Radio Free Albemuth

PART THREE

Phil

... along with mine, I thought to myself. Nicholas and I are going down the tubes together, if he goes through with this. What a thing to find out.

"You think it's worth it?" I asked him. "To destroy yourself, your family, and your friends?"

"It has got to be done," Nicholas said.

"Why?" I demanded. I was in the middle of writing a new novel, the best yet. "Nicholas," I said, "what's in the material you're putting on the LP?"

We were sitting together in the stands at Anaheim Stadium, watching the Angels play. Nolan Ryan was pitching; it was one hell of a game. Pittsburgh was screwing up badly. My last baseball game, I said to myself bitterly as I drank from my bottle of Falstaff beer.

Nicholas said, "Information that will eventually cause Fremont's fall from power."

"No information could do that," I said. I didn't have that much faith in the written or spoken word; I wasn't that naive. "And in addition," I said, "the police will never let you get the record out. They probably know all about it."

"Admittedly," Nicholas said. "But we have to try. It may be only that one FAPer, that gung-ho Vivian Kaplan; she may have developed this as a personal, private lead to feather her own nest. Her suspicions may not be police policy."

"All suspicions are police policy," I said.

"Our illustrious President," Nicholas said, "has been a sleeper for the Communist Party."

"Is that just a slur," I said, "or can you prove it?"

"We're putting names, dates, and places into the material and God knows what else. Enough to -"

"But you can't prove it," I said. "You have no documents."

"We have the details. Or anyway the person working with me has. They're all going on the record, in subliminal form."

"And then you saturate America."

"Right."

"And everybody wakes up one morning," I said, ‘singing, „Fremont is a Red; Fremont is a Red; better a dead Fremont than a Red," and so forth. Chanting the material in unison."

Nicholas nodded.

"From a million throats," I said. "Fifty million. Two hundred million. „Better he's dead than red; better - „"

„This is no joke," Nicholas said starkly.

"No," I agreed, "it's not. It means our lives. Our careers and our lives. The government will forge documents to refute you, if they take notice of the smear at all."

"It's the truth," Nicholas said. "Fremont was trained as an agent of Moscow; it's a covert Soviet takeover, bloodless and unnoticed. We have the facts."

"Gee," I said, as it began to sink in. "No wonder there's no criticism of him from the Soviet Union."

"They think he's great," Nicholas said.

"Well," I said, "do it."

Nicholas glanced at me. "You agree? That's why I had to tell you. She said I had to."

"Did you tell Rachel?"

Tin going to."

"Johnny will have different parents," I said. And, I thought, someone else will have to write the great American science fiction novel. "Do it," I said, "and do it good. Press a million of the damn things. Two million. Mail a copy to every radio station in America, AM and FM. Mail them to Canada and Europe and South America. Sell them for eighty-five cents. Give them away at supermarkets. Start a mail order record club with it as a freebie. Leave them on doorsteps. You have my blessing. I'll stick the material in my new novel, if you want."

"No, we don't want that," Nicholas said.

"Valis told you to do this? He's guiding you?"

Nicholas said, "Valis is gone. An H-warhead got him, got his voice."

"I know," I said. "Do you miss him?*

Nicholas said, "More than I can ever express. I'll never hear the AI operator again, or him again - any of them, as long as I live."

"Good old Moyashka," I said.

"It must be wonderful to be a nation's foremost astrophysicist and shoot things down out of the sky. Things you don't understand. In the name of communicating with them."

"But you have the information on Fremont anyhow."

"We have it," Nicholas said.

"You are now part of Aramchek," I said. I had guessed who the "we" was, what organization.

Nicholas nodded.

"It's a pleasure to know you," I said.

Thank you," Nicholas said. And then he said, "Vivian came to see me."

"Vivian?" I said, and then I remembered. "What about?"

"The record we're producing."

"Then they do know. They know already."

Tm providing her a hoked-up sample without the material. We'll see if that does it long enough to get the real thing out."

"They'll come in and take your master stampers."

"Some will be clean."

"They'll grab them all."

"We're banking on their taking a representative one."

"You have no chance," I said.

"Maybe not," Nicholas said; he did not argue it.

