The Divine Invasion (6 page)

"Yes," he said, surprised that she knew. "Elias tells me it will return."

"Your mother is dead?"

He nodded.

"Can you see her?" Zina said.

"Sometimes."

"Tap your father's memories. Then you can be with her in retrotime."

"Maybe."

"He has it all stored."

Emmanuel said, "It frightens me. Because of the crash. I think they did it on purpose."

"Of course they did, but it was you they wanted, even if they didn't know it."

"They may kill me now."

"There is no way they can find you," Zina said.

"How do you know that?"

"Because I am that which knows. I will know for you until you remember, and even then I will stay with you. You always wanted that. I was at your side every day; I was your darling and your delight, playing always in your presence. And when you had finished, my chief delight was in them."

Emmanuel asked, "How old are you?"

"Older than Elias."

"Older than me?"

"No," Zina said.

"You look older than me."

"That's because you have forgotten. I am here to cause you to remember, but you are not to tell anyone that, even Elias."

Emmanuel said, "I tell him everything."

"Not about me," Zina said. "Don't tell him about me. You have to promise me that. If you tell anyone about me the government will find out."

 "Show me the computers."

"Here they are." Zina led him into a large room. "You can ask them anything but they give you modified answers. Maybe you can trick them. I like to trick them. They're really stupid."

He said to her, "You can do magic."

At that Zina smiled. "How did you know?"

"Your name. I know what it means."

"It's only a name."

"No," he said. "Zina is not your name; Zina is what you
are
."

"Tell me what that is," the girl said, "but tell me very quietly. Because if you know what I am then some of your memory is returning. But be careful; the government listens and watches."

"Do the magic first," Emmanuel said.

"They will know; the government will know."

Going across the room, Emmanuel stopped by a cage with a rabbit in it. "No," he said. "Not that. Is there another animal here that you could be?"

"Careful, Emmanuel," Zina said.

"A bird," Emmanuel said.

"A cat," Zina said. "Just a second." She paused, moved her lips. The cat came in, then, from outside, a gray-striped female. "Shall I be the cat?"

"I want to be the cat," Emmanuel said.

"The cat will die."

"Let the cat die."

"Why?"

"They were created for that."

Zina said, "Once a calf about to be slaughtered ran to a Rabbi for protection and put its head between the Rabbi's knees. The Rabbi said, 'Go! For this you were created,' meaning, 'You were created to be slaughtered.'"

"And then?" Emmanuel said.

Zina said, "God greatly afflicted the Rabbi for a long time."

"I understand," Emmanuel said. "You have taught me. I will not be the cat."

"Then I will be the cat," Zina said, "and it will not die because I am not like you." She bent down, her hands on her knees, to address the cat. Emmanuel watched, and presently the cat came to him and asked to speak to him. He lifted it up and held it in his arms and the cat placed its paw against his face. With its paw it told him that mice were annoying and a bother and yet the cat did not wish to see an end of mice because, as annoying as they were, still there was something about them that was fascinating, more fascinating than annoying; and so the cat sought out mice, although the cat did not respect the mice. The cat wanted there to be mice and yet the cat despised mice.

All this the cat communicated by means of its paw against the boy's cheek.

"All right," Emmanuel said.

Zina said, "Do you know where any mice are right now?"

"You are the cat," Emmanuel said.

"Do you know where any mice are right now?" she repeated.

"You are a kind of mechanism," Emmanuel said.

"Do you know—"

"You have to find them yourself," Emmanuel said.

"But you could help me. You could chase them my way. The girl opened her mouth and showed him her teeth. He laughed.

Against his cheek the paw conveyed more thoughts; that Mr. Plaudet was coming into the building. The cat could hear his steps. Put me down, the cat communicated.

Emmanuel set the cat down.

"Are there any mice?" Zina said.

"Stop," Emmanuel said. "Mr. Plaudet is here."

"Oh," Zina said, and nodded.

Entering the room, Mr. Plaudet said, "I see you've found Misty, Emmanuel. Isn't she a nice little animal? Zina, what's wrong with you? Why are you staring at me?"

