The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch

6

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 Can-D is obsolete, because what does it do?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 palpably 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 demesne 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 streetwalker 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 pseudoenvironment. 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 alter 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?”

Roni Fugate murmured, “I’m sorry, Mr. Bulero, but there’s a creature under your desk.”

Bending, Leo peered under the desk.

A thing had squeezed itself between the base of the desk and the floor; its eyes regarded him greenly, unwinking.

“Get out of there,” Leo said. To Barney he said, “Get a yardstick or a broom, something to prod it with.”

Barney left the office.

“Danm it, Miss Fugate,” Leo said, smoking rapidly on his pipe, “I hate to think what that is under there. And what it signifies.” Because it might signify that Eldritch– within the little girl Monica—had been right when she said See if I care. Wait and see where it gets you.

The thing from beneath the desk scuttled out, and made for the door. It squeezed under the door and was gone.

It was even worse than the glucks. He got one good look at it.

Leo said, “Well, that’s that. I’m sorry, Miss Fugate, but you might as well return to your office; there’s no point in our discussing what actions to take toward the imminent appearance of Chew-Z on the market. Because I’m not talking to anyone; I’m sitting here blabbing away to myself.” He felt depressed. Eldritch had him and also the validity, or at least the seeming validity, of the Chew-Z experience had been demonstrated; he himself had confused it with the real. Only the malign bug created by Palmer Eldritch—deliberately—had given it away.

Otherwise, he realized, I might have gone on forever.

Spent a century, as Eldritch said, in this ersatz universe.

Jeez, he thought. I’m licked. “Miss Fugate,” he said, “please don’t just stand there; go back to your office.” He got up, went to the water cooler, and poured himself a paper cup of mineral water. Drinking unreal water for an unreal body, he said to himself. In front of an unreal employee. “Miss Fugate,” he said, “are you really Mr. Mayerson’s mistress?”

“Yes, Mr. Bulero,” Miss Fugate said, nodding. “As I told you.

“And you won’t be mine.” He shook his head. “Because I’m too old and too evolved. You know—or rather you don’t know—that I have at least a limited power in this universe. I could make over my body, make myself young.” Or, he thought, make you old. How would you like that? he wondered. He dank the water, and tossed the cup in the waste chute; not looking at Miss Fugate he said to himself, You’re my age, Miss Fugate. In fact older. Let’s see; you’re about ninety-two, now. In this world, anyhow; you’ve aged, here… time has rolled forward for you because you turned me down and I don’t like being turned down. In fact, he said to himself, you’re over one hundred years old, withered, juiceless, without teeth and eyes. A thing.

Behind him he heard a dry, rasping sound, an intake of breath. And a wavering, shrill voice, like the cry of a frightened bird. “Oh, Mr. Bulero—”

I’ve changed my mind, Leo thought. You’re the way you were; I take it back, okay? He turned, and saw Roni Fugate or at least something standing there where she had last stood. A spider web, gray fungoid strands wrapped one around another to form a brittle column that swayed… he saw the head, sunken at the cheeks, with eyes like dead spots of soft, inert white slime that leaked out gummy, slow-moving tears, eyes that tried to appeal but could not because they could not make out where he was.

“You’re back the way you were,” Leo said harshly, and shut his own eyes. “Tell me when it’s over.”

Footsteps. A man’s. Barney, re-entering the office. “Jesus,” Barney said, and halted.

Eyes shut, Leo said, “Isn’t she back the way she was yet?”

“She? Where’s Roni? What’s this?”

Leo opened his eyes.

It was not Roni Fugate who stood there, not even an ancient manifestation of her; it was a puddle, but not of water. The puddle was alive and in it bits of sharp, jagged gray splinters swam.

The thick, oozing material of the puddle flowed gradually outward, then shuddered, and retracted into itself; in the center the fragments of hard gray matter swam together, and cohered into a roughly shaped ball with tangled, matted strands of hair floating at its crown. Vague eyesockets, empty, formed; it was becoming a skull, but of some life-formation to come: his unconscious desire for her to experience evolution in its horrific aspect had conjured this monstrosity into being.

