"The fish is Christ," Cardinal Harms said, "who offers his flesh to man so that man may have eternal life."
"That's all very well, but it was unfair to the fish. She said it was a wrong thing to do. Even though the fish offered itself. Its pain was too much. Oh yes; in the dream she thought, 'We must find another kind of food, which doesn't cause the great fish suffering.' And then there were some blurred episodes where she was looking in a refrigerator; she saw a pitcher of water, a pitcher wrapped in straw or reeds or something ... and a cube of pink food like a cube of butter. Words were written on the wrapper but she couldn't read them. The refrigerator was the common property of some kind of small settlement of people, off in a remote area. What happened, the way it worked, was that this pitcher of water and this pink cube belonged to the whole colony and you only ate the food and drank the water when you realized you were approaching your moment of death."
"What did drinking the water-"
"Then you came back later. Reborn."
Harms said, "That is the host under the two species. The consecrated wine and wafer. The blood and body of our Lord. The food of eternal life. 'This is my body. Take-'"
"The settlement seemed to exist at another time entirely. A long time ago. As in antiquity."
"Interesting," Harms said, "but we still have our problem to face, what to do about the monster baby."
"As I said," the procurator said, "we will arrange an acci- dent. Their ship won't reach Washington, D.C. When, precisely, does it arrive? How much time do we have?"
"Just a moment." Harms pressed keys on the board of a small computer terminal. "Christ!" he said.
"What's the matter? It only takes seconds to dispatch a small missile. You have them in that area.
Harms said, "Their ship has landed. While you slept. They are already being processed by Immigration at Washington, D.C."
"It is normal to sleep," the procurator said.
"The monster made you sleep."
"I've been sleeping all my life!" Angrily, the procurator added, "I am here at this resort for rest; my health is bad."
"I wonder," Harms said.
"Notify Immigration, at once, to hold them. Do it now.'
Harms rang off, and contacted Immigration. I will take that woman, that Rybys Rommey-Asher, and break her neck, he said to himself. I will chop her into little pieces, and her fetus along with her. I will chop up all of them and feed them to the animals at the zoo.
Surprised, he asked himself; Did I think that? The ferocity of his ratiocination amazed him. I really hate them, he realized. I am furious. I am furious with Bulkowsky for logging eight full hours of sleep in the midst of this crisis; if I had the power I would chop him up, too.
When he had the director of Washington, D.C. Immigration on the line he asked first of all if the woman Rybys Rommey- Asher, her husband and Elias Tate were still there.
"I'll check, your Eminence," the bureau chief said. A pause, a very long pause. Harms counted off the seconds, cursing and praying by turns. Then the director returned. "We are still pro- cessing them."
"Hold them. Don't let them go for any reason whatsoever. The woman is pregnant. Inform her-do you know who I'm talk- ing about? Rybys Rommey-Asher-- inform her that there will be a mandatory abortion of the fetus. Have your people make up any excuse they want."
"Do you actually want an abortion performed on her? Or is this a pretext-"
"I want abortion induced within the next hour," Harms said. "A saline abortion. I want the fetus killed. I'm going to take you into our confidence. I have been conferring with the procurator maximus; this is global policy. The fetus is a freak. A radiation sport. Possibly even the monster offspring of interspecies sym- biosis. Do you understand?"
"Oh," the Immigration director said. "Interspecies sym- biosis. Yes. We'll kill it with localized heat. Inject radioactive dye directly into it through the abdominal wall. I'll tell one of our doctors-"
"Tell him to abort her or tell him to kill it inside her," Harms said, "but kill it and kill it now."
"I'll need a signature," the Immigration director said. "I can't do this without authorization."
"Transmit the forms." He sighed.
From his terminal pages oozed; he took hold of them, found the lines where his signature was required, signed and fed the pages back into the fone terminal.
As he sat in the Immigration lounge with Rybys, Herb Asher wondered where Elias Tate had gone. Elias had excused himself to go to the men's room, but he had not returned.
"When can I lie down?" Rybys murmured.
"Soon," he said. "They're putting us right through." He did not amplify because undoubtedly the lounge was bugged.
"Where's Elias?" she said.
"He'll be back."
An Immigration official, not in uniform but wearing a badge, approached them. "Where is the third member of your party?" He consulted his clipboard. "Elias Tate."
"In the men's room," Herb Asher said. "Could you please process this woman? You can see how sick she is." The Divine Invasion 111
"We want a medical examination made on her," the Immigra- tion official said dispassionately. "We require a medical deter- mination before we can put you through."
"It's been done already! By her own doctor originally and then by-"
"This is standard procedure," the official said.
"That doesn't matter," Herb Asher said. "It's cruel and it's useless."
"The doctor will be with you shortly," the official said, "and while she's being examined by him you will be interrogated. To save you time. We won't interrogate her, at least not very exten- sively. I'm aware of her grave medical condition."
"My God," Herb said, "you can see it!"
The official departed, but returned almost at once, his face grim. "Tate isn't in the men's room."
"Then I don't know where he is."
"They may have processed him. Put him through." The offi- cial hurried off, speaking into a hand-held intercom unit.
I guess Elias got away, Herb Asher thought.
"Come in here," a voice said. It was a woman doctor, in a white smock. Young, wearing glasses, her hair tied back in a bun, she briskly escorted Herb Asher and his wife down a short sterile- looking and sterile-smelling corridor into an examination room. "Lie down, Mrs. Asher," the doctor said, helping Rybys to an examination table.
"Rommey-Asher," Rybys said as she got up painfully onto the table. "Can you give me an I-V anti-emetic? And soon? I mean soon. I mean now."
"In view of your wife's illness," the doctor said to Herb Asher as she seated herself at her desk, "why wasn't her preg- nancy terminated?"
"We've been through all this," he said savagely.
"We may still require her to abort. We do not wish a de- formed infant born; it's against public policy."
Staring at the doctor in fear, Herb said, "But she's six months into her pregnancy!"
"We have it down as five months," the doctor said. "Well within the legal period."
"You can't do it without her consent, Herb said; his fear became wild.
"The decision," the doctor told him, "is no longer yours to make, now that you have returned to Earth. A medical board will study the matter."
It was obvious to Herb Asher that there would be a mandatory abortion. He knew what the board would decide-had decided.
In the corner of the room a piped-in music source gave forth the odious background noise of soupy strings. The same sound, he realized, that he had heard off and on at his dome. But now the music changed, and he realized that a popular number of the Fox's was coming up. As the doctor sat filling out medical forms the Fox's voice could distantly be heard. It gave him comfort.
Come again!
Sweet love doth now invite
Thy graces, that refrain
To do me due delight.
The lady doctor's lips moved reflexively in synchronization with the Fox's familiar Dowland song.
All at once Herb Asher became aware that the voice from the speaker only resembled the Fox's. The voice was no longer sing- ing; it was speaking.