The Man Who Fell to Earth (17 page)

Newton grinned. “Does Macy’s tell Gimbel’s?” he said. “I may have to use it on you yet.”

A quality in the way that Newton had just spoken—not the ironic or pseudo-sinister quality of the statement itself, but some minor strangeness in the manner—reminded Bryce that he was, after all, talking to someone not human. The practiced veneer of humanness that Newton assumed might be merely that; a very thin veneer. Whatever was beneath the veneer, the essential part of Newton, his specifically Anthean nature, might very well be inaccessible to him, Bryce, or for that matter to anyone on Earth. The way that Newton actually felt or thought might be beyond his comprehension, totally unavailable to him.

“Whatever your weapon is,” he spoke more carefully now, “I hope you won’t have to use it.” And then he looked around him again, at the big hotel room, the almost untouched tray of liquor, and back at Newton, reclining in bed. “My God,” he said. “It’s hard to believe. To sit in this room and believe that I’m talking to a man from another planet.”

“Yes,” Newton said, “I’ve thought that myself. I’m talking to a man from another planet too, you know.”

Bryce stood up and stretched. Then he walked to the window, parted the draperies, looked down at the street. Car headlights were everywhere, hardly moving. A huge, illuminated billboard directly across from the hotel showed Santa Claus drinking a Coca-Cola. Clusters of flickering bulbs made Santa’s eyes twinkle, made the soft drink sparkle. Somewhere, faintly, Bryce could hear chimes playing
Adeste Fideles
.

He turned back to Newton, who had not moved. “Why have you told me? You didn’t have to.”

“I wanted to tell you.” He smiled. “I haven’t been at all sure of my motives for the past year; I’m not certain why I wanted to tell you. Antheans don’t necessarily know everything. Anyway, you already knew about me.”

“Are you talking about what Canutti said? That might have been only a stab in the dark on my part. It might have been nothing.”

“I wasn’t thinking of what Professor Canutti said. Although I found your reaction to it amusing; I thought you might have a stroke of apoplexy when he said ‘Mars.’ But his saying that forced your hand, not mine.”

“Why not yours?”

“Well, Doctor Bryce, there are a great many differences between you and me of which you could hardly be aware. One of them is that my vision is much more acute than yours, and its effective range of frequencies is considerably higher. This means that I cannot see the color that you call red. But I can see X-rays.”

Bryce opened his mouth to speak, but then said nothing.

“Once I had seen the flash,” Newton said, “it wasn’t difficult to determine what you were doing.” He looked at Bryce inquisitively. “How was the picture?”

Bryce felt foolish, like a trapped schoolboy. “The picture was… remarkable.”

Newton nodded. “I can imagine. If you could see my internal organs you would have some surprises too. I went to a natural history museum once, in New York. A very interesting place for a… for a tourist. It occurred to me there that I myself was the only truly unique biological specimen in the building. I could picture myself pickled, in a jar, with the label,
Extraterrestrial humanoid
. I left rather quickly.”

Bryce could not help laughing. And, Newton, now that he had, as it were, made his confession, seemed expansive, seemed paradoxically even more “human,” now that he had made it clear that he was, in fact, no such thing. His face was more expressive, his manner more relaxed, than Bryce had ever seen them. But there was still that hint of another Newton, a thoroughly Anthean Newton, unapproachable and alien. “Do you plan to go back to your planet?” Bryce said. “On the ship?”

“No. It won’t be necessary. The ship will be guided from Anthea itself. I’m afraid I’m a permanent exile here.”

“Do you miss your… your own people?”

“I miss them.”

Bryce walked back to his chair and seated himself again. “But you will be seeing them before long?”

Newton hesitated. “Possibly.”

“Why possibly? Something might go wrong?”

“I wasn’t thinking about that.” And then, “I told you earlier that I was not at all certain what I was up to.”

Bryce looked at him, puzzled. “I don’t understand what you me an.”

“Well,” Newton smiled faintly, “for some time now I have been considering not completing the plan, not sending the ship anywhere—not even finishing the construction. It would only require a single order.”

“For God’s sake, why?”

“Oh, the plan was an intelligent one, although desperate. But what else could we do?” Newton was looking at him, but did not seem to be seeing him. “However, I have developed some doubts about its final worth. There are things about your culture here, your society, that we did not know about on Anthea. Do you know, Doctor Bryce,” he shifted his position on the bed, leaning over closer to Bryce, “that I sometimes think that I will be insane in a few more years? I’m not certain that my people will be able to stand your world. We’ve been in an ivory tower for a long time.

