"You can't let him go," the speaker sputtered.
"Oh, yes I can," the cop said. "I can let him go and I can forget everything he's said, everything I've heard."
"Except that it's recorded," the speaker sputtered.
The cop reached down and pressed a button. "I just erased it," he said.
"I thought the battle was over," Herb Asher said. "I thought God had won. God has not won. I know that even though you are letting me go. But maybe it is a sign, your releasing me. I see some response in you, some amount of human warmth.'"
"I am not a machine," the cop said.
"But will that continue to be true?" Herb Asher said. "I wonder. What will you be a week from now? A month? What will we all become? And what power do we have to affect it?"
The cop said, "I just want to get away from you, a long distance away."
"Good," Herb Asher said. "It can be arranged. Someone must tell the world the truth," he added. "The truth you know, that I told you: that God is in combat and losing. Who can do it?"
"You can," the cop said.
"No," Herb Asher said. But he knew who could. "Elijah can," he said. "It is his task; this is what he has come for, that the world will know."
"Then get him to do it," the cop said.
"I will," Herb Asher said. "That's where I will go; back to my partner, back to Washington, D.C."
I will forego the Fox, he said to himself; that is the loss I must accept. Bitter sorrow filled him as he realized this. But it was a fact; he could not be with her now, not until later.
Not until the battle had been won.
As the cop ungrappled his vehicle from Herb Asher's he said a strange thing. "Pray for me, Mr. Asher," he said.
"I will," Herb Asher said.
His vehicle released, he swung it in a great looping arc, and headed back toward Washington, D.C. The police car did not follow. The cop had kept his word.
19
FROM THEIR AUDIO shop he called Elias Tate, waking him up from deepest sleep. "Elijah," he said. "The time has come."
"What?" Elias muttered. "Is the store on fire? What are you talking about? Was there a break-in? What did we lose?"
"Unreality is coming back," Herb Asher said. "The universe has begun to dissolve. It is not the store; it is everything."
"You're hearing the music again," Elias said.
"Yes."
"That is the sign. You are right. Something has happened, something he—they—did not expect. Herb, there has been another fall. And I slept. Thank God you woke me. Probably it is not in time. The accident—they allowed an accident to occur, as in the beginning. Well, thus the cycles fulfill themselves and the prophecies are complete. My own time to act has now come. Because of you I have emerged from my own forgetfulness. Our store must become a center of holiness, the temple of the world. We must patch into that FM station whose sound you hear; we must use it as it has in its own time made use of you. It will be our voice."
"What will it say?"
Elias said, "It will say, sleepers awake. That is our message to the listening world. Wake up! Yahweh is here and the battle has begun, and all your lives are in the balance; all of you now are weighed, this way or that, for better, for worse. No one escapes, even God himself, in all his manifestations. Beyond this there is no more. So rise up from the dust, you creatures, and begin; begin to live. You will live only insofar as you will fight; what you will have, if anything, you must earn, each for himself, and each now, not later. Come! This will be the tune that we will play over and over. And the world will hear, for we shall reach it all, first a little part, then the rest. For this my voice was fashioned at the beginning; for this I have come back to the world again and again. My voice will sound now, at this final time. Let us go. Let us begin. And hope it is not too late, that I did not sleep too long. We must be the world's information source, speaking in all the tongues. We will be the tower that originally failed. And if we fail now, then it ends here, and sleep returns. The insipid noise that assails your ears will follow a whole world to its grave, and rust will rule and dust will rule—not for a little time but for all time and all men, even their machines; for all that lies ahead."
"Gosh," Herb Asher said.
"Observe our pitiful condition at this moment. We, you and I, know the truth but have no way to bring it to the world. With the station we will have a way; we will have the way. What are the call letters of that station? I will fone them and offer to buy them."
"It's WORP FM," Herb Asher said.
"Hang up, then," Elias said. "So that I can call."
