“How can you be so calm about it?” I said.
“I’m always calm,” Sadassa said. “I taught myself to be calm. We’ve known for months, that this was coming. We have the information we need—we have all we’re going to get. It should be enough; the Aramchek satellite lasted until its work was done. There are enough of the plasmatic life forms here on Earth to—”
“I don’t think we’re going to be able to do it,” I said.
“But we will make the record.”
“Oh, yes,” I said. “We can start tomorrow. Tonight, if you want. I have a couple of ideas who we can get to record it. Releases we were planning anyhow, good ones. Major ones we intended to promote.”
“Fine,” Sadassa said.
“Why did the satellite pick the Jews back in ancient times,” I asked, “to speak to?”
“They were shepherds, out under the stars, not city dwellers cut off from the sky. There were two kingdoms, Israel and Judah; it was to Judah, the farmers and shepherds, that Valis spoke. Haven’t you noticed that you hear the AI operator better when the wind is blowing in from the desert?”
“I wondered about that,” I said.
“What we receive,” Sadassa said, “is pararadio signals, a radiation enclosure of the radio beam, so that if the radio message is decoded it signifies nothing. That is why Dr. Moyashka has never been able to unscramble the instructions passing from the satellite to Earth; the radio signal alone is only half the total information. The violent phosphene activity you experience from time to time, especially when the plasmatic personality was beaming down, is stimulated by radiation, not the radio signal. That kind of radiation is unknown to us here. Except for the phosphene response it passes unnoticed, and only the receiving person experiences the phosphene response. Other organisms may experience changes in blood volume and pressure, but that is all.”
I said, “That can’t be the only reason the ancient Jews were selected, because they lived outdoors.”
“No, that’s not the only reason. That’s why they were accessible to approach and contact. The position of ancient Judah to the tyrannical empires was the same as ours is to Ferris Fremont; they were an unassimilated remnant of mankind, unsullied by power and majesty. They always fought the empires, whatever they were; they always strove for independence and freedom and individuality; they were the spearhead of modern man, opposed to the crushing uniformity of Babylon, and Assyria, and most of all Rome. What they were to Rome then, we are to Rome now.”
“But remember what happened in 70 A.D.,” I said, “when they revolted against Rome. Complete massacre of their people, destruction of the temple, and dispersion forever.”
Sadassa said. “And you’re afraid of that happening now.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Ferris Fremont will destroy us whether we attack him or not. At the end of this week he will shoot the Aramchek satellite down, via Soviet technology. Meanwhile the FAPers are trying to locate all the tandem personalities created by the satellite—people like you and me, Nick. That’s why the confession kits, that’s why the growing police supervision. You didn’t know what they were searching for when they came to you, but they did.”
“Have they caught very many of us?”
“I don’t know,” Sadassa said. “Since we rarely have contact with one another…such as you and I have as we sit here. But I’ve been told that half the organization has been discovered—on a person-by-person basis—and killed. We are killed, when we are found, not imprisoned. Often killed as they tried to kill me: by toxin. The government arsenals possess very potent toxins, as a weapon of domestic war. They leave no traces in the body; no coroner can ascertain the cause of death.”
“But you lived on,” I said.
“The fact that Valis healed me,” Sadassa said, “was unexpected to them. Metastasizing cancer had riddled my body before he intervened and healed me. I was healed of it in a day; all the cancer cells, even in my spinal column and brain, disappeared. The doctors could find no trace.”
“What happens to you when the satellite is destroyed?”
“I don’t know, Nick,” she said calmly. “I guess I succumb once more. Maybe not; maybe Valis’s healing is permanent.”
If it is not, I realized, then I regain my internal chest injuries from the auto accident. But I said nothing.
“What frightens you the most about this whole situation?” Sadassa asked. “The invasion? That was what—”
“The end of the satellite,” I said.
“Then you’re not frightened at what has happened to you. To each of us.”
