"That sounds like a plan," Kevin said, pleased.
The little group, the Rhipidon Society, had come to an agreement. All three members.
The next day, Sunday, the three of us got permission to sit with the child Sophia alone, without anyone else present, although Eric and Linda did request that we tape our encounter. We agreed readily, not having any choice.
Warm sunlight illuminated the earth that day, giving to the animals gathered around us the quality of a spiritual following; I had the impression that the animals heard, listened and understood.
"I want to talk to you about Eric and Linda Lampton," I said to the little girl, who sat with a book open in front of her.
"You shall not interrogate me," she said.
"Can't I ask you about them?" I said.
"They are ill," Sophia said. "But they can't harm anyone because I override them." She looked up at me with her huge, dark eyes. "Sit down."
We obediently seated ourselves in front of her.
"I gave you your motto," she said. "For your society; I gave you its name. Now I give you your commision. You will go out into the world and you will tell the kerygma which I charge you with. Listen to me; I tell you in truth, in very truth, that the days of the wicked will end and the son of man will sit on the judgment seat. This will come as surely as the sun itself rises. The grim king will strive and lose, despite his cunning; he loses; he lost; he will always lose, and those with him will go into the pit of darkness and there they will linger forever.
"What you teach is the word of man. Man is holy, and the true god, the living god, is man himself. You will have no gods but yourselves; the days in which you believed in other gods end now, they end forever.
"The goal of your lives has been reached. I am here to tell you this. Do not fear; I will protect you. You are to follow one rule: you are to love one another as you love me and as I love you, for this love proceeds from the true god, which is yourselves.
"A time of trial and delusion and wailing lies ahead because the grim king, the king of tears, will not surrender his power. But you will take his power from him; I grant you that authority in my name, exactly as I granted it to you once before, when that grim king ruled and destroyed and challenged the humble people of the world.
"The battle which you fought before has not ended, although the day of the healing sun has come. Evil does not die of its own self because it imagines that it speaks for god. Many claim to speak for god, but there is only one god and that god is man himself.
"Therefore only those leaders who protect and shelter will live; the others will die. The oppression lifted four years ago, and it will for a little while return. Be patient during this time; it will be a time of trials for you, but I will be with you, and when the time of trials is over I shall sit down on the judgment seat, and some will fall and some will not fall, according to my will, my will which comes to me from the father, back to whom we all go, all of us together.
"I am not a god; I am a human. I am a child, the child of my father, which is Wisdom Himself. You carry in you now the voice and authority of Wisdom; you are, therefore, Wisdom, even when you forget it. You will not forget it for long. I will be there and I will remind you.
"The day of Wisdom and the rule of Wisdom has come. The day of power, which is the enemy of Wisdom, ends. Power and Wisdom are the two principles in the world. Power has had its rule and now it goes into the darkness from which it came, and Wisdom alone rules.
"Those who obey power will succumb as power succumbs.
"Those who love Wisdom and follow her will thrive under the sun. Remember, I will be with you. I will be in each of you from now on. I will accompany you down into the prison if necessary; I will speak in the courts of law to defend you; my voice will be heard in the land, whatever the oppression.
"Do not fear; speak out and Wisdom will guide you. Fall silent out of fear and Wisdom will depart you. But you will not feel fear because Wisdom herself is in you, and you and she are one.
"Formerly you were alone within yourselves; formerly you were solitary men. Now you have a companion who never sickens or fails or dies; you are bonded to the eternal and will shine like the healing sun itself.
"As you go back into the world I will guide you from day to day. And when you die I will notice and come to pick you up; I will carry you in my arms back to your home, out of which you came and back to which you go.
"You are strangers here, but you are hardly strangers to me; I have known you since the start. This has not been your world, but I will make it your world; I will change it for you. Fear not. What assails you will perish and you will thrive.
"These are things which shall be because I speak with the authority given me by my father. You are the true god and you will prevail."
There was silence, then. Sophia had ceased speaking to us.
"What are you reading?" Kevin said, pointing to the book.
The girl said, "SEPHER YEZIRAH. I will read to you; listen." She set the book down, closing it. "'God has also set the one over against the other; the good against the evil, and the evil against the good; the good proceeds from the good, and the evil from the evil; the good purifies the bad, and the bad the good; the good is preserved for the good, and the evil for the bad ones.'" Sophia paused a moment and then said, "This means that good will make evil into what evil does not wish to be; but evil will not be able to make good into what good does not wish to be. Evil serves good, despite its cunning." Then she said nothing; she sat silently, with her animals and with us.
"Could you tell us about your parents?" I said. "I mean, if we are to know what to do—"
Sophia said, "Go wherever I send you and you will know what to do. There is no place where I am not. When you leave here you will not see me, but later you will see me again.
"You will not see me but I will always see you; I am mindful of you continually. So I am with you whether you know it or not; but I say to you, Know that I accompany you, even down into the prison, if the tyrant puts you there.
"There is no more. Go back home, and I will instruct you as the time requires." She smiled at us.
"You're how old?" I said.
"I am two years old."
"And you're reading that book?" Kevin said.
