She leaned against him as they walked, and he hugged her; she did not resist—in fact she sighed with relief. “Barney, I have something to show you. A leaflet that one of the people in my hovel gave me; she said a whole bundle had been dropped the other day. It’s from the Chew-Z people.” Reaching into her bulky coat she rummaged about, then; in the glare of the lantern he saw the folded paper. “Read it. You’ll understand why I feel as I do about Chew-Z… why it’s such a spiritual problem for me.”
Holding the paper to the light he read the top line; it blazed out in huge black letters.
“See?” Anne said.
“I see.” He did not even bother to read the rest; folding the paper back up he returned it to her, feeling heavyhearted. “Quite a slogan.”
“A true one.”
“Not the big lie,” Barney said, “but instead the big truth.” Which, he wondered, is worse? Hard to tell. Ideally, Palmer Eldritch would drop dead for the blasphemia shouted by the pamphlet, but evidently that was not going to occur. An evil visitor oozing over us from the Prox system, he said to himself, offering us what we’ve prayed for over a period of two thousand years. And why is this so palpably bad? Hard to say, but nevertheless it is. Because maybe it’ll mean bondage to Eldritch, such as Leo experienced; Eldritch will be with us constantly from now on, infiltrating our lives. And He who has protected us in the past simply sits passive.
Each time we’re translated, he thought, we’ll see—not God—but Palmer Eldritch.
Aloud he said, “If Chew-Z fails you—”
“Don’t say that.”
“If Palmer Eldritch fails you, then maybe—” He stopped. Because ahead of them lay the hovel Flax Back Spit; its entrance light glowed dimly in the Martian gloom. “You’re home.” He did not like to let her go; his hand on her shoulder, he clung to her, thinking back to what he had said to his fellow hovelists about her. “Come back with me,” he said. “To Chicken Pox Prospects. We’ll get formally, legally married.”
She stared at him and then—incredibly–she began to laugh.
“Does that mean no?” he asked, woodenly.
“What,” Anne said, “is ‘Chicken Pox Prospects’? Oh, I see; that’s the code name of your hovel. I’m sorry, Barney; I didn’t mean to laugh. But the answer of course is no.” She moved away from him, and opened the outer door of the hovel’s entrance-chamber. And then she set down her lantern and stepped toward him, arms held out. “Make love to me,” she said.
“Not here. Too close to the entrance.” He was afraid.
“Wherever you want. Take me there.” She put her arms around his neck. “Now,” she said. “Don’t wait.”
He didn’t.
Picking her up in his arms, he carried her away from the entrance.
“Golly,” she said, when he laid her down in the darkness; she gasped, presently, perhaps from the sudden cold that spilled over them, penetrating their heavy suits which no longer served, which in fact were a hindrance to true warmth.
One of the laws of thermal dynamics, he thought. The exchange of heat; molecules passing between us, hers and mine mingling in—entropy? Not yet, he thought.
“Oh my,” she said, in the darkness.
“I hurt you?”
“No. I’m sorry. Please.”
The cold numbed his back, his ears; it radiated down from the sky. He ignored it as best he could, but he thought of a blanket, a thick wool layer—strange, to be preoccupied with that at such a time. He dreamed of its softness, the scratch of its fibers against his skin, its heaviness. Instead of the brittle, frigid, thin air which made him pant in huge gulps, as if finished.
“Are—you dying?” she asked.
“Just can’t breathe. This air.”
“Poor, poor—good lord. I’ve forgotten your name.”
“Hell of a thing.”
“Barney!”
He clutched her.
“No! Don’t stop!” She arched her back. Her teeth chattered.
“I wasn’t going to,” he said.
“Oooaugh!”
He laughed.
“Don’t please laugh at me.”
“Not meant unkindly.”
A long silence, then. Then, “Oof.” She leaped, galvanized as if lost to the shock of a formal experiment. His pale, dignified, unclothed possession: become a tall and very thin greenless nervous system of a frog; probed to life by outside means. Victim of a current not her own but not protested, in any way. Lucid and real, accepting. Ready this long time.
“You all right?”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes Barney. I certainly very much am. Yes!”
Later as he tramped back alone, leadenly, in the direction of his own hovel he said to himself, Maybe I’m doing Palmer Eldritch’s work. Breaking her down, demoralizing her… as if she weren’t already. As if we all weren’t.
Something blocked his way.
Halting, he located in his coat the side-arm which had been provided him; there were, especially at night, in addition to the fearsome telepathic jackal, vicious domestic organisms that stung and ate—he flashed his light warily, expecting some bizarre multi-armed contraption composed perhaps of slime. Instead he saw a parked ship, the small, swift type with slight mass; its tubes still smoked, so evidently it had just now landed. Must have coasted down, he realized, since he hadn’t heard any retro noise.
From the ship a man crept, shook himself, snapped on his own lantern, made out Barney Mayerson, and grunted. “I’m Allen Faine. I’ve been looking all over for you; Leo wants to keep in touch with you through me. I’ll be telecasting in code to you at your hovel; here’s your code book.” Faine held out a slender volume. “You know who I am, don’t you?”
“The disc jockey.” Weird, this meeting here on the open Martian desert at night between himself and this man from the P. P. Layouts satellite; it seemed unreal. “Thanks,” he said, accepting the code book. “What do I do, write it down as you say it and then sneak off to decode it?”
“There’ll be a private TV receiver in your compartment in the hovel; we’ve arranged for it on the grounds that being new to Mars you crave—”
“Okay,” Barney said, nodding.
“So you have a girl already,” Faine said. “Pardon my use of the infrared searchlight, but—”
“I don’t pardon it.”
“You’ll find that there’s little privacy on Mars in matters of that nature. It’s like a small town and all the hovelists are starved for news, especially any kind of scandal. I ought to know; it’s my job to keep in touch and pass on what I can—naturally there’s a lot I can’t. Who’s the girl?”
“I don’t know,” Barney said sardonically. “It was dark; I couldn’t see.” He started on, then, going around the parked ship.
“Wait. You’re supposed to know this: a Chew-Z pusher is already operating in the area and we calculate that he’ll be approaching your particular hovel as early as tomorrow morning. So be ready. Make sure you buy the bindle in front of witnesses; they should see the entire transaction and then when you chew it make sure they can clearly identify what you’re consuming. Got it?” Faine added, “And try to draw the pusher out, get him to give as complete a warranty, verbally of course, as you possibly can. Make him sell you on the product; don’t ask for it. See?”
Barney said, “And what do I get for doing this?”
“Pardon?”
“Leo never at any time bothered to—”
“I’ll tell you what,” Faine said quietly. “We’ll get you off Mars. That’s your payment.”