“You did the right thing,” I said, “to act on that dream.”
“Did I come to the right place?” She studied my face intently.
“Yes,” I said. “You interpreted the dream right.”
“You seem sure.”
“What do I know?” I said jokingly. “I’m just glad you’re here. I was afraid you wouldn’t show up.”
“I go to school—I will be going—during the day. Can we audition performers at night? I would expect so. We have to fit the job in around my school schedule.”
“You don’t want much,” I said, a little nettled.
“I’ve got to go to school again; I lost so much time while I was sick.”
“Okay,” I said, feeling guilty now.
“Sometimes,” Sadassa said. “I get the feeling that the government gave me cancer. Gave me a carcinogen to deliberately make me sick. It’s only by a miracle that I survived.”
“Good God,” I said, jolted; I hadn’t thought of that. Maybe it was so, everything considered. With her background. With what she knew, what she was. “Why would they want to do that?”
“I don’t know; why would they? I’m paranoid, I realize that. But strange things happen these days. Two of my friends have disappeared. I think they’re sticking ’em in those camps.”
My phone rang. I picked it up and found myself talking to Rachel. Her voice shook with excitement. “Nick—”
“I’m with a client,” I said.
“Have you seen today’s LA Times?”
“No,” I said.
“Go get it. You have to read it. Page three, the right-hand column.”
“Tell me what it says,” I said.
“You’ve got to read it. It explains the experiences you’ve been having. Please Nick; go look at it. It really does!”
“Okay,” I said. “Thanks.” I hung up. “Excuse me,” I said to Sadassa. “I have to go out front to the newspaper thing.” I left my office, went down the hall to the big outside glass doors.
A moment later I had a copy of the Times and was carrying it back, reading it as I walked.
On page three in the right-hand column I found this article:
SOVIET ASTROPHYSICIST REPORTS RADIO
SIGNALS FROM INTELLIGENT LIFE
Not from outer space as expected
but emanating close to Earth.
Standing there in the hall, I read the article. The foremost Soviet astrophysicist, Georgi Moyashka, using a collection of interlinked radio telescopes, had picked up what he believed to be deliberate signals from a sentient life form, these signals containing the characteristics that Moyashka had anticipated finding. The big surprise, however, was their point of origin: within our solar system, which no one, including Moyashka himself, had anticipated. The U.S. space people had already gone on record as saying that the signal undoubtedly emanated from old satellites put into space and then forgotten, but Moyashka was certain that the signals were of alien origin. So far he and his team had been unable to decode them.
The signals came in short bursts from a moving source that seemed to be circling Earth, perhaps six thousand miles away; they came on an unexpected ultrahigh frequency, rather than as short-wave emissions with greater carrying distance. The transmitter appeared to be powerful. One odd point that Moyashka had noted which he could not account for was the fact that the radio signals came only when the source was above Earth’s dark or night side; during the day the signals ceased. Moyashka conjectured that the so-called Heaviside layer might be involved.
The signals, although short in duration, seemed ‘highly information rich’ because of their sophistication and complexity. Curiously, the frequency changed periodically, a phenomenon found in transmissions seeking to avoid jamming, Moyashka stated. Further, his team had discovered, entirely by accident, that animals in their Pulkovo laboratory underwent slight but regular physical changes during the time of signal transmission. Their blood volume altered and their blood pressure readings increased. Provisionally, Moyashka conjectured that radiation accompanying the radio signals might account for it. The Soviets (the article finished) planned to launch a satellite of their own to intercept the orbit of this Earth-rotating transmitter to confirm their theory that it was a satellite not of terrestrial origin. They hoped to photograph it.
From the pay phone in the hall I called Rachel back. “I read it,” I said. “But Phil and I already have a theory.”
