Radio Free Albemuth by Philip K. Dick
But I understood something else which was not good. We really did not have a chance of toppling Fremont. Not really. Because of my position at Progressive Records we could do something; we could distribute what we knew in subliminal form on an LP, buried in subtracks and backup vocals, scrambled about in the sound-on-sound that our mixers provided us. Before the police got us we could pass on what we knew, Sadassa and I, to hundreds, thousands, or even millions of Americans. But Ferris Fremont would stay in power. The police would destroy us, would forge counterdocumentation and proof; we would go and the regime would survive.
Still, it was worth doing. I knew that absolutely; Valis had set this in motion and Valis could not err. He would not have brought Sadassa and me together, flooded me with help and information, if it wasn’t worth it. To make it worth it, we did not have to win completely. We needed only a certain victory, one within reason. We could, perhaps, initiate a process that others more numerous and powerful would complete someday in the future.
Valis’s will was not fully realized on Earth. This was the adversary’s realm, the Prince of this world. Valis could only work within this world, work with a small remnant of men; he was the minority party, here, speaking as a still small voice to one man or a handful, from a bush, in sleep, during an operation. Eventually he would win. But not now. These were not the end times after all. The end times were always coming but never here, always nearby and influencing us but never realized.
Well, I decided, we would do the best we could. And know by faith that it was worth it.
As we drove along, I said to Rachel. “I have met this girl. I’ve got to work with her. You may not approve—no one may approve—but it has to be done. It may destroy us all.”
Rachel, driving carefully, said. “Valis told you?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Do what you have to do,” Rachel said, in a low, tight voice. “I will,” I said.
25I HAD not talked to Sadassa Silvia yet about her mother. As far as she knew I had no information about her past. That was the first step to be taken, to discuss Mrs. Aramchek. To get her to tell me openly what Valis and the intercommunications network had already transferred from their information banks to my mind. We could not work together otherwise.
The best place to talk to her, I decided, would be at a good quiet restaurant; that way we could avoid the possibility of being picked up by a government bug. I therefore phoned her from work and invited her out to dinner.
“I’ve never been to Del Key’s,” she said. “But I’ve heard of it. They have a cuisine like the San Francisco restaurants. I’m free Thursday night.”
On Thursday night I swung by her apartment, picked her up, and soon we were seated in a secluded booth in the main dining room at Del Key’s.
“What is it you want to tell me?” she said, as we ate our salads.
“I know about your mother,” I said. “And Ferris Fremont.”
“What do you mean?”
In a voice low enough for our safety, I said. “I know that your mother was an organizer for the Communist Party.”
Sadassa’s eyes flew open behind her thick glasses. She stared at me; she had stopped eating.
“I know further,” I said quietly, “that she signed up Ferris Fremont when he was in his late teens. I know that she trained him as a sleeper, to go into politics with no sign of his real views or his real affiliations.”
Still staring at me, Sadassa said. “You are really crazy.”
“Your mother is dead,” I said, “and so the Party—Ferris Fremont—thinks the secret is safe. But as a child you saw Fremont with your mother and you overheard enough. You’re the only person outside the higher ranks of the Party who knows. That’s why the government tried to kill you off with cancer. They found out you’re alive despite your name change and that you know. Or they suspect you know. So you have to be killed.”
Sadassa, frozen in one spot, fork half-raised, continued to gaze at me in stricken silence.
“We are intended to work together,” I said. “This information will go onto a record, a folk LP, in the form of subliminal bits of data distributed so that in repeated playings a person will unconsciously absorb the message. The record industry has techniques to accomplish that; it’s done all the time, although the message has to be simple. ‘Ferris Fremont is a Red.’ Nothing elaborate. One word in one track, another in the next—maybe eight words maximum. Juxtaposed in the playback. Like code. I will see that the record saturates this country; we’ll flood the market with it—a huge initial pressing. There will be only one pressing and one distribution, because as soon as people begin to transliminate the message the authorities will step in and destroy all—”
Sadassa found her voice. “My mother is alive. She’s active in church work; she lives in Santa Ana. There’s no truth in what you say. I never heard such garbage.” Standing, she set down her fork, dabbed at her mouth; she seemed on the verge of tears. “I’m going home. You’re completely spaced; I heard about your accident on the freeway; it was in the Register. You must have gotten your marbles scrambled; you’re crazy. Good night.” She walked rapidly away from the booth, without glancing back.
I sat alone in silence.
All at once she was back, standing by me, bending over and speaking in a low, grim voice into my ear. “My mother is a down-to-earth Republican and has been all her life. She has never had anything to do with left-wing politics, certainly not the Communist Party. She never met Ferris Fremont, although she was present at a rally at Anaheim Stadium where he spoke—that’s the closest she ever got to him. She is just an ordinary person, saddled with the name ‘Aramchek,’ which means nothing. The police have investigated her repeatedly because of it. Do you want to meet her?” Sadassa’s voice had risen wildly. “I’ll introduce you to her; you can ask her. It’s saying crazy things like this that gets people into—oh, never mind.” Again she strode off; this time she did not return.