Sophia said, "I tell you in truth, in very truth, none of you will forget me. And I tell you that all of you will see me again. You did not choose me; I chose you. I called you here. I sent for you four years ago."
"Okay," I said. That placed her call at 1974.
"If the Lamptons ask you what I said, say that we talked about the commune to be built," Sophia said. "Do not tell them that I sent you away from them. But you are to go away from them; this is your answer: you will have nothing further to do with them."
Kevin pointed to the tape recorder, its drums turning.
"What they will hear on it," Sophia said, "when they play it back, will be only the SEPHER YEZIRAH, nothing more."
Wow, I thought.
I believed her.
"I will not fail you," Sophia repeated, smiling at the three of us.
I believed that, too.
As the three of us walked back to the house, Kevin said, "Was all that just quotations from the Bible?"
"No," I said.
"No," David agreed. "There was something new; that part about us being our own gods, now. That the time had come where we no longer had to believe in any deity other than ourselves."
"What a beautiful child," I said, thinking to myself how much she reminded me of my own son Christopher.
"We're very lucky," David, said huskily. "To have met her." Turning to me he said, "She'll be with us; she said so. I believe it. She'll be inside us; we won't be alone. I never realized it before but we are alone. Everybody is alone—has been alone, I mean. Up until now. She's going to spread out all over the world, isn't she? Into everyone, eventually. Starting with us."
"The Rhipidon Society," I said, "has four members. Sophia and the thr
ee of us."
"That's still not very many," Kevin said.
"The mustard seed," I said. "That grows into a tree so large that birds can roost in it."
"Come off it," Kevin said.
"What's the matter?" I asked.
Kevin said, "We have to get our stuff together and get out of here; she said so. The Lamptons are whacked-out flipped-out freaks. They could zap us any time."
"Sophia will protect us," David said.
"A two-year-old child?" Kevin said.
We both gazed at him.
"Okay, two-thousand-year-old child," Kevin said.
"The only person who could make jokes about the Savior," David said. "I'm surprised you didn't ask her about your dead cat."
Kevin halted; a look of genuine baffled anger appeared on his face; obviously he had forgotten to: he had missed his chance.
"I'm going back," he said.
Together, David and I propelled him along with us.
"I'm not kidding!" he said, with fury.
"What's the matter?" I said; we halted.
"I want to talk to her some more. I'm not going to walk off out of here; goddam it, I'm going back—let me the fuck go!"
"Listen," I said. "She told us to leave."
"And she'll be inside us talking to us," David said.
"We'll hear what I call the AI voice," I said.
Kevin said savagely, "And there'll be lemonade fountains and gumdrop trees. I'm going back."
Ahead of us, Eric and Linda Lampton emerged from the big house and walked toward us.
"Confrontation time," I said.
"Aw shit," Kevin said, in desperation. "I'm still going back." He pulled away from us and hurried in the direction from which we had come.
"Did it work out well?" Linda Lampton said, when she and her husband reached David and me.
"Fine," I said.
"What did you discuss?" Eric said.
I said, "The commune."
"Very good," Linda said. "Why is Kevin going back? What is he going to say to Sophia?"
David said, "Has to do with his dead cat."
"Ask him to come here," Eric said.
"Why?" I said.
"We are going to discuss your relationship to the commune," Eric said. "The Rhipidon Society should be part of the major commune, in our opinion. Brent Mini suggested that; we really should talk about it. We find you acceptable."
"I'll get Kevin," David said.
"Eric," I said, "we're returning to Santa Ana."
"There's time to discuss your involvement with the commune," Linda said. "Your Air Cal flight's not until eight tonight, is it? You can have dinner with us."
Eric Lampton said, "VALIS summoned you people here. You will go when VALIS feels you are ready to go."
"VALIS feels we're ready to go," I said.
"I'll get Kevin," David said.
Eric said, "I'll go get him." He passed on by David and me, in the direction of Kevin and the girl.
Folding her arms, Linda said, "You can't go back down south yet. Mini wants to talk over a number of matters with you. Keep in mind that his time is short. He's weakening fast. Is Kevin really asking Sophia about his dead cat? What's so important about a dead cat?"
"To Kevin the cat is very important," I said.
"That's right," David agreed. "To Kevin the cat's death represents everything that's wrong with the universe; he believes that Sophia can explain it to him, which by that I mean everything that's wrong with the universe—undeserved suffering and loss."
Linda said, "I don't really think he's talking about his dead cat."
"He really is," I said.
"You don't know Kevin," David said. "Maybe he's talking about other things because this is his chance to talk to the Savior finally but his dead cat is a major matter in what he's talking about."
"I think we should go over to Kevin," Linda said, "and tell him that he's talked to Sophia enough. What do you mean, VALIS feels you are ready to go? Did Sophia say that?"
A voice in my head spoke. Tell her radiation bothers you. It was the AI voice which Horselover Fat had heard since March 1974; I recognized it.
"The radiation," I said. "It—" I hesitated; understanding of the terse sentence came to me. "I'm half-blind," I said. "A beam of pink light hit me; it must have been the sun. Then I realized we should get back."