“But you could isolate yourselves from the world. You have money; you could stay with your own, build your own society.” What was he doing—defending the Anthean… invasion? After he had just been frightened and stunned by it? “You could make your own city, in Kentucky.”

“And wait for the bombs to fall? We would be better off on Anthea. There at least we can live for another fifty years. If we are to live here, it won’t be as an isolated colony of freaks. We’ll have to disperse ourselves over your entire world, place ourselves in positions of influence. Otherwise it would be foolish for us to come.”

“Whatever you do you’ll be taking a great risk. Can’t you gamble on our solving our own problems, if you are afraid of close contact with us?” He smiled wryly. “Be our guests.”

“Doctor Bryce,” Newton said, his face now unsmiling, “we are a great deal wiser than you are. Believe me, we are much wiser than you may imagine. And we are certain beyond all reasonable doubt that your world will be an atomic rubble heap in no more than thirty years, if you are left to yourselves.” He continued grimly, “To tell you the truth, it dismays us greatly to see what you are about to do with such a beautiful, fertile world. We destroyed ours a long time ago, but we had so much less to begin with than you have here.” His voice now seemed agitated, his manner more intense. “Do you realize that you will not only wreck your civilization, such as it is, and kill most of your people; but that you will also poison the fish in your rivers, the squirrels in your trees, the flocks of birds, the soil, the water? There are times when you seem, to us, like apes loose in a museum, carrying knives, slashing the canvases, breaking the statuary with hammers.”

For a moment Bryce did not speak. Then he said, “But it was human beings who painted the pictures, made the statues.”

“Only a few human beings,” Newton said. “Only a few.” Abruptly, he stood up and said, “I think I’ve had quite enough of Chicago. Would you like to go home?”

“
Now?
” Bryce looked at his watch. My God, two-thirty in the morning. Christmas was over.

“Do you think you’ll sleep tonight anyway?” Newton said.

He shrugged, “I guess not.” And then, remembering what Betty Jo had said, “You don’t sleep at all, do you?”

“Sometimes I sleep,” Newton said, “but not often.” He sat down beside the telephone, “I’ll have to have our pilot wakened. And we’ll need a car to take us to the airport….”

Getting a car was difficult; they did not arrive at the airport until four o’clock. By that time Bryce was beginning to feel dizzy, and there was a faint buzzing in his ears. Newton showed no signs of fatigue. His face, as usual, gave no indication of what he might be thinking.

There were confusions and several delays in getting take-off clearance, and by the time they were able to leave, flying out over Lake Michigan, a pink and gentle dawn was beginning to form.

It was daylight when they arrived at Kentucky, the beginning of a clear winter day. Coming in for the landing the first thing they saw was the brilliantly shining hull of the ship—Newton’s ferry boat—looking like a polished monument in the morning sun. And then, when they came over the airfield they saw a surprising thing. Perched elegantly at the far end of the runway, at the side of Newton’s hangar, was a beautifully streamlined, white plane, twice the size of the one they were in. On its wings were the markings of the United States Air Force. “Well,” Newton said, “I wonder who has come to visit us.”

They had to walk by the white plane on their way to the monorail, and, passing it, Bryce could not help being impressed with its beauty—its fine proportions and the grace of its lines. “If we only made everything that beautifully,” he said.

Newton was looking at the plane, too. “But you don’t,” he said.

They rode the monorail car in silence. Bryce’s arms and legs ached with the need for sleep; but his mind was full of sharp, quick images, ideas, half-formed thoughts.

He should have gone to his own house; but when Newton invited him in for breakfast, he accepted. It would be easier than finding his own food.

Betty Jo was up, wearing an orange kimono, her hair in a silk babushka; her face was worried, and her eyes were red, puffy underneath. Opening the door she said, “There’s some men here, Mr. Newton. I don’t know…” Her voice trailed off. They went past her into the living room. Seated in chairs were five men; they rose quickly when Newton and Bryce entered.

Brinnarde was in the center of the group. There were three other men in business suits, and the fourth, wearing a blue uniform, was obviously the pilot of the Air Force plane. Brinnarde introduced them, his manner efficient, noncommittal. When this was done, Newton, still standing, said, “Have you been waiting long?”

