"Hang up, then," Elias said. "So that I can call."

'Where will we get the money?"

"I have the money," Elias said. "Hang up. Time is of the essence. Herb Asher hung up. Maybe if Linda Fox will make a tape for us, he thought, we can play it on our station. I mean, it shouldn't all be limited to warning the world. There are other things than Belial. His fone rang; it was Elias. "We can buy the station for thirty million dollars," Elias said.

"Do you have that much?"

"Not immediately," Elias said. "But I can raise it. We will sell the store and our inventory for openers."

"Jesus Christ," Herb Asher protested weakly. "That's how we make our living."

Elias glared at him.

"Okay," Herb said.

"We will have a baptismal sale," Elias said, "to liquidate our inventory. I will baptize everyone who buys something from us. I will call on them to repent at the same time."

"Then you fully remember your ident.i.ty," Herb Asher said.

"I do now," Elias said. "But for a time I had forgotten."

"If Linda Fox will let you interview her-"

"Only religious music will be played on the station," Elias said.

"That's as bad as the soupy strings. Worse. I'll say to you what I said to the cop; play the Mahler Second-play something interesting, something that stimulates the mind."

"We'll see," Elias said.

"I know what that means, ' Herb Asher said. "I had a wife who used to say 'We'll see.' Every child knows that means-"

"Perhaps she could sing spirituals," Elias said. Herb Asher said, "This whole business is beginning to get me down. We have to sell the store; we have to raise thirty million dollars. I can't cope with South Pacific and I don't expect to be able to cope any better with 'Amazing Grace.' Amazing Grace always sounded to me like some bimbo at a ma.s.sage parlor. If I'm offending you I'm sorry, but that cop almost hauled me off to jail. He said I'm here illegally; I'm a wanted man. That means you're probably wanted, too. What if Belial kills Emmanuel? What happens to us? There's no way we can survive without him. I mean, Belial pushed him off Earth; he defeated him before. I think he's going to defeat him this time. Buying one FM station in Washington, D.C. isn't going to change the tide of battle."

"I'm a very persuasive talker," Elias said.

"Yeah, well Belial isn't going to be listening to you and nei- ther will be the ones he controls. You're a voice-" He paused. "I was going to say, 'A voice crying in the wilderness.' I guess you've heard that before."

Elias said, "We could very well both wind up with our heads on silver platters. As happened to me once before. What has happened is that Belial is out of his cage, the cage Zina put him in; he is unchained. He is released onto this world. But what I say to you is, 'Oh ye of little faith!' But everything that can be said has been said centuries ago. I will concede Linda Fox a small amount of air time on our station. You can tell her that. She may sing whatever she wishes."

"I'm hanging up," Herb Asher said. "I have to call her and tell her I'm not coming out to the West Coast for a while. I don't wafft her involved in my troubles. I-"

"I'll talk to you later," Elias said. "But I suggest you call Rybys; when I last saw her she was crying. She thinks she may have a pyloric ulcer. And it may be malignant."

"Pyloric ulcers aren't malignant," Herb Asher said. "This is where I came in, hearing that Rybys Rommey is sitting around crying over her illness; this is what got me involved. She is ill for illness's sake, for its own sake. I thought I was going to escape from this, finally. I'll call Linda Fox first." He hung up the fone. Christ, he thought. All I want to do is fly to California and begin my happy life. But the macrocosm has swallowed me and my happy life up. Where is Elias going to get thirty million dol- lars? Not by selling our store and inventory. G.o.d probably gave him a bar of gold or will rain down bits of gold, flakes of gold, on him like that manna in the wilderness that kept the ancient Jews alive. As Elias says, everything was said centuries ago and every- thing happened centuries ago. My life with the Fox would have been new. And here I am once more subjected to sappy, soupy string music which will soon give way to gospel songs. He dialed Linda Fox's private number, that of her home in Sherman Oaks. And got a recording. Her face appeared on the little fone screen, but it was a mechanical and distorted face; and, he saw, her skin was broken out and her features seemed pudgy, almost fat. Shocked, he said, "No, I don't want to leave a message. I'll call back." He hung up without identifying himself. Probably she'll call me in a while, he decided. When I don't show up. After all, she is expecting me. But how strange she looked. Maybe it's an old recording. I hope so. To calm himself he turned on one of the audio systems there at the store; he used a reliable preamp component that involved an audio hologram. The station he selected was a cla.s.sical music station, one he enjoyed. But- Only a voice issued from the transducers of the system. No music. A whispering voice almost inaudible; he could barely un- derstand the words. What the h.e.l.l is this? he asked himself. What is it saying? "... weary," the voice whispered in its dry, slithery tone. ..."... and afraid. There is no possibility . .. weighed down. Born to lose; you are born to lose. You are no good."

