K-PAX IV: A New Visitor From The Constellation Lyra

CHAPTER TEN

When I got to the hospital on Wednesday there were trailers all along Amsterdam Avenue. The lounge and lawn (the only places the network was allowed to film, except for the Ward Two cafeteria) were a mess. Cameras and cables were everywhere. I was concerned about possible lawsuits if any of the patients were to trip on something. But I needn’t have worried—Goldfarb had seen that the studio’s insurance policy covered every conceivable happenstance, and had advised the staff to help the inmates cope with the disruption and to keep an eye out for any sign of trouble.

To everyone’s surprise, the patients loved it. Most of them strutted around flaring their nostrils and looking like movie stars, some with scarves tied around their necks, or puffing unlit cigarettes in holders made from whatever was at hand—hollow sticks or straws or the like. And the poses! Bette Davis and Katharine Hepburn could have learned a lot from them. Claire, for example, had retrieved her stethoscope, and strode here and there with it dangling from her neck, listening to hearts pound and lungs wheeze, jotting notes onto scraps of paper, while Rocky shadowboxed the world. Darryl, on the other hand, made no such pretenses. He was too busy frantically searching the building and grounds for his favorite star on the “movie set.” Howard, on the other hand, preferred to remain in the shadows.

The cameras themselves stayed put, for the most part. They weren’t attempting to follow every bit of action; they were merely watching whatever happened in front of them. But even the psychotic get used to cameras hanging around, and it wasn’t long before the patients returned to their normal activities. Which was, I suppose, what the director was looking for.

As part of the agreement between the studio and the hospital, fled would be formally interviewed as a “special guest,” during which time her thoughts on the afflictions of the inmates, as well as her opinion of the human race itself, would be ascertained. In addition to this, Virginia and I were scheduled for more informal discussions to be used as voiceovers throughout the program as deemed advisable by the editor or director.

Mine was to take place at 11:00 with the hostess, a woman called Priscilla, whom I had never heard of, after Goldfarb and before fled. A corner of the lounge had been reserved for the makeup man, a bouncy Greenwich Village hairdresser. In the meantime, a few would-be reporters were circulating among the patients, speaking off-camera to anyone they wished. Looking for interesting stories, I suppose, though they probably had no idea how compelling some of them really were. Mainly, I think, they wanted sound bites to fill in the “dead spaces” in the show—which, someone said, wouldn’t be aired until late the following fall.

As I was wandering around, taking it all in, there was a page for “Dr. Brewer.” I answered the call only to discover that it wasn’t me they were after, but my son Will. While I was feeling sorry for myself for being a generation older than I used to be, a second call came. This one I ignored, only to discover it was for me. The proofs for the magazine article had arrived with an urgent request that I check them and return the approval form immediately. I picked them up from Margie, who was excited about becoming a “TV star” (though the offices were off-limits to the cameras), and read them over in the lounge while waiting for Virginia to be interviewed. The only thing I found there that I didn’t already know was that the editors were initiating a contest to name fled’s child. The winner was to receive a hair of fled’s head (Smythe had asked for one during his visit) and a framed star map indicating the position of K-PAX in the sky. And, of course, a lifetime subscription to the magazine, LifeinGeneral. But there were no factual errors, so there was no compelling reason for me to hold up publication.

I approached Goldfarb and handed her the pages. She leafed through them and shrugged. “Should I sign the damn thing?” I nodded. She did so and I hauled it back up to her office, where I instructed Margie to go ahead and fax it to London.

“Thank you, Dr. Brewer,” she said breathlessly, leaning invitingly toward me in her open-top blouse—in case a crew member happened to be around, presumably. In any case, I hurried on back to the lounge.

Trying not to trip over anything, I stood off to the side to watch Virginia’s ten o’clock voiceover interview, much like Tiger Woods might observe a competitor’s putt before stepping up for his own.

She was still sitting in her director’s chair like a patient nervously waiting for the doctor, looking years younger with the professional makeup (she doesn’t usually wear any) and proper lighting, or perhaps it was because I had never seen her at rest before. It was her job to present an overview of the hospital’s rich history, its physical layout and philosophy, and its superlative staff, including the kitchen and janitorial personnel.

Priscilla (who insisted everyone call her “Prissy”) appeared, cheerful and smiling. She was practically emaciated—surely anorectic, I thought—and had obviously gone through several facelifts, to the point that she appeared to have been hanged. She and Virginia began to chat informally. At some point this became the actual interview, though Prissy didn’t indicate a transition as far as I could tell. There were questions about a few of the patients, but primarily she wanted to talk about fled—why she was here, when she was leaving, what she was planning to do in the meantime. Goldfarb didn’t know all the answers but, overall, she acquitted herself with grace and wit, and once again showed why it was she who was directing the Institute, particularly in the aplomb with which she deflected the difficult questions about fled to the hostess’s later discussion with me.

