THE DIVINE INVASION

Philip K. Dick

THE DIVINE INVASION

The time you have waited for has come. The

work is complete; the final world is here. He has

been transplanted and is alive.

--Mysterious voice in the night

CHAPTER I

It came time to put Ma

Elias understood what the zone signified but of course the boy did not. At the age of six Ma

"You know what today is?" Elias asked.

The boy smiled.

"OK," Elias said. "Well, a lot depends on the teacher. How much do you remember, Ma

Someday the boy's memories would come back. Something, a disinhibiting stimulus fired at the boy by his own prearrangement, would trigger anamnesis-the loss of amnesia, and all the memories would flood back: his conception on CY30-CY30B, the period in Rybys's womb as she battled her dreadful illness, the trip to Earth, perhaps even the interrogation. In his mother's

womb Ma

And, because of the damage, forgetfulness.

The two of them took the local rail to the school. A fussy little man met them, a Mr. Plaudet; he was enthusiastic and wanted to shake hands with Ma

"So here we have Emmanuel," Plaudet said, beaming.

Several other small children played in the fenced yard of the school. The boy pressed against Elias Tate shyly, obviously wanting to play but afraid to.

"What a nice name," Plaudet said. "Can you say your name, Emmanuel?" he asked the boy, bending down. "Can you say 'Emmanuel'?"

"God with us," the boy said.

"I beg your pardon?" Plaudet said.

Elias Tate said, "That's what 'Emmanuel' means. That's why his mother chose it. She was killed in an air collision before Ma

"I was in a synthowomb," Ma

"Did the dysfunction originate from the-" Plaudet began, but Elias Tate waved him into silence.

Flustered, Plaudet consulted his clipboard of typed notes. "Let's see ... you're not the boy's father. You're his great-uncle."

"His father is in cryonic suspension."

"The same air collision?"

"Yes," Elias said. "He's w'aiting for a spleen."

"It's amazing that in six years they haven't been able to come up with-"

"I am not going to discuss Herb Asher's death in front of the boy," Elias said.

"But he knows his father will be returning to life?" Plaudet said.

"Of course. I am going to spend several days here at the school watching to see how you handle the children. If I do not approve, if you use too much physical force, I am taking Ma

Wind blew through the canes of bamboo growing at the rim of the play area. Ma

The name, he thought, that no one is to say.

A child, a little girl wearing a white frock, approached Ma

The wind, in the bamboo, rustled on.

-----------------------------

Although dead and in cryonic suspension, Herb Asher was having his own problems. Very close to the Cry-Labs, Incorporated, warehouse a fifty-thousand-watt FM transmitter had been located the year before. For reasons unknown to anyone the cryonic equipment had begun picking up the powerful nearby FM signal. Thus Herb Asher, as well as everyone else in suspension at Cry-Labs, had to listen to elevator music all day and all night, the station being what it liked to call a "pleasing sounds" outfit.

Right now an all-string version of tunes from Fiddler on the Roof assailed the dead at Cry-Labs. This was especially distasteful to Herb Asher because he was in the part of his cycle where he was under the impression that he was still alive. In his frozen brain a limited world stretched out of an archaic nature; Herb Asher supposed himself to be back on the little planet of the CY3O-CY3OB system where he had maintained his dome in those crucial years ... crucial, in that he had met Rybys Rommey, migrated back to Earth with her, after formally marrying her, and then getting himself interrogated by the Terran authorities and, as if that were not enough, getting himself perfunctorily killed in an air collision that was in no way his fault. Worse yet, his wife had been killed and in such a fashion that no organ transplant would revive her; her pretty little head, as the robot doctor had explained it to Herb, had been riven in twain-a typical robot word-choice.

However, inasmuch as Herb Asher imagined himself still back in his dome in the star system CY3O-CY3OB, he did not realize that Rybys was dead. In fact he did not know her yet. This was before the arrival of the supplyman who had brought him news of Rybys in her own dome.

--------------------

Herb Asher lay on his bunk listening to his favorite tape of Linda Fox. He was trying to account for a background noise of soupy strings rendering songs from one or another of the well- known light operas or Broadway shows or some damn thing of the late twentieth century. Apparently his receiving and recording gear needed an overhaul. Perhaps the original signal from which he had made the Linda Fox tape had drifted. Fuck it, he thought dismally. I'll have to do some repairing. That meant getting out of his bunk, finding his tool kit, shutting down his receiving and recording equipment-it meant work.

Meanwhile, he listened with eyes shut to the Fox.

Weep you no more, sad fountains;

What need you flow so fast?

Look how the snowy mountains

Heaven's sun doth gently waste.

But my sun's heavenly eyes

View not your weeping

That now lies sleeping...

This was the best song the Fox had ever sung, from the Third and Last Booke of lute songs of John Dowland who had lived at the time of Shakespeare and whose music the Fox had remastered for the world of today.

A

Even so, Fiddler on the Roof in the form of eighty-seven strings continued. The sound of it filled his little dome, audible over the gjurk-gjurk of the air compressor. And then it came to him that he had been hearing Fiddler on the Roof for-good God!-it was something like three days, now.