Now Chris Plout, wearing a red bathrobe, his feet bare, entered from the kitchen; through dark glasses he peered to see if it was time to begin. 'Marm,' he said. 'Kathy, Bruce, Simon, and I, Christian; the five of us. An adventure into the unexplored by means of a new substance which has just arrived from Tampico aboard a banana boat... I hold it here.' He extended his open palm; within lay the five capsules. 'One for each of us – Kathy, Bruce, Simon, Marm, and me, Christian; our first journey of the mind together. Will we all return? And will we be translated, as Bottom says?'
Himmel thought. As Peter Quince says to Bottom, actually.
Aloud, he said, "Bottom, thou art translated."'
'Pardon?' Chris Plout said, frowning.
'I'm quoting,' Himmel explained.
'Come on, Chris,' Kathy Sweetscent said crossly, 'give us the jink and let's get started.' She snatched – successfully – one of the capsules from Chris's palm. 'Here I go,' she said. 'And without water.'
Mildly, Marm Hastings said with his quasi-English accent, 'Is it the same, I wonder, taken without water?' Without movement of his eye muscles he clearly succeeded in making a survey of the woman; there was that sudden stricture of his body which gave him away. Himmel felt outraged; wasn't this whole affair designed to raise them all above the flesh?
'It's the same,' Kathy informed him. 'Everything's the same, when you break through to absolute reality; it's all one vast blur.' She then swallowed, coughed. The capsule was gone.
Reaching, Himmel took his. The others followed.
'If the Mole's police caught us,' Simon said, to no one in particular, 'we'd all be in the Army, serving out at the front.'
'Or working in vol-labe camps at Lilistar,' Himmel added. They were all tense, waiting for the drug to take effect; it always ran this way, these short seconds before the jink got to them. 'For good old Freneksy, as it's translated into English. Bottom, thou art translated as Freneksy.' He giggled shakily. Katherine Sweetscent glared at him.
'Miss,' Marm Hastings said to her in an unperturbed voice, 'I wonder if I haven't met you before; you do seem familiar. Do you spend much time in the Bay area? I have a studio and architect-designed home in the hills of West Marin, near the ocean ... we hold seminars there often; people come and go freely. But I would remember you. Oh yes.'
Katherine Sweetscent said, 'My damn husband – he wouldn't ever let me. I'm self-supporting – I'm more than economically independent – and yet I have to put up with the rasping little noises and squeaks he makes whenever I try to do something original on my own.' She added, 'I'm an antique buyer, but old things become boring; I'd love to—'
Marm Hastings interrupted, speaking to Chris Plout, 'Where does this JJ-180 originate, Plout? You said Germany, I think. But you see, I have a number of contacts in pharmaceutical institutes, both public and private, in Germany, and none of them has so much as mentioned anything called JJ-180.' He smiled, but it was a sharply formed astute smile, demanding an answer.
Chris shrugged. That's the poog as I get it, Hastings. Take it or leave it.' He was not bothered; he knew, as they all did, that under these circumstances no brief of warranty was incumbent on him.
Then it's not actually German,' Hastings said, with a faint nod. 'I see. Could this JJ-180, or Frohedadrine as it's also called ....ould it possibly originate entirely off Terra?'
After a pause Chris said, 'I dunno, Hastings. I dunno.'
To all of them Hastings said in his educated, severe voice, There have been cases of illegal non-terrestrial drugs before. None of them of any importance. Derived from Martian flora, mostly, and occasionally from Ganymedean lichens. I suppose you've heard; you all seem informed on this topic, as you should be. Or at least—' His smile grew, but his eyes, behind his rimless glasses, were codlike. 'At the very least you seem satisfied as to the pedigree of this JJ-180 for which you've paid this man fifty US dollars.'
'I'm satisfied,' Simon Ild said in his stupid way. 'Anyhow it's too late; we paid Chris and we've all taken the caps.'
'True,' Hastings agreed reasonably. He seated himself in one of Chris's tottering easy chairs. 'Does anyone feel any change yet? Please speak up as soon as you do.' He glanced at Katherine Sweetscent. 'Your nipples seem to be watching me, or is that just my imagination? In any case it makes me decidedly uncomfortable.'
'As a matter of fact,' Chris Plout said in a strained voice, 'I feel something, Hastings.' He licked his lips, trying to wet them. 'Excuse me. I – to be frank, I'm here alone. None of you are with me.'
Marm Hastings studied him.
'Yes,' Chris went on. 'I'm all alone in my conapt. None of you even exist. But the books and chairs, everything else exists. Then who'm I talking to? Have you answered?' He peered about, and it was obvious that he could not see any of them; his gaze passed by them all.
'My nipples are not watching you or anybody else,' Kathy Sweetscent said to Hastings.
'I can't hear you,' Chris said in panic. 'Answer!'
'We're here,' Simon Ild said, and sniggered.
'Please,' Chris said, and now his voice was pleading. 'Say something: it's just shadows. It's – lifeless. Nothing but dead things. And it's only starting – I'm scared of how it's going on; it's still happening.'
Marm Hastings laid his hand on Chris Plout's shoulder.
The hand passed through Plout.
'Well, we've gotten our fifty dollars' worth,' Kathy Sweet-scent said in a low voice, void of amusement. She walked toward Chris, closer and closer.
'Don't try it,' Hastings said to her in a gentle tone.
'I will,' she said. And walked through Chris Plout. But she did not reappear on the other side. She had vanished; only Plout remained, still bleating for someone to answer him, still flailing the air in search of companions he could no longer perceive.
Isolation, Bruce Himmel thought to himself. Each of us cut off from all the others. Dreadful. But – it'll wear off. Won't it?
As yet he did not know. And for him it had not even started.
'These pains,' UN Secretary General Gino Molinari rasped, lying back on the large, red, hand-wrought couch in the living room of Virgil Ackerman's Wash-35 apartment, 'generally become most difficult for me at night.' He had shut his eyes; his great fleshy face sagged forlornly, the grimy jowls wobbling as he spoke. 'I've been examined; Dr Teagarden is my chief GP. They've made infinite tests, with particular attention directed toward malignancy.'
Eric thought. The man's speaking by rote; it's not his natural speech pattern. This has become that ingrained in his mind, this preoccupation; he's gone through this ritual a thousand times, with as many physicians. And – he still suffers.
There's no malignancy,' Molinari added. 'That seems to have been authoritatively verified.' His words constituted a satire of pompous medical diction, Eric realized suddenly. The Mole had immense hostility toward doctors, since they had failed to help him. 'Generally the diagnosis is acute gastritis. Or spasms of the phyloric valve. Or even an hysterical re-enactment of my wife's labor pains, which she experienced three years ago.' He finished, half to himself, 'Shortly before her death.'
'What about your diet?' Eric asked.
The Mole opened his eyes wearily. 'My diet. I don't eat, doctor. Nothing at all. The air sustains me; didn't you read that in the homeopapes? I don't need food, like you simple schulps do. I'm different.' His tone was urgently, acutely embittered.