Bitingly, Rachel said. “This isn’t a theory; this is a fact. I heard it on the noon news, too. It’s real, even if we deny it, the U.S. denies it. I looked up Dr. Moyashka in your Britannica; there’s an article on him. He discovered volcanic activity on the moon and some kind of thing on Mercury; I didn’t understand it, but every time, people said he was wrong or crazy. Stalin had him in a forced labor camp for years. He’s highly esteemed; he’s a big wheel in the Russian space program, and the radio today says he heads their CETI Project—‘Contacting Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence.’ They’re using telepathy and everything; they’re really wild.”
“Did the radio say how long they think the satellite’s been transmitting?”
“The Russians just picked it up recently. They don’t know anything about before that. But listen—short intense high-frequency bursts, always at night. Don’t you receive your pictures and words around three A.M.? It fits, Nick! It does! You and Phil were thinking anyhow maybe it’s a satellite orbiting Earth! I remember both of you talking about that!”
“Our new theory—”I began
“The hell with your new theory,” Rachel said. “This is the biggest news in the history of the world! I’d think you’d be out of your mind with excitement!”
“I am,” I said. “Catch you later.” I hung up and returned to my office, where Sadassa Silvia sat, smoking a cigarette and reading a magazine.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” I said to her.
“The phone rang while you were out of the office,” Sadassa said. “I didn’t think I should answer it.”
“It’ll ring again,” I said.
The phone rang. I picked it up and said hello. It was Phil; he had heard the news on the radio. Like Rachel, he was highly excited.
“I read about it in the Times,” I informed him.
“Did the Times article mention that it broadcasts on the same frequencies our FM and TV sound travels on?” Phil said. “The scientist I heard commenting, from some U.S. space laboratory, says that virtually rules out the possibility that it’s one of our own satellites since ours don’t broadcast on commercial frequencies. Listen, Nick; he said its signals would interfere with FM and TV reception so we might have to destroy it. But what I was thinking—remember when you heard that weird shit on your radio at night, as if it were talking to you? And we conjectured about a satellite override? Nick, this may be it! This thing when it transmits might very well override. And the scientist said, the one I heard commenting, that it doesn’t broadcast in the strict sense of the word, that it’s narrow tight beams, directed; ‘broadcast’ means in all directions, everywhere equally. This satellite’s signals don’t propagate in all—”
“Phil,” I broke in. “I’ve got somebody with me right now. Can I get back to you tonight?”
“Sure,” Phil said, mollified. “But you know, Nick, this could explain it; it really could. You’re transducing these unusual alien signals.”
“Catch you later, Phil,” I said, and hung up. I did not want to discuss it in front of Sadassa Silvia. Or anyone else, for that matter. Although, I thought, I may be discussing it with Ms Silvia one of these days, when the time is right; when I’ve sounded her out sufficiently beforehand.
Sadassa said, “Was it the article in the Times about ‘prisons are a source of wealth’? That pitch for slave labor under the guise of psychological rehabilitation? ‘Convicts need not be indoors, wasting years of their lives in idleness, rather, they could—’ Let’s see, how did they put it? ‘Convicts could work out under the warm sun in labo
r groups rebuilding slums, contributing to urban renewal, and hippies could make their contribution to society, side by side with them and also the youth who can’t get jobs.…’ I felt like writing in to say, ‘And when they die of overwork and starvation they can contribute their bodies in giant ovens, and we can melt them down into useful bars of soap.’”
“No,” I said, “it wasn’t that article.”
“The alien satellite, then?”
Presently I nodded.
Sadassa said. “It’s a fake. Or rather, it’s one of ours and we won’t admit it. It’s a propaganda satellite we use to beam down subliminal material to the Soviet people. That’s why it broadcasts on commercial FM and TV frequencies and alters its transmission frequency at random intervals. The Soviet people get eighth-of-a-second stills of happy Americans eating all the food they want, shit like that. The Russians know it and we know it. They beam down to us from unauthorized satellites and we do the same to them. They’re going to shoot it down; that’s what they’re up to. I don’t blame them.”