I don’t understand, I said to myself. Is she lying?
Shaken I managed to finish my meal, hoping she would show up again, reseat herself, and take back what had been said. She did not, I paid the check, got in the Maverick, and slowly drove home.
When I opened the apartment door, Rachel greeted me with one brittle sentence. “Your girlfriend called.”
“What did she say?” I said.
“She’s at the La Paz Bar in Fullerton. She told me to tell you she walked there from Del Key’s, that she doesn’t have any money for cab fare, so she wants you to drive back to Fullerton, to the bar, and pick her up and take her home.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Do you think you and she can throw Ferris Fremont out of office?” Rachel called after me sardonically. “You and she and Valis? That satellite?”
Pausing at the door, I answered. “No. I don’t. Maybe some lesser tyranny in another universe. Some despotic ruler of America in an alternate world that’s not so bad , as this—but this world, this tyrant, no.”
“I envy the people in that universe.”
“Me too.” I left the apartment and drove from Placentia to the La Paz Bar on Harbor Boulevard in Fullerton.
The La Paz Bar is extremely dark, and when I entered I could not see her anywhere. At last I made out her small figure; she sat alone at a small table in the rear, her purse in front of her beside an empty drink glass and a dish of corn chips.
Seating myself, I said, “I’m sorry I said those things.”
“It’s all right,” Sadassa said. “You were supposed to say them. I just didn’t know how to react—I had to get out of that restaurant. Too many people, too crowded. I had no instructions then as to what to say; you took me by surprise.”
“Was it true, then? What I said? About your mother?”
“Basically, yes. I’ve received instructions since I saw you; I know what I’m supposed to say. You are to sit here until I’ve finished talking.”
“Okay,” I said.
Sadassa said.
“That’s right,” I said.
“The information you told me introduced you to me as a member of our organization, a new one; that information is an initial step in understanding the situation, but it is not the full story. I’m to further initiate you into the organization by—”
“What organization?” I said.
“Aramchek,” Sadassa said.
“Then Aramchek exists.”
“Certainly it does. Why should Ferris Fremont spend half his time trying to stamp out a group that’s imaginary? Aramchek includes hundreds, perhaps thousands of people, here and in the Soviet Union. I don’t really know how many. The satellite reaches each of us directly and on an individual basis, so only the satellite knows who, how many, where, and what we are to do.”
“What is Aramchek?” I said.
“I just told you. People here and there contacted and informed by the satellite. The satellite itself is called Aramchek; we get our name from it. You’re a member of Aramchek, brought into it on the initiative of the satellite. It is always by the volition of the satellite that someone is brought in—exactly as you were: picked out, selected. We, you and I and the others, are the Aramchek people, exponents of a composite mind emanating from the satellite, which in turn receives its instructions by web from the planets of the Albemuth system.
“Albemuth is the correct name for the star we call Fomalhaut. We came from there originally, but the mind controlling the satellite is not like ours; rather, it is”—she paused—“much superior. The dominant life form on the planets of Albemuth. Whereas we were a less-evolved life form. We were given our freedom tens of thousands of years ago, and we migrated here to set up our own colony. When we fell into overwhelming difficulties, the satellite was dispatched to help us, to serve as a link back to the Albemuth system.”
“I knew most of this already,” I said.
Sadassa continued, There is one thing you do not know, or rather do not realize. What has been happening is a transfer of plasmatic, highly evolved life forms from the Albemuth planets via the communications network to the satellite, and from there to the surface of this planet. Technically speaking, Earth is being invaded. That is what is really happening.
The satellite has done it before—two thousand years ago, to be exact. It didn’t work out that time. The receivers were eventually destroyed and the plasmatic life forms escaped into the atmosphere, taking the receivers’ energy with them.
“You yourself personally were invaded by a plasmatic life form sent in energy form to take control of you and direct your actions. We, the members of the organization, are receptor sites for these plasmatic life forms from the home planets, a sort of collective brain—that’s what we now consist of, to our own advantage. They are coming in a very small number, however, for the purpose of helping us; this is not a mass invasion but rather a small, highly selective one. It was with great deliberation that you were picked out as a receptor site; I was, too. Without this possession we could not succeed. We may not succeed anyhow.”
“Succeed at what?”
“Dislodging Ferris Fremont.”
“Then that is a major goal.”
“Yes.” She nodded. “A major goal here, in the limited terms of this planet. You have become a composite entity, part human and part—well, they have no name. Being energy, they merge together, split apart, and re-form into their composite form, as a band in the atmospheres of their home planets. They are highly evolved atmospheric spirits who once had material bodies. They are very old; this is why, when your theoleptic-like experience began, you had the impression of a very ancient person seizing possession of you, with ancient memories.”
“Yes,” I said.
