“Did you tell Rachel?”
Tin going to.”
“Johnny will have different parents,” I said. And, I thought, someone else will have to write the great American science fiction novel. “Do it,” I said, “and do it good. Press a million of the damn things. Two million. Mail a copy to every radio station in America, AM and FM. Mail them to Canada and Europe and South America. Sell them for eighty-five cents. Give them away at supermarkets. Start a mail order record club with it as a freebie. Leave them on doorsteps. You have my blessing. I’ll stick the material in my new novel, if you want.”
“No, we don’t want that,” Nicholas said.
“Valis told you to do this? He’s guiding you?”
Nicholas said, “Valis is gone. An H-warhead got him, got his voice.”
“I know,” I said. “Do you miss him?*
Nicholas said, “More than I can ever express. I’ll never hear the AI operator again, or him again – any of them, as long as I live.”
“Good old Moyashka,” I said.
“It must be wonderful to be a nation’s foremost astrophysicist and shoot things down out of the sky. Things you don’t understand. In the name of communicating with them.”
“But you have the information on Fremont anyhow.”
“We have it,” Nicholas said.
“You are now part of Aramchek,” I said. I had guessed who the “we” was, what organization.
Nicholas nodded.
“It’s a pleasure to know you,” I said.
Thank you,” Nicholas said. And then he said, “Vivian came to see me.”
“Vivian?” I said, and then I remembered. “What about?”
“The record we’re producing.”
“Then they do know. They know already.”
Tm providing her a hoked-up sample without the material. We’ll see if that does it long enough to get the real thing out.”
“They’ll come in and take your master stampers.”
“Some will be clean.”
“They’ll grab them all.”
“We’re banking on their taking a representative one.”
“You have no chance,” I said.
“Maybe not,” Nicholas said; he did not argue it.
“A quixotic attack on the regime,” I said. “Nothing more. Well, do it anyhow. What the hell; they’re going to get us all anyhow. And who knows? Some FAPer might listen to it and wake up to reality. For a little while. You can never tell about these things . . . sometimes an idea catches on and no one can say why. Or it can fail, even if everyone hears it, and no one can say why. You’ve gone too far anyhow to pull out, haven’t you? So do it and do it right; when FAP listens to the record maybe the subliminal material will get into their minds and that alone will do it. They’ve got to listen to the record to know what you’ve done; even if it goes no further
“I’m glad you don’t mind my dragging you down with me,” Nicholas said. He put his hand out and we shook hands.
The Angels won the ball game, and Nicholas and I left the stadium together. We got into his green Maverick and joined the mass of cars maneuvering out onto State College. Presently we were driving toward Placentia.
A large blue car pulled in front of us; at the same time a marked police car flashed its red light at us from behind.
“We’re being pulled over,” Nicholas said. “What’d I do?”
As we reached the curb and stopped, the blue car’s doors opened and uniformed FAP Special Investigative Unit militiamen leaped out; in a moment one of them was in front of the Maverick with us, his gun against Nicholas’s head.
“Don’t move,” the cop said.
Tm not moving,” Nicholas said.
“What’s this – “ I began, but I fell silent when the muzzle of a police pistol was shoved into my ribs.
A few seconds later Nicholas and I had been hustled into the unmarked blue Ford; the doors shut and were electrically locked. The car moved out into traffic and made a U-turn. We were on our way to Orange County FAP headquarters – I knew it and Nicholas knew it. The cops did not have to tell us.
“What,” I said as we drove into the underground garage at FAP headquarters, “have we done?”
“You’ll be told,” a cop said, indicating for us to get out •of the car; they still held their guns, and they looked mad and mean and hateful. In all my life I had never seen faces so twisted up with hate.
Nicholas, as he got from the car, said to me, “I think we were followed to the ball park.”
The ball park, I thought in fear. You mean they can tape your conversation at the ball park, in the middle of a baseball game? In that crowd?