"A quixotic attack on the regime," I said. "Nothing more. Well, do it anyhow. What the hell; they're going to get us all anyhow. And who knows? Some FAPer might listen to it and wake up to reality. For a little while. You can never tell about these things... sometimes an idea catches on and no one can say why. Or it can fail, even if everyone hears it, and no one can say why. You've gone too far anyhow to pull out, haven't you? So do it and do it right; when FAP listens to the record maybe the subliminal material will get into their minds and that alone will do it. They've got to listen to the record to know what you've done; even if it goes no further

"I'm glad you don't mind my dragging you down with me," Nicholas said. He put his hand out and we shook hands.

The Angels won the ball game, and Nicholas and I left the stadium together. We got into his green Maverick and joined the mass of cars maneuvering out onto State College. Presently we were driving toward Placentia.

A large blue car pulled in front of us; at the same time a marked police car flashed its red light at us from behind.

"We're being pulled over," Nicholas said. "What'd I do?"

As we reached the curb and stopped, the blue car's doors opened and uniformed FAP Special Investigative Unit militiamen leaped out; in a moment one of them was in front of the Maverick with us, his gun against Nicholas's head.

"Don't move," the cop said.

Tm not moving," Nicholas said.

"What's this - " I began, but I fell silent when the muzzle of a police pistol was shoved into my ribs.

A few seconds later Nicholas and I had been hustled into the unmarked blue Ford; the doors shut and were electrically locked. The car moved out into traffic and made a U-turn. We were on our way to Orange County FAP headquarters - I knew it and Nicholas knew it. The cops did not have to tell us.

"What," I said as we drove into the underground garage at FAP headquarters, "have we done?"

"You'll be told," a cop said, indicating for us to get out •of the car; they still held their guns, and they looked mad and mean and hateful. In all my life I had never seen faces so twisted up with hate.

Nicholas, as he got from the car, said to me, "I think we were followed to the ball park."

The ball park, I thought in fear. You mean they can tape your conversation at the ball park, in the middle of a baseball game? In that crowd?

Presently we were taken down a damp, dark concrete tunnel, under the offices on the ground floor; we ascended a ramp, reached an elevator, were held there for a time, and then we entered the elevator. A cop pressed a button and a moment later we were in a brightly lit hall with waxed floors, being led into a large office.

Vivian Kaplan and several other FAPers, including one high-ranking police official with stripes and gold braid, sat or stood around, looking grim.

Til be honest with you," Vivian Kaplan said, her face pale. "We put a recording device on you, Nicholas, when you two were in line at the ticket window. We recorded your entire conversation during the ball game."

The high police official said hoarsely, "I've already given orders for Progressive Records to be closed down and their property and assets seized. No record will be made or released. It's over, Mr Brady. And we're in the process of picking up the Aramchek girl."

Both Nicholas and I were silent.

"You intended to put subliminal material in a record," Vivian said, in an incredulous voice, ‘saying that President Fremont is an agent for the US Communist Party?"

Nicholas said nothing.

"Ugh," she said, shivering. "How insane. How perverted. That miserable satellite of yours - well, it's gone now, gone for good. We caught it shooting down subliminal material into prime-time TV broadcasts, but it only had the power to override small areas at a time. It never said anything like this. It told you this stuff? It said to say this?"

"I've got nothing to say," Nicholas said.

Take him out and shoot him," Vivian Kaplan said.

In terror I stared at her.

The high-ranking police officer said, "He might be able to tell us -"

"There's nothing we don't know," Vivian said.

"All right." The police officer made a sign; two FAPers took hold of Nicholas and propelled him from the office. He did not speak or look back as he departed. I watched them go, powerless and paralyzed.

"Bring him back," I said to Vivian, "and I'll tell you everything he has told me."

"He's not a human being any more," Vivian said. "He's controlled by the satellite."

The satellite is gone!" I said.

There's an egg been laid in his head," Vivian said. "An alien egg; he's a nest for it - we always kill them when we find them. Before the egg hatches."

This one too?" A FAPer asked her, pointing a gun at me.

"He's not part of Aramchek," Vivian said. To me she said, "We will keep you alive, Phil; we will release books under your name which we will write. For several years we have been preparing them; they already exist. Your style is easy to imitate. You will be allowed to speak in public, enough to confirm them as your books. Or shall we shoot you?"

