Philip Dick - The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch

“N-nuts to you,” Hnatt stammered. “Your Pre-Fash consultant turned us down.”

Leo Bulero eyed him, then with a shrug turned back to Dr. Denkmal. “I’ll see you in two weeks.”

“Two! But—” Denkmal gestured protestingly.

“I can’t make it next week; I’ll be off Terra again.” Again Bulero eyed Richard and Emily Hnatt, lingeringly, then strode off.

Watching him go, Dr. Denkmal said, “Very evolved, that man. Both physically and spiritually.” He turned to the Hnatts. “Welcome to Eichenwald Clinic.” He beamed.

“Thank you,” Emily said nervously. “Does—it hurt?”

“Our therapy?” Dr. Denkmal tittered with amusement. “Not in the slightest, although it may shock—in the figurative sense—at first. As you experience a growth of your cortex area. You’ll have many new and exciting concepts occur to you, especially of a religious nature. Oh, if only Luther and Erasmus were alive today; their controversies could be solved so easily now, by means of E Therapy. Both would see the truth, as zum Beiszspiel regard transubstantiation—you know, the Blut und –” He interrupted himself with a cough. “In English, blood and wafer; you know, in the Mass. Is very much like the takers of Can-D; have you noticed that affinity? But come on; we begin.” He slapped Richard Hnatt on the back and led the two of them into his inner office, eying Emily with what seemed to Richard to be a rather unspiritual, covetous look.

They faced a gigantic chamber of scientific gadgets and two Dr. Frankenstein tables, complete with arm and leg brackets. At the sight Emily moaned and shrank back.

“Nothing to fear, Frau Hnatt. Like electra-convulsive shock, causes certain musculature reactions; reflex, you know?” Denkmal giggled. “Now you must, ah, you know: take off your clothes. Each of you in private, of course; then don smocks and auskommen –understand? A nurse will assist you. We have your medical charts from Nord Amerika already; we know your histories. Both quite healthy, virile; good Nord Amerikanische people.” He led Richard Hnatt to a side room, secluded by a curtain; there he left him off and returned to Emily. As he entered the side room Richard heard Dr. Denkmal talking to Emily in a soothing but commanding tone; the combination was a neat bit of business and Hnatt felt both envious and suspicious and then, at last, glum. It was not quite as he had pictured it, not quite big-time enough to suit him.

However, Leo Bulero had emerged from this room so that proved it was authentic big-time; Bulero would never have settled for less.

Heartened, he began to undress.

Somewhere out of sight Emily squeaked.

He redressed and left the side room, boiling with concern. However, he found Denkmal at a desk, reading Emily’s medical chart; she was off, he realized, with a female nurse, so everything was all right.

Criminy , he thought, I certainly am edgy . Once more entering the side room he resumed undressing; his hands, he found, were shaking.

Presently he lay strapped to one of the twin tables, Emily in a similar state beside him. She, too, seemed frightened; she was very pale and quiet.

“Your glands,” Dr. Denkmal explained, jovially rubbing his hands together and wantonly eying Emily, “will be stimulated by this, especially Kresy’s Gland, which controls rate of evolution, nicht Wahr? Yes, you know that; every schoolchild knows that, is taught now what we’ve discovered here. Today what you will notice is no growth of chitinous shell or brain-shield or loss of fingernails and toenails— you didn ’ t know that, I bet! –but only a slight but very, very important change in the frontal lobe… it will smart; that is a pun, you know? It smarts and you become, ah, smart.” Again he giggled. Richard Hnatt felt miserable; he waited like some hog-tied animal for whatever they had in store for him. What a way to make business contacts, he said ruefully to himself, and shut his eyes.

A male attendant materialized and stood by him, looking blond, Nordic, and without intelligence.

“We play soothing Musik ,” Dr. Denkmal said, pressing a button. Multiphonic sound, from every corner of the room, filtered out, an insipid orchestral version of some popular Italian opera, Puccini or Verdi; Hnatt did not know. “Now h ö re , Herr Hnatt.” Denkmal bent down beside him, suddenly serious. “I want you to understand; every now and then this therapy—what do you say?– blasts back .”

“Backfires,” Hnatt said gratingly. He had been expecting this.

“But mostly we have successes. Here, Herr Hnatt, is what the backfires consist of, I am afraid; instead of evolving the Kresy Gland is very stimulated to—regress. Is that correct in English?”

“Yes,” Hnatt muttered. “Regress how far?”

“Just a trifle. But it could be unpleasant. We would catch it quickly, of course, and cease therapy. And generally that stops the regression. But—not always. Sometimes once the Kresy Gland has been stimulated to—” He gestured. “It keeps on. I should tell you this in case you might have scruples. Right?”

“I’ll take the chance,” Richard Hnatt said. “I guess. Everyone else does, don’t they? Okay, go ahead.” He squirmed, saw Emily, even paler now, almost imperceptibly nodding; her eyes were glassy.

What ’ ll probably happen , he thought fatalistically, is that one of us will evolve –probably Emily— and the other, me, will devolve back to Sinanthropus. Back to fused molars, tiny brain, bent legs, and cannibalistic tendencies. I ’ ll have a hell of a time closing sales that way .

Dr. Denkmal clamped a switch shut, whistling along with the opera happily to himself.

The Hnatts’ E Therapy had begun.

He seemed to feel a loss of weight, nothing more, at least not at first. And then his head ached as if rapped by a hammer. With the ache came almost instantly a new and acute comprehension; it was a dreadful risk he and Emily were taking, and it wasn’t fair to her to subject her to this, just to further sales. Obviously she didn’t want this; suppose she evolved back just enough to lose her ceramic talent? And they both would be ruined; his career hung on seeing Emily remain one of the planet’s top ceramists.

“Stop,” he said aloud, but the sound did not seem to emerge; he did not hear it, although his vocal apparatus seemed to function—he felt the words in his throat. And then it came to him. He was evolving; it was functioning. His insight was due to the change in his brain metabolism. Assuming Emily was all right then everything was all right.

He perceived, too, that Dr. Willy Denkmal was a cheap little pseudo-quack, that this whole business preyed off the vanity of mortals striving to become more than they were entitled to be, and in a purely earthly, transitory way. The hell with his sales, his contacts; what did that matter in comparison to the possibility of evolving the human brain to entire new orders of conception? For instance—

Below lay the tomb world, the immutable cause-and-effect world of the demonic. At median extended the layer of the human, but at any instant a man could plunge—descend as if sinking—into the hell-layer beneath. Or: he could ascend to the ethereal world above, which constituted the third of the trinary layers. Always, in his middle level of the human, a man risked the sinking. And yet the possibility of ascent lay before him; any aspect or sequence of reality could become either , at any instant. Hell and heaven, not after death but now! Depression, all mental illness, was the sinking. And the other… how was it achieved?