THE DIVINE INVASION

Zina, taking her purse back, said, "If she's going to make it big she's going to have to lose some weight. I mean, she looks all right, but-"

"What is this thing you have about weight?" Herb Asher said, irritated.

The boy, Ma

"Yes?" He bent to hear.

"Remember," the boy said.

Puzzled, he started to say Remember what? but then Linda Fox took hold of the microphone, half shut her eyes, and began to sing. She had a round face, and almost a double chin, but her skin was fair, and, most important to him of all, she had long eyelashes that flickered as she sang-they fascinated him and he sat spellbound. Linda wore an extremely low-cut gown and even from where he sat he could see the outline of her nipples; she had on no bra.

Shall I sue? shall I seek for grace?

Shall I pray? shall I prove?

Shall I strive to a heavenly joy

With an earthly love?

Audibly, Rybys said, "I hate that song. I have heard her before."

Several people hissed at her to be quiet.

"Not by her, though," Rybys said. "She isn't even original. That song- She piped down, but she was not happy.

When the song ended, and the audience had begun to clap, Herb Asher said to his wife, "You never heard 'Shall I Sue' before. Nobody else sings it but Linda Fox."

"You just like to gape at her nipples," Rybys said.

To Herb Asher the little boy said, "Would you take me to the men's room, Mr. Asher?"

"Now?" he said, dismayed. "Can't you wait until she's through singing?"

The boy said, "Now, Mr. Asher."

With reluctance he led Ma

"You can see her better from here," Ma

It was true. He was now much closer to the stage. He and the boy stood together in silence as Linda Fox sang "Weep You No More Sad Fountains."

When the song ended, Ma

"She's going to sing again," Herb Asher interrupted. He barely heard the boy's words and they made no sense to him. A babbling boy, he thought, making it hard for me to hear Linda Fox. Just what I need.

After the song had ended, Ma

"What?" he murmured, his eyes-his attention-fixed on Linda Fox. God, he thought; what a figure she has. She's practi- cally falling out of her dress. He thought, I wish my wife was built like that.

"She will come this way," Ma

"You're joking," he said.

"No," Ma

"What dome?" he said.

Ma

"You mean one of those colony-planet domes?" Herb Asher said.

"I can't make you listen, can I?" Ma

"She is coming this way," Herb Asher said. "How did you know?" He moved a few steps toward her. Linda Fox walked rapidly, with small steps, a gentle expression on her face.

"Thank you," she was saying to people who spoke to her. For a moment she stopped to give her autograph to a black youth nattily dressed.

Tapping Herb Asher on the shoulder a waitress said, "You're going to have to take that boy out of here, sir; we can't have minors in here."

"Sorry," Herb Asher said.

"Right now," the waitress said.

"Okay," he said; he took Ma

Ma

"I don't know what you're talking about," Herb said, "but if I could meet her-"

"You will," Ma

"You're a strange kid," Herb Asher said. As they passed below a light fixture he noticed something that startled him; he halted and, taking hold of Ma

"Herbert," the boy said, "she is not real. Linda Fox-she is a phantasm of yours. But I can make her real; I confer being-it is I who makes the irreal into the real, and I can do it for you, with her."

"What happened?" Rybys said, when they reached the table. "Ma

Taking her purse and cigarettes, Zina rose. "I'm sorry; I guess I kept you from seeing the Fox."

"Let's go with them," Rybys said, also rising. "My head hurts, Herb; I'd like to get out ofhere."

Resigned, he said, "All right." Cheated, he thought. That was what Ma

This evening didn't work out, he thought as he escorted Rybys, Zina and Ma

Zina said, "I fulfilled his wishes; I gave him what he dreamed of. All those months as he lay on his bunk. With his 3-D posters of her, his tapes."

"You gave him nothing," Emmanuel said. "You robbed him, in fact. You took something away."

"She is a media product," Zina said. The two of them walked slowly along the nocturnal Hollywood sidewalk, back to her fly- car. "That is no fault of mine. I can't be blamed if Linda Fox is not real."

"Here in your realm that distinction means nothing."

"What can you give him?" Zina said. "Only illness-his wife's illness. And her death in your service. Is your gift better than mine?"

Emmanuel said, "I made him a promise and I do not lie." I shall fulfill that promise, he said to himself. In this realm or in my own realm; it doesn't matter because in either case I will make Linda Fox real. That is the power I have, and it is not the power of enchantment; it is the most precious gift of all: reality.

"What are you thinking?" Zina said.

'Better a live dog than a dead prince,' "Ma

"It is simply common sense.

Zina said, What is your meaning?"

"I mean that your enchantment gave him nothing and the real world-"

"The real world," Zina said, "put him in cryonic suspension for ten years. Isn't a beautiful dream better than a cruel reality? Would you rather suffer in actuality than enjoy yourself in the domain of-" She paused.