"Shoot me," I said. "You bastards."

The books will be released," Vivian continued. "In them you will slowly conform to establishment views, book by book, until you reach a point we can approve of. The initial ones will still contain some of your subversive views, but since you are getting old now it won't be unexpected for you to mellow."

I stared at her. Then you've been planning all this time to pick me up."

"Yes," she said.

"And kill Nicholas."

"We did not plan that; we did not know he was satellite-controlled. Phil, there is no alternative. Your friend is no longer a -"

"Vivian," I said, "let me talk to Nicholas before you kill him. One final time."

"Will you cooperate afterward? Regarding your books?"

"Yes," I said, although I did not intend to; I was trying to buy time for Nicholas.

Vivian picked up a walkie-talkie, said into it, "Hold up on Nicholas Brady. He's to be taken to a cell instead, for now."

The walkie-talkie sputtered into response "Sorry, Ms Kaplan; he's already dead. Wait - just a minute and I'll check." A pause. "Yes, he's dead."

"Okay," Vivian said. "Thanks." To me she said calmly, Too late, Phil. It's police policy not to delay in - "

I lunged at her, trying to hit her in the face. In my mind a fantasy wiped out reality; in my mind I hit her in the face, right in the mouth, I felt teeth break and fly into bits, I felt her nose and features collapse. But it was a dream, a wish and nothing more; immediately the FAPers were all over me, between me and her, hitting me. A gun butt slammed against my head, and the scene - and the dream - were gone.

I recovered consciousness, not in a hospital bed but in a jail cell.

Sitting up, I felt pain everywhere. My hair was matted with blood, I presently discovered. They had given me no medical attention, but I did not care. Nicholas was dead, and by now Rachel and Johnny, who had done nothing, had been rounded up. Progressive Records no longer existed; they had been ground into the dirt, abolished, before their record had even come into existence. So much for the great project, I said to myself. So much for the idea of a handful of people overthrowing a police tyranny.

Even, I thought, with the help of Valis.

My friend is dead, I said to myself. The friend I have had most of my life. There is now no Nicholas Brady to believe crazy things, to listen to, to enjoy.

And it would never be rectified. No force, no superior entity would arrive and make everything right. The tyranny will continue; Ferris Fremont will remain in office; nothing was achieved except for the death of innocent friends.

And I will never write a book again, I realized; they will all be - have been, in fact - written for me, by the authorities. And those who followed my writing and believed what I had to say will be listening to the voice of anonymous flunkies in Washington, DC, offices, men wearing fashionable ties and modern expensive suits. Men saying they are me but who are not. Creatures rasping like snakes in imitation of my own style and getting away with it.

And I have no recourse, I said to myself. None.

Two cops entered the jail cell. They had been watching on closed-circuit TV; I saw the scanner mounted on the ceiling and realized that they had been waiting for me to regain consciousness.

"Come with us."

I went with them, slowly, painfully, down a corridor, having trouble walking. They led me down hall after hall, until, ahead, I saw a double set of doors marked MORGUE.

"So you can see for yourself," one said, pressing a bell.

A moment later I stood gazing down at the body of Nicholas Brady. There was no doubt that he was dead. They had shot him in the heart, making identification of his features easy.

"All right," one of the cops said. "Back to your cell."

"Why was I shown that?" I asked, on the way back.

Neither cop answered.

As I sat in the cell I realized that I knew why they had shown me Nicholas's body. It told me that it was all true, what they had done to him, what they would do to me, what they were probably doing to the others. It was not a fakery to frighten me; it was grim reality. This time the police were not lying.

But, I thought, maybe some of the Aramchek organization still remains. Just because they got Nicholas doesn't mean they got them all.

The death of men, I thought, is a dreadful thing. The death of good men is worse still. The tragedy of the world. Especially when it is needless.

I half dozed for a while, aching and miserable, still in shock from the loss of my friend. Finally I was awakened from my trance state by Vivian Kaplan entering the cell. She carried a glass in her hand, which she held down to me.

"Bourbon," she said. "Jim Beam. Straight."

I drank it. What the hell, I thought. It was the real thing - it smelled and tasted like bourbon. It made me feel better at once.

