“Well,” I said sourly, “what do you want?”
“I was just wondering…” he began, before choking up. I waited uncomfortably. He glanced around furtively before beginning again. “I wanted to speak to you privately about Mr. Dartmouth.”
“Oh, I see. Do you want to come in?”
“No, thank you. I’d rather keep it private.”
I tapped the paper unconsciously against a thigh. “All right. What can I do for you?”
He carefully checked our surroundings. “This is entirely off the record, of course. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
“I’m worried about his mental state. I think he’s beginning to see things. Maybe it’s Alzheimer’s.”
I considered the possibility that this was some kind of trick, but he seemed truly concerned, even desperate.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t help him. I’m re—”
“Not you, Dr. Brewer,” he snarled. “I was hoping you could ask fled to take a look at him.” Though his expression and posture remained unchanged, tears were running down his face.
I patted him on the shoulder. He flinched as if it were the hand of God.
“I’ll speak to her,” I promised him. As an afterthought I observed, “You’ve been together for a while, haven’t you?”
In a choked voice he replied, “A long time ago he took a bullet and saved my life. I still owe him for that.” Suddenly he stood at attention, saluted me snappily, and shouted, “Thank you, sir!”
I awkwardly returned it. “Friday midnight,” he reminded me in a whisper as I went into the house.
Once inside, I waited a few minutes before peering carefully out the front window to see if he had gone. A strange-looking vehicle with excrescences all over it pulled up. Wang ran down the driveway, disappeared into the thing, and it sped away. The possibility occurred to me that perhaps fled really was from Earth, and the government boys were the aliens.
* * *
There wasn’t a trace of the cameras and all the paraphernalia when I got to MPI, and everything was as it had been. The patients were wandering around as usual, except that they seemed a bit more morose than usual. A normal letdown after the exciting time they had had the day before, I supposed. But it was more than that. Fled was gone, too. Not to K-PAX, apparently, because she left me a note informing me that she would “be away for a while.” I didn’t know where she was, or how long she would be gone, and neither did the boys, I hoped, but I knew what she must be doing—rounding up her travel companions, or perhaps taking the stadium owners on a joyride around the solar system. I presumed she would return for at least a final visit before leaving us, but, with a K-PAXian, one could never be sure of anything. I was comforted, however, by the knowledge that she had promised to chat with Steve and his family, not to mention the United Nations General Assembly (if the invitation came). The government wanted to see her as well, but that was their concern, not mine. And she still hadn’t given us a urine or blood sample to test for her alleged pregnancy.
It’s possible to get e-mail anywhere in the world, of course, and I suppose that’s how she could keep up with the applications, as well as comments and questions any prospective travelers might have for her. But with the vast numbers involved, how long would it take to get a reply? I sat down at Goldfarb’s office computer (with Margie’s knowledge and approval) and sent a rather testy message asking her how she would know if a United Nations invitation came to her via the hospital.
To my amazement, the answer came back immediately. You’lltellme, it said. Andaren’tweinabadtemper!
Whereareyounow? I quickly replied.
Indonesia,butI’llbeleavingsoon.
I sent another one. Whenwillweseeyouagain?
Acoupleofdays.Istillhavetotalktoyourson-in-law,remember?
Thegovernmentwantstoseeyou,too.Fridayatmidnight.Okay?Andoneofthemneedshisheadexamined.…
Gotthingstodo,gino.Talktoyoulater.
Canyoumakeit?
There was no immediate response.
At this point Goldfarb, who was still unsure about the wisdom of a television production originating at MPI, came in. “They may not even air the damn thing,” she told me. “They’re still thinking about it. If they don’t, all we’ll get is the cancellation fee.”
“How much is that?”
“$25,000.”
“Better than nothing.”
“Not much. That’ll keep us going for about three hours.”
I don’t think I’ve ever won an argument with Goldfarb, so I dropped it. “What do you think about the ‘Badguys’ she mentioned?”
“If it’s true, we’re in deep shit.”
“You think it’s not?”
“That’s the trouble with aliens. You have to take their word for everything.”
“To that I think fled would say our suspicion is part of our problem. I mean, if she were human, I’d have my doubts, too. But if she’s not—”
“Why shouldn’t we have your doubts anyway?”
“I’m quite confident that prot never lied to us,” I told her, “and I don’t really know of an instance where fled has, either.”
“Maybe this is the instance.”
“But why would she lie about a thing as serious as genocide?”
“Who knows? To scare us, maybe?”
“There’s a flaw in your argument. I don’t think she gives a fuck—you should pardon the expression—whether we listen to the warning about the Badguys or not. I think she’d just as soon see us go the way of the dodo.”
“Maybe she’s lying about that, too.”
* * *
I hadn’t realized that the patients had grown so fond of fled. In the few days she was gone they kept coming to me demanding to know when she would be back. It’s amazing: one minute you’re a pariah, the next a prodigal daughter. It’s a shame there isn’t some way to see what a whole person is like from the beginning, rather than find out a little at a time. Why does our understanding go up and down like a yo-yo? But, of course, that’s part of what makes human interactions so interesting.
I sincerely believe that when you get to know someone you consider to be “different,” you find that there aren’t so many dissimilarities as you thought. This is particularly true of racial and religious prejudices. I’m not going to claim that I know a lot of African-Americans or Muslims personally, but the few I do know aren’t really very different from me. They put on their pants like me, eat like me, laugh and cry like me. The rest of it is based, I suspect, on fear. Fear of what? You name it: job loss, property values, and all the rest. This doesn’t mean that I have to like everyone I meet whose race is different from my own. Cliff Roberts, one of our most respected staff psychiatrists and coal-black, is, in my view, something of a jerk. On the other hand, maybe I just don’t know him well enough to know who’s really in there.