Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, The by Dick Philip K

Author:Dick, Philip K. [Dick, Philip K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Fantasy, Sci-fi, Novel
ISBN: 9781400095735
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday
Published: 1965-01-14T02:00:00+00:00

EIGHT

* * *

Extending his hand, Norm Schein said heartily, “Hi there, Mayerson; I’m the official greeter from our hovel. Welcome—ugh—to Mars.”

“I’m Fran Schein,” his wife said, also shaking hands with Barney Mayerson. “We have a very orderly, stable hovel here; I don’t think you’ll find it too dreadful.” She added, half to herself, “Just dreadful enough.” She smiled, but Mayerson did not smile back; he looked grim, tired, and depressed, as most new colonists did on arrival to a life which they knew was difficult and essentially meaningless. “Don’t expect us to sell you on the virtues of this,” she said. “That’s the UN’s job. We’re nothing more than victims like yourself. Except that we’ve been here a while.”

“Don’t make it sound so bad,” Norm said in warning.

“But it is,” Fran said. “Mr. Mayerson is facing it; he isn’t going to accept any pretty story. Right, Mr. Mayerson?”

“I could do with a little illusion at this point,” Barney said as he seated himself on a metal bench within the hovel entrance. The sand-plow which had brought him, meanwhile, unloaded his gear; he watched dully.

“Sorry,” Fran said.

“Okay to smoke?” Barney got out a package of Terran cigarettes; the Scheins stared at them fixedly and he then offered them each a chance at the pack, guiltily.

“You arrived at a difficult time,” Norm Schein explained. “We’re right in the middle of a debate.” He glanced around at the others. “Since you’re now a member of our hovel I don’t see why you shouldn’t be brought into it; after all it concerns you, too.”

Tod Morris said, “Maybe he’ll—you know. Tell.”

“We can swear him to secrecy,” Sam Regan said, and his wife Mary nodded. “Our discussion, Mr. Geyerson—”

“Mayerson,” Barney corrected.

“—Has to do with the drug Can-D, which is the old reliable translating agent we’ve depended on, versus the newer, untried drug Chew-Z; we’re debating whether to drop Can-D once and for all and—”

“Wait until we’re below,” Norm Schein said, and scowled.

Seating himself on the bench beside Barney Mayerson, Tod Morris said, “Can-D is kaput; it’s too hard to get, costs too many skins, and personally I’m tired of Perky Pat—it’s too artificial, too superficial, and materialistality in—pardon; that’s our word here for—” He groped in difficult explanation. “Well, it’s apartment, cars, sunbathing on the beach, ritzy clothes…we enjoyed it for a while, but it’s not enough in some sort of unmaterialistality way. You see at all, Mayerson?”

Norm Schein said, “Okay, but Mayerson here hasn’t had that; he isn’t jaded. Maybe he’d appreciate going through all that.”

“Like we did,” Fran agreed. “Anyhow, we haven’t voted; we haven’t decided which we’re going to buy and use from now on. I think we ought to let Mr. Mayerson try both. Or have you already tried Can-D, Mr. Mayerson?”

“I did,” Barney said. “But a long time ago. Too long for me to remember clearly.” Leo had given it to him, and offered him more, big amounts, all he wanted. But he had declined; it hadn’t appealed to him.

Norm Schein

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