And then the sound of an ancient cla.s.sic: Linda Ronstadt' s "You're No Good." Over and over again Ronstadt repeated the words; they seemed to go on forever. Monotonous, hypnotic; fascinated, he stood listening. The h.e.l.l with this, he decided fi- nally. He shut down the system. But the words continued to circulate and recirculate in his brain. You are worthless, his thoughts came. You are a worthless person. Jesus! he thought. This is far worse than the sappy, soupy all-strings easy-listening garbage; this is lethal. He foned his home. After a long pause Rybys answered. "I thought you were in California," she murmured. "You woke me up. Do you realize what time it is?"

"I had to turn back," he said. "I'm wanted by the police."

Rybys said, "I'm going back to sleep." The screen darkened; its light went out and he found himself facing nothing, confronted by nothingness. They are all asleep or on tape, he thought. And when you manage to get them to say something they tell you you're no good. The domain of Belial insinuates the paucity of value in everything. Great. Just what we need. The only bright spot was the cop asking me to pray for him. Even Elias is acting erratically, suggesting that we buy an FM radio station for thirty million dollars so that we can tell people-well, whatever he's going to tell people. On a par with selling them a home audio system and baptizing them as a bonus. Like giving them a free stuffed animal. Animal, he thought. Belial is an animal; it was an animal voice that I heard on the radio just now. Lower than human, notgreater. Animal is the worst sense: subhuman and gross. He shivered. And meanwhile Rybys sleeps, dreaming of malignancy. Her perpetual cloud of illness, whether she is conscious or not; it is always with her, always there. She is her own pathogen, infecting herself. He shut off the lights, left the store, locked up the front door and made his way to his parked car, wondering to himself where to go. Back to his ailing, complaining wife? To California and the mechanical, pudgy image he had seen on the fone screen? On the sidewalk, near his parked car, something small moved. Something that hesitantly retreated from him, as if in fear. An animal, larger than a cat. Yet it didn't seem to be a dog. Herb Asher halted, bent down, holding out his hand. The animal came uncertainly toward him, and then all at once he heard its thoughts in his mind. It was communicating with him telepathically. I am from the planet in the CY3O-CY3OB star sys- tem, it thought to him. I am one of the autochthonic goats that in former times was sacrificed to Yah. Staggered, he said, "What are you doing here?" Something was wrong; this was impossible. Help me, the goat-creature thought. I followed you here; I traveled after you to Earth.

"You're lying," he said, but he opened his car and got out his flashlight; bending down he turned the yellow light on the animal. Indeed he had a goat before him, and not a very large one; and yet it could not be an ordinary Terran goat-he could discern the difference. Please take me in and care for me, the goat-creature thought to him. I am lost. I have strayed away from my mother.

"Sure," Herb Asher said. He reached out and the goat came hesitantly toward him. What a strange little wizened face, and such sharp little hooves. Just a baby, he thought; see how it trembles. It must be starving. Out here it'll get run over. Thank you, the goat-creature thought to him.