“You thought it was a human being who had died,” Sadassa said. “Didn’t you? I thought so too when it happened to me. I imagined all sorts of things—I tried out every theory in the book. Valis let us—”
“I made up that word,” I broke in.
“You were given that word; it was placed in your head. It is how we all refer to him. Of course it isn’t his name; it is merely a label, an analysis of his properties. Valis allows us an interval in which to formulate theories acceptable to our own minds in order to minimize the shock. Eventually, when we are ready, we are given the truth. It is a hard blow to take, Nick, to discover that Earth is in the process of being selectively invaded; it conjures up horrific scenes of Martian insects, tall as buildings, landing and kicking over the Golden Gate Bridge. But this is not like that; this is for our benefit. It is selective, cautious, and considerate, and its only antagonist is our own antagonist.”
“Will these plasmatic life forms leave after Fremont is destroyed?” I asked.
“Yes. They’ve come several times before in the past, given help and knowledge—medical knowledge in particular—and departed. They are our protectors, Nick; they come when we need them and then go away.”
“It fits what I already know,” I said. I found that my body was trembling, as if I were cold. “Can I have the waitress bring me a drink?” I asked Sadassa.
“Of course. If you have enough money, I’d like another. A margarita.”
I ordered two margaritas.
“Well,” I said as we sat sipping our drinks, “it’s a lot easier for me now. I don’t have to convince you.”
“I already have the material written out,” Sadassa said.
“What material?” I said, and then I understood. To be inserted as subliminal information on the record album. “Oh,” I said, startled. “Can I see it?”
“I don’t have it with me. I’ll give it to you during the next few days. It’s to go in an album you expect to sell well; you can have anyone record it, preferably one of your most popular artists. It should be, if at all possible, a hit record. This project has been building for years, Sick. For ten or twelve years. It must not misfire.”
“What is the message like?” I asked.
“You’ll see it. In time.” She smiled. “It reads like nothing at all.”
“But do you know what’s really in it?”
“No,” Sadassa said. “Not completely. It’s a song about ‘party time.’ It goes something like, ‘Come to the party.’ It sounds of course like a fun party; you know. Then later the vocal line goes, ‘Join the party.’ The singer says, ‘Everybody join the party.’ And a subtrack goes, ‘Is everybody at the party? Is everybody present at the party?’ Only if you listen carefully, they’re saying, ‘Is everybody president at the party’ at the same time the word ‘president’ is said—repeated, in fact, by an ensemble answer: ‘President, president, president, join—joined—the party,’ and so forth. I could make out that part. But the rest I couldn’t.”
“Wow,” I said. It terrified me; I could see how the sound-on-sound would be dubbed in as voice override.
“But this record,” Sadassa said, “which you at Progressive will create and release, contains only half the information. There is another record in production; I don’t know who by or where, but Valis will synchronize its release with yours, and together the information bits on the two records will add up to the total message. For instance, a song on the other record might begin, ‘In nineteen hundred and forty-one,’ which was the year Fremont teamed up with the Communist Party. Alone, that figure means nothing; but the DJs will be playing a track on first the Progressive disc and then the other one, and eventually people will be hearing all the information run together as a single total message. Random chance will join the two halves together on station after station.”
“We will wind up with people walking along humming, ‘The president joined the Party in 1941’?” I said.
“Something like that, yes.”
“Anything more?”
“‘What a grand chick,’” Sadassa said.
“Beg pardon?”
“‘What a grand chick.’ Shortened in the song to ‘Grand chick’
“I know what it goes back to,” I said. “The famous LP track still selling in the millions with the ‘Smoke dope, smoke dope, everybody smoke dope’ backup vocal subtrack.”
She laughed her throaty laugh. “Right.”
“Ferris Fremont knows about the satellite, does he?” I asked.
“They’ve guessed. Guessed right. They’ve been searching for it, and now of course Georgi Moyashka has located it, in cooperation with our own stations. Between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., Aramchek—the satellite—has been pinpointed. The satellite that Moyashka is sending up is of course armed. It will ‘accidentally’ explode, taking the Aramchek satellite with it.”
“Can another satellite be dispatched?” I asked. “From Albemuth?”
Sadassa said. “It takes thousands of years.”
Stunned, I sat simply gazing at her. “And they haven’t started one—”
“One is coming. It will arrive long after every human alive today on this planet is dead. The Aramchek satellite presently in our sky has been there since the time of the great Egyptian Empire, since the time of Moses. Remember the burning bush?”
I nodded. I knew the sensation of phosphene activity, blinding my vision: the manifestation of unending fire. We had been helped in our fight against slavery for a long time. But now the days of the satellite were numbered. The Russians could get a satellite up in—suddenly I realized: they’ve probably had one on the launch pad, waiting. As the final stage of a rocket, all in place. All they have to do is program its route.
“Liftoff,” Sadassa said, as if reading my thoughts, “will be at the end of this week. And then the satellite dies. The help and information cease.”