The jaw clacked, opening and shutting as if jerked by wicked, deeply imbedded wires; drifting here and there in the fluid of the puddle it croaked, “But you see, Mr. Bulero, she didn’t live that long. You forgot that.” It was, remotely but absolutely, the voice—not of Roni Fugate– but Monica, as if drumming at the far-distant end of a waxed string. “You made her past one hundred but she only is going to live to be seventy. So she’s been dead thirty years, except you made her alive; that was what you intended. And even worse—” The toothless jaw waggled and the uninhabited pockets for eyes gaped. “She evolved not while alive, but there in the ground.” The skull ceased piping, then by stages disintegrated; its parts once more floated away and the semblance of organization again dissipated.

After a time Barney said, “Get us out of here, Leo.”

Leo said, “Hey, Palmer.” His voice was uncontrolled, babylike with fear. “Hey, you know what? I give up; I really do.”

The carpet of the office beneath his feet rotted, became mushy, and then sprouted, grew, alive, into green fibers; he saw that it was becoming grass. And then the walls and the ceiling caved in, collapsed into fine dust; the particles rained noiselessly down like ashes. And the blue, cool sky appeared, untouched, above.

Seated on the grass, with the stick in her lap and the suitcase containing Dr. Smile beside her, Monica said, “Did you want Mr. Mayerson to remain? I didn’t think so. I let him go with the rest that you made. Okay?” She smiled up at Leo.

“Okay,” he agreed chokingly. Looking around him he saw now only the plain of green; even the dust which had composed P. P. Layouts, the building and its core of people, had vanished, except for a dim layer that remained on his hands, on his coat; he brushed it off, reflexively.

Monica said, “From dust thou art come, oh man; to dust shalt—’”

“Okay!” he said loudly. “I get it; you don’t have to hammer me over the noggin with it. So it was irreal; so what? I mean, you made your goddamn point, Eldritch; you can do anything here you want, and I’m nothing, I’m just a phantom.” He felt hatred toward Palmer Eldritch and he thought, If I ever get out of here, if I can escape from you, you bastard…

“Now, now,” the girl said, her eyes dancing. “You are not going to use language like that; you really aren’t, because I won’t let you. I won’t even say what I’ll do if you continue, but you know me, Mr. Bulero. Right?”

Leo said, “Right.” He walked off a few steps, got out his handkerchief, and mopped the perspiration from his upper lip and neck, the hollow beneath his adam’s apple where it was so hard, in the mornings, to shave. God, he thought, help me. Will You? And if You do, if You can reach into this world, I’ll do anything, whatever You want; I’m not afraid now, I’m sick. This is going to kill my body, even if it’s just an ectoplasmic, phantom-type body.

Hunched over, he was sick; he vomited onto the grass. For a long time—it seemed a long time—that kept up and then he was better; he was able to turn, and walk slowly back toward the seated child with her suitcase.

“Terms,” the child said flatly. “We’re going to work out an exact business relationship between my company and yours. We need your superb network of ad satellites and your transportation system of late-model interplan ships and your God-knows-how-extensive plantations on Venus; we want everything, Bulero. We’re going to grow the lichen where you now grow Can-D, ship it in the same ships, reach the colonists with the same well-trained, experienced pushers you use, advertise through pros like Allen and Charlotte Faine. Can-D and Chew-Z won’t be competing because there’ll just be the one product, Chew-Z; you’re about to announce your retirement. Understand me, Leo?”

“Sure,” Leo said. “I hear.”

“Will you do it?”

“Okay,” Leo said. And pounced on the child.

His hands closed about her windpipe; he squeezed. She stared into his face, rigidly, her mouth pursed, saying nothing, not even trying to struggle, to claw him or get away. He continued squeezing, for a time so long that it seemed as if his hands had grown fast to her, become fixed in place forever, like gnarled roots of some ancient, diseased, but still-living plant.

When he let go she was dead. Her body settled forward, then twisted and fell to one side, to come to rest supine on the grass. No blood. No sign even of a struggle, except that her throat was a dark, mottled, blackish red.

