It will be me, he realized, that Leo Bulero will kill. Me the monument will present a narration of.
Now I am Palmer Eldritch.
In that case, he thought after a while as the environment surrounding him seemed to solidify and clear, I wonder how he is making out with Emily .
I hope pretty badly.
TWELVE.
With vast trailing arms he extended from the Proxima Centaurus system to Terra itself, and he was not human; this was not a man who had returned. And he had great power. He could overcome death.
But he was not happy. For the simple reason that he was alone. So he at once tried to make up for this; he went to a lot of trouble to draw others along the route he had followed.
One of them was Barney Mayerson.
Mayerson, he said, conversationally, what the h.e.l.l have you got to lose? Figure it out for yourself; youre washed up as it standsno woman you love, a past you regret. You realize you took a decisively wrong course in your life and n.o.body made you do it. And it cant be repaired. Even if the future lasts for a million years it cant restore what you lost by, so to speak, your own hand. You grasp my reasoning?
No answer.
And you forget one thing, he continued, after waiting. Shes devolved, from that miserable evolution therapy that ex-n.a.z.i-type German doctor runs in those clinics. Sure, sheactually her husbandwas smart enough to discontinue the treatments right away, and she can still turn out pots that sell; she didnt devolve that much. Butyou wouldnt like her. Youd know; shed be just a little more shallow, a shade sillier. It would not be like the past, even if you got her back; itd be changed .
Again he waited. This time there was an answer. All right!
Where would you like to go? he continued, then. Mars? Ill bet . Okay, then back to Terra.
Barney Mayerson, not himself, said, No. I left voluntarily; I was through; the end had come.
Okay. Not Terra. Lets see. Hmm. He pondered. Prox, he said. Youve never seen the Prox system and the Proxers. Im a bridge, you know. Between the two systems. They can come here to the Sol system through me any time they wantand I allow them. But I havent allowed them. But how they are eager. He chuckled. Theyre practically lined up. Like the kiddies Sat.u.r.day afternoon movie matinee.
Make me into a stone.
Why?
Barney Mayerson said, So I cant feel. Theres nothing for me anywhere.
You dont even like being translated into one h.o.m.ogeneous organism with me?
No answer.
You can share my ambitions. Ive got plenty of them, big onesthey make Leos look like dirt. Of course, he thought, Leo will kill me not long from now. At least as time is reckoned outside of translation. Ill acquaint you with one. A minor one. Maybe itll fire you up.
I doubt it, Barney said.
Im going to become a planet.
Barney laughed.
You think thats funny? He felt furious.
I think youre nuts. Whether youre a man or a thing from intersystem s.p.a.ce; youre still out of your mind.
I havent explained, he said with dignity, precisely what I meant when I said that. What I mean is, Im going to be everyone on the planet. You know what planet Im talking about.
Terra.
h.e.l.l no. Mars.
Why Mars?
Its He groped for the words. New. Undeveloped. Full of potential. Im going to be all the colonists as they arrive and begin to live there. Ill guide their civilization; Ill be their civilization!
No answer.
Come on. Say something.
Barney said, How come, if you can be so much, including a whole planet, I cant be even that plaque on the wall of my office at P. P. Layouts?
Um, he said, disconcerted. Okay, okay. You can be that plaque; what the h.e.l.l do I care? Be anything you wantyou took the drug; youre ent.i.tled to be translated into whatever pleases you. Its not real, of course. Thats the truth. Im letting you in on the innermost secret; its an hallucination. What makes it seem real is that certain prophetic aspects get into the experience, exactly as with dreams. Ive walked into and out of a million of them, these so-called translation worlds; Ive seen them all. And you know what they are? Theyre nothing. Like a captive white rat feeding electric impulses again and again to specific areas of his brainits disgusting.
I see, Barney Mayerson said.
You want to wind up in one of them, knowing this?
After a time Barney said, Sure.
Okay! Ill make you a stone, put you by a seash.o.r.e; you can lie there and listen to the waves for a couple of million years. That ought to satisfy you. You dumb jerk , he thought savagely. A stone! Christ!
Am I softened or something? Barney asked, then; in his voice were for the first time strong overtones of doubt. Is this what the Proxers wanted? Is this why you were sent?
I wasnt sent. I showed up here on my own. It beats living out in dead s.p.a.ce between hot stars. He chuckled. Certainly youre softand you want to be a stone. Listen, Mayerson; being a stone isnt what you really want. What you want is death.
Death?
You mean you didnt know? He was incredulous. Aw, come on!