Emmanuel laughed; Zina was having trouble disentangling herself from the cat. "Be careful, Mr. Plaudet," he said. "Zina'll scratch you."

"You mean Misty," Mr. Plaudet said.

"That's not the kind of brain damage I have," Emmanuel said. "To—" He broke off; he could feel Zina telling him
no
.

"He's not very good at names, Mr. Plaudet," Zina said. She had managed to separate herself from the cat, now, and Misty, perplexed, walked slowly away. Obviously Misty had not been able to fathom why, all at once, she found herself in two different places.

"Do you remember my name, Emmanuel?" Mr. Plaudet asked.

"Mr. Talk," Emmanuel said.

"No," Mr. Plaudet said. He frowned. "'Plaudet' is German for 'talk,' though."

"I told Emmanuel that," Zina said. "About your name."

After Mr. Plaudet left, Emmanuel said to the girl, "Can you summon the bells? For dancing?"

"Of course." And then she flushed. "That was a trick question."

"But you play tricks. You always play tricks. I'd like to hear the bells, but I don't want to dance. I'd like to watch the dancing, though."

"Some other time," Zina said. "You do remember something, then. If you know about the dancing."

"I think I remember. I asked Elias to take me to see my father, where they have him stored. I want to see what he looks like. If I saw him, maybe I'd remember a lot more. I've seen pictures of him."

Zina said, "There's something you want from me even more than the dancing."

"I want to know about the time power you have. I want to see you make time stop and then run backward. That's the best trick of all."

"I said you should see your father about that."

"But you can do it," Emmanuel said. "Right here."

"I'm not going to. It disturbs too many things. They never line up again. Once they're out of synch—Well, someday I'll do it for you. I could take you back to before the collision. But I'm not sure that's wise because you might have to live it over, and that would make you worse. Your mother was very sick, you know. She probably would not have lived anyhow. And your father will be out of cryonic suspension in four more years."

"You're sure?" Emmanuel said excitedly.

"When you're ten years old you'll see him. He's back with your mother right now; he likes to retrotime to when he first met her. She was very sloppy; he had to clean up her dome."

"What is a 'dome'?" Emmanuel asked.

"They don't have them here; that's for outspace. The colonists. Where you were
born
. I know Elias told you. Why don't you listen to him more?"

"He's a man," Emmanuel said. "A human being."

"No he's not."

"He was born as a man. And then I—" He paused, and a segment of memory came back to him. "I didn't want him to die. Did I? So I took him, all at once. When he and—" He tried to think, to frame the word in his mind.

"Elisha," Zina said.

"They were walking together," Emmanuel said, "and I took him up, and he sent part of himself back to Elisha. So he never died; Elias, I mean. But that's not his real name."

"That's his Greek name."

"I do remember some things, then," Emmanuel said.

"You'll remember more. You see, you set up a disinhibiting stimulus that would remind you before—well, when the right time came. You're the only one who knows what the stimulus is. Even Elias doesn't know it.
I
don't know it; you hid it from me, back when you were what you were."

"I am what I am now," Emmanuel said.

"Yes, except that you have an impaired memory," Zina said, pragmatically. "So it isn't the same."

"I guess not," the boy said. "I thought you said you could make me remember."

"There are different kinds of remembering. Elias can make you remember a little, and I can make you remember more; but only your own disinhibiting stimulus can make you
be
. The word is … you have to bend close to me to listen; only you should hear this word. No, I'll write it." Zina took a piece of paper from a nearby desk, and a length of chalk, and wrote one word.

HAYAH

Gazing down at the word, Emmanuel felt memory come to him, but only for a nanosecond; at once—almost at once—it departed.

"
Hayah
," he said, aloud.

"That is the Divine Tongue," Zina said.

"Yes," he said. "I know." The word was Hebrew, a Hebrew root word. And the Divine Name itself came from that word. He felt a vast and terrible awe; he felt afraid.

"Fear not," Zina said quietly.