Vivian seated herself on the cot facing me; she held a handful of papers and she looked pleased.

"You got everyone," I said.

"We got the record company before they even had a tape. We got the material to be inserted, too." Examining a typed sheet of paper she read, ""Join the Party!" No, it's called „Come to the Party!" They say „join the party" later on. And here's another: „A grand chick saved me, put back together my whole world." The background turns into „Aramchek saved the world." Isn't that gross? I mean, really."

"It would have worked," I said,

Vivian said bitingly, ""Is everybody president at the party?" I wonder which of them made up this stuff. And they intended to flood the market with this garbage. Maybe it would have influenced people subconsciously. We use this technique too, but not as crudely."

"And not for the same ends," I said.

"You want to see the manuscript for your next book?"

"No," I said.

Vivian said, Til have it brought to you. It has to do with an invasion of Earth by alien beings who rape people's minds. The Mind-Screwers it's called."

"Christ," I said.

"Do you like the title? As they say, if you like the title you'll love the book. These hideous things come here from across space and work their way into people's heads like worms. They're really horrible. They come from a planet where it's night all the time, but because they have no eyes they think it's daylight all the time. They eat dirt. They really are worms."

"What's the moral of the book?" I said.

"It's just entertainment. It has no moral. Well, it -never mind."

I foresaw the moral. People should not trust creatures different from themselves: anything alien, from another planet, was vile and disgusting. Man was the one pure species. He stood alone against a hostile universe... probably led by his glorious Fiihrer.

"Is mankind saved from these blind worms?" I asked.

"Yes. By their Supreme Council, who are genetically higher humans, cloned from one aristocratic - "

"I hate to tell you," I said, "but it's been done. Back in the thirties and forties."

Vivian said, "It shows the virtues of humanity. Despite some of its glaring luridness, it's a good novel; it teaches a valuable message."

"Confidence in leadership," I said. "Is the one aristocrat the Supreme Council is cloned from named Ferris Fremont?"

After a pause Vivian said, "In certain ways they resemble President Fremont, yes."

"This is a nightmare," I said, feeling dizzy. "Is this what you came here to tell me?"

"I came to tell you I'm sorry Nicholas died before you could talk to him. You can talk to the other one, the woman he was conspiring with, Sadassa Aramchek. Do you know her?"

"No," I said. "I don't know her."

"Do you want to talk to her?"

"No," I said. Why would I want to talk with her? I wondered.

"You can tell her how he died," Vivian said.

"Are you going to shoot her?" I said.

Vivian nodded.

"I'll talk to her," I said.

Signaling to a guard, Vivian Kaplan said, "Good. You can tell her better than we can that Nicholas is dead. We haven't told her. And also you can tell her -"

Til say what I want to say," I said.

"You can tell her that after you're through talking to her," Vivian continued, unperturbed, "we will shoot her too."

After the passage of ten or fifteen minutes -1 couldn't be sure; they had taken my watch - the door of the cell opened and the guards let in a small girl with heavy glasses and an Afro-natural hairstyle. She looked solemn and unhappy as the door locked after her.

I rose unsteadily. "You're Ms Aramchek?" I said.

The girl said, "How is Nicholas?"

"Nicholas," I said, "has been killed." I put my hands on her shoulders and felt her sway. But she did not faint and she did not cry; she merely nodded.

"I see," she said faintly.

"Here," I assisted her to the cot and helped her sit down.

"And you're sure it's true."

"I'm sorry," I said. "I saw him. It's true. Do you know who I am?"

"You're the science fiction writer, Phil, Nicholas's longtime friend. He talked about you. Well, I guess I'm next. To be shot. They invariably shoot or poison members of Aramchek. No trial, not even an interrogation any more. They're afraid of us because they know what's inside us. I'm not scared, not after what I've gone through already. I don't think they'll shoot you, Phil. They'll want you alive to write crappy books for them full of government propaganda."

„That's right," I said.

"Are you going to cooperate with them?"