"Where will we get the money?"
"I have the money," Elias said. "Hang up. Time is of the essence."
Herb Asher hung up.
Maybe if Linda Fox will make a tape for us, he thought, we can play it on our station. I mean, it shouldn't all be limited to warning the world. There are other things than Belial.
His fone rang; it was Elias. "We can buy the station for thirty million dollars," Elias said.
"Do you have that much?"
"Not immediately," Elias said. "But I can raise it. We will sell the store and our inventory for openers."
"Jesus Christ," Herb Asher protested weakly. "That's how we make our living."
Elias glared at him.
"Okay," Herb said.
"We will have a baptismal sale," Elias said, "to liquidate our inventory. I will baptize everyone who buys something from us. I will call on them to repent at the same time."
"Then you fully remember your identity," Herb Asher said.
"I do now," Elias said. "But for a time I had forgotten."
"If Linda Fox will let you interview her—"
"Only religious music will be played on the station," Elias said.
"That's as bad as the soupy strings. Worse. I'll say to you what I said to the cop; play the Mahler Second—play something interesting, something that stimulates the mind."
"We'll see," Elias said.
"I know what that means," Herb Asher said. "I had a wife who used to say 'We'll see.' Every child knows that means—"
"Perhaps she could sing spirituals," Elias said.
Herb Asher said, "This whole business is beginning to get me down. We have to sell the store; we have to raise thirty million dollars. I can't cope with South Pacific and I don't expect to be able to cope any better with 'Amazing Grace.' Amazing Grace always sounded to me like some bimbo at a massage parlor. If I'm offending you I'm sorry, but that cop almost hauled me off to jail. He said I'm here illegally; I'm a wanted man. That means you're probably wanted, too. What if Belial kills Emmanuel? What happens to us? There's no way we can survive without him. I mean, Belial pushed him off Earth; he defeated him before. I think he's going to defeat him this time. Buying one FM station in Washington, D.C., isn't going to change the tide of battle."
"I'm a very persuasive talker," Elias said.
"Yeah, well Belial isn't going to be listening to you and neither will be the ones he controls. You're a voice—" He paused. "I was going to say, 'A voice crying in the wilderness.' I guess you've heard that before."
Elias said, "We could very well both wind up with our heads on silver platters. As happened to me once before. What has happened is that Belial is out of his cage, the cage Zina put him in; he is unchained. He is released onto this world. But what I say to you is, 'Oh ye of little faith!' But everything that can be said has been said centuries ago. I will concede Linda Fox a small amount of air time on our station. You can tell her that. She may sing whatever she wishes."
"I'm hanging up," Herb Asher said. "I have to call her and tell her I'm not coming out to the West Coast for a while. I don't want her involved in my troubles. I—"
"I'll talk to you later," Elias said. "But I suggest you call Rybys; when I last saw her she was crying. She thinks she may have a pyloric ulcer. And it may be malignant."
"Pyloric ulcers aren't malignant," Herb Asher said. "This is where I came in, hearing that Rybys Romm
ey is sitting around crying over her illness; this is what got me involved. She is ill for illness's sake, for its own sake. I thought I was going to escape from this, finally. I'll call Linda Fox first." He hung up the fone.
Christ, he thought. All I want to do is fly to California and begin my happy life. But the macrocosm has swallowed me and my happy life up. Where is Elias going to get thirty million dollars? Not by selling our store and inventory. God probably gave him a bar of gold or will rain down bits of gold, flakes of gold, on him like that manna in the wilderness that kept the ancient Jews alive. As Elias says, everything was said centuries ago and everything happened centuries ago. My life with the Fox would have been new. And here I am once more subjected to sappy, soupy string music which will soon give way to gospel songs.
