.

A half hour later in his Jaguar he landed on the elevated field of her conapt building.

Pat wore a sweater and slacks; the swimsuit, she explained, was on underneath. Carrying a picnic basket, she followed him up the ramp to his parked ship. Eager and pretty, she hurried ahead of him, pattering along in her sandals. It was all working out as he had hoped; this was going to be a swell day after all, after his initial trepidations had evaporated…as thank God they had.

“Wait until you see this swimsuit,” she said as she slid into the parked ship, the basket on her lap. “It’s really daring; it hardly exists: actually you sort of have to have faith to believe in it.” As he got in beside her she leaned against him. “I’ve been thinking over that conversation we had—let me finish.” She put her fingers against his lips, silencing him. “I
know
it took place, Walt. But in a way you’re right; in fact basically you have the proper attitude. We should try to obtain as much from this as possible. Our time is short enough as it is…at least so it seems to me.” She smiled wanly. “So drive as fast as you can; I want to get to the ocean.”

Almost at once they were setting down in the parking lot at the edge of the beach.

“It’s going to be hotter,” Pat said soberly. “Every day. Isn’t it? Until finally it’s unbearable.” She tugged off her sweater, then, shifting about on the seat of the ship, managed to struggle out of her slacks. “But we won’t live that long…it’ll be another fifty years before no one can go outside at noon. Like they say, become mad dogs and Englishmen; we’re not that yet.” She opened the door and stepped out in her swimsuit. And she had been correct; it took faith in things unseen to make the suit out at all. It was perfectly satisfactory, to both of them.

Together, he and she plodded along the wet, hard-packed sand, examining jelly fish, shells, and pebbles, the debris tossed up by the waves.

“What year is this?” Pat asked him suddenly, halting. The wind blew her untied hair back; it lifted in a mass of cloudlike yellow, clear and bright and utterly clean, each strand separate.

He said, “Well, I guess it’s—” And then he could not recall; it eluded him. “Damn,” he said crossly.

“Well, it doesn’t matter.” Linking arms with him she trudged on. “Look, there’s that little secluded spot ahead, past those rocks.” She increased her tempo of motion; her body rippled as her strong, taut muscles strained against the wind and the sand and the old, familiar gravity of a world lost long ago. “Am I what’s-her-name—Fran?” she asked suddenly. She stepped past the rocks, foam and water rolled over her feet, her ankles; laughing, she leaped, shivered from the sudden chill. “Or am I Patricia Christensen?” With both hands she smoothed her hair. “This is blonde, so I must be Pat. Perky Pat.” She disappeared beyond the rocks; he quickly followed, scrambling after her. “I used to be Fran,” she said over her shoulder, “but that doesn’t matter now. I could have been anyone before, Fran or Helen or Mary, and it wouldn’t matter now. Right?”

“No,” he disagreed, catching up with her. Panting, he said, “It’s important that you’re Fran. In essence.”

“ ‘In essence.’ ” She threw herself down on the sand, lay resting on her elbow, drawing by means of a sharp black rock in savage swipes which left deeply gouged lines; almost at once she tossed the rock away, and sat around to face the ocean. “But the accidents…they’re Pat.” She put her hands beneath her breasts, then, languidly lifting them, a puzzled expression on her face. “These,” she said, “are Pat’s. Not mine. Mine are smaller; I remember.”

He seated himself beside her, saying nothing.

“We’re here,” she said presently, “to do what we can’t do back at the hovel. Back where we’ve left our corruptible bodies. As long as we keep our layouts in repair this—” She gestured at the ocean, then once more touched herself, unbelievingly. “It can’t decay, can it? We’ve put on immortality.” All at once she lay back, flat against the sand, and shut her eyes, one arm over her face. “And since we’re here, and we can do things denied us at the hovel, then your theory is we
ought
to do those things. We ought to take advantage of the opportunity.”

He leaned over her, bent and kissed her on the mouth.

Inside his mind a voice thought, “But I can do this any time.” And, in the limbs of his body, an alien mastery asserted itself; he sat back, away from the girl. “After all,” Norm Schein thought, “I’m married to her.” He laughed, then.

“Who said you could use my layout?” Sam Regan thought angrily. “Get out of my compartment. And I bet it’s my Can-D, too.”

“You offered it to us,” the co-inhabitant of his mind-body answered. “So I decided to take you up on it.”

“I’m here, too,” Tod Morris thought. “And if you want my opinion—”

“Nobody asked you for yours,” Norm Schein thought angrily. “In fact nobody asked you to come along; why don’t you go back up and mess with that rundown no-good garden of yours, where you ought to be?”

Tod Morris thought calmly, “I’m with Sam. I don’t get a chance to do this, except here.” The power of his will combined with Sam’s; once more Walt bent over the reclining girl; once again he kissed her on the mouth, and this time heavily, with increased agitation.