But the simulated world remained. He had expected it to dwindle away as her—Eldritch’s—life dwindled away.
Puzzled, he stood without moving an inch, sniffing the air, listening to a far-off wind. Nothing had changed except that the girl had died. Why? What ailed the basis on which he had acted? Incredibly, it was wrong.
Bending, he snapped on Dr. Smile. “Explain it to me,” he said.
Obligingly, Dr. Smile tinnily declared, “He is dead here, Mr. Bulero. But at the demesne on Luna—”
“Okay,” Leo said roughly. “Well, tell me how to get out of this place. How do I get back to Luna, to—” He gestured. “You know what I mean. Actuality.”
“At this moment,” Dr. Smile explained, “Palmer Eldritch, although considerably upset and angered, is intravenously providing you with a substance which counters the injectable Chew-Z previously administered; you will return shortly.” It added, “That is, shortly, even instantly, in terms of the time-flow in that world. As to this—” It chuckled. “It could seem longer.”
“How longer?”
“Oh, years,” Dr. Smile said. “But quite possibly less. Days? Months? Time sense is subjective, so let’s see how it feels to you; do you not agree?”
Seating himself wearily by the body of the child, Leo sighed, put his head down, chin against his chest, and prepared to wait.
“I’ll keep you company,” Dr. Smile said, “if I can. But I’m afraid without Mr. Eldritch’s animating presence—” Its voice, Leo realized, had become feeble, as well as slowed down. “Nothing can sustain this world,” it intoned weakly, “but Mr. Elditch. So I am afraid…”
Its voice faded out entirely.
There was only silence. Even the distant wind had ceased.
How long? Leo asked himself. And then he wondered if he could, as before, make something.
Gesturing in the manner of an inspired symphony conductor, his hands writhing, he tried to create before him in the air a jet cab.
At last a meager outline appeared. Insubstantial, it remained without color, almost transparent; he rose, walked closer to it, and tried with all his strength once more. For a moment it seemed to gain color and reality and then suddenly it became fixed; like a hard, discarded chitinous shell it sagged, and burst. Its sections, only two-dimensional at best, blew and fluttered, tearing into ragged pieces—he turned his back on it and walked away in disgust. What a mess, he said to himself dismally.
He continued, without purpose, to walk. Until he came, all at once, to something in the grass, something dead; he saw it lying there and warily he approached it. This, he thought. The final indication of what I’ve done.
He kicked the dead gluck with the toe of his shoe; his toe passed entirely through it and he drew back, repelled.
Going on, hands deep in his pockets, he shut his eyes and once more prayed but this time vaguely; it was only a wish, inchoate, and then it became clear. I’m going to get him in the real world, he said to himself. Not just here, as I’ve done, but as the ‘papes are going to report. Not for myself; not to save P. P. Layouts and the Can-D trade. But for—he knew what he meant. Everyone in the system. Because Palmer Eldritch is an invader and this is how we’ll all wind up, here like this, on a plain of dead things that have become nothing more than random fragments; this is the “reincarnation” that he promised Hepburn-Gilbert.
For a time he wandered on and then, by degrees, he made his way back to the suitcase which had been Dr. Smile.
Something bent over the suitcase. A human or quasihuman figure.
Seeing him it at once straightened; its bald head glistened as it gaped at him, taken by surprise. And then it leaped and rushed off.
A Proxer.
It seemed to him as he watched it go that this put everything in perspective. Palmer Eldritch had peopled his landscape with things such as this; he was still highly involved with them, even now that he had returned to his home system. This, which had appeared just now, gave an insight into the man’s mind at the deepest level; and Palmer Eldritch himself might not have known that he had so populated his hallucinatory establishment—the Proxer might have been just as much a surprise to him.
Unless of course this was the Prox system.
Perhaps it would be a good idea to follow the Proxer.
He set off in that direction and trudged for what seemed to be hours; he saw nothing, only the grass underfoot, the level horizon. And then at last a shape formed ahead; he made for it and found himself all at once confronting a parked ship. Halting, he regarded it in amazement. For one thing it was not a Terran ship and yet it was not a Prox ship either.
Simply, it was not from either system.
Nor were the two creatures lounging nearby it Proxers or Terrans; he had never seen such life forms before. Tall, slender, with reedlike limbs and grotesque, egg-shaped heads which, even at this distance, seemed oddly delicate, a highly evolved race, he decided, and yet related to Terrans; the resemblance was closer than to the Proxers.
He walked toward them, hand raised in greeting.
One of the two creatures turned toward him, saw him, gaped, and nudged its companion; both stared and then the first one said, “My God, Alec; it’s one of the old forms. You know, the near-men.”
“Yeah,” the other creature agreed.
“Wait,” Leo Bulero said. “You’re speaking the language of Terra, twenty-first-century English—so you must have seen a Terran before.”
“Terran?” the one named Alec said. “We’re Terrans. What the hell are you? A freak that died out centuries ago, that’s what. Well, maybe not centuries but anyhow a long time ago.”
“An enclave of them must still exist on this moon,” the first said. To Leo he said, “How many dawn men are there besides you? Come on, fella; we won’t treat you bad. Any women? Can you reproduce?” To his companion he said, “It just seems like centuries. I mean, you’ve got to remember we been evolving in terms of a hundred thousand years at a crack. If it wasn’t for Denkmal these dawn men would still be—”
“Denkmal,” Leo said. Then this was the end-result of Denkmal’s E Therapy; this was only a little ahead in time, perhaps merely decades. Like them he felt a gulf of a million years, and yet it was in fact an illusion; he himself, when he finished with his therapy, might resemble these. Except that the chitinous hide was gone, and that had been one of the prime aspects of the evolving types. “I go to his clinic,” he said to the two of them. “Once a week. At Munich. I’m evolving; it’s working on me.” He came up close to them, and studied them intently. “Where’s the hide?” he asked. “To shield you from the sun?”
“Aw, that phony hot period’s over,” the one named Alec said, with a gesture of derision. “That was those Proxers, working with the Renegade. You know. Or maybe you don’t.”
“Palmer Eldritch,” Leo said.
“Yeah,” Alec said, nodding. “But we got him. Right here on this moon, in fact. Now it’s a shrine—not to us but to the Proxers; they sneak in here to worship. Seen any? We’re supposed to arrest any we find; this is Sol system territory, belongs to the UN.”
“What planet’s this a moon of?” Leo asked.
The two evolved Terrans both grinned. “Terra,” Alec said. “It’s artificial. Called Sigma 14-B, built years ago. Didn’t it exist in your time? It must have; it’s a real old one.
“I think so,” Leo said. “Then you can get me to Earth.”
“Sure.” Both of the evolved Terrans nodded in agreement. “As a matter of fact we’re taking off in half an hour; we’ll take you along—you and the rest of your tribe. Just tell us the location.”
“I’m the only one,” Leo said testily, “and we would hardly be a tribe anyhow; we’re not out of prehistoric times.” He wondered how he had gotten here to this future epoch. Or was this an illusion, too, constructed by the master hallucinator, Palmer Eldritch? Why should he assume this was any more real than the child Monica or the glucks or the synthetic P. P. Layouts which he had visited—visited and seen collapse? This was Palmer Eldritch imagining the future; these were meanderings of his brilliant, creative mind as he waited at his demesne on Luna for the effects of the intravenous injection of Chew-Z to wear off. Nothing more.