He dialed Linda Fox's private number, that of her home in Sherman Oaks. And got a recording. Her face appeared on the little fone screen, but it was a mechanical and distorted face; and, he saw, her skin was broken out and her features seemed pudgy, almost fat. Shocked, he said, "No, I don't want to leave a message. I'll call back." He hung up without identifying himself. Probably she'll call me in a while, he decided. When I don't show up. After all, she is expecting me. But how strange she looked. Maybe it's an old recording. I hope so.
To calm himself he turned on one of the audio systems there at the store; he used a reliable preamp component that involved an audio hologram. The station he selected was a classical music station, one he enjoyed. But—
Only a voice issued from the transducers of the system. No music. A whispering voice almost inaudible; he could barely understand the words. What the hell is this? he asked himself. What is it saying?
"... weary," the voice whispered in its dry, slithery tone. "... and afraid. There is no possibility ... weighed down. Born to lose; you are born to lose. You are no good."
And then the sound of an ancient classic: Linda Ronstadt's "You're No Good." Over and over again Ronstadt repeated the words; they seemed to go on forever. Monotonous, hypnotic; fascinated, he stood listening. The hell with this, he decided finally. He shut down the system. But the words continued to circulate and recirculate in his brain. You are worthless, his thoughts came. You are a worthless person. Jesus! he thought. This is far worse than the sappy, soupy all-strings easy-listening garbage; this is lethal.
He foned his home. After a long pause Rybys answered. "I thought you were in California," she murmured. "You woke me up. Do you realize what time it is?"
"I had to turn back," he said. "I'm wanted by the police."
Rybys said, "I'm going back to sleep." The screen darkened; its light went out and he found himself facing nothing, confronted by nothingness.
They are all asleep or on tape, he thought. And when you manage to get them to say something they tell you you're no good. The domain of Belial insinuates the paucity of value in everything. Great. Just what we need. The only bright spot was the cop asking me to pray for him. Even Elias is acting erratically, suggesting that we buy an FM radio station for thirty million dollars so that we can tell people—well, whatever he's going to tell people. On a par with selling them a home audio system and baptizing them as a bonus. Like giving them a free stuffed animal.
Animal, he thought. Belial is an animal; it was an animal voice that I heard on the radio just now. Lower than human, not greater. Animal in the worst sense: subhuman and gross. He shivered. And meanwhile Rybys sleeps, dreaming of malignancy. Her perpetual cloud of illness, whether she is conscious or not; it is always with her, always there. She is her own pathogen, infecting herself.
He shut off the lights, left the store, locked up the front door and made his way to his parked car, wondering to himself where to go. Back to his ailing, complaining wife? To California and the mechanical, pudgy image he had seen on the fone screen?
On the sidewalk, near his parked car, something small moved. Something that hesitantly retreated from him, as if in fear. An animal, larger than a cat. Yet it didn't seem to be a dog.
Herb Asher halted, bent down, holding out his hand. The animal came uncertainly toward him, and then all at once he heard its thoughts in his mind. It was communicating with him telepathically. I am from the planet in the CY30-CY30B star system, it thought to him. I am one of the autochthonic goats that in former times was sacrificed to Yah.
Staggered, he said, "What are you doing here?" Something was wrong; this was impossible.
Help me, the goat-creature thought. I followed you here; I traveled after you to Earth.
"You're lying," he said, but he opened his car and got out his flashlight; bending down he turned the yellow light on the animal.
Indeed he had a goat before him, and not a very large one; and yet it could not be an ordinary Terran goat—he could discern the difference.
Please take me in and care for me, the goat-creature thought to him. I am lost. I have strayed away from my mother.
"Sure," Herb Asher said. He reached out and the goat came hesitantly toward him. What a strange little wizened face, and such sharp little hooves. Just a baby, he thought; see how it trembles. It must be starving. Out here it'll get run over.
Thank you, the goat-creature thought to him.
"I'll take care of you," Herb Asher said.
The goat-creature thought, I am afraid of Yah. Yah is terrible in his wrath.
