"Correct," Mini said.
"So salvation -- "
"'Salvation,'" Mini said, "is a word denoting 'Being led out of the space-time maze, where the servant has become the master."
"May I ask a question?" I said. "What is the purpose of the fifth Savior?"
"It isn't 'fifth,'" Mini said. "There is only one, over and over again, at different times, in different places, with different names. The Savior is VALIS incarnated as a human being."
"Crossbonded?" Fat said.
"No." Mini shook his head no vigorously. "There is no human element in the Savior."
"Wait a minute," David said.
"I know what you've been taught," Mini said. "In a sense, it's true. But the Savior is VALIS and that is the fact of the case. He is born, however, from a human woman. He doesn't just generate a phantasm-body."
To that, David nodded; he could accept that.
"And he's been born?" I asked.
"Yes," Mini said.
"My daughter," Linda Lampton said. "Not Eric's, however. Just mine and VALIS'S."
"Daughter?" several of us said in unison.
"This time," Mini said, "for the first time, the Savior takes female form."
Eric Lampton said, "She's very pretty. You'll like her. She talks a blue streak, though; she'll talk your ear off."
"Sophia is two," Linda said. "She was born in 1976. We tape what she says."
"Everything is taped," Mini said. "Sophia is surrounded by audio and video recording equipment that automatically monitors her constantly. Not for her protection, of course; VALIS protects her -- VALIS, her father."
"And we can talk with her?" I said.
"She'll dispute with you for hours," Linda said, and then she added, "in every language there is or ever was."
12
Wisdom had been born, not a deity: a deity which slew with one hand while healing with another... that deity was not the Savior, and I said to myself, Thank God.
We were taken the next morning to a small farm area, with animals everywhere. I saw no signs of video or audio recording equipment, but I saw -- we all saw -- a black-haired child seated with goats and chickens, and, in a hutch beside her, rabbits.
What I had expected was tranquility, the peace of God which passes all understanding. However, the child, upon seeing us, rose to her feet and came toward us with indignation blazing in her face; her eyes, huge, dilated with anger, fixed intently on me -- she lifted her right hand and pointed at me.
'Your suicide attempt was a violent cruelty against yourself," she said in a clear voice. And yet she was, as Linda had said, no more than two years old: a baby, really, and yet with the eyes of an infinitely old person.
"It was Horselover Fat," I said.
Sophia said, "Phil, Kevin and David. Three of you. There are no more."
Turning to speak to Fat -- I saw no one. I saw only Eric Lampton and his wife, the dying man in the wheel chair, Kevin and David. Fat was gone. Nothing remained of him.
Horselover Fat was gone forever. As if he had never existed.
"I don't understand," I said. "You destroyed him."
"Yes," the child said.
I said, "Why?"
"To make you whole."
"Then he's inme? Alive in me?"
"Yes," Sophia said. By degrees, the anger left her face. The great dark eyes ceased to smolder.
"He was me all the time," I said.
"That is right," Sophia said.
"Sit down," Eric Lampton said. "She prefers it if we sit; then she doesn't have to talk up to us. We're so much taller than she is."
Obediently, we all seated ourselves on the rough parched brown ground -- which I now recognized as the opening shot in the film Valis; they had filmed part of it here.
Sophia said, "Thank you."
"Are you Christ?" David said, tugging his knees up against his chin, his arms wrapped around them; he, too, looked like a child: one child addressing another in equal conversation.
"I am that which I am," Sophia said.
"I'm glad to -- " I couldn't think what to say.
"Unless your past perishes," Sophia said to me, "you are doomed. Do you know that?"
"Yes," I said.
Sophia said, "Your future must differ from your past. The future must always differ from the past."
David said, "Are you God?"
"I am that which I am." Sophia said.
I said, "Then Horselover Fat was part of me projected outward so I wouldn't have to face Gloria's death."
Sophia said, "That is so."
I said, "Where is Gloria now?"
Sophia said, "She lies in the grave."
I said, "Will she return?"
Sophia said, "Never."
I said, "I thought there was immortality."
To that, Sophia said nothing.
"Can you help me?" I said.
Sophia said, "I have already helped you. I helped you in 1974 and I helped you when you tried to kill yourself. I have helped you since you were born."
"You are VALIS?" I said.
Sophia said, "I am that which I am."
Turning to Eric and Linda, I said, "She doesn't always answer."
"Some questions are meaningless," Linda said.
"Why don't you heal Mini?" Kevin said.
Sophia said, "I do what I do; I am what I am."
I said, "Then we can't understand you."
Sophia said, "You understood that."
David said, "You are eternal, aren't you?"
"Yes," Sophia said.
"And you know everything?" David said.
"Yes," Sophia said.
I said, "Were you Siddhartha?"
"Yes," Sophia said.
"Are you the slayer and the slain?" I said.
"No," Sophia said.
"The slayer?" I said.
"No."
"Then slain, then."
"I am the injured and the slain," Sophia said. "But I am not the slayer. I am the healer and the healed."
"But VALIS has killed Mini," I said.
To that, Sophia said nothing.
"Are you the judge of the world?" David said.
"Yes," Sophia said.
"When does the judgment begin?" Kevin said.
Sophia said, "You are all judged already from the start."
I said, "How did you appraise me?"
To that, Sophia said nothing.
"Don't we get to find out?" Kevin said.
"Yes," Sophia said.
"When?" Kevin said.
To that, Sophia said nothing.
Linda said, "I think that's enough for now. You can talk to her again later. She likes to sit with the animals; she loves the animals." She touched me on the shoulder. "Let's go."
As we walked away from the child, I said, "Her voice is the neutral AI voice that I've heard in my head since 1974."
Kevin said hoarsely, "It's a computer. That's why it only answers certain questions."
Both Eric and Linda smiled; Kevin and I glanced at him; in his wheel chair Mini rolled along sedately.
"An AI system," Eric said. "An artificial intelligence. "
"A terminal of VALIS," Kevin said. "An input, output terminal of the master system VALIS."
"That's right," Mini said.
"Not a little girl," Kevin said.
"I gave birth to her," Linda said.
"Maybe you just thought you did," Kevin said.
Smiling, Linda said, "An artificial intelligence in a human body. Her body is alive, but her psyche is not. She is sentient; she knows everything. But her mind is not alive in the sense that we are alive. She was not created. She has always existed."
"Read your Bible," Mini said. "She was with the Creator before creation existed; she was his darling and delight, his greatest treasure."
"I can see why," I said.
"It would be easy to love her," Mini said. "Many people have loved her... as it says in the Book of Wisdom. And so she entered them and guided them and descended even into the prison with them; she never abandoned those who loved her or who love her now."