The only reason I had been selected was that I happened to be the liaison between fled and the rest of us. Well, okay, that should have made it easy; at least there were no facts or figures to memorize, nothing to prepare, and when I was summoned before those awful klieg lights everything went quite smoothly at first. I was just beginning to enjoy the experience when, out of nowhere, Prissy asked me about “life out there,” as if I were an expert on extraterrestrial intelligence. All I could do was relate what I had gleaned from our alien visitors: there were myriad life forms permeating the galaxy, and presumably all galaxies throughout the universe, but there were probably very few humans among them.

“Why is that, doctor?”

“Well, according to prot, and fled, too, humans tend to destroy themselves wherever they arise.”

“Do you have something against human beings, doctor?”

“No, of course not. As a matter of fact, I’m one myself.” When not even a smile ensued, I went on. “They were just reporting their observations and suggesting that we ought to take better care of our planet.”

“Well, are you saying that we should stop making cars and trucks until we solve all our social and political problems?”

I didn’t like the direction this thing was going. Nevertheless, I tried to remain calm and cool. “Not at all. But prot might have agreed with that.”

“What about fled?”

“You’ll be interviewing her soon. Why don’t you ask her?” Trying to lighten things up a bit, I added, “I haven’t made a car or truck in years!”

I thought rather smugly that I had done rather well up to that point. But Prissy suddenly took another tack. “We’ve heard from an anonymous source that our special guest might be pregnant. How did that happen, doctor?”

Though a bit annoyed by this unforeseen line of questioning, I still tried to keep it light. “In the usual way, I imagine.”

“And who is the father—another chimp?”

“I don’t know. And I don’t think she knows, either. And she’s not a chimp!”

“You mean she sleeps around?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Dr. Brewer, we have reason to suspect that the father of fled’s child is a human being. Maybe even one of your patients. What can you tell us about that?”

Ordinarily I would have declined to answer such a leading question. But her know-it-all attitude somehow made me want to defend the accused. “Whoever he is,” I retorted, “he must be quite a man.” I regretted it as soon as I had said it.

“A lot of our viewers are going to be quite upset to think that someone half human and half ape is going to come out of this visit. What is your considered opinion on that, doctor?”

As calmly as I could, I reminded our host that fled wasn’t an ape, but an orf.

“Well, that’s what she’d like us to believe, isn’t it? How do we know she even came from outer space? Some people think she’s nothing more than a talking chimp. Maybe she ran away from the circus.”

“They’re entitled to their opinion.”

“You don’t care whether humans start breeding with apes, doctor?”

“I didn’t say that, either!”

“How about humans and gorillas? Does that sound appealing to you?”

A final attempt to stay calm. “Most gorillas wouldn’t appeal to me, no.”

“Would human-pig liaisons be next? Human-skunk? Human—”

For a second, it occurred to me that she must be joking. Then I realized she was panting and, quite possibly, insane. “Not anytime soon,” I responded quite evenly, hoping to calm her down and maybe prevent a stroke.

At that point a peal of laughter erupted from some of the patients milling about the lounge. I don’t know what triggered it, but it must have interrupted her train of thought. When it died down Prissy was smiling brightly and the feverish look in her eyes was gone. She jumped up and shook my hand. “Good cover for the fled segments,” she assured me. “Thank you very much, doctor.”

I still wasn’t certain whether or not to suggest she get help. Or, indeed, whether all television hosts might not be hovering on the edge of sanity.

* * *

Hoping to get away from the cameras for a while I had lunch in Ward Two. I had forgotten they were set up in the dining room as well, watching, presumably, for abnormal behavior of any kind, or maybe a food fight or the like. But at least no one was interviewing the patients while they toyed with their food.

Though she was supposed to take her meals in the Villers wing, Phyllis hovered around the tables, helping herself to whatever she wanted from the plates of those who didn’t care whether they ate anything or not. She never took a seat, though, afraid that someone else would drop down on her (being invisible has its drawbacks). The cameras watched as she tried to pilfer something from Rocky’s plate, and he went into a rage. Not at her, of course—perhaps he really can’t see her—but at his absent brother, who used to do the same when they were children. An orderly quickly intervened, and decorum was restored.

I sat across from Cassandra, who had managed to stay focused on the present for a while, perhaps because the television cameras were everywhere and her natural desire to make a good impression had gotten the better of her. It occurred to me that this might be a possible therapeutic approach to take with patients like her: if she had something to occupy her time more intensely in the present, she might not want, or need, to spend so much of it contemplating the future. Such a thought might have fascinated me at one time, and I would have pursued it enthusiastically. But now, at the very end of my career, what could I do but mention the idea to my colleagues and trust that they would look into the possibilities.

