A preliminary to Dick's masterwork, Valis, in which Phil appears as an explicitly named autobiographical character for the first time. As America gasps in the stranglehold of a skull-crushing totalitarian regime, a supernatural intelligence speaks from the stars...ARAMCHEK...the word scratched in the sidewalk of the President's childhood home. ARAMCHEK...the name of the subversive society 'with no official membership' whose sole purpose is to overthrow the American government. ARAMCHEK...the word printed on a book which contains the President's signature — a book in the hands of a Communist Party organiser. ARAMCHEK...the name of a woman who may hold the key — and who has only weeks to live. Will the agents of the omniscient Valis succeed in their mission of liberation? Or will the seek-and-destroy tactics of President Ferris F. Freemont extend the mind-numbing grip of the Antagonist across the parameters of the free world?