Thoughts of fire, and the cutting of the goat's throat. Herb Asher shivered. The primal sacrifice, that of an innocent animal. To quell the anger of the deity.
"You're safe with me," he said, and picked up the goat-creature. Its view of Yah shocked him; he envisioned Yah, now, as the goat-creature did, and it was a dreadful entity, this vast and angry mountain deity who demanded the sacrifice of tiny lives.
Will you save me from Yah? the goat-creature quavered; its thoughts were limpid with apprehension.
"Of course I will," Herb Asher said. And he tenderly placed the goat-creature in the back of his car.
You won't tell Yah where I am, will you? the goat-creature begged.
"I swear," Herb Asher said.
Thank you, the goat-creature thought, and Herb Asher felt its joy. And, strangely, its sense of triumph. He wondered about that as he got in behind the wheel and started up the engine. Is this some kind of a victory for it? he asked himself.
I am merely glad to be safe, the goat-creature explained. And to have found a protector. Here on this planet where there is so much death.
Death, Herb Asher thought. It fears death as I fear death; it is a living organism like me. Even though in many ways it is quite different from me.
The goat-creature thought to him, I have been abused by children. Two children, a boy and a girl.
Picture, then, in Herb Asher's mind: a cruel pair of children, with savage faces and hostile, blazing eyes. This boy and girl had tormented the goat-creature and it was terrified of falling back into their hands once more.
"That will never happen," Herb Asher said. "I promise. Children can be dreadfully cruel to animals."
In its mind the goat-creature laughed; Herb Asher experienced its glee. Puzzled, he turned to look at the goat-creature, but in the darkness behind him it seemed invisible; he sensed it, there in the back of his car, but he could not make it out.
"I'm not sure where to go," Herb Asher said.
Where you originally were going, the goat-creature thought. To California, to Linda.
"Okay," he said, "but I don't—"
The police won't stop you this time, the goat-creature thought to him. I will see to that.
"But you are just a little animal," Herb Asher said.
The goat-creature laughed. You can give me to Linda as a present, it thought.
Uneasily, he turned his car in the direction of California, and rose up into the sky.
The children are here in Washington, D.C., now, the goat-creature thought to him. They were in Canada, in British Columbia, but now they have come here. I want to be far away from them.
"I do
n't blame you," Herb Asher said.
As he drove he noticed a smell in his car, the smell of the goat. The goat stank, and this made him uneasy. What a stench, he thought, considering how small it is. I guess it's normal for the species. But still ... the odor was beginning to make him sick. Do I really want to give this smelly thing to Linda Fox? he asked himself.
Of course you do, the goat-creature thought to him, aware of what was going on in his mind. She will be pleased.
And then Herb Asher caught a really dreadful mental impression from the goat-creature's mind, one that horrified him and made him drive erratically for a moment. A sexual lust on the part of the creature for Linda Fox.
I must be imagining it! Herb Asher thought.
The goat-creature thought, I want her. It was contemplating her breasts and her loins, her whole body, made naked and available. Jesus, Herb Asher thought. This is dreadful. What have I gotten myself into? He started to steer his car back toward Washington, D.C.
And he found that he could not control the steering wheel. The goat-creature had taken over; it was in power within Herb Asher, at the center of his mind.
She will love me, the goat-creature thought, and I will love her. And, then, its thoughts passed beyond the limits of Herb Asher's comprehension. Something to do with making Linda Fox into a thing like the goat-creature, dragging her down into its domain.
She will be a sacrifice in my place, the goat-creature thought. Her throat—I will see it cut as mine has been.
"No," Herb Asher said.
Yes, the goat-creature thought.
And it compelled him to drive on, toward California and Linda Fox. And, as it compelled and controlled him, it exulted in its glee; within the darkness of his car it danced its own kind of dance, a drumming sound that its hooves made: made in triumph. And anticipation. And intoxicated joy.
The VALIS Trilogy Page 46
