When he had the director of Washington, D.C. Immigration on the line he asked first of all if the woman Rybys Rommey- Asher, her husband and Elias Tate were still there.
“I’ll check, your Eminence,” the bureau chief said. A pause, a very long pause. Harms counted off the seconds, cursing and praying by turns. Then the director returned. “We are still pro- cessing them.”
“Hold them. Don’t let them go for any reason whatsoever. The woman is pregnant. Inform her-do you know who I’m talk- ing about? Rybys Rommey-Asher– inform her that there will be w 110 Philip K. Dick a mandatory abortion of the fetus. Have your people make up any excuse they want.”
“Do you actually want an abortion performed on her? Or is this a pretext-”
“I want abortion induced within the next hour,” Harms said. “A saline abortion. I want the fetus killed. I’m going to take you into our confidence. I have been conferring with the procurator maximus; this is global policy. The fetus is a freak. A radiation sport. Possibly even the monster offspring of interspecies sym- biosis. Do you understand?”
“Oh,” the Immigration director said. “Interspecies sym- biosis. Yes. We’ll kill it with localized heat. Inject radioactive dye directly into it through the abdominal wall. I’ll tell one of our doctors-”
“Tell him to abort her or tell him to kill it inside her,” Harms said, “but kill it and kill it now.”
“I’ll need a signature,” the Immigration director said. “I can’t do this without authorization.”
“Transmit the forms.” He sighed.
From his terminal pages oozed; he took hold of them, found the lines where his signature was required, signed and fed the pages back into the fone terminal.
As he sat in the Immigration lounge with Rybys, Herb Asher wondered where Elias Tate had gone. Elias had excused himself to go to the men’s room, but he had not returned.
“When can I lie down?” Rybys murmured.
“Soon,” he said. “They’re putting us right through.” He did not amplify because undoubtedly the lounge was bugged.
“Where’s Elias?” she said.
“He’ll be back.”
An Immigration official, not in uniform but wearing a badge, approached them. “Where is the third member of your party?” He consulted his clipboard. “Elias Tate.”
“In the men’s room,” Herb Asher said. “Could you please process this woman? You can see how sick she is.” The Divine Invasion 111
“We want a medical examination made on her,” the Immigra- tion official said dispassionately. “We require a medical deter- mination before we can put you through.”
“It’s been done already! By her own doctor originally and then by-”
“This is standard procedure,” the official said.
“That doesn’t matter,” Herb Asher said. “It’s cruel and it’s useless.”
“The doctor will be with you shortly,” the official said, “and while she’s being examined by him you will be interrogated. To save you time. We won’t interrogate her, at least not very exten- sively. I’m aware of her grave medical condition.”
“My God,” Herb said, “you can see it!”
The official departed, but returned almost at once, his face grim. “Tate isn’t in the men’s room.”
“Then I don’t know where he is.”
“They may have processed him. Put him through.” The offi- cial hurried off, speaking into a hand-held intercom unit.
I guess Elias got away, Herb Asher thought.
“Come in here,” a voice said. It was a woman doctor, in a white smock. Young, wearing glasses, her hair tied back in a bun, she briskly escorted Herb Asher and his wife down a short sterile- looking and sterile-smelling corridor into an examination room. “Lie down, Mrs. Asher,” the doctor said, helping Rybys to an examination table.
“Rommey-Asher,” Rybys said as she got up painfully onto the table. “Can you give me an I-V anti-emetic? And soon? I mean soon. I mean now.”
“In view of your wife’s illness,” the doctor said to Herb Asher as she seated herself at her desk, “why wasn’t her preg- nancy terminated?”
“We’ve been through all this,” he said savagely.
“We may still require her to abort. We do not wish a de- formed infant born; it’s against public policy.”
Staring at the doctor in fear, Herb said, “But she’s six months into her pregnancy!”
“We have it down as five months,” the doctor said. “Well within the legal period.”
The Divine Invasion 113
112 Philip K. Dick
“You can’t do it without her consent, Herb said; his fear became wild.