He stood up, thinking, Well, did I do it? If he–she or it, whatever it is–dies here, does that take care of it?

But the simulated world remained. He had expected it to dwindle away as her—Eldritch’s—life dwindled away.

Puzzled, he stood without moving an inch, sniffing the air, listening to a far-off wind. Nothing had changed except that the girl had died. Why? What ailed the basis on which he had acted? Incredibly, it was wrong.

Bending, he snapped on Dr. Smile. “Explain it to me,” he said.

Obligingly, Dr. Smile tinnily declared, “He is dead here, Mr. Bulero. But at the demesne on Luna—”

“Okay,” Leo said roughly. “Well, tell me how to get out of this place. How do I get back to Luna, to—” He gestured. “You know what I mean. Actuality.”

“At this moment,” Dr. Smile explained, “Palmer Eldritch, although considerably upset and angered, is intravenously providing you with a substance which counters the injectable Chew-Z previously administered; you will return shortly.” It added, “That is, shortly, even instantly, in terms of the time-flow in that world. As to this—” It chuckled. “It could seem longer.”

“How longer?”

“Oh, years,” Dr. Smile said. “But quite possibly less. Days? Months? Time sense is subjective, so let’s see how it feels to you; do you not agree?”

Seating himself wearily by the body of the child, Leo sighed, put his head down, chin against his chest, and prepared to wait.

“I’ll keep you company,” Dr. Smile said, “if I can. But I’m afraid without Mr. Eldritch’s animating presence—” Its voice, Leo realized, had become feeble, as well as slowed down. “Nothing can sustain this world,” it intoned weakly, “but Mr. Elditch. So I am afraid…”

Its voice faded out entirely.

There was only silence. Even the distant wind had ceased.

How long? Leo asked himself. And then he wondered if he could, as before, make something.

Gesturing in the manner of an inspired symphony conductor, his hands writhing, he tried to create before him in the air a jet cab.

At last a meager outline appeared. Insubstantial, it remained without color, almost transparent; he rose, walked closer to it, and tried with all his strength once more. For a moment it seemed to gain color and reality and then suddenly it became fixed; like a hard, discarded chitinous shell it sagged, and burst. Its sections, only two-dimensional at best, blew and fluttered, tearing into ragged pieces—he turned his back on it and walked away in disgust. What a mess, he said to himself dismally.

He continued, without purpose, to walk. Until he came, all at once, to something in the grass, something dead; he saw it lying there and warily he approached it. This, he thought. The final indication of what I’ve done.

He kicked the dead gluck with the toe of his shoe; his toe passed entirely through it and he drew back, repelled.

Going on, hands deep in his pockets, he shut his eyes and once more prayed but this time vaguely; it was only a wish, inchoate, and then it became clear. I’m going to get him in the real world, he said to himself. Not just here, as I’ve done, but as the ‘papes are going to report. Not for myself; not to save P. P. Layouts and the Can-D trade. But for—he knew what he meant. Everyone in the system. Because Palmer Eldritch is an invader and this is how we’ll all wind up, here like this, on a plain of dead things that have become nothing more than random fragments; this is the “reincarnation” that he promised Hepburn-Gilbert.

For a time he wandered on and then, by degrees, he made his way back to the suitcase which had been Dr. Smile.

Something bent over the suitcase. A human or quasihuman figure.

Seeing him it at once straightened; its bald head glistened as it gaped at him, taken by surprise. And then it leaped and rushed off.

A Proxer.

It seemed to him as he watched it go that this put everything in perspective. Palmer Eldritch had peopled his landscape with things such as this; he was still highly involved with them, even now that he had returned to his home system. This, which had appeared just now, gave an insight into the man’s mind at the deepest level; and Palmer Eldritch himself might not have known that he had so populated his hallucinatory establishment—the Proxer might have been just as much a surprise to him.

Unless of course this was the Prox system.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to follow the Proxer.

He set off in that direction and trudged for what seemed to be hours; he saw nothing, only the grass underfoot, the level horizon. And then at last a shape formed ahead; he made for it and found himself all at once confronting a parked ship. Halting, he regarded it in amazement. For one thing it was not a Terran ship and yet it was not a Prox ship either.

