“For chrissakes!”
“It’s god’s truth, Mr. Garden; I swear it.”
Pete said, “You’re awfully articulate for a Rushmore circuit, aren’t you?” Opening the car door he peered in, blinking in the glare of the dome light. Peered suspiciously, and in fright.
Someone sat behind the tiller.
After a pause the figure said, “Get in, Mr. Garden.”
“Why?” he said.
“So I can drive you where you want to go.” “I don’t want to go anywhere,” he said. “I want to stay here.”
“Why are you looking at me so funny? Don’t you remember coming and getting me? It was your idea to do the town—do several towns, as a matter of fact.” She smiled. It was a woman; he saw that now.
“Who the hell are you?” he said. “I don’t know you.”
“Why, you certainly do. You met me at Joseph Schilling’s rare record shop in New Mexico.”
“Mary Anne McClain,” he said, then. He got slowly into the car beside her. “What’s been going on?”
Mary Anne said calmly, “You’ve been celebrating your wife Carol’s pregnancy.”
“But how’d I get mixed up with you?”
“First you dropped by the apartment in Marin County. I wasn’t there because I was at the San Francisco public library doing research. My mother told you and you flew to San Francisco, to the library, and picked me up. And we drove to Pocatello because you had the idea that an eighteen-year-old girl would be served in a bar in Idaho, and she isn’t in San Francisco as we found out.”
“Was I right?”
“No. So you went in alone, to Dave’s Place, and I’ve been sitting out here in the car waiting for you. And you just now came out of that alley and began yelling.”
“I see,” he said. He lay back against the seat. “I feel sick. I wish I was home.”
Mary Anne McClain said, “I’ll drive you home, Mr. Garden.” The car now had lifted into the sky; Pete shut his eyes.
“How’d I get mixed up with that vug?” he said, after a time.
“What vug?”
“In the bar. I guess. Doctor something Philipson.”
“How would I know? They wouldn’t let me in.”
“Well, was there a vug in there? Didn’t you see in?”
“I saw in; I went in at first. But there was no vug while I was there. But of course I came right back out; they made me leave.”
“I’m quite a heel,” Pete said, “staying inside drinking while you sat out here in the car.”
“I didn’t mind,” Mary Anne said. “I had a nice conversation with the Rushmore unit. I learned a lot about you. Didn’t I, car?”
“Yes, Miss McClain,” the car said.
“It likes me,” Mary Anne said. “All Rushmore Effects like me.” She laughed. “I charm them.”
“Evidently,” Pete said. “What time is it?”
“About four.”
“A.M.?” He couldn’t believe it. How come the bar was still open? “They don’t allow bars open that late, in any state.”
“Maybe I looked at the clock wrong,” Mary Anne said.
“No,” Pete said. “You looked at it right. But something’s wrong; something’s terribly wrong.”
“Ha, ha,” Mary Anne said.
He glanced at her. At the tiller of the car sat the shapeless slime of a vug. “Car,” Pete said instantly. “What’s at the tiller? Tell me.”
“Mary Anne McClain, Mr. Garden,” the car said.
But the vug still sat there. He saw it.
“Are you sure?” Pete said.
“Positive,” the car said.
The vug said, “As I said, I can charm Rushmore circuits.”
“Where are we going?” Pete said.
“Home. To take you back to your wife Carol.”
“And then what?”
“And then I’m going home to bed.”
“What are you?” he said to it.
“What do you think? You can see. Tell someone about it; tell Mr. Hawthorne the detective or better yet tell E.B. Black the detective. E.B. Black would get a kick out of it.”
Pete shut his eyes.
When he opened them again it was Mary Anne McClain sitting there beside him, at the tiller of the car.
“You were right,” he said to the car. Or were you? he wondered. God, he thought; I wish I was home, I wish I hadn’t come out tonight. I’m scared. Joe Schilling, he could help me. Aloud he said, “Take me to Joe Schilling’s apartment, Mary Anne or whatever your name is.”
“At this time of night? You’re crazy.”
“He’s my best friend. In all the world.”
“It’ll be five A.M. when we get there.”