“The decision,” the doctor told him, “is no longer yours to make, now that you have returned to Earth. A medical board will study the matter.”
It was obvious to Herb Asher that there would be a mandatory abortion. He knew what the board would decide-had decided.
In the corner of the room a piped-in music source gave forth the odious background noise of soupy strings. The same sound, he realized, that he had heard off and on at his dome. But now the music changed, and he realized that a popular number of the Fox’s was coming up. As the doctor sat filling out medical forms the Fox’s voice could distantly be heard. It gave him comfort.
Come again!
Sweet love doth now invite
Thy graces, that refrain
To do me due delight.
The lady doctor’s lips moved reflexively in synchronization with the Fox’s familiar Dowland song.
All at once Herb Asher became aware that the voice from the speaker only resembled the Fox’s. The voice was no longer sing- ing; it was speaking.
The faint voice said distinctly:
There will be no abortion. There will be a birth.
At her desk the doctor seemed unaware of the transition. Yah has cooked the audio signal, Herb Asher realized. As he watched he saw the doctor pause, pen lifted from the page before her.
Subliminal, he said to himself as he watched the doctor hesi- tate. The woman still imagines she is hearing a familiar song. Familiar lyrics. She is in a kind of spell. As if hypnotized.
The song resumed.
“We can’t abort her legally if she’s six months along,” the doctor said hesitantly. “Mr. Asher, there must be an error. We have her down as five. Five months into her pregnancy. But if you say six, then-”
“Examine her if you want,” Herb Asher said. “It’s at least six. Make your own determination.”
“I-” The doctor rubbed her forehead, wincing; she shut her eyes and grimaced, as in pain. “I see no reason to-” She broke off, as if unable to remember what she intended to say. “I see no reason,” she resumed after a moment, “to dispute this.” She pressed a button on her desk intercom.
The door opened and a uniformed Immigration official stood there. A moment later he was joined by a uniformed Customs agent.
“The matter is settled,” the doctor said to the Immigration official. “We can’t force her to abort; she’s too far along.”
The Immigration official gazed down at her fixedly.
“It’s the law,” the doctor said.
“Mr. Asher,” the Customs agent said, “let me ask you some- thing. In your wife’s declaration prepared for Customs clearance she lists two phylacteries. What is a phylactery?”
“I don’t know,” Herb Asher said.
“Aren’t you Jewish?” the Customs agent said. “Every Jew knows what a phylactery is. Your wife, then, is Jewish and you are not?”
“Well,” Herb Asher said, “she is C.I.C. but-” He paused. He sensed himself moving step by step into a trap. It was patently impossible that a husband would not know his wife’s religion. They are getting into an area I do not want to discuss, he said to himself. “I’m a Christian,” he said, then. “Although I was raised Scientific Legate. I belonged to the Party’s Youth Corps. But now-”
“But Mrs. Asher is Jewish. Hence the phylacteries. You’ve never seen her put them on? One goes on the head; one goes on the left arm. They’re small square leathern boxes containing sec- tions of Hebrew scripture. It strikes me as odd that you don’t know anything about this. How long have you known each other?”
“A long time,” Herb Asher said.
114 Philip K. Dick The Divine Invasion 115
“Is she really your wife?” the Immigration official said. “If she is six months along in her pregnancy-” He consulted with some of the documents lying on the doctor’s desk. “She was pregnant when you married her. Are you the father of the child?’
“Of course.” he said.
“What blood type are you? Well, I have it here.” The Immi- gration official began going through the filled-out legal and medi- cal forms. “It’s somewhere
The fone on the desk rang; the lady doctor picked it up and identified herself. “For you.” She handed the receiver to the Immigration official.
The Immigration official, raptly attentive, listened in silence; then, putting his hand over the audio sender, he said irritably to Herb Asher, “The blood type checks out. You two are cleared. But we want to talk to Tate, the older man who-” He broke off and again listened to his fone.