“No,” the child said. “And you better believe me, because if you don’t you won’t get out of this world alive.”
“You can’t die in a hallucination,” Leo said. “Any more than you can be born again. I’m going back to P. P. Layouts.” Once more he started toward the stairs.
“Go ahead and climb,” the child said from behind him. “See if I care. Wait and see where it gets you.”
Leo climbed the stairs, and passed through the luminous hoop.
Blinding, ferociously hot sunlight descended on him; he scuttled from the open street to a nearby doorway for shelter.
A jet cab, from the towering high buildings, swooped down, spying him. “A ride, sir? Better get indoors; it’s almost noon.”
Gasping, almost unable to breathe, Leo said, “Yes, thanks. Take me to P. P. Layouts.” He unsteadily got into the cab, and fell back at once against the seat, panting in the coolness provided by its antithermal shield.
The cab took off. Presently it was descending at the enclosed field of his company’s central building.
As soon as he reached his outer office he said to Miss Gleason, “Get hold of Mayerson. Find out why he didn’t do anything to rescue me.”
“Rescue you?” Miss Gleason said, in consternation. “What was the matter, Mr. Bulero?” She followed him to the inner office. “Where were you and in what way–”
“Just get Mayerson.” He seated himself at his familiar desk, relieved to be back here. The hell with Palmer Eldritch, he said to himself, and reached into the desk drawer for his favorite English briar pipe and half-pound can of Sail tobacco, a Dutch cavendish mix.
He was busy lighting his pipe when the door opened and Barney Mayerson appeared, looking sheepish and worn.
“Well?” Leo said. He puffed energetically on his pipe.
Barney said, “I–” He turned to Miss Fugate, who had come in alter him; gesturing, he turned again to Leo and said, “Anyhow you’re back.”
“Of course I’m back. I built myself a stairway to here. Aren’t you going to answer as to why you didn’t do anything? I guess not. But as you say, you weren’t needed. I’ve now got an idea of what this new Chew-Z substance is like. It’s definitely inferior to Can-D. I have no qualms in saying that emphatically. You can tell without doubt that it’s merely a hallucinogenic experience you’re undergoing. Now let’s get down to business. Eldritch has sold Chew-Z to the UN by claiming that it induces genuine reincarnation, which ratifies the religious convictions of more than half the governing members of the General Assembly, plus that Indian skunk Hepburn-Gilbert himself. It’s a fraud, because Chew-Z doesn’t do that. But the worst aspect of Chew-Z is the solipsistic quality. With Can-D you undergo a valid interpersonal experience, in that the others in your hovel are–” He paused irritably. “What is it, Miss Fugate? What are you staring at?”
Roni Fugate murmured, “I’m sorry, Mr. Bulero, but there’s a creature under your desk.”
Bending, Leo peered under the desk.
A thing had squeezed itself between the base of the desk and the floor; its eyes regarded him greenly, unwinking.
“Get out of there,” Leo said. To Barney he said, “Get a yardstick or a broom, something to prod it with.”
Barney left the office.
“Danm it, Miss Fugate,” Leo said, smoking rapidly on his pipe, “I hate to think what that is under there. And what it signifies.” Because it might signify that Eldritch– within the little girl Monica–had been right when she said See if I care. Wait and see where it gets you.
The thing from beneath the desk scuttled out, and made for the door. It squeezed under the door and was gone.
It was even worse than the glucks. He got one good look at it.
Leo said, “Well, that’s that. I’m sorry, Miss Fugate, but you might as well return to your office; there’s no point in our discussing what actions to take toward the imminent appearance of Chew-Z on the market. Because I’m not talking to anyone; I’m sitting here blabbing away to myself.” He felt depressed. Eldritch had him and also the validity, or at least the seeming validity, of the Chew-Z experience had been demonstrated; he himself had confused it with the real. Only the malign bug created by Palmer Eldritch–deliberately–had given it away.
Otherwise, he realized, I might have gone on forever.
Spent a century, as Eldritch said, in this ersatz universe.
