A port of the ship snapped open. From it popped a small jet-tractor; it sped toward them. A yard away it halted and ejected a carton wrapped in familiar plain brown paper; the carton lay at their feet and then at last Norm Schein bent and picked it up. It was not a phantasm. Cautiously Norm tore the wrappings off.
“Chew-Z,” Mary Regan said breathlessly. “Oh, what a lot! How much, Mr. Eldritch?”
“In toto,” Eldritch said, “five skins.” The tractor extended a small drawer, then, precisely the size to receive the skins.
After an interval of haggling the hovelists came to an arrangement; the five skins were deposited in the drawer—at once it was withdrawn and the tractor swiveled and zipped back to the mother ship. Palmer Eldritch, insubstantial and gray and large, remained. He appeared to be enjoying himself, Barney decided. It did not bother him to know that Leo Bulero had something up his sleeve; Eldritch thrived on this.
The realization depressed him and he walked, alone, to the meager cleared place which was eventually to be his garden. His back to the hovelists and Eldritch, he activated an autonomic unit; it began to wheeze and hum; sand disappeared into it as it sucked noisily, having difficulty. He wondered how long it would continue functioning. And what one did here on Mars to obtain repairs. Perhaps one gave up; maybe there were no repairs.
From behind Barney, Palmer Eldritch’s voice came. “Now, Mr. Mayerson, you can begin to chew away for the rest of your life.”
He turned, involuntarily, because this was not a phantasm; the man had finally come forth. “That’s right,” he said. “And nothing could delight me more.” He continued, then, tinkering with the autonomic scoop. “Where do you go to get equipment fixed on Mars?” he asked Eldritch. “Does the UN take care of that?”
Eldritch said, “How would I know?”
A portion of the autonomic scoop broke loose in Barney’s hands; he held it, weighed it. The piece, shaped like a tire iron, was heavy and he thought, I could kill him with this. Right here, in this spot. Wouldn’t that solve it? No toxin to produce grand mal seizures, no litigation… but there’d be retaliation from them. I’d outlive Eldritch by only a few hours.
But—isn’t it still worth it?
He turned. And then it happened so swiftly that he had no valid concept of it, not even an accurate perception. From the parked ship a laser beam reached forth and he felt the intense impact as it touched the metal section in his hands. At the same time Palmer Eldritch danced back, lithely, bounding upward in the slight Martian gravity; like a balloon—Barney stared but did not believe—he floated off, grinning with his huge steel teeth, waggling his artificial arm, his lank body slowly rotating. Then, as if reeled in by a transparent line, he progressed in a jerky sine-wave motion toward the ship. All at once he was gone. The nose of the ship clamped shut after him; Eldritch was inside. Safe.
“Why’d he do that?” Norm Schein said, eaten with curiosity, where he and the other hovelists stood. “What in God’s name went on, there?”
Barney said nothing; shakily he set the remains of the metal piece down. They were ashlike remnants only, brittle and dry; they crumbled away as they touched the ground.
“They got into a hassle,” Tod Morris said. “Mayerson and Eldritch; they didn’t hit it off, not one bit.”
“Anyhow,” Norm said, “we got the Chew-Z. Mayerson, you better stay away from Eldritch in the future; let me handle the transaction. If I had known that because you were an employee of Leo Bulero—”
“Former,” Barney said reflexively, and resumed his tinkering with the defective autonomic scoop. He had failed in his first try at killing Palmer Eldritch. Would he ever have a chance again?
Had he really had a chance just now?
The answer to both, he decided, was no.
Late that afternoon the hovelists of Chicken Pox Prospects gathered to chew. The mood was one of tension and solemnity; scarcely anything was said as the bindles of Chew-Z, one by one, were unwrapped and passed around.
“Ugh,” Fran Schein said, making a face. “It tastes awful.”
“Taste, schmnaste,” Norm said impatiently. He chewed, then. “Like a decayed mushroom; you sure are right.” Stoically, he swallowed, and continued chewing. “Gak,” he said, and retched.
“To be doing this without a layout—” Helen Morris said. “Where will we go, just anywhere? I’m scared,” she said all at once. “Will we be together? Are you positive of that, Norm?”
“Who cares,” Sam Regan said, chewing.
“Watch me,” Barney Mayerson said.
They glanced at him with curiosity; something in his tone made them do as he said.
“I put the Chew-Z in my mouth,” Barney said, and did so. “You see me doing it. Right?” He chewed. “Now I’m chewing it.” His heart labored. God, he thought. Can I go through with this?
“Yeah, we see you,” Tod Morris agreed, nodding. “So what? I mean, are you going to blow up or float off like Eldritch or something?” He, too, began on his bindle, then. They were all chewing, all seven of them, Barney realized. He shut his eyes.
The next he knew, his wife was bending over him.
“I said,” she said, “do you want a second Manhattan or not? Because if you do I have to request the refrig for more cracked ice.”
“Emily,” he said.
“Yes, dear,” she said tartly. “Whenever you say my name like that I know you’re about to launch in on one of your lectures. What is it this time?” She seated herself on the arm of the couch opposite him, smoothing her skirt; it was the striking blue-and-white hand-printed Mexican wraparound that he had gotten her at Christmas. “I’m ready,” she said.
“No—lecture,” he said. Am I really that way? he asked himself. Always delivering tirades? Groggily, he rose to his feet; he felt dizzy and he steadied himself by holding onto the nearby pole lamp.
Eying him, Emily said, “You’re blammed.”
Blammed. He hadn’t heard that term since college; it was long out of style, and naturally Emily still used it. “The word,” he said as distinctly as possible, “is now fnugled. Can you remember that? Fnugled.” He walked unsteadily to the sideboard in the kitchen where the liquor was.
“Fnugled,” Emily said and sighed. She looked sad; he noticed that and wondered why. “Barney,” she said, then, “don’t drink so much, okay? Call it blammed or fnugled or anything you want, it’s still the same. I guess it’s my fault; you drink so much because I’m so inadequate.” She wiped briefly with her knuckle at her right eye, an annoying, familiar, ticlike motion.
“It’s not that you’re so inadequate,” he said. “It’s just that I have high standards.” I was taught to expect a lot from others, he said to himself. To expect they’d be as reputable and stable as I am, and not sloppily emotional all the time, not in control of themselves.
But an artist, he realized. Or rather so-called artist. Bohemian. That’s closer to it. The artistic life without the talent. He began fixing himself a fresh drink, this one bourbon and water, without ice; he poured directly from the bottle of Old Crow, ignoring the shot glass.
“When you pour that way,” Emily said, “I know you’re angry and we’re in for it. And I just hate it.”
“So then leave,” he said.
“Goddamn you,” Emily said. “I don’t want to leave! Couldn’t you just—” She gestured with hopeless futility. “Be a little nicer, more charitable or something? Learn to overlook…” Her voice sank; almost inaudibly she said, “My shortcomings.”
“But,” he said, “they can’t be overlooked. I’d like to. You think I want to live with someone who can’t finish anything they start or accomplish anything socially? For instance when—aw, the hell with it.” What was the use? Emily couldn’t be reformed; she was purely and simply a slob. Her idea of a well-spent day was to wallow and putter and fool with a mess of greasy, excretion-like paints or bury her arms for hours on end in a great crock of wet gray clay. And meanwhile—.