“Mr.As her,” the speaker sputtered, “please return the offi- cer’s gun.”
“I can’t,” Herb Asher said. “I’m frozen in cryonic suspen- sion. And there’s a fifty-thousand-watt FM transmitter next door playing South PacJic. It’s driving me crazy.
The speaker sputtered, “Suppose we instruct the station to shut down its transmitter. Then will you return the officer’s gun?”
“I’m paralyzed,” Herb Asher said. “I’m dead.”
“If you’re dead,” the speaker sputtered, “you have no need of a gun. In fact, if you’re dead, how are you going to fire the gun? You said yourself that you’re frozen. People in cryonic suspension can’t move; they’re like Lincoln Logs.”
“Then tell the officer to take the gun away from me,” Herb Asher said.
The speaker sputtered, “Take the-”
“The gun is real,” the cop said, “and Asher is real. He’s crazy. He’s not frozen. Would I arrest a dead man? Would a dead man be flying to California? There’ s a warrant out on this man; he is a wanted felon.”
“What are you wanted for?” the speaker sputtered. “I’m talking to you, Mr. Asher. I’m talking to a dead man who’s frozen stiff at zero degrees.”
“Much colder than that,” Herb Asher said. “Ask them to play the Mahler Second Symphony. And play it the way it was originally written; not an all-string verson. I can’t stand any more of this all-string music, this easy-listening music. It’s not easy for me. At one time I had to listen to Fiddler on the Roof for months. ‘Matchmaker, Matchmaker’ lasted for days. And it was at a very critical time in my cycle; I was-”
“All right,” the speaker sputtered reasonably. “What do you say to this? We’ll have the FM station play the Mahler Second Symphony and in exchange you’ll return the officer’s gun. What is the- Wait a minute.” Silence.
“There’s a lapse of logic here,” the cop beside Herb Asher said. “You’re falling into his idee fixe. You know what I’m hear- ing? I’m hearingfo/ie deux. This has got to stop. There is no FM transmitter broadcasting South Pacific. If there were, I would hear it. You can’t call the station-any station-and have them play the Mahler Second; it won’t work.”
The speaker sputtered, “But he’ll think so, you stupid son of a bitch.”
“Oh,” the cop said.
“Give me a few minutes, Mr. Asher,” the speaker sputtered, “to get hold-”
“No,” Herb Asher said. “It’s a trick. I won’t give up the gun.” To the cop beside him he said, “Release my car.
“Better release his car,” the speaker sputtered.
“And take off the cuffs,” Herb Asher said.
“You’ll really like the Mahler Second Symphony,” the cop said. “It’s got a choir in it.”
“Do you know what the Mahler Second has in it?” Herb Asher said. “Do you know what it’s scored for? I’ll tell you what it’s scored for. Four flutes, all alternating with piccolos, four oboes, the third and fourth alternating with English horns, an B-flat clarinet, four clarinets, the third alternating with bass clar- inet, the fourth with second B-flat clarinet, four bassoons, the third and fourth alternating with contrabassoon, ten horns, ten trumpets, four trombones-”
“Four trombones?” the cop said.
“Jesus Christ,” the speaker sputtered.
“-a tuba,” Herb Asher continued. “Organ, two sets of tim- pani, plus an additional single drum off-stage, two bass drums, one off-stage, two pairs of cymbals, one off-stage, two gongs, one of relatively high pitch, the other low, two triangles, one off- stage, a snare drum, preferably more than one, glockenspiel, bells, a Ruthe-”
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“What is a ‘Ruthe’?” the cop beside Herb Asher asked.
‘Ruthe’ literally means ‘rod,’ ” Herb Asher said. “It’s made of a lot of pieces of rattan; it looks like a large clothes-brush or a small broom. It’s used to play the bass drum. Mozart wrote for the Ruthe. Two harps, with two or more players to each part if possible-” He pondered. “Plus the regular orchestra, natu- rally, including a full string section. Have them use their mixing bQard to downplay the strings; I’ve heard enough strings. And be sure the two soloists, the soprano and alto, are good.”
“That’s it?” the radio sputtered.
“You’ve fallen back into his delusion,” the cop beside Herb Asher said.
“You know,” the radio said, “he sounds rational enough. Are you sure he’s got your gun? Mr. Asher, how does it happen that you know so much about music? You seem to be quite an author- ity.”