It sounded convincing, except that it scarcely explained why the Soviet Union’s foremost astrophysicist would make the announcement he had made—Moyashka had put his vast reputation on the line again, claiming the satellite to be extraterrestrial in origin. It seemed doubtful that a man of his probity would become embroiled in a strictly political matter.
“Do you really think a famous scientist like Georgi Moyashka would—” I began, but Sadassa, in her gentle but strict little voice, interrupted imperturbably.
“He does what they tell him. AH Soviet scientists do and say what they’re told. Ever since Topchiev purged the Soviet Academy of Sciences back in the fifties. He was the Party hatchetman in the Academy, then, its official secretary; he personally sent to prison hundreds of the U.S.S.R.’s top scientists. That’s why their space program is so chunky, so far behind ours. They haven’t even managed to miniaturize their components. They have no microcircuitry at all.”
“Well,” I said, nonplussed. “But in some areas—”
“Big booster rockets,” Sadassa agreed. “They’re still using tubes! The average stereo built in Japan is more advanced than the components used in a Soviet missile.”
“Let’s get down to the business of your job,” I said.
“All right.” She nodded sensibly.
“We can’t pay you very much,” I said. “But the work should be interesting.”
“I don’t need much,” Sadassa said. “How much is much?”
I wrote down a figure and turned it to show her.
“That certainly isn’t much,” she said. “For how many hours a week?”
“Thirty hours,” I said.
“I guess I could work that into my schedule.”
Exasperated, I said. “I don’t think you’re being realistic. For that few hours it’s good pay, and you’re unskilled. This isn’t typing and filing; this is creative work. I’d have to train you. I think it’s a good deal. You should be glad to get it.”
“What about publishing my lyrics? And using them?”
“We’ll use them. If they’re good enough.”
“I brought some along.” She opened her purse and brought out an envelope. “Here.”
Opening the envelope I removed four pieces of paper on which she had written verses in blue fountain-pen ink. Her handwriting was legible but shaky, the aftereffects of her illness.
I read over the poems—they were poems, not lyrics—but my mind was on what she had just said. The Soviet Union was going to do what? Shoot the satellite down? What, then, would become of me? Where would my help come from?
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m having trouble concentrating. They’re very good.” I said it reflexively, without conviction; maybe they were good, maybe not. All I could think of was the dreary, heartbreaking thing she had told me, her conjecture about Soviet intentions. It seemed obvious, now that she had uttered it. Of course they weren’t merely going to shoot it down. They weren’t going to allow an extraterrestrial vehicle, an intruder into our buttoned-down world, to beam split-second subliminal communications to our people, overriding our own managed TV and FM transmissions. Adding God-knew-what information we weren’t supposed to know.
Radio Free Alpha Centauri, I said to myself bitterly. Radio Free Albemuth, as I had come to call it. How long are you going to last now that you’ve been found out? They can’t get you with a missile; they will launch a satellite with an H-warhead and simply detonate you in the general blast. No more tight-beamed messages. And, I thought, no more dreams for me.
“Can I take these poems home?” I asked Sadassa. “And read them more leisurely?”
“Of course,” she said. “Hey,” she said suddenly, “what upset you? The poem about my lymphoma? Was that it? Most people are upset by that… I wrote it when I was so sick; you can tell by the content. I didn’t expect to live.”
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s what did it.”
“I shouldn’t have shown that to you.”
“It’s a very powerful poem,” I said. “I’m not sure, frankly, how a poem about someone having cancer could be adapted to use as lyrics for a song. It certainly would be a first.” We both tried to smile; neither of us made it.
“The others aren’t so heavy,” Sadassa said; she reached out and patted me on the hand. “Maybe you could use one of them.”
“I’m sure we can,” I said. What a charming, unhappy girl, I thought, struggling against such odds.
22I CHANGED my mind and did not ask Sadassa Silvia out for dinner; instead I took off early and drove directly back down to Orange County and home. My mind remained on the new item, on what Sadassa had said—the whole situation frightened and appalled me.