“He’ll be glad to see me,” Pete said. “With what I have to tell him.”
“And what’s that?” Mary Anne said.
Cautiously, he said, “You know. About Carol. The baby.”
“Oh yes,” Mary Anne said. She nodded. “As Freya said, ‘I hope it’s a baby.’”
“Freya said that? Who to?”
“To Carol.”
“How do you know?”
Mary Anne said, “You telephoned Carol from the car before we went to Dave’s Place; you wanted to be sure she was all right. She was very upset and you asked why and she said that she had called Freya, looking for you, and Freya had said that.”
“Damn that Freya,” Pete said.
“I don’t blame you for feeling like that. She’s a hard, schizoid type, it sounds like. We studied about that in psych.”
“Do you like school?”
“Love it,” Mary Anne said.
“Do you think you could be interested in an old man of one hundred and fifty years?”
“You’re not so old, Mr. Garden. Just confused. You’ll feel better after I get you home.” She smiled at him, briefly.
“I’m still potent,” he said. “As witness Carol’s impregnation. Whooee!” he cried.
“Three cheers,” Mary Anne said. “Just think: one more Terran in the world. Isn’t that delightful?”
“We don’t generally refer to ourselves as Terrans,” Pete said. “We generally say ‘people.’ You made a mistake.”
“Oh,” Mary Anne said, nodding. “Mistake noted.”
Pete said, “Is your mother part of this? Is that why she didn’t want the police to scan her?”
“Yep,” Mary Anne said.
“How many are in it?”
“Oh, thousands,” Mary Anne—or rather the vug—said. Despite what he saw he knew it to be a vug. “Just thousands and thousands. All over the planet.”
“But not everyone’s in on it,” Pete said. “Because you still have to hide from the authorities. I think I will tell Hawthorne.”
Mary Anne laughed.
Reaching into the glove compartment, Pete fumbled about.
“Mary Anne removed the gun,” the car informed him. “She was afraid if the police stopped you and they found it they’d put you back in jail.”
“That’s right,” Mary Anne said.
“You people killed Luckman. Why?”
She shrugged. “I forget. Sorry.”
“Who’s next?”
“The thing.”
“What thing?”
Mary Anne, her eyes sparkling, said, “The thing growing inside Carol. Bad luck, Mr. Garden; it’s not a baby.”
He shut his eyes.
The next he knew, they were over the Bay Area.
“Almost home,” Mary Anne said.
“And you’re just going to let me off?” he said.
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.” He was sick, then, in the corner of the car, like an animal would be. Mary Anne said nothing after that and he said nothing either. What a terrible night this had been, he thought to himself. It should have been wonderful; my first luck. And instead—
And now he could not reasonably dwell on the theme of suicide, because the situation had become worse, was too bad for that to be a solut
ion. My own problems are problems of perception, he realized. Of understanding and then accepting. What I have to remember is that they’re not all in it. The detective E.B. Black isn’t in it and Doctor Philipson; he or it isn’t in it either. I can get help from something, somewhere, sometime.
“Right you are,” Mary Anne said.
“Are you a telepath?” he said to her.
“I very much certainly darn right am.”
“But,” he said, “your mother said you weren’t.”
“My mother lied to you.”
Pete said, “Is Nats Katz the center of all this?”
“Yes,” she said.
“I thought so,” he said, and lay back against the seat, trying not to be sick again.
Mary Anne said, “Here we are.” The car dipped down, skimmed above the deserted pavement of a San Rafael street. “Give me a kiss,” she said, “before you get out.” She brought the car to a halt at the curb and looking up he saw his apartment building. The light was on in his window; Carol was still up, waiting for him, or else she had fallen asleep with the lights on.
“A kiss,” he echoed. “Really?”
“Yes really,” Mary Anne said, and leaned expectantly toward him.
“I can’t,” he said.
“Why not?”
“Because,” he said, “of what you are, the thing that you are.”
“Oh how absurd,” Mary Anne said. “What’s the matter with you, Pete? You’re lost in dreams!”
“I am?”