Presently we were taken down a damp, dark concrete tunnel, under the offices on the ground floor; we ascended a ramp, reached an elevator, were held there for a time, and then we entered the elevator. A cop pressed a button and a moment later we were in a brightly lit hall with waxed floors, being led into a large office.
Vivian Kaplan and several other FAPers, including one high-ranking police official with stripes and gold braid, sat or stood around, looking grim.
Til be honest with you,” Vivian Kaplan said, her face pale. “We put a recording device on you, Nicholas, when you two were in line at the ticket window. We recorded your entire conversation during the ball game.”
The high police official said hoarsely, “I’ve already given orders for Progressive Records to be closed down and their property and assets seized. No record will be made or released. It’s over, Mr Brady. And we’re in the process of picking up the Aramchek girl.”
Both Nicholas and I were silent.
“You intended to put subliminal material in a record,” Vivian said, in an incredulous voice, ‘saying that President Fremont is an agent for the US Communist Party?”
Nicholas said nothing.
“Ugh,” she said, shivering. “How insane. How perverted. That miserable satellite of yours – well, it’s gone now, gone for good. We caught it shooting down subliminal material into prime-time TV broadcasts, but it only had the power to override small areas at a time. It never said anything like this. It told you this stuff? It said to say this?”
“I’ve got nothing to say,” Nicholas said.
Take him out and shoot him,” Vivian Kaplan said.
In terror I stared at her.
The high-ranking police officer said, “He might be able to tell us -”
“There’s nothing we don’t know,” Vivian said.
“All right.” The police officer made a sign; two FAPers took hold of Nicholas and propelled him from the office. He did not speak or look back as he departed. I watched them go, powerless and paralyzed.
“Bring him back,” I said to Vivian, “and I’ll tell you everything he has told me.”
“He’s not a human being any more,” Vivian said. “He’s controlled by the satellite.”
The satellite is gone!” I said.
There’s an egg been laid in his head,” Vivian said. “An alien egg; he’s a nest for it – we always kill them when we find them. Before the egg hatches.”
This one too?” A FAPer asked her, pointing a gun at me.
“He’s not part of Aramchek,” Vivian said. To me she said, “We will keep you alive, Phil; we will release books under your name which we will write. For several years we have been preparing them; they already exist. Your style is easy to imitate. You will be allowed to speak in public, enough to confirm them as your books. Or shall we shoot you?”
“Shoot me,” I said. “You bastards.”
The books will be released,” Vivian continued. “In them you will slowly conform to establishment views, book by book, until you reach a point we can approve of. The initial ones will still contain some of your subversive views, but since you are getting old now it won’t be unexpected for you to mellow.”
I stared at her. Then you’ve been planning all this time to pick me up.”
“Yes,” she said.
“And kill Nicholas.”
“We did not plan that; we did not know he was satellite-controlled. Phil, there is no alternative. Your friend is no longer a -”
“Vivian,” I said, “let me talk to Nicholas before you kill him. One final time.”
“Will you cooperate afterward? Regarding your books?”
“Yes,” I said, although I did not intend to; I was trying to buy time for Nicholas.
Vivian picked up a walkie-talkie, said into it, “Hold up on Nicholas Brady. He’s to be taken to a cell instead, for now.”
The walkie-talkie sputtered into response “Sorry, Ms Kaplan; he’s already dead. Wait – just a minute and I’ll check.” A pause. “Yes, he’s dead.”
“Okay,” Vivian said. “Thanks.” To me she said calmly, Too late, Phil. It’s police policy not to delay in – “
I lunged at her, trying to hit her in the face. In my mind a fantasy wiped out reality; in my mind I hit her in the face, right in the mouth, I felt teeth break and fly into bits, I felt her nose and features collapse. But it was a dream, a wish and nothing more; immediately the FAPers were all over me, between me and her, hitting me. A gun butt slammed against my head, and the scene – and the dream – were gone.