“No,” Brinnarde said, “no. In fact we had you delayed at the Chicago airport until we could get here. The timing was very good. I hope you weren’t inconvenienced too much—by the hold-up at Chicago?”

Newton showed no emotion. “How did you manage to do that?”

“Well, Mr. Newton,” Brinnarde said, “I’m with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. These men are my colleagues.”

Newton’s voice hesitated slightly. “That’s very interesting. I suppose it makes you a… a spy?”

“I suppose it does. In any event, Mr. Newton, I’ve been told to place you under arrest, and to take you with me.”

Newton took in a slow, deep, very human breath. “What are you arresting me for?”

Brinnarde smiled politely. “You’re charged with illegal entry. We believe you’re an alien, Mr. Newton.”

Newton stood silent for a long moment. Then he said, “May I have breakfast first, please?”

Brinnarde hesitated, then he smiled in a way that was surprisingly genial. “I don’t see why not, Mr. Newton,” he said. “I think we could use some food ourselves. They got up at four this morning, in Louisville, to make this arrest.”

Betty Jo fixed them scrambled eggs and coffee. While they were eating, Newton asked casually if he could call his lawyer.

“I’m afraid not,” Brinnarde said.

“Isn’t there a constitutional right about that?”

“Yes.” Brinnarde set down his coffee cup. “But you don’t have any constitutional rights. As I said, we believe you are not an American citizen.”

6

Newton put down his book. The doctor would be coming in a few minutes, and he did not feel like reading anyway. In the two weeks of his confinement he had done very little but read. That was when he wasn’t being questioned, or examined by the doctors—physicians, anthropologists, psychiatrists—or by the men in conservative suits who must have been government officials, although they would never tell him who they were when he asked. He had re-read Spinoza, Hegel, Spengler, Keats, the New Testament, and was currently reading some new books on linguistics. They brought him whatever he asked for, with considerable speed and politeness. He also had a record player, which he seldom used, a library of motion picture films, a World Enterprises television set, and a bar, but no windows to look through to see Washington. They had told him he was some-place near that city, although they were not specific about how near he was. He watched the television set in the evenings, partly from a kind of nostalgia, sometimes from curiosity. At times his name would be mentioned on news programs—for it was impossible that a man of his wealth could have been placed under arrest by the government without some publicity. But the references were always vague, coming from unnamed official sources and making use of phrases like “a cloud of suspicion.” The word was that he was an “unregistered alien”; but no government source had made it plain where he was—or where they thought he was—from. One television commentator, noted for his dry wit, had said waspishly, “For all that Washington will say, it must be assumed that Mr. Newton, now under surveillance and in custody, is a visitor either from Outer Mongolia or from outer space.”

He realized, too, that these broadcasts would be monitored by his superiors on Anthea, and he was mildly amused by the thought of their consternation at learning of his position, their curiosity to find out what was really happening.

Well, he did not know himself what was really happening. Apparently the government was highly suspicious of him—as well they might be, with the information that Brinnarde must have given them during the year and a half that he had been working as his secretary. And Brinnarde, who had been his right-hand man on the project, must certainly have placed a good many spies in all aspects of the organization, so that the government should have in hand a great deal of information about his activities and about the project itself. But there had been things he had kept from Brinnarde, things they were highly unlikely to know about. Still, it was impossible to determine what they were up to. Sometimes he wondered what would happen if he told his questioners, “As a matter of fact I am from outer space, and I intend to conquer the world.” It might produce interesting reactions. But belief would hardly be one of them.

Sometimes he wondered what was happening to World Enterprises, now that he was entirely cut off from communication with it. Would Farnsworth be running it? Newton received no mail, no phone calls. There was a telephone in his living room, but it never rang, and he was not permitted to make outside calls on it. The phone was pale blue, and it sat on a mahogany table. He had tried it a few times, but always a voice—apparently a recorded voice—would say, when he picked it up, “We are sorry, but this telephone is restricted.” The voice was pleasant, feminine, artificial. It never said what the telephone was restricted to. Sometimes, when lonely, or a little bit drunk—he did not drink so much as before, now that some of the pressure was removed from him—he would pick up the receiver just to hear the voice say, “We are sorry, but this telephone is restricted.” The voice was very smooth; it suggested infinite politeness and some dim kind of electronics.