"I'm not going to be allowed to write the crappy books," I said. They've got them written already. It'll just.be my name on them/

"Good," Sadassa said, nodding. "It means they don't trust you. It's when they trust you that it's bad - bad for you, for your soul. You never want to be on that side. I'm proud of you." She smiled at me then, her eyes alive and warm behind her glasses. Reaching out, she patted my hand. Reassuringly. I took her hand and held it. How small it was, the fingers so thin. Incredibly thin. And lovely.

"The Mind-Screwers," I said. "That's the first title."

Sadassa stared at me, and then, astonishingly, she laughed, a rich, hearty laugh. "No kidding. Well, leave it to a committee. Art in America. Like art in the USSR. How neat, how really neat. The Mind-Screwers. All right."

There won't be many books by me after that," I said. "Not from the description Vivian Kaplan gave me of it. You should hear the plot. This blind worm, see, migrates from -"

*Clark Ash ton Smith," Sadassa said instantly.

"Of course," I said. "His kind of thing. Mixed up with Heinlein's politics."

We were both laughing, now. "A mixture of Clark Ash ton Smith and Robert Heinlein," Sadassa said, gasping. Too much. What a winner! And the next one... let me see. I've got it, Phil; it'll be called The Underground City of the Mind-Screwers, only this time it'll be in the style of -"

"A series," I broke in. "In the first one, the mind-screwers arrive from outer space; in the next one they bore up from below the surface of Earth; in the third one - "

"Return to the Underground City of the Mind-Screwers," Sadassa said.

I continued. "They slip through from between dimensions, from another time period. In the fourth one the mind-screwers arrive from an alternate universe. And so forth."

"Maybe there could be a fifth one where some archaeologist finds this ancient tomb and opens a great casket, and all these horrible mind-screwers tumble out and right away gang-bang all the native workmen and then fan out and screw every mind in Cairo, and from there the world." She took off her glasses and wiped her eyes.

"You okay?" I said.

"No," she said. "I'm scared, very scared. I hate the slammer. I was in the slammer for two days one time, because I didn't show up for a traffic ticket. They put out an APB on me. I had mono then; I was just out of the hospital. This time I just went into remission from lymphoma. Oh, well; I'm not going into the slammer this time, evidently."

"I'm sorry," I said, not knowing what else to say or what to do.

"It's okay," Sadassa said. "We are immortal, all of us. Valis conferred that on us, and he will on everyone, someday; we just have it now... the firstfruits, as it's said. So I don't feel too bad. We put up a good fight; we did a good job. We were always doomed, Phil; we never had a chance, but that's not our fault. All we had was some information that should have done it. But they had us before - you know. Before we could act. And without the satellite..." She shrugged, unhappily. "No one to protect us, as in the past."

"Nicholas said - " I began, and then I shut up, because of course the jail cell was bugged, and I didn't want the authorities to know that another satellite, as Nicholas had told me, was on the way. But then I remembered that he had told me at the ball park, so they knew. Still, they might have missed it. So I said nothing.

A guard came to the door. "All right, Miss Aramchek. Time to go."

She smiled at me. "Don't tell them how lousy their books are," she said. "Let them find out the hard way."

I kissed her on the mouth, and she held onto me warmly and tightly for a moment. Then she was gone; the cell door rattled and clanged shut.

After that there is a lot I do not remember. I think Vivian Kaplan stopped by to inform me that Sadassa Aramchek had been shot, as Nicholas had been, but I'm not sure; if so, I repressed it and forgot it and did not know it had happened. But sometimes in the later nights I woke up and saw a FAPer standing pointing a pistol at a small figure, and in those lucid moments I knew she was dead, that I had been told and could not remember.

Why would I want to remember that? Why would I want to know it? Enough is enough, I sometimes say, as a sort of cry of misery, of having entered regions exceeding my capacity to endure, and this was one of them. I had withstood the death of my friend Nicholas Brady, whom I had known and loved most of my life, but I could not adjust to the death of a girl I didn't even know.

The mind is strange, but it has its reasons. The mind sees in a single glimpse life unlived, hopes unrewarded, emptiness and silence where there should have been noise and love... Nicholas and I had lived a long time and done much, but Sadassa Aramchek had been sacrificed before any good luck came to her, any opportunity to live and become. They had taken away part of Nicholas's life, and part of mine, but they had stolen all of hers. It was my job now to forget I had met her, to recall that I said no to Vivian Kaplan instead of yes when she asked if I'd talk with Sadassa; my mind had the solemn task of rearranging past reality in order that I could go on, and it was not doing a good job.

