The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick

Author:Philip K. Dick
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Tags: SciFi-Masterwork
ISBN: 9780879978105
Publisher: DAW
Published: 2007-03-08T02:47:59+00:00

An hour later he had taken his physical; he had passed and thereupon the mental was administered by something not unlike Dr. Smile.

He passed that, too.

In a daze he took the oath (“I swear to look upon Earth as the mother and leader,” etc.) and then, with a folio of greetings!-type information, was ejected to go back to his conapt and pack. He had twenty-four hours before his ship left for – wherever they were sending him. They had not as yet uttered this. The notification of destination, he conjectured, probably began, “Mene, mene, tekel.” At least it should, considering the possible choices to which it was limited.

I’m in, he said to himself with every sort of reaction: gladness, relief, terror, and then the melancholy that came with an overwhelming sense of defeat. Anyhow, he thought as he rode back to his conapt, this beats stepping out into the midday sun, becoming, as they say, a mad dog or an Englishman.

Or did it?

Anyhow, this was slower. It took longer to die this way, possibly fifty years, and that appealed to him more. But why, he did not know.

However, he reflected, I can always decide to speed it up. On the colony world there are undoubtedly as many opportunities for that as there are here, perhaps even more.

While he was packing his possessions, ensconced for the last time in his beloved, worked-for conapt, the vidphone rang.

“Mr. Bayerson–” A girl, some minor official of some sub-front-office department of the UN’s colonizing apparatus. Smiling.

“Mayerson.”

“Yes. What I called for, you see, is to tell you your destination, and–lucky you, Mr. Mayerson!–it will be the fertile area of Mars known as Fineburg Crescent. I know you’ll enjoy it there. Well, so goodbye, sir, and good luck.” She kept right on smiling, even up until he had cut off the image. It was the smile of someone who was not going.

“Good luck to you, too,” he said.

Fineburg Crescent. He had heard of it; relatively, it actually was fertile. Anyhow the colonists there had gardens: it was not, like some areas, a waste of frozen methane crystals and gas descending in violent, ceaseless storms year in, year out. Believe it or not he could go up to the surface from time to time, step out of his hovel.

In the corner of the living room of his conapt rested the suitcase containing Dr. Smile; he switched it on and said, “Doctor, you’ll have a bit of trouble believing this, but I have no further need of your services. Goodbye and good luck, as the girl who isn’t going said.” He added by way of explanation, “I volunteered.”

“Cdryxxxxx,” Dr. Smile blared, slipping a cog down below in the conapt building’s basement. “But for your type–that’s virtually impossible. What was the reason, Mr. Mayerson?”

“The death wish,” he said, and shut the psychiatrist off; he resumed his packing in silence. God, he thought. And a little while ago Roni and I had such big plans; we were going to sell out Leo on a grand scale, go over to Eldritch with an enormous splash.

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