Simply, it was not from either system.

Nor were the two creatures lounging nearby it Proxers or Terrans; he had never seen such life forms before. Tall, slender, with reedlike limbs and grotesque, egg-shaped heads which, even at this distance, seemed oddly delicate, a highly evolved race, he decided, and yet related to Terrans; the resemblance was closer than to the Proxers.

He walked toward them, hand raised in greeting.

One of the two creatures turned toward him, saw him, gaped, and nudged its companion; both stared and then the first one said, “My God, Alec; it’s one of the old forms. You know, the near-men.”

“Yeah,” the other creature agreed.

“Wait,” Leo Bulero said. “You’re speaking the language of Terra, twenty-first-century English—so you must have seen a Terran before.”

“Terran?” the one named Alec said. “We’re Terrans. What the hell are you? A freak that died out centuries ago, that’s what. Well, maybe not centuries but anyhow a long time ago.”

“An enclave of them must still exist on this moon,” the first said. To Leo he said, “How many dawn men are there besides you? Come on, fella; we won’t treat you bad. Any women? Can you reproduce?” To his companion he said, “It just seems like centuries. I mean, you’ve got to remember we been evolving in terms of a hundred thousand years at a crack. If it wasn’t for Denkmal these dawn men would still be—”

“Denkmal,” Leo said. Then this was the end-result of Denkmal’s E Therapy; this was only a little ahead in time, perhaps merely decades. Like them he felt a gulf of a million years, and yet it was in fact an illusion; he himself, when he finished with his therapy, might resemble these. Except that the chitinous hide was gone, and that had been one of the prime aspects of the evolving types. “I go to his clinic,” he said to the two of them. “Once a week. At Munich. I’m evolving; it’s working on me.” He came up close to them, and studied them intently. “Where’s the hide?” he asked. “To shield you from the sun?”

“Aw, that phony hot period’s over,” the one named Alec said, with a gesture of derision. “That was those Proxers, working with the Renegade. You know. Or maybe you don’t.”

“Palmer Eldritch,” Leo said.

“Yeah,” Alec said, nodding. “But we got him. Right here on this moon, in fact. Now it’s a shrine—not to us but to the Proxers; they sneak in here to worship. Seen any? We’re supposed to arrest any we find; this is Sol system territory, belongs to the UN.”

“What planet’s this a moon of?” Leo asked.

The two evolved Terrans both grinned. “Terra,” Alec said. “It’s artificial. Called Sigma 14-B, built years ago. Didn’t it exist in your time? It must have; it’s a real old one.

“I think so,” Leo said. “Then you can get me to Earth.”

“Sure.” Both of the evolved Terrans nodded in agreement. “As a matter of fact we’re taking off in half an hour; we’ll take you along—you and the rest of your tribe. Just tell us the location.”

“I’m the only one,” Leo said testily, “and we would hardly be a tribe anyhow; we’re not out of prehistoric times.” He wondered how he had gotten here to this future epoch. Or was this an illusion, too, constructed by the master hallucinator, Palmer Eldritch? Why should he assume this was any more real than the child Monica or the glucks or the synthetic P. P. Layouts which he had visited—visited and seen collapse? This was Palmer Eldritch imagining the future; these were meanderings of his brilliant, creative mind as he waited at his demesne on Luna for the effects of the intravenous injection of Chew-Z to wear off. Nothing more.

In fact, even as he stood here, he could see, faintly, the horizon-line through the parked ship; the ship was slightly transparent, not quite substantial enough. And the two evolved Terrans; they wavered in a mild but pervasive distortion which reminded him of the days when he had had astigmatic vision, before he had received, by surgical transplant, totally healthy eyes. The two of them had not exactly locked in place.

He reached his hand out to the first Terran. “I’d like to shake hands with you,” he said. Alec, the Terran, extended his hand, too, with a smile.

Leo’s hand passed through Alec’s and emerged on the far side.

