The text of Mr. Gibson's story appears nowhere in the book itself. Thirty-two pages contain long sequences of the letters G, A, T, C. This is another kind of code; the letters represent the four building blocks of the DNA double-helix molecule, and the sequences were excerpted from real human genetic material. Seven pages of the book are devoted to copperplate etchings -- brownish blobs on greenish backgrounds -- by Mr. Ashbaugh. These were inspired by laboratory-generated images of human genetic material, known as "gene scans" or "DNA footprints." Six of the etchings have been overprinted with early 20th-century advertisements for gadgets like telephones and cameras; a special ink was used so that these reproductions literally wipe off the page at the slightest touch.

Mr. Ashbaugh's etchings remain, although buyers of "Agrippa" are assured that the plates used to make these images will be destroyed or defaced as soon as the 95th impression is pulled. Only 95 copies of "Agrippa" are being offered, at $2,000 apiece, to serious collectors.

The challenge for collectors who buy "Agrippa" is how to protect their investment while savoring the object. To read Mr. Gibson's story is to destroy it. Even turning the pages to look at the pictures is to risk altering the book irreversibly. Collectors will not be entirely unfamiliar with this problem, says Mr. Begos, who once published books under the auspices of the Limited Editions Club and who now works out of 61 East Eighth Street, Box 146, New York, N.Y. 10003. The erasable ink and the self-erasing story are extreme cases, but according to Mr. Begos, collectors rarely open their fine art books for fear of damaging the expensive goods. "If you pay thousands of dollars for a limited edition, you're not likely to curl up in bed with it," he said.

Dennis Ashbaugh, who was an admirer of Mr. Gibson's science fiction before they met, relishes the sense of discomfort that "Agrippa" induces in book lovers and art lovers alike. He found that working with Mr. Gibson confirmed his own discomfort with purely abstract paintings. "I was completely bored with the paintings I was doing," Mr. Ashbaugh said. "They had nothing to do with being alive today. I'm keen on making paintings that continue to exist maybe 15 minutes into the future."

When "Agrippa (A Book of the Dead)" was exhibited in May at the Center for Book Arts on lower Broadway in Manhattan, Marshall Blonsky, who teaches literary theory at New York University and the New School, gave a lecture analyzing the text, which he had received in readable form only six hours earlier. After making apologies for the necessarily sketchy nature of his remarks, Mr. Blonsky went on to link the "Agrippa" project to the work of "at least two writers, Maurice Blanchot, in particular 'The Absence of the Book,' and Stephane Mallarme," the 19th-century poet whose obsessions presaged "the 1960's-70's runaway adventure first called semiology and then semiotics and deconstruction. . . . The collaborators in 'Agrippa' are responding to a historical condition of language, a modern skepticism about it."