“Yes,” she said, glaring at him in exasperation. “You took dope tonight and got drunk and you were terribly excited about Carol and also you were afraid because of the police. You’ve been hallucinating like mad for the last two hours. You thought that psychiatrist, Doctor Philipson, was a vug, and then you thought I was a vug.” To the car, Mary Anne said, “Am I a vug?”
“No, Mary Anne,” the Rushmore circuit of the car answered, for the second time.
“See?” she said.
“I still can’t do it,” he said. “Just let me out of the car.” He found the door handle, opened the door, stepped out on the curb, his legs shaking under him.
“Good night,” Mary Anne said, eyeing him.
“Good night.” He started toward the door of the apartment building.
The car said, after him, “You got me all dirty.”
“Too bad,” Pete said. He opened the apartment building door with his key and passed on inside; the door shut after him.
When he got upstairs he found Carol standing in the hall in a short, sheer yellow nightgown. “I heard the car drive up,” she said. “Thank god you’re back! I was so worried about you.” She folded her arms, self-consciously blushing. “I should be in my robe, I know.”
“Thanks for waiting up.” He passed on by her, went into the bathroom and washed his face and hands with cold water.
“Can I fix you something to eat or drink? It’s so late now.”
“Coffee,” he said, “would be fine.”
In the kitchen she fixed a pot of coffee for both of them.
“Do me a favor,” Pete said. “Call Pocatello information, the vidphone autocorp, and find out if there’s a Doctor E.R. Philipson listed.”
“All right.” Carol clicked on the vidphone. She talked for a time with a sequence of homeostatic circuits and then she rang off. “Yes.”
“I was seeing him,” Pete said. “It cost me one hundred and fifty dollars. Their rates are high. Could you tell from what the vidphone said if Philipson is a Terran?”
“They didn’t say. I got his number.” She pushed the pad toward him.
“I’ll call him and ask.” He clicked the vidphone back on.
“At five-thirty in the morning?”
“Yes,” he said, dialing. A long time passed; the phone, at the other end, rang and rang. “‘Walkin’ the dog, see-bawh, see-bawh,’” Pete sang. “‘He have-um red whisker, he have-um green paw.’ Doctors expect this,” he said to Carol. There was a sharp click, then, and on the vidscreen a face, a wrinkled human face, formed. “Doctor Philipson?” Pete asked.
“Yes.” The doctor shook his head blearily, then scrutinized Pete. “Oh, it’s you.”
“You remember me?” Pete said.
“Of course I do. You’re the man Joe Schilling sent to me; I saw you for an hour earlier tonight.”
Joe Schilling, Pete said to himself. I didn’t know that. “You’re not a vug, are you?” Pete said to Doctor Philipson.
“Is that what you called me up to ask?”
“Yes,” Pete said. “It’s very important.”
“I am not a vug,” Doctor Philipson said, and hung up.
Pete shut off the vidphone. “I think I’ll go to bed,” he said to Carol. “I’m worn out. Are you okay?”
“Yes,” she said. “A little tired.”
“Let’s go to bed together,” he said to her.
Carol smiled. “All right. I’m certainly glad to have you back; do you always do things like this, go out on binges until five-thirty A.M.?”
“No,” he said. And I’ll never do it again, he thought.
As he sat on the edge of the bed removing his clothes he found something, a match folder stuffed into his left shoe, beneath his instep. He set the shoe down, held the match folder under the lamp by the bed and examined it. Carol, beside him, had already gotten into bed and apparently had gone directly to sleep.
On the match folder, in his own hand, penciled words:
WE ARE ENTIRELY SURROUNDED
BY BUGS RUGS VUGS
That was my discovery tonight, he remembered. My bright, crowning achievement, and I was afraid I’d somehow forget it. I wonder when I wrote that? In the bar? On the way home? Probably when I first figured it out, when I was talking to Doctor Philipson.
“Carol,” he said, “I know who killed Luckman.”
“Who?” she said, still awake.
“We all did,” Pete said. “All six of us who’ve lost our memories. Janice Remington, Silvanus Angst and his wife, Clem Gaines, Bill Calumine’s wife and myself; we did it acting under the influence of the vugs.” He held out the match folder to her. “Read what I wrote, here. In case I didn’t remember; in case they tampered with my mind again.”
