Counter-Clock World by Philip K. Dick Page B

construct it. A blood clot on one side of the brain, a clot no bigger than a pencil eraser, and I couldn’t lift my hand again or move my leg or anything on that side for the rest of my life.”
    “So you grovel,” Bob Lindy said, “before His majesty?”
    Sebastian said, “He can help you if you face it. It’s just so damn hard to face. Because when you do you—cease to exist, almost. You shrink down almost to nothing.” But not quite; something real remained.
    “‘God is angry with the wicked every day,’” Father Faine quoted.
    “I wasn’t wicked,” Sebastian said. “Just ignorant. It was necessary for me to be confronted, finally, with the truth. That way—” He hesitated. “I could go back to Him,” he said finally. “Where I belonged. And understand that nine-tenths of everything I did in my life was really Him doing it; I was a bystander while He acted through me.”
    “You did all that good?” Lindy demanded.
    “Everything. Good
and
bad.”
    “A heresy,” Father Faine said.
    “So?” Sebastian said. “It was true. Remember, Father;
I’ve
been there.
I’m not spouting my beliefs, my faith; I’m saying what is.”
    Dr. Sign said, “I am getting a cardiac fibrillation now. An arrhythmia. Auricular fibrillation; probably what finally killed him. He’s successfully passed back to that stage. Normal cardiac rhythm will probably supervene, if we’re lucky; if the process continues normally.”
    Still continuing the theological discussion, Cheryl Vale said, “I still don’t see why God would want us to feel insignificant. Doesn’t He
like
us?”
    “Be quiet,” Dr. Sign said swiftly.
    “We have to be little,” Sebastian said, “so there can be so many of us. So billions upon billions of separate creatures can live; if one of us were big, the same size as God, then how many would there be? I see it as the only way by which every potential soul can—”
    “He’s alive,” Dr. Sign said. And sagged visibly. “It worked out; it didn’t kill him.” He glanced at Sebastian, smiled slightly. “Your gamble paid off; we’ve got a live one, and the live one is the Anarch Thomas Peak.”
    “So now what?” Lindy said.
    “So now,” R.C. Buckley said, exulting, “we’re rich. We’ve got an item in our catalog that’ll bring prices we’ve never even heard of before.” He grinned excitedly, his salesman’s eyes darting and busy. “Okay,” he said. “Here I go. That lead from Italy; that’s just one, but they’re bidding; that’s what counts. And they’ll keep bidding, up and up.”
    “Wow,” Cheryl Vale said. “We ought to have a token pipeful of sogum together. To celebrate.” This she could understand; the theological discussion had baffled her, but not this. Like R.C., she had a good, common-sense, seasoned reasonability.
    “Get out the sogum,” Sebastian said. “It’s sogum time.”
    “So now you’ve got him,” Lindy said. “All you have to do is decide who to peddle him to.” He grimaced mirthlessly.
    “Maybe,” Sebastian said, “we’ll let him decide.” It was an approach they had not discussed; the Anarch, while still a corpse, had seemed just that: an object, a commodity. But he was, now, appearing among them as a human being, although still technically the property of the vitarium . . . a commercial entity. “He was—is—a shrewd man,” he pointed out. “He probably can tell us more about Ray Roberts than the Library can.” And Lotta had not returned; this he noted, and sensed that something had gone wrong. He wondered what . . . and how seriously . . . and kept the thought alive, in the back of his mind. Despite the more pressing problem of the Anarch.
    “Are we going to turn him over to a hospital?” R.C. asked.
    “No,” Sebastian decided. It was too risky; Dr. Sign, here on the premises, would have to provide the medical care.
    Dr. Sign said, “Evidently he’s going to become conscious. He seems to be passing through the rebirth