Since she was merely eating, and quietly at that, no one was taping our end of the table, as far as I knew. Not wanting to pass up an opportunity, I asked her, “Is there anything you can tell me about fled and the patients that I don’t know?”

“That would take a lot more time than we’ve got,” she said in all seriousness. I thought I saw Barney smile a little, but, if so, it certainly wasn’t a laugh.

“Do you know when fled’s leaving?”

“Yes, I do.”

“When?”

“June twenty-second.”

I already suspected the approximate date and this confirmed it. “And do you know who she’s taking with her?”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“A hundred thousand people.”

“Can you be more specific?”

“A large contingent will be from the hospital.”

I sat up straighter. “A contingent? Do you know how many?”

“All of us who want to go.”

“All? Well, do you know how many want to go?”

“Yes.”

“How many?”

“All of us.”

“I see. And that includes you?”

Matter-of-factly, without even a smile, as if it were a trip to the next floor, she answered, “Yes. It was Howard who convinced her to take us all.”

I heard one of the TV people say, “Who’s Howard?”

Cassie was beginning to look a little agitated. “I’m finished here, Dr. Brewer. May I go?”

I got up and escorted her out the door. “What else can you tell me?” I asked, when we were out of earshot.

“You’re going for a ride yourself!”

“I’m going to K-PAX??”

“Not that far.”

I heard someone shout, “WHO’S HOWARD?”

One of the patients shouted back, “THE TOAD MAN!”

“Go find him!” the assistant something-or-other ordered a member of the crew.

“I meant, do you know where you’ll be leaving from?”

“Fled wants to tell you that herself.”

“She already knows where it is?”

But she had taken a seat on her favorite bench and was already dreaming of the stars.

I wondered: why would fled want to tell me where she’s departing from? Was she testing me? Did she, in fact, want Dartmouth and Wang to know?”

And then another bizarre thought entered my head from God knows where. If she’s taking more than a hundred people form the Manhattan Psychiatric Institute, might she be taking comparable numbers from other hospitals? Wasshetaking100,000mentalpatientswithherwhenshereturnedtoK-PAX?

I spotted fled lying on the grass, basking in the sun, her yellow shift hiked up to her waist as though she didn’t have a care in the world. The questions could wait. I left her alone and went back inside.

* * *

Feeling a little post-prandial drowsiness I took my place in the lounge, where Priscilla was busily conversing with a man in an expensive suit—the director or a producer, presumably. I tried hard not to nod off. Most of the patients and staff had showed up for fled’s interview as well (I was faintly annoyed that only a few had turned out for mine). Prissy checked her watch. It was 1:59, and fled’s chair was still empty. At two o’clock she was sitting in it, and she had changed into a clean flowered garment of some kind. It almost made her look pretty.

The hostess jumped as if she’d been shot, but she recovered in time to introduce fled, “who claims to be from outer space.” I, too, was completely awake now.

Her guest hooted loudly at this.

Unruffled, Prissy proceeded to engage fled in some harmless banter, apparently to get her into a relaxed frame of mind, or perhaps to lower her guard so she could come in with a sucker punch. What she didn’t know was that fled doesn’t have a guard. Nor was she a sucker. Nevertheless, she politely answered the questions until the interviewer got to the one about how sex would be possible between different species. Fled gently (perhaps she, in turn, was setting up the host) corrected her. “Sex between different species has always been possible. If you don’t believe me, ask 80% of your farm boys. I think you meant to say that reproduction between most species is impossible.”

“Yes, that’s what I meant, of course. But first let me ask you this: are you pregnant, or not?”

“Definitely.”

“For those of us who aren’t familiar with alien reproduction, let me ask you: any problems so far—morning sickness or anything like that?”

“We don’t do morning sickness on K-PAX.”

“How nice for you. And what is the gestation period on your planet?”

“About the same as it is on yours.”

“When I had my son, I was sick all the time. Worst nine months of my life!” She turned to the camera and whispered, “Some of you ladies out there know what I’m talking about.”

“Not me,” countered fled.

“We’ve heard that the father is a human being—is that right?”

“I don’t know. He could be a chimpanzee, too. Maybe a certain bonobo. And there was a time with a gorgeous gorilla….”

“But you’re not human. And I guess you’re not a chimpanzee, either. Or— Or anything else.”

“You catch on quick.”