Sometime later in the month, I was taken from my cell, brought before a magistrate, and asked how I pled to fifteen charges of treason. I had a court-appointed attorney, who advised me to plead guilty.

I said, "Innocent."

The trial lasted only two days. They had tape recordings in vast boxes, some of them genuine, most of them fake. I sat without protesting, thinking of spring and the slow growth of trees, as Spinoza had put it: the most beautiful thing on earth. At the conclusion of the trial I was found guilty and sentenced to fifty years in prison without possibility of parole. That would mean I would be released after I had been dead some good time.

I was given a choice between imprisonment in a solitary confinement situation or what they called "work therapy." The work therapy consisted of joining a gang of other political prisoners to do manual labor. Our specific job lay in razing old buildings in the slums of Los Angeles. For this we were paid three cents a day. But at least we stayed out in the sun. I chose that; it was better than being cooped up like an animal.

As I worked clearing broken concrete away, I thought, Nicholas and Sadassa are dead and immortal; I am not dead and I would not be immortal. I am different from them. When I die or am killed, nothing eternal in me will live on. I was not granted the privilege of hearing the AI operator's voice, that voice Nicholas spoke of so often, which meant so much to him.

"Phil," a voice called to me suddenly, breaking my reverie. "Knock off work and have lunch; we got half an hour." It was Leon, my buddy who worked beside me, a former plumber who'd been arrested for passing out some kind of mimeographed handbills he had created himself, a sort of one-man rebellion. In my opinion he was braver than any of us, a plumber working by himself in his basement at a mimeograph machine, with no divine voices to instruct or guide him, only his human heart.

Seated together, we shared sandwiches provided for us. They were not bad.

"You used to be a writer," Leon said, his mouth full of bologna and bread and mustard.

"Yep," I said.

"Did you belong to Aramchek?" Leon asked, leaning close to me.

"No," I said.

"You know anything about it?"

Two friends of mine belonged to it."

"They're dead?"

"Yes," I said.

"What's Aramchek teach?"

"I don't know if it teaches," I said. "I know a little about what it believes."

"Tell me," Leon said, eating his sandwich.

"They believe," I said, "that we shouldn't give our loyalty to human rulers. That there is a supreme father in the sky, above the stars, who guides us. Our loyalty should be to him and him alone."

"That's not a political idea," Leon said with disgust. "I thought Aramchek was a political organization, subversive."

"It is."

"But that's a religious idea. That's the basis of religion. They been talking about that for five thousand years."

I had to admit he was right. "Well," I said, "that's Aramchek, an organization guided by the supreme heavenly father."

"You think it's true? You believe that?"

"Yes," I said.

"What church do you belong to?"

"None," I said.

"You're a strange guy," Leon said. "Do the Aramchek people hear this supreme father?"

They did," I said. They will again, someday."

"Did you ever hear him?"

"No," I said. "I wish I had."

"The man says they're subversive. They're trying to overthrow Fremont."

I nodded. That is true," I said.

"I wish them luck," Leon said. "I might even be willing to run off some mimeographed flyers for them." Speaking in a hoarse, confidential voice, he muttered in my ear, "I got some of my flyers hidden away in my backyard, where I lived. Under a big rhododendron plant, in a coffee can. I espoused justice, truth, and freedom." He eyed me. "You interested?"

"Very much," I said.

"Of course," Leon said, "we got to get out of here first. That's the hard part. But I'm working on that. I'll figure it out. You think Aramchek would take me?"

I said to him, "Yes. I think they have already."

"Because," Leon said, "I really can't get anywhere alone. I need help. You say you think they've taken me already? But I never heard any voice."

"Your own voice," I said, "is that voice. Which they have heard through the ages. And are waiting to hear again."

"Well," Leon said, pleased. "How about that. Nobody ever said that to me before. Thank you."

We ate together in silence for a time.

"Did believing that, about a heavenly father, get them anywhere?" Leon asked presently.

"Not in this world, maybe," I said.

"Then I'm going to tell you something you maybe don't want to hear. If your Aramchek friends were here I'd tell them too. It's not worth it, Phil. It has to be in this world." Leon nodded firmly, his lined face hard. Hard with experience.

