“She made me understand that she had seen them and she knew what they had done, and they would be brought to justice. The fact that she had seen them ensured that. There’s no way they can escape paying for what they’ve done.”
I said, “And they weren’t conscious of her.”
“They didn’t even guess that their deeds are known, and known to her. It never entered their minds—they were still joking and laughing, like a bunch of pals, and there she was overseeing them with that third eye, that lensed eye, and she was smiling along with them. And then the eye and its lens disappeared and again she looked like an ordinary person. Same as anyone else.”
“What is the purpose of the conspiracy?”
Nicholas said hoarsely, “They are all cronies of Ferris Fremont. Without exception. I was given to understand—I did understand—that the scene was in a Washington, D.C., hotel room, a lavish hotel.”
“Jesus,” I said. “Well, I see two separate pieces of information in that. Our situation is worse than we thought; that’s one piece. The other piece is that we’re going to be helped.”
“Oh, she’ll help us, all right,” Nicholas said. “I tell you, man, I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes. And they were still grinning, still shooting the bull back and forth. They think they have it made. They don’t. They’re doomed.”
“I thought we were the ones who were doomed.”
“No,” Nicholas said. “It’s them.”
“Do we do anything?”
“I don’t think you do,” Nicholas said. “But—” He hesitated. “I think I’m going to have to. I think they’re going to use me, when the time comes. When they begin to act.”
I said, “They’re already acting now; they told you, for one thing. If they tell enough people, that’s it there. The truth about how our present regime got into power. Over a bunch of corpses, the corpses of some of the best men of our times.”
“It’s heavy,” Nicholas said.
“Are you sure you didn’t just dream this all up?” I said.
“It did come in a dream,” Nicholas admitted. “There never was anything like this beamed at me before. Phil, you saw what happened that night about Johnny. When—”
“So Ferris Fremont arranged their deaths,” I said.
“That’s what the sibyl discovered, yes.”
“Why you?” I said. Of all people to pass it on to.
“Phil,” Nicholas said, “how long does it take to get a book out? From the time you start writing it?”
“Too long,” I said. “A year and a half minimum.”
“That is too long. She’s not going to wait that long; I could tell. I could feel it.”
“How long is she going to wait?”
Nicholas said, “I don’t think she is going to wait. I think that for them to plan is the same as acting. They plan and act simultaneously; to think it is to do it. They are a form of absolute mentation, pure minds. She is an all-knowing mind from which nothing is hidden. It’s scary.”
“But this is very good news,” I said.
“Good news for us anyhow,” Nicholas said. “We won’t be mailing in these damn cards much longer.”
“What you ought to do,” I said, “is write Ferris Fremont and tell him he and his henchmen have been seen by the Roman sibyl. What do you know about the Roman sibyl? Anything?”
“I researched her this morning in my Britannica,” Nicholas said. “She’s immortal. The original sibyl was in Greece; she was an oracle of the god Apollo. Then she guarded the Roman republic; she wrote a bunch of books which they used to open and read when the Republic was in danger.” He added, “I’m thinking now of the great Bible-like books I saw held open to me originally, when my experiences began. You know, the sibyl became sacred to the Christians. They felt she was a prophet like the Hebrew prophets. Guarding God-fearing good men against harm.”
It sounded like the exact thing we needed. Divine protection. The guardian of the Republic had answered from down the corridors of time, in her customary way. After all, was the United States not an extension through linear time of the Roman republic? In many ways it was. We had inherited the Roman sibyl; since she was immortal she had continued on after Rome vanished . . . vanished but still existent in new forms, with new linguistic systems and new customs. But the heart of the Empire remained: one language, one legal system, one coinage, good roads—and Christianity, the later legal religion of the Roman Empire. After the Dark Ages we had built back up to what had been and even more. The prongs of imperialism had been extended all the way to Southeast Asia.
And, I thought, Ferris F. Fremont is our Nero.
“If it didn’t take so long to produce a book,” Nicholas was saying, “I’d think Valis told me so I could tell you and you could use it for a plot idea. But the time factor rules that out . . . unless you’ve already done so.” He eyed me hopefully.
“Nope,” I said, in all candor. “Never used a thing you told me. Too fucked.”
“You believe this, don’t you?”
“I believe it all. As an FBI agent once said to me while shaking me down, ‘You believe everything you hear.’ ”
“And—you can’t use it?”
“It’s for you, Nicholas,” I said. “They want you, not me. So start truckin’.”
“I’ll ‘start truckin’ ’ on the signal,” Nicholas said. “The disinhibiting signal.” He was still waiting for that. The wait must have been hard, but certainly not as hard as having to choose what to do and when. All he had to do was wait until the signal came of its own accord and disinhibited the centuries-old entity slumbering within him.
“If Valis is going to throw Ferris Fremont out of office,” I said, “I wonder how he’s going to accomplish it.”
“Maybe by giving his sons birth defects.”
At that I laughed. “You know who that sounds like, don’t you? Jehovah against the Egyptians.”
Nicholas said nothing. We continued to walk.
“Are you positive it isn’t