“There are two reasons,” Herb Asher said. “One is due to my living on a planet in the star system CY3O-CY3OB; I operate a sophisticated bank of electronic equipment, both video and audio; I receive transmissions from the mother ship and record them and then beam them to the other domes both on my planet and on nearby planets, and I handle traffic from Fomalhaut, as well as domestic emergency traffic. And the other reason is that the prophet Elijah and I own a retail audio components store in Washington, D.C.”
“Plus the fact,” the cop beside Herb Asher said, “that you’re in cryonic suspension.”
“All three,” Herb Asher said. “Yes.”
“And God tells you things,” the cop said.
“Not about music,” Herb Asher said. “He doesn’t have to. He did erase all my Linda Fox tapes, however. And he cooked my Linda Fox incoming-”
“There is another universe,” the cop seated beside Herb Asher explained, “where this Linda Fox is incredibly famous. Mr. Asher is flying out to California to be with her. How he can manage to do that while frozen in cryonic suspension beats the hell out of me, but those are his plans, or were his plans until I grappled him.”
“I am still going there,” Herb Asher said, and then realized that he had made a mistake to tell them this; now they could track him down, even if he escaped. He had done a foolish thing; he had said too much.
Regarding him intently, the cop said, “I do believe that his self-monitoring circuit has notified him that he has spoken inju- diciously.”
“I wondered when it would cut in,” the speaker sputtered.
“Now I can’t go to the Fox,” Herb Asher said. “I’m not going there. I’m going back to my dome in the CY3O-CY3OB System. You lack jurisdiction there. Also, Belial does not rule there. Yah rules there.”
The cop said, “I thought you said Yah came back here and, I would presume, if he did come back here, he now rules.”
“It has become obvious to me during the course of this con- versation,” Herb Asher said, “that he does not rule here, at least not completely. Something is wrong. I knew it when I started hearing the sappy, soupy string music. I especially knew it when you grappled me and when you told me there’s a warrant out for me. Maybe Belial has won; maybe that’s it. You are all servants of Belial. Take the cuffs off me or I’ll kill you.”
The cop, reluctantly, removed the cuffs.
“It would seem to me, Mr. Asher,” the speaker sputtered, “that there are internal contradictions in what you say. If you will concentrate on them you will see why you give the impres- sion of being brain-slushed. First you say one thing and then you say another. The only lucid interval in your discourse came when you discussed the Mahler Second Symphony, and that is proba- bly due, as you say, to the fact that you’re in the retail audio components business. It is a last remnant of a once intact psyche. Understand that if you go in with the officer you will not be punished; you will be treated as the lunatic that you obviously are. No judge would convict a man who says what you say.”
“That’s true,” the cop beside Herb Asher agreed. “All you have to do is tell the judge about God speaking to you from the bamboo bushes and you’re home free. And especially when you tell him that you’re God’s father-”
“Legal father,” Herb Asher corrected.
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That will make a big impression on the court,” the cop said.
Herb Asher said, “There is a great war being fought at this moment between God and Belial. The fate of the universe is at stake, its actual physical existence. When I took off for the West Coast I assumed-I had reason to assume-that everything was okay. Now I am not sure; now I think that something dark and awful has gone wrong. You police are the paradigm of it, the epitome. I would not have been grappled if Yah had in fact won. I will not go on to California because that would jeopardize Linda Fox. You’ll find her, of course, but she doesn’t know anything; she is-in this world, anyhow-a struggling new talent whom I was trying to help. Leave her alone. Leave me alone, too; leave us all alone. You do not know whom you serve. Do you under- stand what I’m saying? You are in the service of evil, whatever else you may think. You are machines processing an old warrant. You do not know what I’ve done, or been accused of doing . you can make no sense of what I say because you do not under- stand the situation. You are going by rules that don’t apply. This is a unique time. Unique events are taking place; unique forces are squared off against one another. I will not go to Linda Fox but on the other hand I do not know where I will go instead. Maybe Elias will know; maybe he can tell me what to do. My dream was shot down when you grappled me, and maybe her dream, too; Linda Fox’s dream. Maybe I can’t now help her become a star, as I promised. Time will tell. The outcome will determine it, the outcome of the great battle. I pity you because whatever the outcome you are destroyed; your souls are gone now.