Philip Dick - The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch

“Wait,” he said, putting his own cup down and starting toward her. But it was too late; she had already taken the Can-D. “None for me?” he asked, a little amused. “You’re missing the whole point; you won’t have anyone to be with, in translation.” Taking her by the arm he led her from the compartment, tugging her hurriedly out into the corridor and across into the large communal room where the others lay; seating her among them, he said, with compassion, “At least this way it’ll be a shared experience and I understand that helps.”

“Thank you,” she said drowsily. Her eyes shut and her body became, by degrees, limp.

Now, he realized, she’s Perky Pat. In a world without trouble.

Bending, he kissed her on the mouth.

“I’m still awake,” she murmured.

“But you won’t remember anyhow,” he said.

“Oh yes I will,” Anne Hawthorne said faintly. And then she departed; he felt her go. He was alone with seven uninhabited physical shells and he at once made his way back to his own quarters where the two cups of hot coffee steamed.

I could fall in love with that girl , he said to himself. Not like Roni Fugate or even like Emily but something new. Better? he wondered. Or is this desperation? Exactly what I saw Anne do just now with the Can-D, gulp it down because there is nothing else, only darkness. It is this or the void. And not for a day or a week but—forever. So I’ve got to fall in love with her.

By himself he sat surrounded by his partly unpacked belongings, drinking coffee and meditating until at last he heard groanings and stirrings in the communal room. His fellow hovelists were returning to consciousness. He put his cup down and walked out to join them.

“Why’d you back out, Mayerson?” Norm Schein said; he rubbed his forehead, scowling. “God, what a headache I’ve got.” He noticed Anne Hawthorne, then; still unconscious, she lay with her back against the wall, her head dropped forward. “Who’s she?”

Fran, rising to her feet unsteadily, said, “She joined us at the end; she’s a pal of Mayerson’s: he met her on the flight. She’s quite nice but she’s a religious nut; you’ll see.” Critically, she eyed Anne. “Not too bad looking. I was really curious to see her; I imagined her as more, well, austere.”

Coming up to Barney, Sam Regan said, “Get her to join you, Mayerson; we’d be glad to vote to admit her, here. We’ve got lots of room and you should have a— shall we say –wife.” He, too, scrutinized Anne. “Yeah,” he said. “Pretty. Nice long black hair; I like that.”

“You do, do you,” Mary Regan said tartly to him.

“Yeah I do; so what?” Sam Regan glared back at his wife.

Barney said, “She’s spoken for.”

They all eyed him curiously.

“That’s odd,” Helen Morris said. “Because when we were together with her just now she didn’t tell us that, and as far as we could make out you and she had only—”

Interrupting, Fran Schein said to Barney, “You don’t want a Neo-Christian nut to live with you. We’ve had experience with that; we ejected a couple of them last year. They can cause terrible trouble here on Mars. Remember, we shared her mind … she’s a dedicated member of some high church or other, with all the sacraments and the rituals, all that old outdated junk; she actually believes in it.”

Barney said tightly, “I know.”

In an easy-going way Tod Morris said, “That’s true, Mayerson; honest. We have to live too close together to import any kind of ideological fanaticism from Terra. It’s happened at other hovels; we know what we’re talking about. It has to be live and let live, with no absolutist creeds and dogma; a hovel is just too small.” He lit a cigarette and glanced down at Anne Hawthorne. “Strange that a pretty girl would pick that stuff up. Well, it takes all kinds.” He looked puzzled.

“Did she seem to enjoy being translated?” Barney asked Helen Morris.

“Yes, to a certain extent. Of course it upset her… the first time you have to expect that; she didn’t know how to cooperate in handling the body. But she was quite eager to learn. Now obviously she’s got it all to herself so it’s easier on her. This is good practice.”

Bending down, Barney Mayerson picked up the small doll, Perky Pat in her yellow shorts and red-striped cotton t-shirt and sandals. This now was Anne Hawthorne, he realized. In a sense that no one quite understood. And yet he could destroy the doll, crush it, and Anne, in her synthetic fantasy life, would be unaffected.

“I’d like to marry her,” he said aloud, suddenly.

“Who?” Tod asked. “Perky Pat or the new girl?”

“He means Perky Pat,” Norm Schein said, and snickered.

“No he doesn’t,” Helen said severely. “And I think it’s fine; now we can be four couples instead of three couples and one man, one odd man.”

“Is there any way,” Barney said, “to get drunk around here?”

“Sure,” Norm said. “We’ve got liquor—it’s dull ersatz gin, but it’s eighty proof; it’ll do the job.”

“Let me have some,” Barney said, reaching for his wallet.

“It’s free. The UN supply ships drop it in vats.” Norm went to a locked cupboard, produced a key, and opened it.

Sam Regan said, “Tell us, Mayerson, why you feel the need to get drunk. Is it us? The hovel? Mars itself?”

“No.” It was none of those; it had to do with Anne and the disintegration of her identity. Her use of Can-D all at once, a symptom of her inability to believe or to cope, her giving up. It was an omen, in which he, too, was involved; he saw himself in what had happened.

If he could help her perhaps he could help himself. And if not—

He had an intuition that otherwise they were both finished. Mars, for both himself and Anne, would mean death. And probably soon .

After she emerged from the experience of translation Anne Hawthorne was taciturn and moody. It was not a good sign; he guessed that she, too, now had a premonition similar to his. However, she said nothing about it; she merely went at once to get her bulky outer suit from his compartment.

“I have to get back to Flax Back Spit,” she explained. “Thank you for letting me use your layout,” she said to the hovelists who stood here and there, watching her as she dressed. “I’m sorry, Barney.” She hung her head. “It was unkind to leave you the way I did.”

He accompanied her, on foot, across the flat, nocturnal sands to her own hovel; neither of them spoke as they plodded along, keeping their eyes open, as they had been told to, for a local predator, a jackal-like telepathic Martian life form. However, they saw nothing.

“How was it?” he asked her at last.

“You mean being that little brassy blonde-haired doll with all her damn clothes and her boyfriend and her car and her—” Anne, beside him, shuddered. “Awful. Well, that’s not it. Just—pointless. I found nothing there. It was like going back to my teens.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. There was that about Perky Pat.

“Barney,” she said quietly, “I have to find something else and soon. Can you help me? You seem smart and grown-up and experienced. Being translated is not going to help me… Chew-Z won’t be any better because something in me rebels, won’t take it—see? Yes, you see; I can tell. Hell, you wouldn’t even try it once , so you must understand.” She squeezed his arm, and clung tightly to him in the darkness. “I know something else, Barney. They ’ re tired of it, too ; all they did was bicker while they— we –were inside those dolls. They didn’t enjoy it for a second, even.”