“No,” I said. “Well, frightened in a good way because it was such a surprise. And I didn’t understand it. But it saved me from the police.”
“You got something in the mail.”
“Yes,” I said.
“They can detect the general area of a massive transmission print out. They knew the beam went to someone in your area. They probably mailed—the police cryptographers, I mean—probably mailed similar material to everyone near you. What did you do with it?”
“Phoned up FAP. But it wasn’t me, it was—” I hesitated, not knowing how to refer to it.
“Firebright,” Sadassa said.
“What?” I said.
“That’s how I refer to the plasmatic entity in me; I call it ‘firebright.’ That’s a description, not a name; he’s like a little egg of pale, cold fire. Glowing with life up here.” She touched her forehead. “It’s strange to have him inside me, alive and unnoticed. Hidden in me, as he’s hidden in you. Others can’t see him. He’s safe.” She added. “Relatively safe.”
“If I am killed,” I said, “will he die with me?”
“He’s immortal.” She gazed at me for a time. “So are you now, Nicholas. Once firebright bonded to you, you became an immortal creature. As he goes on, you go on with him; when your body is destroyed and he leaves he will take you with him. They won’t desert us. As you and I have housed and sheltered them, they will take us along, into eternity.”
“A reward?” I asked.
“Yes. For what we’ve done, or tried to do. They value the effort, the attempt, as equal to the achievement. They judge by the heart. By intention. They know we can only do so much, that if we fail we fail. We can only try.”
“You think we’re going to fail too,” I said.
Sadassa said nothing. She sipped her drink.
26AT the end of the week the Soviet Union announced that there had been a mysterious explosion aboard the intercept satellite which they had launched to photograph the ETI satellite. The force of the blast had destroyed both satellites. Cause of the mighty explosion was unknown, but presumed to be in the Soviet satellite’s fuel supply. Dr. Moyashka had ordered a full inquiry.
Only two pictures of the ETI satellite had been transmitted before it was destroyed; surprisingly, they showed it to be pitted and evidently partially damaged from meteor showers. The implication, Dr. Moyashka said, was that the ETI satellite had crossed a great deal of interstellar space before reaching its position in orbit around Earth. The conclusion that it was a very old satellite, long in orbit, was rejected as unscientific and not in accord with Marxist-Leninist reasoning.
So much for that, I said to myself as I watched the news item on TV. They shot down God, or rather God’s voice. Vox dei, I said to myself. Gone now from the world.
There must be many happy parties going on in Moscow.
Well, I thought glumly, a great epoch in the history of man has reached its end. Nothing will instruct us, nothing exists in our sky to cheer us when we are down, to lift us up and keep us alive, to heal our wounds. In Washington and Moscow they are saying. “Man has finally come of age; he doesn’t need paternalistic help.” Which is another way of saying. “We have abolished that help, and in its place we will rule,” offering no help at all: taking but not giving, ruling but not obeying, telling but not listening, taking life and not giving it. The slayers govern now, without inter
ference; the dreams of mankind have become empty.
That night as Rachel, Johnny, and I, plus Pinky our cat, lay together on the big bed in our bedroom, a pale white light began to appear and fill the room.
Lying in my place on the bed I realized that no one could see the pale light but me; Pinky dozed, Rachel dozed, Johnny snored in his sleep. I alone, awake, saw the light grow, and I saw that it had no source, no location; it filled all spaces equally and made every object strikingly clear. What is this? I wondered, and a deep fear filled me. It was as if the presence of death had entered the room.
The light became so bright that I could make out every detail around me. The slumbering woman, the little boy, the dozing cat—they seemed etched or painted, unable to move, pitilessly revealed by the light. And in addition something looked down at us as we lay as if on a purely two-dimensional surface; something which traveled and made use of three dimensions studied us creatures limited to two. There was no place to hide; the light, the pitiless gaze, were everywhere.
