I am in cryonic suspension! he thought. It’s that huge FM transmitter next door. Fifty thousand watts of audio drizzle mess- ing up everyone at Cry-Labs, Incorporated. Son of a bitch!
He slowed his car, stunned and afraid. I don’t get it, he thought in panic. I remember being released from suspension; I was ten years frozen and then they found the organs for me and brought me back to life. Didn’t they? Or was that a cryonic fan- tasy of my dead mind? Which this is, too . . . oh, my God. No wonder it has seemed like a dream; it is a dream.
The Fox, he thought, is a dream. Mv dream. I invented her as I lay in suspension; I am inventing her now. And my only clue is
208 Philip K. Dick The Divine invasion
this dull music seeping in everywhere. Without the music I would never have known.
It is diabolic, he thought, to play such games with a human being, with his hopes. With his expectations.
A red light on his dashboard lit up, and simultaneously a bleep-bleep-bleep sounded. He had, in addition to everything else, become the target of a cop car.
The cop car came up beside him and grappled onto his car. Their mutual doors slid back and the cop confronted him. “Hand me your license,” the cop said. His face, behind its plastic mask, could not be seen; he looked like some kind of World War I fortification, something that had been built at Verdun.
“Here it is.” Herb Asher passed his license to the cop as their two cars, now joined, moved slowly forward as one.
“Are there any warrants out on you, Mr. Asher?” the cop said as he punched information into his console.
“No,” Herb Asher said.
“You’re mistaken.” Lines of illuminated letters appeared on the cop’s display. “According to our records, you’re here on Earth illegally. Did you know that?”
“It’s not true,” he said.
“This is an old warrant. They’ve been trying to find you for some time. I am going to take you into custody.”
Herb Asher said, “You can’t. I’m in cryonic suspension. Watch and I’ll put my hand through you.” He reached out and touched the cop. His hand met solid armored flesh. “That’s strange,” Herb Asher said. He pressed harder, and then realized, all at once, that the cop held a gun pointed at him.
“You want to bet?” the cop said. “About the cryonic suspen- sion?”
“No,” Herb Asher said.
“Because if you fool around anymore I will kill you. You are a wanted felon. I can kill you any time I wish. Take your hand off me. Get it away.
Herb Asher withdrew his hand. And yet he could still hear South PacWc. The soupy sound still oozed at him from every side.
“If you could put your hand through me,” the cop said, “you’d fall through the floor of your car. Think the logic through. It isn’t a question of my being real; it’s a question of everything being real. For you, I mean. It’s your problem. Or you think it’s your problem. Were you in cryonic suspension at one time?”
“Yes.”
“You’re having a flashback. It’s common. Under pressure your brain abreacts. Cryonic suspension provides a womblike sense of security that your brain tapes and later on retrieves. Is this the first time it’s happened to you, this flashback? I’ve come across people who’ve been in cryonic suspension who never could be convinced by any evidence, by what anyone said or whatsoever happened, that they were finally out of it.”
“You’re talking to one of them now,” Herb Asher said.
“Why do you think you’re in cryonic suspension?”
“The soupy music.”
“I don’t-”
“Of course you don’t. That’s the point.”
“You’re hallucinating.”
“Right.” Herb Asher nodded. “That’s my point.” He reached out for the cop’s gun. “Go ahead and shoot,” he said. “It won’t hurt me. The beam will go right through me. “I think you belong in a mental hospital, not a jail.”
“Maybe so.”
The cop said, “Where were you going?”
“To California. To visit the Fox.”
“As in the Fox and the Cat?”
“The greatest living singer.”
“I never heard of him.”
“Her,” Herb Asher said. “She’s not well known in this world. In this world she’s just beginning her career. I’m going to help make her famous throughout the galaxy. I promised her.”
“What’s the other world compared to this?”
“The real world,” Herb Asher said. “God caused me to re- member it. I’m one of the few people who remembers it. He appeared to me in the bamboo bushes and there were words in red fire telling me the truth and restoring my memories.”
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“You are a very sick man. You think you’re in cryonic sus- pension and you remember another universe. I wonder what would have happened to you if I hadn’t grappled onto you.
“I’d have had a good time,” Herb Asher said, “out on the West Coast. A hell of a lot better time than I’m having now.”
“What else did God tell you?”
“Different things.”
“God talks to you frequently?”
“Rarely. I’m his legal father.”
The cop stared at him. “What?”
“I’m God’s legal father. Not his actual father; just his legal father. My wife is his mother.”
The cop continued to stare at him. The laser pistol wavered.
“God caused me to marry his mother so that-”
“Hold out both your hands.”
Herb Asher held out both his hands. Immediately cuffs closed around his wrists.
“Continue,” the cop said. “But I should tell you that anything you say may be held against you in a court of law.”
“The plan was to smuggle God back to Earth,” Herb Asher said. “In my wife’s womb. It succeeded. That’s why there’s a warrant out for me. The crime I committed was smuggling God back to Earth, where the Evil One rules. The Evil One secretly controls everyone and everything here. For example, you are working for the Evil One.”
“I’m-”
“But you don’t realize it. You have never heard of Belial.”
“True,” the cop said.
“That proves my point,” Herb Asher said.
“Everything you have said since I grappled onto you has been recorded,” the cop said. “It will be analyzed. So you’re God’s father.”
“Legal father.”
“And that’s why you’re wanted. I wonder what the statute violation is, technically. I’ve never seen it listed. Posing as God’s father.”
“Legal father.”
“Who’s his real father?”
“He is,” Herb Asher said. “He impregnated his mother.”
“This is disgusting.”
“It’s the truth. He impregnated her with himself, and thereby replicated himself in microform by which method he was able to-”
“Should you be telling me this?”
“The battle is over. God has won. The power of Belial has been destroyed.”
“Then why are you sitting here with the cuffs on and why am I pointing a laser gun at you?”
“I’m not sure. I’m having trouble figuring that out. That and South PacJic. There are a few bits and pieces I can’t seem to get to go in place. But I’m working on it. What I am positive about is Yah’s victory.” ‘Yah.’ I guess that’s God.”
“Yes; his actual name. His original name. When he was living on the top of the mountain.”
The cop said, “I don’t mean to compound your troubles, but you are the most fucked-up human being I have ever met. And I see a lot of different kinds of people. They must have slushed your brain when they put you in cryonic suspension. They must not have gotten to you in time. I’d say that about a sixth of your brain is working and that sixth isn’t working right, not at all. I’m taking you to a far, far better place than you have ever been, and they will do far, far better things to you than you can possibly imagine. In my opinion-”
“I’ll tell you something else,” Herb Asher said. “You know who my business partner is? The prophet Elijah.”
Into his microphone the cop said, “This is 356 Kansas. I am bringing an individual in for psychiatric evaluation, a white male about-” To Herb Asher he said, “Did I give you your license back?” The cop put his gun back in its holster and rummaged beside him for Herb Asher’s license.
Herb Asher lifted the gun from the cop’s holster and pointed it at him; he had to hold both hands together because of the cuffs, but nonetheless he was able to do it. 4
212 Philip K. Dick The Divine Invasion 213
“He has my gun,” the cop said.
The intercom speaker sputtered, “You let a slusher get your gun?”
“Well, he was running off at the mouth about God; I thought he was . . .” The cop’s voice trailed off lamely.
“What is the individual’s name?” the speaker sputtered.
“Asher. Herbert Asher.”