Read Online The Divine Invasion by Philip K. Dick - Free Book Online
Authors: Philip K. Dick
Ads: Link
in a kind of cage. That's what he's made me into. I have no faith and no hope and he has no love, only power. God is a symptom of power, nothing else. The hell with it. I give up. I don't care. I'll do what I have to but it will kill me and I know it. OK?"
The two men were silent. They did not look at her or at each other.
Herb Asher said finally, "He saved your life tonight. He sent me over here."
"That and five credpops will get you a cupee of Kaff," Rybys said. "He gave me the illness in the first place!"
"And he's guiding you through," Herb said.
"To what end?" she said.
"To emancipate an infinitude of lives," Elias said.
"Egypt," she said. "And the brick makers. Over and over again. Why doesn't the emancipation last? Why does it fade out? Isn't there any final resolution?"
"This," Elias said, "is that final resolution."
"I am not one of the emancipated," Rybys said. "I fell along the way."
"Not yet," Elias said.
"But it's coming."
"Perhaps." The expression on Elias Tate's face could not be read.
As the three of them sat, there came a low, murmuring voice which said, "Rybys, Rybys."
Rybys gave a muffled cry and looked around her.
"Fear not," the voice said. "You will live on in your son. You cannot now die, nor even unto the end of the age."
Silently, her face buried in her hands, Rybys began to cry.
----
Late in the day, when school had ended, Emmanuel decided to try the Hermetic transform once again, so that he would know the world around him.
First he speeded up his internal biological clock so that his thoughts raced faster and faster; he felt himself rushing down the tunnel of linear time until his rate of movement along that axis was enormous. First, therefore, he saw vague floating colors and then he suddenly encountered the Watcher, which is to say the Grigon, who barred the way between the Lower and Upper Realms. The Grigon presented itself to him as a nude female torso that he could reach out and touch, so close was it. Beyond this point he began to travel at the rate of the Upper Realm, so that the Lower Realm ceased to be something but became, instead, a process; it evolved in accretional layers at a rate of 31.5 million to one in terms of the Upper Realm's time scale.
Thereupon he saw the Lower Realm—not as a place—but as transparent pictures permutating at immense velocity. These pictures were the Forms outside of space being fed into the Lower Realm to become reality. He was one step away, now, from the Hermetic transform.
The final picture froze and time ceased for him. With his eyes shut he could still see the room around him; the flight had ended; he had eluded that which pursued him. That meant that his neural firing was perfect, and his pineal body registered the presence of light carried up its branch of the optic conduit.
He sat for a little while, although "little while" no longer signified anything. Then, by degrees, the transform took place. He saw outside him the pattern, the print, of his own brain; he was within a world made up of his brain, with living information carried here and there like little rivers of shining red that were alive. He could reach out, therefore, and touch his own thoughts in their original nature, before they became thoughts. The room was filled with their fire, and immense spaces stretched out, the volume of his own brain external to him.
Meanwhile he introjected the outer world so that he contained it within him. He now had the universe inside him and his own brain outside everywhere. His brain extended into the vast spaces. far larger than the universe had been. Therefore he knew the extent of all things that were himself, and, because he had incorporated the world, he knew it and controlled it.
He soothed himself and relaxed, and then could see the outlines of the room, the coffee table, a chair, walls, pictures on the walls: the ghost of the external universe lingering outside him. Presently he picked up a book from the table and opened it.
The two men were silent. They did not look at her or at each other.
Herb Asher said finally, "He saved your life tonight. He sent me over here."
"That and five credpops will get you a cupee of Kaff," Rybys said. "He gave me the illness in the first place!"
"And he's guiding you through," Herb said.
"To what end?" she said.
"To emancipate an infinitude of lives," Elias said.
"Egypt," she said. "And the brick makers. Over and over again. Why doesn't the emancipation last? Why does it fade out? Isn't there any final resolution?"
"This," Elias said, "is that final resolution."
"I am not one of the emancipated," Rybys said. "I fell along the way."
"Not yet," Elias said.
"But it's coming."
"Perhaps." The expression on Elias Tate's face could not be read.
As the three of them sat, there came a low, murmuring voice which said, "Rybys, Rybys."
Rybys gave a muffled cry and looked around her.
"Fear not," the voice said. "You will live on in your son. You cannot now die, nor even unto the end of the age."
Silently, her face buried in her hands, Rybys began to cry.
----
Late in the day, when school had ended, Emmanuel decided to try the Hermetic transform once again, so that he would know the world around him.
First he speeded up his internal biological clock so that his thoughts raced faster and faster; he felt himself rushing down the tunnel of linear time until his rate of movement along that axis was enormous. First, therefore, he saw vague floating colors and then he suddenly encountered the Watcher, which is to say the Grigon, who barred the way between the Lower and Upper Realms. The Grigon presented itself to him as a nude female torso that he could reach out and touch, so close was it. Beyond this point he began to travel at the rate of the Upper Realm, so that the Lower Realm ceased to be something but became, instead, a process; it evolved in accretional layers at a rate of 31.5 million to one in terms of the Upper Realm's time scale.
Thereupon he saw the Lower Realm—not as a place—but as transparent pictures permutating at immense velocity. These pictures were the Forms outside of space being fed into the Lower Realm to become reality. He was one step away, now, from the Hermetic transform.
The final picture froze and time ceased for him. With his eyes shut he could still see the room around him; the flight had ended; he had eluded that which pursued him. That meant that his neural firing was perfect, and his pineal body registered the presence of light carried up its branch of the optic conduit.
He sat for a little while, although "little while" no longer signified anything. Then, by degrees, the transform took place. He saw outside him the pattern, the print, of his own brain; he was within a world made up of his brain, with living information carried here and there like little rivers of shining red that were alive. He could reach out, therefore, and touch his own thoughts in their original nature, before they became thoughts. The room was filled with their fire, and immense spaces stretched out, the volume of his own brain external to him.
Meanwhile he introjected the outer world so that he contained it within him. He now had the universe inside him and his own brain outside everywhere. His brain extended into the vast spaces. far larger than the universe had been. Therefore he knew the extent of all things that were himself, and, because he had incorporated the world, he knew it and controlled it.
He soothed himself and relaxed, and then could see the outlines of the room, the coffee table, a chair, walls, pictures on the walls: the ghost of the external universe lingering outside him. Presently he picked up a book from the table and opened it.
Similar Books