Sitting up, she took the match folder and studied it. “‘We are entirely surrounded by vugs.’ Excuse me—but I have to laugh.”
He glared at her grimly.
“That’s why you placed that call to the doctor in Idaho and asked him what you did; now I understand. But he isn’t a vug; you saw him yourself on the screen and heard him.”
“Yeah, that’s so,” he admitted.
“Who else is a vug? Or, as you started to write it—”
“Mary Anne McClain. She’s the worst of them all.
“Oh,” Carol said, nodding. “I see, Pete. That’s who you were with, tonight. I wondered. I knew it was someone. Some woman.”
Pete clicked on the vidphone by the bed. “I’m going to call Hawthorne and Black, those two cops. They’re not in on it.” As he dialed he said to Carol, “No wonder Pat McClain didn’t want to be scanned by the police.”
“Pete, don’t do it tonight.” She reached out and cut the circuit off.
“But they may get me tonight. Any time.””
Tomorrow.” Carol smiled at him coaxingly. “Please.”
“Can I call Joe Schilling, then?”
“If you want. I just don’t think you should talk to the police right now, the way you’re feeling. You’re in so much trouble with them already.”
He dialed information, got Joe Schilling’s new number in Marin County.
Presently Schilling’s hairy, ruddy face formed on the screen, fully alert. “Yes? What is it? Pete—listen, Carol called and told me the good news, about your luck. My god, that’s terrific!”
Pete said, “Did you send me to a Doctor Philipson in Pocatello?”
“Who?”
Pete repeated the name. Joe Schilling??
?s face screwed up in bafflement. “Okay,” Pete said. “Sorry I woke you. I didn’t think you did.”
“Wait a minute,” Schilling said. “Listen, about two years ago when you were at my shop in New Mexico we had a conversation—what was it about? It was something about the side effects of a methamphetamine hydrochloride. You were taking them then, and I warned you against them; there was an article in Scientific American by a psychiatrist in Idaho; I think it was this Philipson you mentioned, and he said that the methamphetamines can precipitate a psychotic episode.”
“I have a dim memory,” Pete said.
“Your theory, your answer to the article, was that you were also taking a trifluoperazine, a dihydrochloride of some sort which you swore compensated for the side effects of the methamphetamines.”
Pete said, “I took a whole bunch of methamphetamine tablets, tonight. 7.5-milligram ones, too.”
“And you also drank?”
“Yes.”
“Oy gewalt. You remember what Philipson said in his article about a mixture of the methamphetamines and alcohol.”
“Vaguely.”
“They potentiate each other. Did you have a psychotic episode, tonight?”
“Not by a long shot. I had a moment of absolute truth. Here, I’ll read it to you.” To Carol, Pete said, “Hand me back that match folder.” She passed it to him and he read from it. “That was my revelation, Joe. My experience. There are vugs all around us.’”
Schilling was silent a moment and then he said, “About this Doctor Philipson in Idaho. Did you go to him? Is that why you ask?”
“I paid one hundred and fifty dollars to him tonight,” Pete said. “And in my opinion I got my money’s worth.”
After a pause, Schilling said, “I’m going to suggest something to you that’ll surprise you. Call that detective, Hawthorne.”
“That’s what I wanted to do,” Pete said. “But Carol won’t let me.”
“I want to talk to Carol,” Joe Schilling said.
Rising to a sitting position in the bed, Carol faced the vidscreen. “I’m right here, Joe. If you think Pete should call Hawthorne—”
“Carol, I’ve known your husband for years. He has suicidal depressions. Regularly. To be blunt, dear, he’s a manic-depressive; he has an affective psychosis, periodically. Tonight, because of the news about the baby, he’s gone into a manic phase and I for one don’t blame him. I know how it feels; it’s like being reborn. I want him to call Hawthorne for a very good reason. Hawthorne has had more to do with vugs than anyone else we know. There’s no use my talking to Pete; I don’t know a darn thing about vugs; maybe they’re all around us, for all I know. I’m not going to try to argue Pete out of it, especially at five-thirty in the morning. I suggest you follow the same course.”