Put very simply, I had come to regard Valis and the AI operators along the communications network as divine, which meant they were not subject to mortal death. One does not blow up God. Here, however, were my wife and my best friend nattering at me that the source of my divine help had been pinpointed: satellite orbiting Earth, beaming down information, and caught in the act now by the U.S.S.R.’s leading astrophysicist, their great scientific sleuth—Earth’s cosmic cop, armed with radio telescopes, countersatellites with warheads, and God knew what else.
As thrilling as the thought was—that an extraterrestrial intelligence from another star system had put one of their vehicles into orbit around our planet and was beaming down covert information to us—it reduced something limitless to a finite reality, vulnerable to ordinary hazards. The entity I had assumed to be omniscient and omnipotent was about to be shot out of the sky. And with it, I realized, went the possibility of deposing Ferris Fremont. When the Soviets, no doubt operating in conjunction with our more sophisticated tracking stations, brought down the ETI satellite, the hopes of free men in both nations died.
Unless, of course, there was no connection between the newly discovered satellite and my experiences. But, as both Rachel and Phil had already noticed, it was too much of a coincidence; it was too close.
God, I thought, I’ve been doing what it told me for years. Moving down to Southern California, going to work for Progressive Records—what am I going to do when they shoot it down? What’ll my life be built around? But then I thought, Maybe Valis will install another satellite in its place. He could do that; with his foresight he would know the Soviet intentions long in advance—from the start, in fact. You cannot take him by surprise.
Or maybe you can.
It is possible, I said to myself as I tailgated a big truck in the right-hand lane, that the satellite has done its job. Already transmitted everything in its banks. But I’m used to hearing its voice, that lovely AI voice, informing me, comforting me, helping me…look what it did for Johnny; look what it had done for me. To be deprived of that…
What else have I got to live for? I asked myself. What else did I ever have to live for? My relationship with Rachel isn’t all that much; I love my son, but I see him so rarely; my work is imp
ortant but not that important. Something such as I have had, to hear that AI voice—it is worse to lose it than it was good ever to have had it. It hurts so much.
Pain of loss, I thought; the greatest pain in the world. My friend will one day soon cease talking with me. That day lies imminently ahead, as surely as the fact that right now the U.S.S.R. is preparing to launch an intercept satellite. The worldwide tyranny has spotted its enemy and now moves. The big blind engine is being cranked up.
When they blow that satellite out of the sky, I realized, they might as well blow me out of the sky as well. Being rescued from that shoe ad letter accomplishes nothing, now. All the help, all the knowledge and insight, all the coaching and guiding—down the rathole, for nothing: gone. And not just for me; for everybody who wanted a just society, who wanted to be free. For those who heard the AI voice and those who did not: our fate is the same. The one friend we had will one of these days be wiped away as if it never existed.
I felt the decay of the universe as I drove along the freeway: coldness and illness and final oblivion.
I suppose, I said to myself, I could rationalize it and say that because of Valis’s help I have met a nice new girl, attractive and smart…with a life expectancy measured in inches. We have been brought together just in time to go up in smoke. Plans, hopes, dreams—all reduced to smoke. Particles of a satellite which came here to be destroyed, the same as us: born to be blown up. The hell with it all, I thought wretchedly. Better not to have started this or tried. Better not to have even known help existed, to have imagined something happier for us in our lives.
When you attack a tyranny you must expect it to fight back. Why not? Why shouldn’t it? How could I, with some idea of its nature, expect anything else? An H-warhead for the ETI satellite; cancer for Sadassa Silvia; if the shoe ad trap had worked, prison for me—prison or death.
Meditating about this I did not comprehend—or maybe I comprehended well enough and didn’t care—that the truck ahead of me had slowed. Its brake lights came on; I didn’t notice. I kept on going in my little VW bug, right on into the tail assembly, the huge iron rear bumper, of the truck.
Radio Free Albemuth Page 18