"I'll take care of you," Herb Asher said. The goat-creature thought, I am afraid of Yah. Yah is terrible in his wrath.Thoughts of fire, and the cutting of the goat's throat. Herb Asher shivered. The primal sacrifice, that of an innocent animal. To quell the anger of the deity.

"You're safe with me." he said, and picked up the goat- creature. Its view of Yah shocked him; he envisioned Yah, now, as the goat-creature did, and it was a dreadful ent.i.ty, this vast and angry mountain deity who demanded the sacrifice of tiny lives. Will you save me from Yah? the goat-creature quavered; its thoughts were limpid with apprehension.

"Of course I will," Herb Asher said. And he tenderly placed the goat-creature in the back of his car. You won't tell Yah where I am, will you? the goat-creature begged.

"I swear," Herb Asher said. Thank you, the goat-creature thought, and Herb Asher felt its joy. And, strangely, its sense of triumph. He wondered about that as he got in behind the wheel and started up the engine. Is this some kind of a victory for it? he asked himself. I am merely glad to be safe, the goat-creature explained. And to have found a protector. Here on this planet where there is so much death. Death, Herb Asher thought. It fears death as I fear death; it is a living organism like me. Even though in many ways it is quite different from me. The goat-creature thought to him, I have been abused by chil- dren. Two children, a boy and a girl. Picture, then, in Herb Asher's mind: a cruel pair of children, with savage faces and hostile, blazing eyes. This boy and girl had tormented the goat-creature and it was terrified of falling back into their hands once more.

"That will never happen," Herb Asher said. "I promise. Chil- dren can be dreadfully cruel to animals."

In its mind the goat-creature laughed; Herb Asher experi- enced its glee. Puzzled, he turned to look at the goat-creature, but in the darkness behind him it seemed invisible; he sensed it, there in the back of his car, but he could not make it out.

"I'm not sure where to go," Herb Asher said. Where you originally were going, the goat-creature thought. To California, to Linda.

'Okay," he said, "but I don't-"

The police won't stop you this time, the goat-creature thought to him. I will see to that.

"But you are just a little animal," Herb Asher said. The goat-creature laughed. You can give me to Linda as a present, it thought. Uneasily, he turned his car in the direction of California, and rose up into the sky. The children are here in Washington, D.C., now, the goat- creature thought to him. They were in Canada, in British Colum- bia, but now they have come here. I want to be far away from them.

"I don't blame you," Herb Asher said. As he drove he noticed a smell in his car, the smell of the goat. The goat stank, and this made him uneasy. What a stench, he thought, considering how small it is. I guess it's normal for the species. But still.., the odor was beginning to make him sick. Do I really want to give this smelly thing to Linda Fox? he asked himself. Of course you do, the goat-creature thought to him, aware of what was going on in his mind. She will be pleased. And then Herb Asher caught a really dreadful mental impres- sion from the goat-creature's mind, one that horrified him and made him drive erratically for a moment. A s.e.xual l.u.s.t on the part of the creature for Linda Fox. I must be imagining it! Herb Asher thought. The goat-creature thought, I want her. It was contemplating her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and her loins, her whole body, made naked and avail- able. Jesus, Herb Asher thought. This is dreadful. What have I gotten myself into? He started to steer his car back toward Wash- ington, D.C. And he found that he could not control the steering wheel. The goat-creature had taken over; it was in power within Herb Asher, at the center of his mind. She will love me, the goat-creature thought, and I will love her. And, then, its thoughts pa.s.sed beyond the limits of Herb Asher's comprehension. Something to do with making Linda Fox into a thing like the goat-creature, dragging her down into its domain. She will be a sacrifice in my place, the goat-creature thought. Her throat-I will see it cut as mine has been. "No," Herb Asher said. Yes, the goat-creature thought. And it compelled him to drive on, toward California and Linda Fox. And, as it compelled and controlled him, it exulted in its glee; within the darkness of his car it danced its own kind of dance, a drumming sound that its hooves made: made in triumph. And antic.i.p.ation. And intoxicated joy. It was thinking of death, and the thought of death made it celebrate with rapture and an awful song.

