Philip Dick - THE DIVINE INVASION

humans will see him standing by the busy road, offering his help. Offering it in time-before the person starts across the sifting bridge and is judged. The Beside-Helper's intervention always comes in time. It is part of his nature to be there soon enough." Emmanuel said, "I would like to meet him."

Follow the travel pattern of any human," Zina said, "and you will arrive at the point where that human encounters him. That is how I know about him. I, too, am not judged." She pointed to the slate that she had given him. "Ask it for more information about the Beside-Helper."

The slate read:

TO CALL

"Is that all you can tell me?" Emmanuel asked it.

A new word formed, a Greek word:

PARAKALEIN

He wondered about this, wondered greatly, at this new entity who had come into the world ... who could be called on by those in need, those who stood in danger of negative judgment. It was one more of the mysteries presented to him by Zina. There had been so many, now. He enjoyed them. But he was puzzled.

To call to aid: parakalein. Strange, he thought. The world evolves even as it falls more and more. There are two distinct movements: the falling, and then, at the same time, the upward- rising work of repair. Antithetical movements, in the form of a dialectic of all creation and the powers contending behind it.

Suppose Zina beckoned to the parts that fell? Beckoned them, seductively, to fall farther. About this he could not yet tell.

Reaching out, Herb Asher took the boy in his arms. He hugged him tight.

"And this is Zina," Elias Tate said. "Emmanuel's friend." He took the girl by the hand and led her to Herb Asher. "She's a little older than Manny."'

"Hello," Herb Asher said. But he did not care about her; he wanted to look at Rybys's son.

Ten years, he thought. This child has grown while I dreamed and dreamed, thinking I was alive when in fact I was not.

Elias said, "She helps him. She teaches him. More than the school does. More than I do."

Looking toward the girl Herb Asher saw a beautiful pale heart-shaped face with eyes that danced with light. What a pretty child, he thought, and turned back to Rybys's son. But then, struck by something, he looked once more at the girl.

Mischief showed on her face. Especially in her eyes. Yes, he thought; there is something in her eyes. A kind of knowledge.

"They've been together four years now," Elias said. "She gave him a high-technology slate. It's some kind of advanced computer terminal. It asks him questions-poses questions to him and gives him hints. Right, Manny?"

Emmanuel said, "Hello, Herb Asher." He seemed solemn and subdued, in contrast to the girl.

"Hello," he said to Emmanuel. "How much you look like your mother."

"In that crucible we grow," Emmanuel said, cryptically. He did not amplify.

"Are-" Herb did not know what to say. "Is everything all right?"

"Yes." The boy nodded.

"You have a heavy burden on you," Herb said.

"The slate plays tricks," Emmanuel said.

There was silence.

"What's wrong?" Herb said to Elias.

To the boy, Elias said, "Something is wrong, isn't it?"

"While my mother died," Emmanuel said, gazing fixedly at Herb Asher, "you listened to an illusion. She does not exist, that image. Your Fox is a phantasm, nothing else."

"That was a long time ago," Herb said.

"The phantasm is with us in the world," Emmanuel said.

"That's not my problem," Herb said.

Emmanuel said, "But it is mine. I mean to solve it. Not now but at the proper time. You fell asleep, Herb Asher, because a voice told you to fall asleep. This world here, this planet, all of it, all its people-everything here sleeps. I have watched it for ten years and there is nothing good I can say about it. What you did it does; what you were it is. Maybe you still sleep. Do you sleep, Herb Asher? You dreamed about my mother while you lay in cryonic suspension. I tapped your dreams. From them I learned a lot about her. I am as much her as I am myself. As I told her, she lives on in me and as me; I have made her deathless-your wife is here, not back in that littered dome. Do you realize that? Look at me and you see Rybys whom you ignored."

Herb Asher said, "I-"

"There is nothing for you to tell me," Emmanuel said. "I read your heart, not your words. I knew you then and I know you now. Herbert, Herbert,' I called to you. I summoned you back to life, for your sake and for hers, and, because it was for her sake, it was for my sake. When you helped her you helped me. And when you ignored her you ignored me. Thus says your God."

Reaching out, Elias put his arm around Herb Asher, to reas- sure him.

"I will always speak the truth to you, Herb Asher," the boy continued. "There is no deceit in God. I want you to live. I made you live once before, when you lay in psychological death. God does not desire any living thing's death; God takes no delight in nonexistence. Do you know what God is, Herb Asher? God is He Who causes to be. Put another way, if you seek the basis of being that underlies everything you will surely find God. You can work back to God from the phenomenal universe, or you can move from the Creator to the phenomenal universe. Each implies the other. The Creator would not be the Creator if there were no universe, and the universe would cease to be if the Creator did not sustain it. The Creator does not exist prior to the universe in time; he does not exist in time at all. God creates the universe constantly; he is with it, not above or behind it. This is im- possible to understand for you because you are a created thing and exist in time. But eventually you will return to your Creator and then you will again no longer exist in time. You are the breath of your Creator, and as he breathes in and out, you live. Remember that, for that sums up everything that you need to know about your God. There is first an exhalation from God, on the part of all creation; and then, at a certain point, it starts its journey back, its inhalation. This cycle never ceases. You leave me; you are away from me; you start back; you rejoin me. You and everything else. It is a process, an event. It is an activity- my activity. It is the rhythm of my own being, and it sustains you all."

Amazing, Herb Asher thought. A ten-year-old boy. Her son speaking this.

"Emmanuel," the girl Zina said, "you are ponderous."

Smiling at her the boy said, "Games, then? Would that be better? There are events ahead that I must shape. I must arouse fire that burns, that sears. Scripture says:

For He is like a refiner's fire.

And Scripture also says:

And who can abide the day of His coming?

I say, however, that it will be more than this; I say:

The day comes, glowing like a furnace; all the arrogant and the evil-doers shall be chaff, and that day when it comes shall set them ablaze; it shall leave them neither root nor branch.

What do you say to that, Herb Asher?" Emmanuel gazed at him intently, awaiting his response.

Zina said:

But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in his wings.

"That is true," Emmanuel said. In a low voice Elias said:

And you shall break loose like calves released from the stall.

"Yes," Emmanuel said. He nodded.

Herb Asher, returning the boy's gaze, said, "I am afraid. I really am." He was glad of the arm around him, the reassuring arm of Elias.

In a reasonable tone of voice, a mild tone, Zina said, "He won't do all those terrible things. That's to scare people."

"Zina!" Elias said.

Laughing, she said, "It's true. Ask him."

"You will not put the Lord your God to the test," Emmanuel said.

"I'm not afraid," Zina said quietly.

Emmanuel, to her, said:

I will break you, like a rod of iron.