Jeez, he thought. I’m licked. “Miss Fugate,” he said, “please don’t just stand there; go back to your office.” He got up, went to the water cooler, and poured himself a paper cup of mineral water. Drinking unreal water for an unreal body, he said to himself. In front of an unreal employee. “Miss Fugate,” he said, “are you really Mr. Mayerson’s mistress?”
“Yes, Mr. Bulero,” Miss Fugate said, nodding. “As I told you.
“And you won’t be mine.” He shook his head. “Because I’m too old and too evolved. You know–or rather you don’t know–that I have at least a limited power in this universe. I could make over my body, make myself young.” Or, he thought, make you old. How would you like that? he wondered. He dank the water, and tossed the cup in the waste chute; not looking at Miss Fugate he said to himself, You’re my age, Miss Fugate. In fact older. Let’s see; you’re about ninety-two, now. In this world, anyhow; you’ve aged, here… time has rolled forward for you because you turned me down and I don’t like being turned down. In fact, he said to himself, you’re over one hundred years old, withered, juiceless, without teeth and eyes. A thing.
Behind him he heard a dry, rasping sound, an intake of breath. And a wavering, shrill voice, like the cry of a frightened bird. “Oh, Mr. Bulero–”
I’ve changed my mind, Leo thought. You’re the way you were; I take it back, okay? He turned, and saw Roni Fugate or at least something standing there where she had last stood. A spider web, gray fungoid strands wrapped one around another to form a brittle column that swayed… he saw the head, sunken at the cheeks, with eyes like dead spots of soft, inert white slime that leaked out gummy, slow-moving tears, eyes that tried to appeal but could not because they could not make out where he was.
“You’re back the way you were,” Leo said harshly, and shut his own eyes. “Tell me when it’s over.”
Footsteps. A man’s. Barney, re-entering the office. “Jesus,” Barney said, and halted.
Eyes shut, Leo said, “Isn’t she back the way she was yet?”
“She? Where’s Roni? What’s this?”
Leo opened his eyes.
It was not Roni Fugate who stood there, not even an ancient manifestation of her; it was a puddle, but not of water. The puddle was alive and in it bits of sharp, jagged gray splinters swam.
The thick, oozing material of the puddle flowed gradually outward, then shuddered, and retracted into itself; in the center the fragments of hard gray matter swam together, and cohered into a roughly shaped ball with tangled, matted strands of hair floating at its crown. Vague eyesockets, empty, formed; it was becoming a skull, but of some life-formation to come: his unconscious desire for her to experience evolution in its horrific aspect had conjured this monstrosity into being.
The jaw clacked, opening and shutting as if jerked by wicked, deeply imbedded wires; drifting here and there in the fluid of the puddle it croaked, “But you see, Mr. Bulero, she didn’t live that long. You forgot that.” It was, remotely but absolutely, the voice–not of Roni Fugate– but Monica, as if drumming at the far-distant end of a waxed string. “You made her past one hundred but she only is going to live to be seventy. So she’s been dead thirty years, except you made her alive; that was what you intended. And even worse–” The toothless jaw waggled and the uninhabited pockets for eyes gaped. “She evolved not while alive, but there in the ground.” The skull ceased piping, then by stages disintegrated; its parts once more floated away and the semblance of organization again dissipated.
After a time Barney said, “Get us out of here, Leo.”
Leo said, “Hey, Palmer.” His voice was uncontrolled, babylike with fear. “Hey, you know what? I give up; I really do.”
The carpet of the office beneath his feet rotted, became mushy, and then sprouted, grew, alive, into green fibers; he saw that it was becoming grass. And then the walls and the ceiling caved in, collapsed into fine dust; the particles rained noiselessly down like ashes. And the blue, cool sky appeared, untouched, above.
Seated on the grass, with the stick in her lap and the suitcase containing Dr. Smile beside her, Monica said, “Did you want Mr. Mayerson to remain? I didn’t think so. I let him go with the rest that you made. Okay?” She smiled up at Leo.