"Hello?" A young boy. Piping voice.

"May I speak to your father, please."

"Yes. just a minute." Phone clattering. Then quickly picked up. Still the boy. "Who is this?"

"Father Karras."

"Father Karits?"

His heart thumping, Karras spoke evenly, "Karras. Father Karras..."

Down went the phone again.

Karras pressed digging fingers against his brow.

Phone noise.

"Father Karras?"

'Yes, hello, Frank. I've been trying to reach you."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I've been working on your tapes at the house."

"Are you finished?"

"Yes, I am. By the way, this is pretty weird stuff."

"I know." Karras tried to flatten the tension in his voice. "What's the story, Frank? What have you found?"

"Well, this 'type-token' ratio, first..."

"Yes?"

"Well, I didn't have enough of a sampling to be absolutely accurate, you understand, but I'd say it's pretty close, or at least as close as you can get with these things. Well, at any rate, the two different voices on the tapes, I would say, are probably separate personalities."

"Probably?"

"Well, I wouldn't want to swear to it in court. In fact, I'd have to say the variance is really pretty minimal."

"Minimal..." Karras repeated dully. Well, that's the ball game. "And what about the gibberish?" he asked without hope. "Is it any kind of language?" Frank chuckled.

"What's funny?" asked the Jesuit moodily.

"Was this really some sneaky psychological testing, Father?"

"I don't know what you mean, Frank."

"Well, I guess you got your tapes mixed around or something. It's---" "Frank, is it a language or not?" cut in Karras.

"Oh, I'd say it was a language, all right."

Karras stiffened. "Are you kidding?"

'No, I'm not."

"What's the language?" he asked, unbelieving.

"English."

For a moment, Karras was mute, and when he spoke there was an edge to his voice. "Frank, we seem to have a very poor connection; or would you like to let me in on the joke?" "Got your tape recorder there?" asked Frank.

It was sitting on his desk. "Yes, I do."

"Has it got a reverse-play position?"

"Why?"

"Has it got one?"

"Just a second." Irritable, Karras set down the phone and took the top off the tape recorder to check it. "Yes, it's got one. Frank, what's this all about?"

"Put your tape on the machine and play it backward."

"What?"

"You've got gremlins." Frank laughed, "Look, play it and I'll talk to you tomorrow. Good night, Father."

"Night, Frank."

"Have fun."

Karras hung up. He looked baffled. He hunted up the gibberish tape and threaded it onto the recorder. First he ran it forward, listening. Shook his head. No mistake. It was gibberish.

He let it run through to the end and then played it in reverse. He heard his voice speaking backward. Then Regan--- or someone--- in English!

...Marin marin karras be us let us...

English. Senseless; but English! How on earth could she do that? he marveled.

He listened to it all, then rewound and played the tape through again. And again. And then realized that the order of speech was inverted.

He stopped the tape and rewound it. With a pencil and paper, he sat down at the desk and began to play the tape from the beginning while transcribing the words, working laboriously and long with almost constant stops and starts of the tape recorder. When finally it was done, he made another transcription on a second sheet of paper, reversing the order of the words. Then he leaned back and read it:

...danger. Not yet. [indecipherable] will die. Little time. Now the [indecipherable]. Let her die.

No, no, sweet! it is sweet in the body! I feel! There is [indecipherable]. Better

[indecipherable] than the void. I fear the priest. Give us time. Fear the priest! He is