"They gained immortality," I said. "It was conferred on them, for what they did or even for what they tried to do and failed to do. They exist now, my friends do. They always will."

"Even though you can't see them."

"Yes," I said. "Right."

Leon said, "There has to be something here first, Phil. The other world is not enough."

I could think of nothing to say; I felt broken and feeble, my arguments used up during all that had happened to me. I was unable to answer.

"Because," Leon continued, "this is where the suffering is. This is where the injustice and imprisonment is. Like us, the two of us. We need it here. Now."

I had no answer.

"It may be fine for them," Leon said, "but what about us?"

"I -" I began. He was right and I knew it.

"I'm sorry," Leon said. "I can see you loved your two friends and you miss them, and maybe they're flying around somewhere in the sky, zipping here and there and being spirits and happy. But you and I and three billion other people are not, and until it changes here it won't be enough, Phil; not enough. Despite the supreme heavenly father. He has to do something for us here, and that's the truth. If you believe in the truth - well, Phil, that's the truth. The harsh, unpleasant truth."

I sat staring down mutely. -

"What's this," Leon said, "about the Aramchek people having something resembling a beautiful silver egg placed with care very secretly in each of them? I can even tell you how it enters - along the optic conduit to the pineal body. By means of radiation, beamed down during the time of the vernal equinox." He chuckled. "The person feels as if he's pregnant, even if it's a man."

Surprised that he knew this, I said, "The egg hatches when they die. It opens and becomes a living plasmatic entity in the atmosphere that never -"

"I know all that," Leon broke in. "And I know it's not really an egg; that's a metaphor. I know more about Aramchek than I admitted. See, Phil, I used to be a preacher."

"Oh," I said..

"That about the beautiful silver egg that's put into each of them that grows and hatches and guarantees immortality - that's in the Bible, Phil. Jesus speaks about it several times in different ways. See, the Master was talking so as to bewilder the multitude; it was only supposed to make sense to his disciples. Or rather, it made sense to everyone, but the real meaning was known only to his disciples. They guarded the secret carefully because of the Romans. The Master himself feared and hated the Romans. Despite their efforts the Romans killed them all anyhow, and the real meaning was lost. In fact, they killed the Master... but you know that, I guess. The secret was lost for almost two thousand years. But now it's coming back. The young men now, see, are having visions, and the old men, Phil, are dreaming dreams."

"There's nothing about silver eggs in the New Testament," I said.

„The pearl," Leon said emphatically, "of great price. And the treasure which is buried in the field. The man sells everything he has to buy the field. Pearl, treasure, egg, the yeast that leavens the mass all through - code words for what happened to your two friends. And the mustard seed that's so tiny but it grows to become a great tree that birds land on - birds, Phil, in the sky. And in Matthew, the parable about the sower going out to sow... some seeds fell on the edge of the path, some fell on patches of rock, some on thorns, but listen to this: Some fell in rich soil and produced their crop. In every case the Master says that's how the kingdom is, the kingdom which is not of this world."

I was interested. Tell me more, preacher Leon,* I said, half kiddingly, half in fascination.

"I'm not a preacher any longer," Leon said, ‘since it isn't worth anything. I'll tell you one further instance, though, where Jesus talks about it. Your friends that died, they are now a single creature together instead of separate. Did they tell you that before they died?"

"Yes," I said. "Nicholas had told me about their future merging into a composite life form, all of them in Aram-chek. The corporate existence that would come."

"That's from John, chapter twelve, verse twenty-four. It goes „Unless a wheat grain falls on the ground and dies, it remains only a single grain" - for ‘single" read „solitary" - „but if it dies, it yields up a rich harvest" -read „corporate life" for „rich harvest." And - „Anyone who loves his life loses it; anyone who hates his life in this world will keep it for the eternal life." See? In each case something small - a treasure, a mustard seed which is the smallest seed of all, the sower sowing seeds in rich soil, a grain of wheat - something is placed in the ground, which is a secret symbol of the early Christians for the human head, the brain, the mind, and it grows there until it hatches, or sprouts, or is dug up, or it leavens the whole mass, and then it brings eternal life - the kingdom which no one can see. It's what your Aramchek friends were talking about, probably without knowing it, that happened to them, before they died and caused their condition now, after they have died."

