Philip Dick - THE DIVINE INVASION

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But they were still friends. Zina told Emmanuel about an early identity that she had once had. Thousands of years ago, she said, she had been Ma'at, the Egyptian goddess who represented the cosmic order and justice. When someone died his heart was weighed against Ma' at's ostrich feather. By this the person's bur- den of sins was determined.

The principle by which the sinfulness of the person was deter- mined consisted of the degree of his truthfulness. To the extent that he was truthful the judgment went in his favor. This judgment was presided over by Osiris, but since Ma'at was the goddess of truthfulness, then it followed that the determination was hers to make.

"After that," Zina said, "the idea of the judgment of human souls passed over into Persia." In the ancient Persian religion, Zoroastrianism, a sifting bridge had to be crossed by the newly dead person. If he was evil the bridge got narrower and narrower until he toppled off and plunged into the fiery pit of hell. Judaism in its later stages and Christianity had gotten their ideas of the Final Days from this.

The good person, who managed to cross the sifting bridge, was met by the spirit of his religion: a beautiful young woman with superb, large breasts. However, if the person was evil the spirit of his religion consisted of a dried-up old hag with sagging paps. You could tell at a glance, therefore, which category you belonged to.

"Were you the spirit of religion for the good persons?" Em- manuel asked.

Zina did not answer the question; she passed on to another matter which she was more anxious to communicate to him.

In these judgments of the dead, stemming from Egypt and Persia, the scrutiny was pitiless and the sinful soul was de facto doomed. Upon your death the books listing your good deeds and bad deeds closed, and no one, even the gods, could alter the tabulation. In a sense the procedure of judgment was me- chanical. A bill of particulars, in essence, had been drawn up against you, compiled during your lifetime, and now this bill of particulars was fed into a mechanism of retribution. Once the mechanism received the list, it was all over for you. The mechanism ground you to shreds, and the gods merely watched, impassively.

But one day (Zina said) a new figure made its appearance at the path leading to the sifting bridge. This was an enigmatic figure who seemed to consist of a shifting succession of aspects or roles. Sometimes he was called Comforter. Sometimes Advocate. Sometimes Beside-Helper. Sometimes Support. Sometimes Ad- visor. No one knew where he had come from. For thousands of years he had not been there, and then one day he had appeared. He stood at the edge of the busy path, and as the souls made their way to the sifting bridge this complex figure-who sometimes, but rarely, seemed to be a woman-signaled to the persons, each in turn, to attract their attention. It was essential that the Beside- Helper got their attention before they stepped onto the sifting bridge, because after that it was too late.

"Too late for what?" Emmanuel said.

Zina said, "The Beside-Helper upon stopping a person ap- proaching the sifting bridge asked him if he wished to be repre- sented in the testing which was to come.

"By the Beside-Helper?"

The Beside-Helper, she explained, assumed his role of Advo- cate; he offered to speak on the person's behalf. But the Beside- Helper offered something more. He offered to present his own bill of particulars to the retribution mechanism in place of the bill of particulars of the person. If the person were innocent this would make no difference, but, for the guilty, it would yield up a sentence of exculpation rather than guilt.

"That's not fair," Emmanuel said. "The guilty should be punished."

"Why?" Zina said.

"Because it is the law," Emmanuel said.

"Then there is no hope for the guilty."

Emmanuel said, "They deserve no hope."

"What if everyone is guilty?"

He had not thought of that. 'What does the Beside-Helper's bill of particulars list?" he asked.

"It is blank," Zina said. "A perfectly white piece of paper. A document on which nothing is inscribed."

"The retributive machinery could not process that."

Zina said, "It would process it. It would imagine that it had received a compilation of a totally spotless person.

"But it couldn't act. It would have no input data."

"That's the whole point."

"Then the machinery of justice has been bilked."

"Bilked out of a victim," Zina said.' 'Is that not to be desired? Should there be victims? What is gained if there is an unending procession of victims? Does that right the wrongs they have com- mitted?"

"No," he said.

"The idea," Zina said, "is to feed mercy into the circuit. The Beside-Helper is an amicus curiae, a friend of the court. He ad- vises the court, by its permission, that the case before it consti- tutes an exception. The general rule of punishment does not apply."

"And he does this for everyone? Every guilty person?"

"For every guilty person who accepts his offer of advocacy and help."

"But then you'd have an endless procession of exceptions. Because no guilty person in his right mind would reject such an offer; every single guilty person would wish to be judged as an exception, as a case involving mitigating circumstances."

Zina said, 'But the person would have to accept the fact that he was, on his own, guilty. He could of course wager that he was innocent, in which case he would not need the advocacy of the Beside-Helper."

After a moment of pondering. Emmanuel said, 'That would be a foolish choice. He might be wrong. And he loses nothing by accepting the assistance of the Beside-Helper."

In practice, however,' Zina said, most souls about to be judged reject the offer of advocacy by the Beside-Helper."

'On what basis?" He could not fathom their reasoning.

Zina said, 'On the basis that they are sure they are innocent. To receive this help the person must go with the pessimistic as- sumption that he is guilty, even though his own assessment of himself is one of innocence. The truly innocent need no Beside- Helper, just as the physically healthy need no physician. In a situation of this kind the optimistic assumption is perilous. It's the bail-out theorem that little creatures employ when they con- struct a burrow. If they are wise they build a second exit to their burrow, operating on the pessimistic assumption that the first one will be found by a predator. All creatures who did not use their theorem are no longer with us."

Emmanuel said, It is degrading to a man that he must con- sider himself sinful."

'It's degrading to a gopher to have to admit that his burrow may not be perfectly built, that a predator may find it."

'You are talking about an adversary situation. Is divine jus- tice an adversary situation'? Is there a prosecutor?"

'Yes, there is a prosecutor of man in the divine court: it is Satan. There is the Advocate who defends the accused human. and Satan who impugns and indicts him. The Advocate, standing beside the man, defends him and speaks for him: Satan, confront- ing the man, accuses him. Would you wish man to have an accu- ser and not a defender? Would that seem just'?"

"But innocence must be presumed."

The girl's eyes gleamed. "Precisely the point made by the Advocate in each trial that takes place. Hence he substitutes his own blameless record for that of his client, and justifies the man by surrogation."

"Are you this Beside-Helper'?" Emmanuel asked.

"No," she said. "He is a far more puzzling figure than I. If you are having difficulty with me, in determining-"

"I am," Emmanuel said.

He is a latecomer into this world," Zina said. "Not found in

earlier aeons. He represents an evolution in the divine strategy. One by which the primordial damage is repaired. One of many, but a main one. Will I ever encounter him?" You will not be judged," Zina said. "So perhaps not. But all