"VALIS fired information directly to you," Linda said, at once, alertly.
You don't know.
"I don't know," I said. "But I felt different afterward. As if I had something important to do down south in Santa Ana. We know other people ... there are other people we could get into the Rhipidon Society. They should come to the commune, too. VALIS has caused them to have visions; they come to us for explanations. We told them about the film, about seeing the film Mother Goose made; they're all seeing it, and getting a lot out of it. We've got more people going to see Valis than I thought we knew; they must be telling their friends. My own contacts in Hollywood—the producers and actors I know, and especially the money people—are very interested in what I've pointed out to them. There's one MGM producer in particular that might want to finance Mother Goose in another film, a high-budget film; he says he has the backing already."
My flow of talk amazed me; it seemed to come out of nothing. It was as if it wasn't me talking, but someone else; someone who knew exactly what to say to Linda Lampton.
"What's the producer's name?" Linda said.
"Art Rockoway," I said, the name coming into my head as if on cue.
"What films does he have?" Linda said.
"The one about the nuclear wastes that contaminated most of central Utah," I said. "That disaster the newspapers reported two years ago but TV was afraid to talk about; the government put pressure on them. Where all the sheep died. The cover story that it was nerve gas. Rockoway did a hardball film in which the true tale of calculated indifference by the authorities came out."
"Who starred?" Linda said.
"Robert Redford," I said.
"Well, we would be interested," Linda said.
"So we should get back to southern California," I said. "We have a number of people in Hollywood to talk to."
"Eric!" Linda called; she walked toward her husband, who stood with Kevin; he now had Kevin by the arm.
Glancing at me, David made a signal that we should follow; together, the three of us approached Kevin and Eric. Not far off, Sophia ignored us; she continued to read her book.
A flash of pink light blinded me.
"Oh my God," I said.
I could not see; I put my hands against my forehead, which ached and throbbed as if it would burst.
"What's wrong?" David said. I could hear a low humming, like a vacuum cleaner. I opened my eyes, but nothing other than pink light swam around me.
"Phil, are you okay?" Kevin said.
The pink light ebbed. We were in three seats aboard a jet. Yet at the same time, superimposed over the seats of the jet, the wall, the other passengers, lay the brown dry field, Linda Lampton, the house not far off. Two places, two times.
"Kevin," I said. "What time is it?" I could see nothing out the window of the jet but darkness; the interior lights over the passengers were, for the most part, on. It was night. Yet, bright sunlight streamed down on the brown field, on the Lamptons and Kevin and David. The hum of the jet engines continued; I felt myself sway slightly: the plane had turned. Now I saw many far-off lights beyond the window. We're over Los Angeles, I realized. And still the warm daytime sun streamed down on me.
"We'll be landing in five minutes," Kevin said.
Time dysfunction, I realized.
The brown field ebbed out. Eric and Linda Lampton ebbed out. The sunlight ebbed out.
Around me the plane became substantial. David sat reading a paperback book of T. S. Eliot. Kevin seemed tense.
"We're almost there," I said. "Orange County Airport."
Kevin said nothing; he had hunched over, broodingly.
> "They let us go?" I said.
"What?" He glanced at me irritably.
"I was just there," I said. Now the memory of the intervening events bled into my mind. The protests of the Lamptons and by Brent Mini—him most of all; they had implored us not to go, but we had gotten away. Here we were on the Air Cal flight back. We were safe.
There had been a twin-pronged thrust by Mini and the Lamptons.
"You won't tell anyone on the outside about Sophia?" Linda had said anxiously. "Can we swear you three to silence?" Naturally they had agreed. This anxiety had been one of the prongs, the negative prong. The other had been positive, an inducement.
"Look at it this way," Eric had said, backed up by Mini who seemed genuinely crestfallen that the Rhipidon Society, small as it was, had decided to depart. "This is the most important event in human history; you don't want to be left out, do you? And after all, VALIS picked you out. We get literally thousands of letters on the film, and only a few people here and there seem to have been contacted by VALIS, as you were. We are a privileged group."
"This is the Call," Mini had said, almost imploringly to the three of us.
"Yes," Linda and Eric had echoed. "This is the Call mankind has waited centuries for. Read Revelation; read what it says about the Elect. We are God's Elect!"
"Guess so," I had said as they left us off by the car we had rented; we had parked near Gino's, on a sidestreet of Sonoma which allowed prolonged parking.
Going up to me, Linda Lampton had put her hands on my shoulders and had kissed me on the mouth—with intensity and a certain amount, in fact a great amount, of erotic fervor. "Come back to us," she had whispered in my ear. "You promise? This is our future; it belongs to a very few, a very, very few." To which I had thought, You couldn't be more wrong, honey; this belongs to everyone.
So now we were almost home. Crucially assisted by VALIS. Or, as I preferred to think of it, by St. Sophia. Putting it that way kept my attention on the image in my mind of the girl Sophia, seated with the animals and her book.
As we stood in the Orange County Airport, waiting for our luggage, I said, "They weren't strictly honest with us. For instance, they told us everything Sophia said and did was audio and video taped. That's not so."
The VALIS Trilogy Page 21