He drove as erratically as possible, hoping that once again a police car would grapple him. But as the goat-creature had prom- ised none did. The image of Linda Fox in Herb Asher' s mind continued to undergo a dismal transformation; he envisioned her as gross and bad-complexioned, a flabby thing that ate too much and wan- dered about aimlessly, and he realized, then, that this was the view of the accuser; the goat-creature was Linda Fox's accuser who showed her-who showed everything in creation-under the worst light possible, under the aspect of the ugly. This thing in my back seat is doing it, he said to himself. This is how the goat-creature sees G.o.d's total artifact, the world that G.o.d p.r.o.nounced as good. It is the pessimism of evil itself. The nature of evil is to see in this fashion, to p.r.o.nounce this verdict of negation. Thus, he thought, it unmakes creation; it undoes what the Creator has brought into being. This also is a form of unreality, this verdict, this dreary aspect. Creation is not like this and Linda Fox is not like this. But the goat-creature would tell me that- I am only showing you the truth, the goat-creature thought to him. About your pizza waitress.

"You are out of the cage that Zina put you in,' Herb Asher said. "Elias was right."

Nothing should be caged, the goat-creature thought to him. Especially me. I will roam the world, expanding into it until I fill it; that is my right.

"Belial," Herb Asher said. I hear you, the goat-creature thought back.

"And I'm taking you to Linda Fox," Herb Asher said. "Whom I love most in all the world." Again he tried to take his hands from the steering wheel and again they remained locked in place. Let us reason, the goat-creature thought to him. This is my view of the world and I will make it your view and the view of everyone. It is the truth. The light that shone originally was a spurious light. That light is going out and the true nature of reality is disclosed in its absence. That light blinded men to the real state of things. It is my job to reveal that real state. Gray truth, the goat-creature continued, is better than what you have imagined. You wanted to wake up. Now you are awake; I show you things as they are, pitilessly; but that is how it should be. How do you suppose I defeated Yahweh in times past? By revealing his creation for what it is, a wretched thing to be de- spised. This is his defeat, what you see-see through my mind and eyes, my vision of the world: my correct vision. Recall Rybys Rommey's dome, the way it was when you first saw it; remember what she was like; consider what she is like now. Do you suppose that Linda Fox is any different? Or that you are any different? You are all the same, and when you saw the debris and spoiled food and rotting matter of Rybys's dome you saw how reality really is. You saw life. You saw the truth. I will soon show you that truth about the Fox, the goat- creature continued. That is what you will find at the end of this trip: exactly what you found in Rybys Rommey's deteriorated dome that day, years ago. Nothing has changed and nothing is different. You could not escape it then and you cannot escape it now. What do you say to that? the goat-creature asked him.

"The future need not resemble the past," Herb Asher said. Nothing changes, the goat-creature answered. Scripture itself tells us that.

"Even a goat can cite Scripture," Herb Asher said. They entered the heavy stream of air traffic routed toward the Los Angeles area; cars and commercial vehicles moved on all sides of them, above them, below them. Herb Asher could discern police cars but none paid him any attention. I will guide you to her house, the goat-creature informed him.

"Creature of dirt," Herb Asher said, with fury. A floating signal pointed the way ahead. They had almost reached California.

"I will wager with you that-" Herb Asher began, but the goat-creature cut him off. I do not wager, it thought to him. I do not play. I am the strong and I prey on the weak. You are the weak, and Linda Fox is weaker yet. Forget the idea of games; that is for children.

"You must be like a little child," Herb Asher said, "to enter the Kingdom of G.o.d."

I have no interest in that kingdom, the goat-thing thought to him. This is my kingdom here. Lock the auto-pilot computer of your car into the coordinates for her house. His hands did so, without his volition. There was no way he could hold back; the goat-creature had control of his motor cen- ters. Call her on your car fone, the goat-creature told him. Inform her that you are arriving.

"No," he said. But his fingers placed the card with her fone number into the slot.

