The Divine Invasion Read Online Free PDF Page B

interface. A strange sense of his own worthlessness overcame Herb Asher, and he kept his face covered. "What do you want?" he said. "I mean, it's late. This is my sleep cycle."
    "Sleep no more," Yah said.
    "I've had a hard day." He was frightened.
    Yah said, "I command you to take care of the ailing girl. She is all alone. If you do not hasten to her side I will burn down your dome and all the equipment in it, as well as all you own besides. I will scorch you with flame until you wake up. You are not awake, Herbert, not yet, but I will cause you to be awake; I will make you rise up from your bunk and go and help her. Later I will tell her and you why, but now you are not to know."
    "I don't think you have the right person," Asher said. "I think you should be talking to M.E.D. It's their responsibility."
    At that moment an acrid stench reached his nose. And, as he watched in dismay, his control board burned down to the floor, into a little pile of slag.
    Shit, he thought.
    "Were you to lie again to her about your portable air," Yah said, "I would afflict you terribly, beyond repair, just as this equipment is now beyond repair. Now I shall destroy your Linda Fox tapes." Immediately the cabinet in which Herb Asher kept his video and audio tapes began to burn.
    "Please," he said.
    The flames disappeared. The tapes were undamaged. Herb Asher got up from his bunk and went over to the cabinet; reaching out his hand he touched the cabinet—and instantly yanked his hand away; the cabinet was searingly hot.
    "Touch it again," Yah said.
    "I will not," Asher said.
    "You will trust the Lord your God."
    He reached out again and this time found the cabinet cold. So he ran his fingers over the plastic boxes containing the tapes. They, too, were cold. "Well, goodness," he said, at a loss.
    "Play one of the tapes," Yah said.
    "Which one?"
    "Any one."
    He selected a tape at random and placed it into the deck. He turned his audio system on.
    The tape was blank.
    "You erased my Fox tapes," he said.
    "That is what I have done," Yah said.
    "Forever?"
    "Until you hasten to the side of the ailing girl and care for her."
    "Now? She's probably asleep."
    Yah said, "She is sitting crying."
    The sense of worthlessness within Herb Asher burgeoned; in shame he shut his eyes. "I'm sorry," he said.
    "It is not too late. If you hurry you can reach her in time."
    "What do you mean, 'in time'?"
    Yah did not answer, but in Herb Asher' s mind appeared a picture, resembling a hologram; it was in color and it was in depth. Rybys Rommey sat at her kitchen table in a blue robe; on the table was a bottle of medication and a glass of water. In dejection she sat resting her chin on her fist; in her fist she clutched a wadded-up handkerchief.
    "I'll get my suit on," Asher said; he popped the suit-compartment door open, and his suit—little used and long neglected—tumbled out onto the floor.
    Ten minutes later he stood outside his dome, in the bulky suit, his lamp sweeping out over the expanse of frozen methane before him; he trembled, feeling the cold even through the suit—which was a delusion, he realized, since the suit was absolutely insulating. What an experience, he said to himself as he started walking down the slope. Roused out of my sleep in the middle of the night, my equipment burned down, my tapes erased—bulk erased in their totality.
    The methane crystals crunched under his boots as he walked down the slope, homing in on the automatic signal emitted by Rybys Rommey's dome; the signal would guide him. Pictures inside my head, he thought. Pictures of a girl about to take her own life. It's a good thing Yah woke me. She probably would have done it.
    He was still frightened, and as he descended the slope he sang to himself an old Communist Party marching song.
     
    Because he fought for freedom
    He was forced to leave his home.
    Near the blood-stained Manzanares,
    Where he led the fight to hold Madrid,
    Died Hans, the Commissar,
    Died Hans, the