Philip Dick - THE DIVINE INVASION

"Rommey-Asher," Rybys said as she got up painfully onto the table. "Can you give me an I-V anti-emetic? And soon? I mean soon. I mean now."

"In view of your wife's illness," the doctor said to Herb Asher as she seated herself at her desk, "why wasn't her preg- nancy terminated?"

"We've been through all this," he said savagely.

"We may still require her to abort. We do not wish a de- formed infant born; it's against public policy."

Staring at the doctor in fear, Herb said, "But she's six months into her pregnancy!"

"We have it down as five months," the doctor said. "Well within the legal period."

"You can't do it without her consent, Herb said; his fear became wild.

"The decision," the doctor told him, "is no longer yours to make, now that you have returned to Earth. A medical board will study the matter."

It was obvious to Herb Asher that there would be a mandatory abortion. He knew what the board would decide-had decided.

In the corner of the room a piped-in music source gave forth the odious background noise of soupy strings. The same sound, he realized, that he had heard off and on at his dome. But now the music changed, and he realized that a popular number of the Fox's was coming up. As the doctor sat filling out medical forms the Fox's voice could distantly be heard. It gave him comfort.

Come again!

Sweet love doth now invite

Thy graces, that refrain

To do me due delight.

The lady doctor's lips moved reflexively in synchronization with the Fox's familiar Dowland song.

All at once Herb Asher became aware that the voice from the speaker only resembled the Fox's. The voice was no longer sing- ing; it was speaking.

The faint voice said distinctly:

There will be no abortion. There will be a birth.

At her desk the doctor seemed unaware of the transition. Yah has cooked the audio signal, Herb Asher realized. As he watched he saw the doctor pause, pen lifted from the page before her.

Subliminal, he said to himself as he watched the doctor hesi- tate. The woman still imagines she is hearing a familiar song. Familiar lyrics. She is in a kind of spell. As if hypnotized.

The song resumed.

"We can't abort her legally if she's six months along," the doctor said hesitantly. "Mr. Asher, there must be an error. We have her down as five. Five months into her pregnancy. But if you say six, then-"

"Examine her if you want," Herb Asher said. "It's at least six. Make your own determination."

"I-" The doctor rubbed her forehead, wincing; she shut her eyes and grimaced, as in pain. "I see no reason to-" She broke off, as if unable to remember what she intended to say. "I see no reason," she resumed after a moment, "to dispute this." She pressed a button on her desk intercom.

The door opened and a uniformed Immigration official stood there. A moment later he was joined by a uniformed Customs agent.

"The matter is settled," the doctor said to the Immigration official. "We can't force her to abort; she's too far along."

The Immigration official gazed down at her fixedly.

"It's the law," the doctor said.

"Mr. Asher," the Customs agent said, "let me ask you some- thing. In your wife's declaration prepared for Customs clearance she lists two phylacteries. What is a phylactery?"

"I don't know," Herb Asher said.

"Aren't you Jewish?" the Customs agent said. "Every Jew knows what a phylactery is. Your wife, then, is Jewish and you are not?"

"Well," Herb Asher said, "she is C.I.C. but-" He paused. He sensed himself moving step by step into a trap. It was patently impossible that a husband would not know his wife's religion. They are getting into an area I do not want to discuss, he said to himself. "I'm a Christian," he said, then. "Although I was raised Scientific Legate. I belonged to the Party's Youth Corps. But now-"

"But Mrs. Asher is Jewish. Hence the phylacteries. You've never seen her put them on? One goes on the head; one goes on the left arm. They're small square leathern boxes containing sec- tions of Hebrew scripture. It strikes me as odd that you don't know anything about this. How long have you known each other?"

"A long time," Herb Asher said.

"Is she really your wife?" the Immigration official said. "If she is six months along in her pregnancy-" He consulted with some of the documents lying on the doctor's desk. "She was pregnant when you married her. Are you the father of the child?'

"Of course." he said.

"What blood type are you? Well, I have it here." The Immi- gration official began going through the filled-out legal and medi- cal forms. "It's somewhere

The fone on the desk rang; the lady doctor picked it up and identified herself. "For you." She handed the receiver to the Immigration official.

The Immigration official, raptly attentive, listened in silence; then, putting his hand over the audio sender, he said irritably to Herb Asher, "The blood type checks out. You two are cleared. But we want to talk to Tate, the older man who-" He broke off and again listened to his fone.

"You can call a cab from the payfone in the lounge," the Customs agent said.

"We're free to go?" Herb Asher said.

The Customs agent nodded.

"Something is wrong," the doctor said; again she had re- moved her glasses and sat rubbing her eyes.

"There's this other matter," the Customs agent said to her, and bent down to present her with a stack of documents.

"Do you know where Tate is?" the Immigration official called after Herb Asher as he and Rybys made their way from the ex- amination room.

"No, I don't," Herb said, and found himself in the corridor; supporting Rybys he walked step by step back down the corridor to the lounge. "Sit down," he said to her, depositing her in a heap on a couch. Several waiting people gazed at them dully. "I'll fone. I'll be right back. Do you have any change'? I need a five-dollar piece." "Christ," Rybys murmured. "No. I don't have." "We got through," he said to her in a low voice. "OK!" she said angrily. "I'll fone for a cab." Going through his pockets, searching for a five-dollar piece, he felt elated. Yah had intervened, distantly and feebly, but it had been enough.

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

Ten minutes later they and their luggage were aboard a Yellow flycab, rising up from the Washington, D.C. spaceport, heading in the direction of Bethesda-Chevy Chase.

"Where the hell is Elias?" Rybys managed to say.

"He drew their attention," Herb said. "He diverted them. Away from

"Great," she said. "So now he could be anywhere."

All at once a large commercial flycar came hurtling toward them at reckless speed.

The robot driver of the cab cried out in dismay. And then the massive flycar sideswiped them; it happened in an instant. Vio- lent waves of concussion hurled the cab in a downward spiral; Herb Asher clutched his wife against him-buildings bloomed into hugeness, and he knew, he knew absolutely and utterly, what had happened. The bastards, he thought in pain; he hurt physi- cally; he ached from the realization. Warning beepers in the cab had gone off-"

Yah's protection wasn't enough, he realized as the cab spun lower and lower like a falling, withered leaf.

It's too weak. Too weak here.

The cab struck the edge of a high-rise building.

Darkness came and Herb Asher knew no more.

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

He lay in a hospital bed, wired up and tubed up to countless devices like a cyborg entity.

"Mr. Asher?" a voice was saying, a male voice. "Mr. Asher, can you hear me?"

He tried to nod but could not.

"You have suffered serious internal damage," the male voice said. "I am Dr. Pope. You've been unconscious for five days. Surgery was performed on you but your ruptured spleen had to be removed. That's only a part of it. You are going to be put into cryonic suspension until replacement organs- Can you hear me?"