We are being judged, I realized. The light has come on without warning to expose us, and now the judge examines each of us. What will his decision be? The sense of death, my own death, was profound; I felt as if I were inanimate, made of wood, a carved and painted toy…we were all carved toys to the judge who gazed down at us, and he could lift any—and all—of us off our painted surface whenever he wished.
I began to pray, silently. And then I prayed aloud. I prayed, strangely, in Latin—a Latin I did not know—phrases and whole sentences and always begging to be spared. That was what I wanted. That was what I asked for over and over again, in many languages now, in every language: for the judge to pass over me and let me go.
The pale, uniform light gradually faded out, and I thought to myself, it’s because the satellite is gone. That’s why. Death has flooded in to fill up the vacuum. Once life has been destroyed, that which remains is inert. I am seeing death return.
The next day Rachel noticed that Pinky seemed sick; he sat without moving, and once, as he sat, his head fell forward and struck the floor, as if from unbearable weariness. Seeing him, I understood that he was dying. Death had claimed him, not me.
I drove him to the Yorba Linda Veterinary Hospital, and the doctors there decided that he had a tumor. They operated while I drove back home. “We probably can save him,” they told me as I left, seeing how disheartened I was, but I knew better. This was what had been ushered in, for all the world; the first victim was, of course, the smallest.
Half an hour after I got back to the apartment one of the veterinarians phoned. “It’s cancer,” she told me. “There is no renal function, no urine production. We can sew him back together and he’ll live a week, but—”
“He’s under the anesthetic still?” I said.
“Yes, he’s still open.”
“Let him drift away,” I said. Beside me, Rachel began to cry. My guide, I thought. Dead now. Like Charley. Look at the forces in the world that are now unchecked.
“He must have had these malignant tumors growing for some time,” the vet was saying. “He’s underweight and dehydrated, and—”
“He died last night,” I said, and I thought, He was taken instead of me. Me or Johnny or Rachel. Maybe, I thought, he wanted it that way; he offered himself, knowing. “Thanks,” I said. “I know you did what you could. I don’t blame you.”
The satellite had passed from our world and, with it, the healing rays, like those of an invisible sun, felt by creatures but unseen and unacknowledged. The sun with healing in its wings.
Better not to tell Sadassa, I decided. At least what Pinky died of.
That night, while I was brushing my teeth in the bathroom, I abruptly felt a firm, strong hand placed on my shoulder from behind: the grip of a friend. Thinking it was Rachel, I turned. And saw no one.
He has lost his animal form, I realized. He never was a cat. Supernatural beings mask themselves as ordinary creatures, to pass among us, to lead and guide us.
That night I dreamed that a symphony orchestra was playing a Brahms symphony, and I was reading the album notes. The words came to an end and there was the name:
HERBERT
My old boss, I thought. Who’s been dead these years from his heart condition. Who taught me what devotion to duty meant. A message to me from him.
After the name there appeared a musical stave strung in catgut, indented into the soft paper as if by five claws. Pinky’s signature; after all, Pinky could not write. I thought, My dead boss, who taught me so much and who is dead, reborn as Pinky? To lead me once again, and then go away, as before? When he couldn’t stay any longer…a final note from him or them, whichever it was. From my friend. In any case, he guided me through many years; he helped form me; and then he died.
God be with him, I thought in my sleep, and I listened to the Brahms symphony, which was coming from a record booth at University Music—booth number three, behind which I had so often changed the toilet paper rolls in the bathroom, as part of my job, so many years ago. And yet he had been here just now, his firm hand gripping my shoulder with affection. In farewell.
At Progressive Records we had begun taping sessions on the new LP—the catalog item into which Aramchek’s subliminal information would be fed, track by track. I had gotten permission from the company brass to give my material to the Playthings to cut; the Playthings were our hottest new group. The only part that worried me was the possible reprisals to them, once the authorities became aware of the subliminal material. It would be necessary to set up machinery in advance to exonerate them. Them, and everyone else at Progressive.