“Hey,” Alec said, frowning; he at once, pistonlike, withdrew his hand. “What’s going on?” To his companion he said, “This guy isn’t real; we should have suspected it. He’s a—what did they used to call them? From chewing that diabolical drug that Eldritch picked up in the Prox system. A chooser; that’s what. He’s a phantasm.” He glared at Leo.

“I am?” Leo said feebly, and then realized that Alec was right. His actual body was on Luna; he was not really here.

But what did that make the two evolved Terrans? Perhaps they were not constructs of Eldritch’s busy mind; perhaps they, alone, were genuinely here. Meanwhile, the one named Alec was now staring at him.

“You know,” Alec said to his companion, “this chooser looks familiar to me. I’ve seen a pic in the ‘papes of him; I’m sure of it.” To Leo he said, “What’s your name, chooser?” His stare became harsher, more intense.

“I’m Leo Bulero,” Leo said.

Both the evolved Terrans jumped with shock. “Hey,” Alec exclaimed, “no wonder I thought I recognized him. He’s the guy who killed Palmer Eldritch!” To Leo he said, “You’re a hero, fella. I bet you don’t know that, because you’re just a mere chooser; right? And you’ve come back here to haunt this place because this is historically the—”

“He didn’t come back,” his companion broke in. “He’s from the past.”

“He can still come back,” Alec said. “This is a second coming for him, after his own time; he’s returned—okay, can I say that?” To Leo he said, “You’ve returned to this spot because of its association with Palmer Eldritch’s death.” He turned, and started on a run toward the parked ship. “I’m going to tell the ‘papes,” he called. “Maybe they can get a pic of you—the ghost of Sigma 14-B.” He gestured excitedly. “Now the tourists really will want to visit here. But look out: maybe Eldritch’s ghost, his chooser, will show up here, too. To pay you back.” At that thought he did not look too pleased.

Leo said, “Eldritch already has.”

Alec halted, then came slowly back. “He has?” He looked around nervously. “Where is he? Near here?”

“He’s dead,” Leo said. “I killed him. Strangled him.” He felt no emotion about it, just weariness. How could one become elated over the killing of any living person, especially a child?

“They’ve got to re-enact it through eternity,” Alec said, impressed and wide-eyed. He shook his great egglike head.

Leo said, “I wasn’t re-enacting anything. This was the first time.” Then he thought, And not the real one. That’s still to come.

“You mean,” Alec said slowly, “it—”

“I’ve still got to do it,” Leo grated. “But one of my Pre-Fash consultants tells me it won’t be long. Probably.” It was not inevitable and he could never forget that fact. And Eldritch knew it, too; this would go a long way in explaining Eldritch’s efforts here and now: he was staving off—or so he hoped—his own death.

“Come on,” Alec said to Leo, “and take a look at the marker commemorating the event.” He and his companion led the way; Leo, reluctantly, followed. “The Proxers,” Alec said over his shoulder, “always seek to—you know. Desiccate this.”

“Desecrate,” his companion corrected.

“Yeah,” Alec said, nodding. “Anyhow, here it is.” He stopped.

Ahead of them jutted an imitation—but impressive– granite pillar; on, it a brass plaque had been bolted securely at eye-level. Leo, against his better judgment, read the plaque.

“Hoopla,” Leo ejaculated, impressed despite himself. He read it again. And again. “I wonder,” he said, half to himself, “if Palmer’s seen this.”

“If he’s a chooser,” Alec said, “he probably has. The original form of Chew-Z produced what the manufacturer—Eldritch himself—called ‘time-overtones.’ That’s you right now; you occupy a locus years after you’re dead. I guess you’re dead by now, anyhow.” To his companion he said, “Leo Bulero’s dead by now, isn’t he?”

“Oh hell, sure,” his companion said. “By several decades.”

“In fact I think I read—” Alec began, then ceased, looking past Leo; he nudged his companion. Leo turned to see what it was.

A scraggly, narrow, ungainly white dog was approaching.

“Yours?” Alec asked.

“No,” Leo said.

“It looks like a chooser dog,” Alec said. “See, you can look through it a little.” The three of them watched the dog as it marched up to them, then past them to the monument itself.