"h.e.l.lo." Linda Fox' s voice came from the little speaker.

"This is Herb," he said. "I'm sorry I'm late. I got stopped by a cop. Is it too late?"

"No," she said. "I was out anyhow for a while. It'll be nice to see you again. You're going to stay, aren't you? I mean, you're not going back tonight."

"I'll stay," he said. Tell her, the goat-creature thought to him, that you have me with you. A pet for her, a little kid.

"I have a pet for you," Herb Asher said." A baby goat."

"Oh, really? Are you going to leave it?"

"Yes," he said, without volition; the goat-creature controlled his words, even the intonation.

"Well, that is so thoughtful of you. I have a whole bunch of animals already, but I don't have a goat. I guess I'll put it in with my sheep, Herman W. Mudgett."

"What a strange name for a sheep," Herb Asher said. "Herman W. Mudgett was the greatest ma.s.s-murderer in En- glish history," Linda Fox said.

"Well," he said, "I guess it's okay."

"I'll see you in a minute. Land carefully. You don't want to hurt the goat." She broke the connection. A few minutes later his car settled gently down on the roof of her house. He shut the engine off. Open the door, the goat-creature thought to him. He opened the car door. Coming toward the car, lit by pale lights, Linda Fox smiled at him, her eyes sparkling; she waved in greeting. She wore a tank top and cutoffs, and, as before, her feet were bare. Her hair bounced as she hurried and her b.r.e.a.s.t.s rose and fell. Within the car the stench of the goat-creature grew.

"Hi," she said breathlessly. "Where's the little goat?" She looked into the car. "Oh," she said. "I see. Get out of the car, little goat. Come here."

The goat-creature leaped out, into the pale light of the California evening.

"Belial," Linda Fox said. She bent to touch the goat; hastily, the goat scrambled back but her fingers grazed its flanks. The goat-creature died.

CHAPTER 20.

There are more of them," she said to Herb Asher, who stood gazing numbly at the corpse of the goat. "Come inside. I knew by the scent. Belial stinks to high heaven. Please come in." She took him by the arm and led him to the doorway. "You're shaking. You knew what it was, didn't you?"

"Yes," he said. "But who are you?"

"Sometimes I am called Advocate," Linda Fox said. "When I defend I am the Advocate. Sometimes Comfort; that is when I console. I am the Beside-Helper. Belial is the Accuser. We are the two adversaries of the Court. Please come inside where you can sit down; this has been awful for you, I know. Okay?"

"Okay." He let her lead him to the roof elevator.

"Haven't I consoled you?" Linda Fox asked. "In the past? As you lay alone in your dome on an alien world, with no one to talk to or be with? That is my job. One of my jobs." She put her hand on his chest. "Your heart is pounding away. You must have been terrified; it told you what it was going to do with me. But you see, it didn't know where you were taking it. Where or to whom."

"You destroyed it," he said." And-"

"But it has proliferated throughout the universe," Linda said. "This is only an instance, what you saw on the roof. Every man has an Advocate and an Accuser. In Hebrew, for the Israelites of antiquity, yetzer hatov was the Advocate and yetzer ha-ru was the Accuser. I'll fix you a drink. A good California zinfandel; a Buena Vista zinfandel. It's a Hungarian grape. Most people don't know that."

In her living room he sank down in a floating chair, gratefully. He could still smell the goat. "Will I ever-" he began.

"The smell will go away." She glided over to him with a gla.s.s of red wine. "I already opened it and let it breathe. You'll like it.'' He found the wine delicious. And his heartbeat had begun to return to normal. Seated across from him, Linda Fox held her own wine gla.s.s and gazed at him attentively. "It didn't harm your wife, did it? Or Elias?"

'No," he said. "I was alone when it came up to me. It pre- tended to be a lost animal."

