I said, truthfully, "It wouldn't be the first time."

"Stay away from her from now on," Nicholas said. "Entirely away. Spend your time with knotholes, if necessary. Anything but her."

"Okay!" I said irritably. But I knew I'd see Vivian Kaplan again. She would seek me out. There would be another round with the authorities - perhaps several. Until they had netted Nicholas and me to their satisfaction. Until we were harmless.

I wondered if the alleged protection which Valis supplied Nicholas extended to me. After all, we were in it together: two major stations in the network of pop culture, as the FAPers had put it. Kingpins, so to speak, in the vox populi.

Perhaps the only entity we could turn to for help in this tyrannical situation was Valis. Valis against F.F.F. The Prince of this World - Ferris Fremont - and his foe from another realm, a foe Fremont didn't even know existed. A product of Nicholas Brady's mind. The prognosis was not comforting. I would have preferred something or someone more tangible. Still, it was better than nothing; it provided a certain psychological comfort. Nicholas, in the privacy of our intimate rap sessions, could envision vast operations by Valis and his transcendent forces against the cruel bondage we were in. It certainly beat watching TV, which now consisted mostly of propaganda dramas extolling the police, authority in general, war, car crashes, and the Old West, where simple virtues had prevailed. John Wayne had become the official folk hero of America.

And then there was the weekly "Conversation with the Man We Trust," Ferris F. Fremont speaking from a firelit alcove in the White House.

It was a real problem to get the masses to watch Ferris Fremont deliver his speeches, because he spoke in such a dull way. It was like sitting through an endless lecture on some obscure aspect of economics - exactly like that, since Fremont invariably gave a rundown of figures from all departments. Evidently, behind his nondescript figure a powerful White House staff lurked, never seen, who fed him an infinitude of typed information on every topic bearing on his rule. Fremont did not appear to regard all this as dull. "Iron production," he would stumble along, reading half the words off the cue card wrong, "is up three percent, giving rise to a justified optimism in agricultural quarters." I always had the feeling I was back in school, and the tests we had to fill out afterward reinforced this sensation.

This did not make Ferris Fremont a figurehead, however, fronting for the staff who fed his facts to him; on the contrary, when he departed from his prepared script the real savagery in him came out. He liked to depart when matters concerning America and its honor and destiny were mentioned. East Asia was a place where American boys were demonstrating that honor, and Fremont could not let a reference to that topic pass without an extempore comment, at which times his sallow face would furrow with intensity and he would stumble out words of grim determination to all who would challenge American might. We had a plethora of American might, to hear Fremont speak of it. Half his time was spent warning unmentioned enemies of that might. I usually assumed he meant the Chinese, although he seldom saw cause to mention them by name. Being from California, Fremont kept a special place in his heart for the Chinese; to hear him speak you would have thought they had overcharged us in their laying of railroad track - a matter he could not, and honor would not allow him to, forget.

Really, he was the worst speechmaker I had ever heard. I often wished the invisible White House staff who formed his compatriots would rise up, select one of their number who could talk, and delegate him to finish Fremont's prepared speech. Given the right pinstriped suit and loud tie, few people would notice.

These synthetic chats were carried by all networks in prime time, and it was a good idea to listen. You were supposed to do so with your front door open, so that roving bands of FAPers could make spot checks. They passed out little cards on which various simple-minded questions about the current speech were asked; you were to check the right answers and then drop the card in a mailbox. The enormous White House staff scrutinized your answers to make sure you understood what you were hearing. It was mandatory to put your social security number on the card; the authorities had taken to organizing all their files on the basis of social security numbers. Your mail-in cards went into your permanent file, for what reason no one knew. We calculated that these cards must be making the files very large. Maybe there were subtle trick questions, such as the K scale in the Minnesota MultiPhasic, the so-called "lying" scale.

Sometimes the questions did seem devious, with the high possibility of making an accidental incriminating answer. One went:

Russia is becoming (1) weaker; (2) stronger; (3) about the same in relationship to the Free World.

Naturally, Rachel and Nicholas and I, doing our cards in unison, marked (2). The ideology of the authorities always stressed Russia's increasing strength, and the need for the Free World to continually double its arms budget in order just to keep up.

However, a later question rendered this one suspect.

Russian technology is (1) very good; (2) adequate; (3) typically inept.

Well, if you marked (1) ycru seemed to be paying the Communists a compliment. (2) was probably the best bet, since it probably was true, but the way (3) was worded seemed to suggest that the right-thinking citizen would reflexively mark it. After all, what could one expect from captive Slavic minds? Certainly, typical inept-ness. We were very good, not them.

But if their technology was typically inept, then how could (2) be the correct answer on the previous question? How did a nation with typically inept technology become stronger than ourselves? Nicholas and Rachel and I returned to the previous question and changed our answers to (1). That way it dovetailed with typically inept. The weekly questionnaire had many pitfalls. The USSR, like a Japanese wrestler, was both dumb and clever at the same time, strong and weak, likely to win and a sure bet to lose. All we in the Free World had to do was never falter. We managed this by turning in our cards regularly. It was the least we could do.

The answer to the above dilemma was imparted to us by Ferris Fremont the next week. How did a nation with typically inept technology become stronger than ourselves? Through subversion here at home, a sapping of the will of Americans through the guile of defeatism. There was a question on the next card about that:

The greatest enemy America faces is (1) Russia; (2) our high standard of living, highest the world has ever known; (3) secret infiltrators in our midst.

We knew to put (3). However, Nicholas that night was in a crazy mood; he wanted to check (2).

"It's our standard of living, Phil," he told me with a wink. "That's what's going to doom us. Let's all three of us check (2)."

"What's going to doom us is screwing around with these answer cards," I told him. "They take these answers seriously."

They never read them," Rachel said. "It's just to make sure you listen to Fremont's weekly speech. How could they read all these cards? Two hundred million of them every week."

"Computer read," I said.

"I vote we mark (2) on that question," Nicholas said, and did so.

We filled out our cards, and then on Nicholas's suggestion he and I walked to the mailbox together, the three cards in the pre-franked envelope which the government provided.

"I want to talk to you," Nicholas said to me, as soon as we were outside.

"Okay," I said. I thought he meant about the cards. But it was not the cards he had on his mind. As soon as he began to talk I understood why he had behaved so erratically.