"I am afraid," Emmanuel said, "because for a moment I remembered."
Knew
, he thought,
who I am
.

But he forgot again. By the time he and the girl had gone outside into the yard he no longer knew. And yet—strange!—he knew that he had known, known and forgotten again almost at once. As if, he thought, I have two minds inside me, one on the surface and the other in the depths. The surface one has been injured but the deep one has not. And yet the deep one can't speak; it is closed up. Forever? No; there would be the stimulus, one day. His own device.

Probably it was necessary that he not remember. Had he been able to recall into consciousness everything, the basis of it all, then the government would have killed him. There existed two heads of the beast, the religious one, a Cardinal Fulton Statler Harms, and then a scientific one named N. Bulkowsky. But these were phantoms. To Emmanuel the Christian-Islamic Church and the Scientific Legate did not constitute reality. He knew what lay behind them. Elias had told him. But even had Elias not told him he would have known anyhow; he would everywhere and at every time be able to identify the Adversary.

What did puzzle him was the girl Zina. Something in the situation did not ring right. Yet she had not lied; she could not lie. He had not made it possible for her to deceive; that constituted her fundamental nature: her veracity. All he had to do was ask her.

Meanwhile, he would assume that she was one of the
zine
; she herself had admitted that she danced. Her name, of course, came from
dziana
, and sometimes it appeared as she used it, as Zina.

Going up to her, stopping behind her but standing very close to her, he said in her ear, "Diana."

At once she turned. And as she turned he saw her change. Her nose became different and instead of a girl he saw now a grown woman wearing a metal mask pushed back so that it revealed her face, a Greek face; and the mask, he realized, was the war mask. That would be Pallas. He was seeing Pallas, now, not Zina. But, he knew, neither one told him the truth about her. These were only images. Forms that she took. Still, the metal mask of war impressed him. It faded, now, this image, and he knew that no one but himself had seen it. She would never reveal it to other people.

"Why did you call me 'Diana'?" Zina asked.

"Because that is one of your names."

Zina said, "We will go to the Garden one of these days. So you can see the animals."

"I would like that," he said. "Where is the Garden?"

"The Garden is here," Zina said.

"I can't see it."

"You made the Garden," Zina said.

"I can't remember." His head hurt; he put his hands against the sides of his face. Like my father, he thought; he used to do what I am doing. Except that he is not my father.

To himself he said, I have no father.

Pain filled him, the pain of isolation; suddenly Zina had disappeared, and the school yard, the building, the city—everything vanished. He tried to make it return but it would not return. No time passed. Even time had been abolished.
I have completely forgotten, he realized. And because I have forgotten, it is all gone
. Even Zina, his darling and delight, could not remind him now; he had returned to the void.

A low murmuring sound moved slowly across the face of the void, across the deep. Heat could be seen; at this transformation of frequency heat appeared as light, but only as a dull red light, a somber light. He found it ugly.

My father, he thought. You are not.

His lips moved and he pronounced one word.

HAYAH

The world returned.

E
lias Tate, throwing himself down on a heap of Rybys's dirty clothes, said, "Do you have any real coffee? Not that joke stuff the mother ship peddles to you." He grimaced.

"I have some," Rybys said, "but I don't know where it is."

"Have you been throwing up frequently?" Elias said to her, eyeing her. "Every day or so?"

"Yes." She glanced at Herb Asher, amazed.

"You're pregnant," Elias Tate said.

"I'm in chemo!" Rybys said angrily, her face dark red with fury. "I'm heaving up my guts because of the goddam Neurotoxite and the Prednoferic—"

"Consult your computer terminal," Elias said.

There was silence.

"Who are you?" Herb Asher said.

"A Wild Beggar," Elias said.

"Why do you know so much about me?" Rybys said.

Elias said, "I came to be with you. I'll be with you from now on. Consult your terminal."

Seating herself at her computer terminal. Rybys placed her arm in the M.E.D. slot. "I hate to put it to you this way," she said to Elias and Herb Asher, "but I'm a virgin."

"Get out of here," Herb Asher said quietly to the old man.