Linda Fox said, "Each person on Earth will have to choose between his yetzer ha-ra and his yetzer ha-ru. You choose me and so I saved you . . . you choose the goat-thing and I cannot save you. In your case I was the one you chose. The battle is waged for each soul individually. That is what the rabbis teach. They have no doctrine of fallen man as a whole. Salvation is on a one by one basis. Do you like the zinfandel?"

"Yes," he said.

"I will use your FM station," she said. "It will be a good place to air new material."

"You know about that?" he said.

"Elijah is too stern. My songs will be appropriate. My songs gladden the human heart and that is what matters. Well, Herb Asher; here you are in California with me, as you imagined in the beginning. As you imagined in another star system, in your dome, with your holographic posters of me that moved and talked, the synthetic versions of me, the imitations. Now you have the real me with you, seated across from you. How does it feel?"

He said, "Is it real?"

"Do you hear two hundred sugary strings?"

"No."

Linda Fox said, "It's real." She set her wine gla.s.s down, rose to her feet, came toward him and bent to put her arms around him.

He woke up in the morning with the Fox against him, her hair brushing his face, and he said to himself, This is actually so; it is not a dream, and the evil goat-creature lies dead on the roof, my particular goat-thing that came to degrade my life. This is the woman I love, he thought as he touched the dark hair and the pale cheek. It is beautiful hair and her lashes are long and lovely, even as she sleeps. It is impossible but it is true. That can happen. What had Elias told him about religious faith? 'Cer- turn est quia impossibile est." "This is therefore credible, just because it is absurd." The great statement by the early Church father Tertullian, regarding the resurrection of Jesus Christ. "Et sepultus resurrexit; certum est quia impossibile est.'' And that is the case here. What a long way I have gone, he thought, stroking the woman's bare arm. Once I imagined this and now I experience this. I am back where I began and yet I am totally elsewhere from where I began! It is a paradox and a miracle at the same time. And this, even, is California, where I imagined it to be. It is as if in dreaming I presaw my future reality; I experienced it before- hand. And the dead thing on the roof is proof that this is real. Be- cause my imagination could not give rise to that stinking beast whose mind glued itself to my mind and told me lies, told me ugly stories about a fat, short woman with bad skin. An object as ugly as itself-a projection of itself. Has anyone loved another human as much as I love her? he asked himself, and then he thought, She is my Advocate and my Beside-Helper. She told me Hebrew words that I have forgotten that describe her. She is my tutelary spirit, and the goat-thing came all the way here, three thousand miles, to perish when she put her fingers against its flank. It died without even a sound, so easily did she kill it. She was waiting for it. That is-as she said-her job, one of her jobs. She has others; she consoled me, she consoles millions; she defends; she gives solace. And she is there in time; she does not arrive too late. Leaning, he kissed Linda on the cheek. In her sleep she sighed. Weak and in the power of the goat-creature, he thought; that is what I was when I came here. She protected me because I was weak. She does not love me as I love her, because she must love all humans. But I love her alone. With everything that I am. I, the weak, love her who is strong. My loyalty is to her, and her protection is for me. It is the Covenant that G.o.d made with the Israelites: that the strong protect the weak and the weak give their devotion and loyalty to the strong in return; it is a mutuality. I have a covenant with Linda Fox, and it will not be broken ever, by either one of us. I'll fix breakfast for her, he decided. Stealthily, he got up from the waterbed and made his way into the kitchen. A figure stood there waiting for him. A familiar figure.

"Emmanuel," Herb Asher said. The boy shone in a ghostly way, and Herb Asher realized that he could see the wall and the counter and cabinets behind the boy. This was an epiphany of the divine; Emmanuel was in fact somewhere else. And yet he was here; here and aware of Herb Asher.

"You found her," Emmanuel said.

"Yes," Herb Asher said.

"She will keep you safe."

"I know," he said. "For the first time in my life."

"Now you need not ever withdraw again," Emmanuel said, "as you did in your dome. You withdrew because you were afraid. Now you have nothing to fear. . . because of her presence. She as she is now, Herbert-real and alive, not an image.'