Picking up a pebble, Alec chucked it at the dog; the pebble passed through the dog and landed in the grass beyond. It was a chooser dog.

As the three of them watched, the dog halted at the monument, seemed to gaze up at the plaque for a brief interval, and then it—.

“Defecation!” Alec shouted, his face turning bright red with rage. He ran toward the dog, waving his arms and trying to kick it, then reaching for the laser pistol at his belt but missing its handle in his excitement.

“Desecration,” his companion corrected.

Leo said, “It’s Palmer Eldritch.” Eldritch was showing his contempt for the monument, his lack of fear toward the future. There would never be such a monument. The dog leisurely strolled off, the two evolved Terrans cursing futilely at it as it departed.

“You’re sure that’s not your dog?” Alec demanded suspiciously. “As far as I can make out you’re the only chooser around.” He eyed Leo.

Leo started to answer, to explain to them what had happened; it was important that they understand. And then without harbinger of any kind the two evolved Terrans disappeared; the grassy plain, the monument, the departing dog—the entire panorama evaporated, as if the method by which it had been projected, stabilized, and maintained had clicked to the off position. He saw only an empty white expanse, a focused glare, as if there were now no 3-D slide in the projector at all. The light, he thought, that underlies the play of phenomena which we call “reality.”

And then he was sitting in the barren room in Palmer Eldritch’s demesne on Luna, facing the table with its electronic gadget.

The gadget or contraption or whatever it was said, “Yes, I’ve seen the monument. About 45 percent of the futures have it. Slightly less than equal chances obtain so I’m not terribly concerned. Have a cigar.” Once again the machine extended a lighted cigar to Leo.

“No,” Leo said.

“I’m going to let you go,” the gadget said, “for a short time, for about twenty-four hours. You can return to your little office at your minuscule company on Terra; while you’re there I want you to ponder the situation. Now you’ve seen Chew-Z in force; you comprehend the fact that your antediluvian product Can-D can’t even remotely compare to it. And furthermore—”

“Bull,” Leo said. “Can-D is far superior.”

“Well, you think it over,” the electronic contraption said, with confidence.

“All right,” Leo said. He stood stiffly. Had he actually been on the artificial Earth-satellite Sigma 14-B? It was a job for Felix Blau; experts could trace it down. No use worrying about that now. The immediate problem was serious enough; he still had not gotten out from under Palmer Eldritch’s control.

He could escape only when—and if—Eldritch decided to release him. That was an undisguised piece of factual reality, hard as it was to face.

“I’d like to point out,” the gadget said, “that I’ve shown mercy to you, Leo. I could have put an—well, let’s say a period to the sentence that constitutes your rather short life. And at any time. Because of this I expect—I insist– that you consider very seriously doing the same.”

“As I said, I’ll think it over,” Leo answered. He felt irritable, as if he had dunk too many cups of coffee, and he wanted to leave as soon as possible; he opened the door of the room, and made his way out into the corridor.

As he started to shut the door after him the electronic gadget said, “If you don’t decide to join me, Leo, I’m not going to wait. I’m going to kill you. I must, to save my own self. Do you understand?”

“I understand,” Leo said, and shut the door after him. And I have to, too, he thought. Must kill you… or couldn’t we both put it in a less direct way, something like they say about animals: put you to sleep.

And I have to do it not just to save myself but everyone in the system, and that’s my staff on which I’m leaning. For example, those two evolved Terran soldiers I ran into at the monument. For them so they’ll have something to guard.

Slowly he walked up the corridor. At the far end stood the group of ‘pape reporters; they had not left yet, had not even obtained their interview—almost no time had passed. So on that point Palmer was right.

Joining the reporters Leo relaxed, and felt considerably better. Maybe he would get away, now; maybe Palmer Eldritch was actually going to let him go. He would live to smell, see, drink in the world once more.

But underneath he knew better. Eldritch would never let him go; one of them would have to be destroyed, first.

He hoped it would not be himself. But he had a terrible intuition, despite the monument, that it could well be.