No. I didnt know.
Its very simple, Mayerson; Ill give you a translation world in which youre a rotting corpse of a run-over dog in some ditchthink of it: what a G.o.dd.a.m.n relief itll be. Youre going to be me; you are me, and Leo Bulero is going to kill you. Thats the dead dog, Mayerson; thats the corpse in the ditch. And Ill live on, he said to himself. Thats my gift to you, and remember: in German Gift means poison. Ill let you die in my place a few months from now and that monument on Sigma 14-B will be erected but Ill go on, in your living body. When you come back from Mars to work at P. P. Layouts again youll be me. And so I avoid my fate.
It was so simple.
Okay, Mayerson, he concluded, weary of the colloquy. Up and at em, as they say. Consider yourself dumped off; were not a single organism any more. Weve got distinct, separate destinies again, and thats the way you wanted it. Youre in a ship of Conner Freemans leaving Venus and Im down in Chicken Pox Prospects; Ive got a thriving vegetable garden up top, and I get to shack up with Anne Hawthorne any time I want.i.ts a good life, as far as Im concerned. I hope you like yours equally well. And, at that instant, he emerged.
He stood in the kitchen of his compartment at Chicken Pox Prospects; he was frying himself a panful of local mushrooms the air smelled of b.u.t.ter and spices and, in the living room, his portable tape recorder played a Haydn symphony. Peaceful, he thought with pleasure. Exactly what I want; a little peace and quiet. After all, I was used to that, out in intersystern s.p.a.ce. He yawned, stretched with luxury, and said, I did it.
Seated in the living room, reading a homeopape taken from the news-service emanating from one of the UN satellites, Anne Hawthorne glanced up and said, You did what, Barney?
Got just the right amount of seasoning in this, he said, still exulting. I am Palmer Eldritch and Im here, not there. Ill survive Leos attack and I know how to enjoy, use, this life, here, as Barney didnt or wouldnt.
Lets see how he prefers it when Leos fighter guns his merchant ship into particles. And he sees the last of a life bitterly regretted.
In the glare of the overhead light Barney Mayerson blinked. He realized after a second that he was on a ship; the room appeared ordinary, a combination bedroom and parlor, but he recognized it by the bolted-down condition of the furniture. And the gravity was all wrong; artificially produced, it failed to duplicate Earths.
And there was a view out. Limited, no larger in fact than a comb of bees wax. But still the thick plastic revealed the emptiness beyond, and he went over to fixedly peer. Sol, blinding, filled a portion of the panorama and he reflexively reached up to click the black filter into use. And, as he did so, he perceived his hand. His artificial, metallic, superbly efficient mechanical hand.
At once he stalked from the cabin and down the corridor until he reached the locked control booth; he rapped on it with his steel knuckles and after an interval the heavy reinforced bulkhead door opened.
Yes, Mr. Eldritch. The young blond-haired pilot, nodding with respect.
He said, Send out a message.
The pilot produced a pen and poised it over his notepad mounted at the rim of the instrument board. Who to, sir?
To Mr. Leo Bulero.
To Leo Bulero. The pilot wrote rapidly. Is this to be relayed to Terra, sir? If so No. Leo is near us in his own ship. Tell him He pondered rapidly.
You want to talk with him, sir?
I dont want him to kill me, he answered. Thats what Im trying to say. And you with me. And whoever else is on this slow transport, this idiotically huge target. But its hopeless , he realized, Somebody in Felix Blaus organization, carefully planted on Venus, saw me board this ship; Leo knows Im here and thats it .
You mean business compet.i.tion is that tough? the pilot said, taken by surprise; he blanched.
Zoe Eldritch, his daughter in dirndl and fur slippers, appeared. What is it?
He said, Leos nearby. Hes got an armed ship, by UN permission; we were lured into a trap. We never should have gone to Venus. Hepburn-Gilbert was in on it. To the pilot he said, Just keep trying to reach him. Im going back to my cabin. Theres nothing I can do here, he said to himself, and started out.
h.e.l.l, the pilot said, you talk to him; its you hes after. He slid from his seat, leaving it pointedly vacant.
Sighing, Barney Mayerson seated himself and clicked on the ships transmitter; he set it to the emergency frequency, lifted the microphone, and said into it, You b.a.s.t.a.r.d, Leo. Youve got me; you coaxed me out where you could get at me. You and that d.a.m.n fleet of yours, already set up and operating before I got back from Prox you had the head start. He felt more angry than frightened, now. Weve got nothing on this ship. Absolutely nothing to protect ourselves withyoure shooting down an unarmed target. This is a cargo carrier. He paused, trying to think what else to say. Tell him, he thought, that Im Barney Mayerson and that Eldritch will never be caught and killed because h.e.l.l translate himself from life to life forever? And that in actuality youre killing someone you know and love?