"All the parables of Christ have to be decoded, then?" I asked.

"Yes," preacher Leon said. "The Master says he's speaking cryptically so the outsiders won't understand. Matthew thirteen - twelve."

"And you know what he said is true."

"Yes."

Amazed, not understanding, I said, "And yet you still -"

"Still I say," Leon said, "that hating this world and forgetting this world is not enough. The work must be done here. Let me ask you this." He gazed at me intently with ancient but clear eyes. "Where did the Master teach? Where did he do his work?"

"Here in this world?" I said.

"You see, then," Leon said, and returned to his bologna sandwich. These sandwiches get staler every day," he muttered. "We ought to complain. Those red-white-and-blue ladies shouldn't get away with so much; they're getting lazy."

Having finished eating, I got out my sole cigarette and carefully lit up.

"Can I have half of that?" Leon asked.

I tore the cigarette in half and gave one part to my friend. To the only friend I had, now that the others were to the old ex-preacher who had shown me, so c Tipellingly, that all that we had done, Nicholas and I and Sadassa Silvia, was worthless. The man who, as if speaking for Valis himself, had brought me the truth.

"What kind of stuff did you write?" Leon asked me.

"I'm still writing it," I said jokingly. The government forgeries of my work were already beginning to appear. They made it a point - probably Vivian made it a point -to send me a copy of each one.

"How do you do that?"

"It's easy when you know how," I said.

Leon leaned over and nudged me. "Look," he said. "Kids watching us." Sure enough, beyond the rusty cyclone fence inside which we worked, a group of schoolchildren were staring at us with a mixture of fascination and fear. "Hey, kids!" Leon yelled to them. "Don't you ever wind up like this. Do everything you're told, you hear?"

The kids continued to stare.

One of them, an older boy, had a portable transistor radio; Leon and I could hear the raucous rock music blaring from its tiny speaker. The announcer, a local Los Angeles DJ, was babbling on excitedly about the next cut, the latest release, he was saying, already a bullet on the charts, from the rock group Alexander Hamilton, the San Francisco performers who were number one these days.

"Okay, here we go," the announcer dinned, as the gang of kids gazed at us and we gazed timidly back. "It's Alexander Hamilton with Grace Dandridge featured in „Come to the Party!" All right, Grade - let us have it!" The music swirled out, and, seated with my bologna sandwich, hunched over and weary, I heard the words stray across to us through the smog-drenched midday air: Evubody present, Hey hey. Evubody present, The people say. Evubody's president at PARTY TIME.

Evubody here Have a good climb.

Leon turned to stare at me with disgust.

I said, That's it!"

"That's what?" Leon said.

"He - they - got another record company to press it," I said. "And it's already out, it's already a hit. So - " I calculated, from what I knew of the record business. It must have been at virtually the same time, I realized. As Progressive was preparing its tape, another company, another group, other members of Aramchek, guided by the satellite, prepared another.

Nicholas's efforts had served as a diversion. Those efforts had fitted into a plan none of us saw or understood. While they were killing him, him and Sadassa, and imprisoning me, Alexander Hamilton, the hottest rock group in the country, was recording the material at Arcane Records. Progressive had nobody to equal Alexander Hamilton in their entire catalog.

Suddenly the music ceased. There was absolute silence. Then another tune began to play, this one instrumental: obviously whatever the station had at hand.

A mistake, I realized. THe*DJ wasn't supposed to air "Come to the Party!" He forgot his instructions - what the authorities had told him. But the records were pressed, I realized, pressed and shipped, and some of them - for a time at least - played. The government had moved against Arcane Records too late.

"Did you hear that?" I said to Leon.

"That garbage," Leon said. "I never listen to AM radio. At home, before they arrested me, I had a big quad set, worth maybe three thousand dollars. That stuff is for kids - they like it."

The kids continued to stare at us. At the two political prisoners, old men to them, worn and dirty and defeated, eating their lunches, now, in silence. The transistor radio continued to play. Even more loudly. And, in the wind, I could hear others starting up everywhere. By the kids, I thought. The kids.