I therefore made extensive memos showing that the decision regarding their material lay entirely in my hands, that I had obtained and prepared the lyrics, that the recording group itself lacked any authority to remove or alter the lyrics—it took me almost two weeks of precious time to ensure their safety, but this was essential; both Sadassa and I agreed. The reprisals, when they began, would be great. I hated to involve the Playthings at all; they were an amiable group, with malice toward none; but someone had to cut the LP tracks, someone who was a hot property. By the time I had completed the documentation, including signed letters from the Playthings protesting vigorously against the lyrics as not being suited to them, I was reasonably sure of their ultimate survival.
One day as I sat in my office listening to some preliminary takes for the album—to be called Let’s Play!—my intercom came to life.
“A young lady to see you, Mr. Brady.”
Assuming it was a performer asking about an audition, I told the secretary in the front office to send her in.
A girl with short black hair and green eyes entered, smiling at me. “Hi,” she said.
“Hi,” I said, shutting off the takes of Let’s Play! To the girl I said. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m Vivian Kaplan,” the girl said, seating herself. I now noted the FAP armband and recognized her; this was the FAPer my friend Phil had told me about, the one who had wanted him to write a political loyalty report on me. What was she doing here? On my desk, on the portable Ampex tape recorder, was the reel of takes from Let’s Play! in plain sight of the girl. But fortunately off.
Seating herself, Vivian Kaplan arranged her skirt, then brought out a note pad and pen. “You have a girlfriend named Sadassa Aramchek,” she said. “There is also the subversive organization calling itself Aramchek. And the extraterrestrial slave satellite which the Soviets just blew up has sometimes been called the ‘Aramchek satellite.’” She glanced at me, writing a few words with her pen. “Doesn’t that seem to you an astonishing coincidence, Mr. Brady?”
I said nothing.
“Do you wish to make a voluntary statement?” Vivian Kaplan said.
“Am I under arrest?” I said.
“No, not at all. I tried without success to get a statement of political loyalty about you from your friends, but none of them cared enough about you to comply. In investigating you we ca
me across this anomaly, the word ‘Aramchek’ showing up repeatedly in relation to you—”
“The only one that’s related to me,” I broke in, “is Sadassa’s maiden name.”
“You have no relationship to the organization Aramchek or the satellite?”
“No,” I said.
“How did you happen to meet Ms Aramchek?”
I said. “I don’t have to answer these questions.”
“Oh, yes, you do.” From her purse Vivian Kaplan got a black flatpack of identification; I gazed at it, seeing that she was a bona fide police agent. “You can talk to me here in your office or you can come downtown with me. Which do you prefer?”
“Can I call my attorney?”
“No.” Vivian Kaplan shook her head. “This is not that kind of investigation—yet. You haven’t been charged with any crime. Please tell me how you met Sadassa Aramchek.”
“She came here looking for a job.”
“Why did you hire her?”
“I felt sorry for her, because of her recent bout with cancer.”
Vivian Kaplan wrote that down. “Did you know her actual name to be Aramchek? She goes under the name Silvia.”
“The name she gave me was Mrs. Silvia.” That certainly was true.
“Would you have hired her if you knew her true name?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t think so; I’m not sure.”
“Do you have a personal relationship with her as well as a business one?”
“No,” I said. “I’m married and I have a child.”
“You were seen together at Del Rey’s Restaurant and at the La Paz Bar, both in Fullerton; once at Del Rey’s and six times at the La Paz Bar, all recently.”
“They serve the best margaritas in Orange County,” I said.
“What do you two talk about when you go to the La Paz Bar?” Vivian Kaplan asked.
“Various things. Sadassa Silvia—”
“Aramchek.”
“Sadassa is a devout Episcopalian. She’s been trying to convert me into going to her church. She tells me all the church gossip, though, and that turns me off.” This was true too.
Radio Free Albemuth Page 21