Zoe said, Saysomething.
Leo, he said into the microphone, let me go back to Prox. Please. He waited, listening to the static from the receivers speaker. Okay, he said, then. I take it back. Ill never leave the Sol system and you can never kill me, even with Hepburn-Gilberts help, or whoever it is in the UN youre operating in conjunction with. To Zoe he said, Hows that? You like that? He dropped the microphone with a clatter. Im through.
The first bolt of laser energy nearly cut the ship in half.
Barney Mayerson lay on the floor of the control booth, listening to the racket of the emergency air pumps wheezing into shrill, clacking life. I got what I wanted , he realized. Or at least what Palmer said I wanted. Im getting death.
Beyond his ship Leo Buleros UN-model trim fighter maneuvered for the placing of a second, final bolt. He could see, on the pilots view-screen, the flash of its exhausts. It was very close indeed.
Lying there he waited to die.
And then Leo Bulero walked across the central room of his compartment toward him.
Interested, Anne Hawthorne rose from her chair, said, So youre Leo Bulero. Therere a number of questions, all pertaining to your product Can-D I dont produce Can-D, Leo said. I emphatically deny that rumor. None of my commercial enterprises are in any way illegal. Listen, Barney; did you or did you not consume that He lowered his voice; bending over Barney Mayerson, he whispered hoa.r.s.ely. You know.
Ill step outside, Anne said, perceptively.
No, Leo grunted. He turned to Felix Blau, who nodded. We realize youre one of Blaus people, Leo said to her. Again he prodded Barney Mayerson, irritably. I dont think he took it, he said, half to himself. Ill search him. He began to rummage in Barneys coat pockets and then in his inside shirt. Here it is. He fished out the tube containing the brain-metabolism toxin. Uns.c.r.e.w.i.n.g the cap he peered in. Unconsumed, he said to Blau, with ma.s.sive disgust. So naturally Faine heard nothing from him. He backed out.
Barney said, I didnt back out. Ive been a long way, he said to himself. Cant you tell? Chew-Z, he said. Very far.
Yeah, youve been out about two minutes, Leo said with contempt. We got here just as you locked yourself in; some fellaNorm somethinglet us in with his master key; hes in charge of this hovel, I guess.
But remember, Anne said, the subjective experience with Chew-Z is disconnected to our time-rate; to him it may have been hours or even days. She looked sympathetically in Barneys direction. True?
I died, Barney said. He sat up, nauseated. You killed me.
There was a remarkable, nonplused silence.
You mean me? Felix Blau asked at last.
No, Barney said. It didnt matter. At least not until the next time he took the drug. Once that happened the finish would arrive; Palmer Eldritch would be successful, would achieve survival. And that was the unbearable part; not his own deathwhich eventually would arrive anyhowbut Palmer Eldritchs putting on immortality. Grave, he thought; wheres your victory over thisthing?
I feel insulted, Felix Blau complained. I mean, whats this about someone killing you, Mayerson? h.e.l.l, we roused you out of your coma. And it was a long, difficult trip here and for Mr. Buleromy clientin my opinion a risky one; this is the region where Eldritch operates. He glanced about apprehensively. Get him to take that toxic substance, he said to Leo, and then lets get back to Terra before something terrible happens. I can feel it. He started toward the door of the compartment.
Leo said, Will you take it, Barney?
No, he said.
Why not? Weariness. Even patience.
My life means too much to me. Ive decided to halt in my atoning , he thought. At last .
What happened to you while you were translated?
He rose to his feet; he barely made it.
Hes not going to say, Felix Blau said, at the doorway.
Leo said, Barney, its all weve come up with. Ill get you off Mars; you know that. And Q-type epilepsy isnt the end of Youre wasting your time, Felix said, and disappeared out into the hail. He gave Barney one final envenomed glance. What a mistake you made, pinning your hopes on this guy.
Barney said, Hes right, Leo.
Youll never get off Mars, Leo said. Ill never w.a.n.gle a pa.s.sage back to Terra for you. No matter what happens from here on out.
I know it.
But you dont care. Youre going to spend the rest of your life taking that drug. Leo glared at him, baffled.
Never again, Barney said.