“So how—”

“I’m sure all this talk about sex is fascinating to your viewers,” fled observed. At this point she turned away from the host and looked directly at the camera, as Prissy had done a moment earlier. “Personally, I prefer to do it, rather than talk about it. The rest of you really should get a life. But let’s get on with why I’m here, shall we? I came to Earth with a warning for all of you.”

“Hey, wait a minute. You can’t just—”

“There’s something wrong with you people in addition to your violent natures. Homo sapiens, as a species, is psychotic. The whole lot of you should be confined to mental institutions. You’re committing suicide and you’re too preoccupied with your own little lives even to realize it.” She paused for a moment, perhaps to let this sink in. Prissy sputtered a bit, but said nothing. “Fact is, no one on K-PAX gives a bleep (yes, she said “bleep,” presumably to save the censors the trouble) whether you kill yourselves or not. We’re a pretty laid-back bunch, and we tend to let beings like yourselves live or die as they see fit. But not everyone in the GALAXY feels the same way we do.”

The chair I was sitting in squeaked when I sat up in it. I wondered whether that would show up on the telecast. If there were a telecast.

“Here is the warning.” She leaned forward and her huge head completely filled the monitor. “Attention! Are you listening? There are certain beings on other PLANETS who are seriously pissed by your belligerence and stupidity. If you kept it to yourselves, they would probably leave you to your own devices. But now you’re sending out feelers to other WORLDS as well. They call themselves the “bullocks.” But for simplicity’s sake, and to give them a name you can understand, let’s call them the “badguys.” These beings are worried that you’re going to contaminate the whole GALAXY with your cruelty and greed.”

The cameraman glanced at the guy in the suit, who shrugged and nodded to keep rolling.

Fled sat back a little. “Let me tell you something about the badguys,” she went on, a little less stridently. “Mercy is an alien concept to them. If they chose to do so, they could be here tomorrow morning at 5:30 a.m., and by noon your entire species could be selectively infected with an organism that you won’t know how to deal with for countless millennia. You’d all be history by midnight. Hello? Do you understand what I’m telling you? If they decide to come here, notasinglesapienswouldsurvivetheday.”

She paused again. The message had obviously sunk into Prissy’s head, at least; her eyes were wide and her mouth gaping. “Here’s the second part of the warning: you don’t have much time left to avoid this fate. They have given you another fifteen years. If nothing has changed by the year 2020, you can say good-bye to the UNIVERSE, because you will disappear from it and never be heard of again. No more kfc, no more super bowl—you dig? And the meeker beings of the EARTH will finally inherit it.

“By now, the wiser sapiens among you are asking themselves two things: first, how do we know this alien is telling the truth? Do we take her words on faith? Well, for an illogical species, that’s a reasonable question. Perhaps you will accept the disappearance of 100,000 people when I return to K-PAX as an indication that I know what I’m talking about.

“Your second question is, or ought to be: what can we do to convince the badguys that we’re willing to turn things around? Another good one! It’s a start! And here’s the answer: prot sent a list of suggestions. But in order to prove your sincerity, I need an invitation from your united nations to bring them to the attention of all human beings everywhere. And I’ll need this invitation in time to speak to that forum before our departure. That will occur in exactly—she checked an imaginary watch—six days, twelve hours, thirty-two minutes, and—uh—some seconds.”

She turned back to the host. “That’s it. End of warning. Thank you so much for having me on your program.”

Prissy feverishly checked over her notes, but there was nothing there to cover this situation. Nor was the producer/director any help. Finally she asked, her eyes feverishly bright again, “Will these other aliens be able to have sex with us?”

Fled got up and left, and I didn’t see her anymore that day. No one said anything, and no one followed her out, including me. But the TV crew wasn’t finished. Having interviewed fled, the director had evidently concluded that talking with some of the “other patients” might appeal to the viewers, and he’d better seize the opportunity while he could. Another interview was quickly set up with Howard (who had been found skulking in the shadows). A second “host” had materialized by then, and he wanted Howard to describe what sex was like with an alien chimpanzee. The toad man enthusiastically complied with the request, which, if telecast, would surely have to be thoroughly bleeped. Then came Charlotte, followed by some of the others, including Jerry, who was still complaining about his lost talents, and whose bit, I was sure, would never make the cut because of the implication that “normalcy” might not be as wonderful it was cracked up to be. I didn’t watch all of these, but I learned later that Cassie had been a big hit—at least with the crew, who sought her out for stock market predictions—and Darryl’s impossible dream of teaming up with Meg Ryan came across as very moving. Apparently many people share such secret fantasies, a good number involving Ms. Ryan herself.

I didn’t get home until late that night. Halfway there I realized I should have stayed over at the hospital, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to turn around and go back. I wish I had.

* * *

Dartmouth and Wang were waiting in the dark for me, and they weren’t happy. But it wasn’t about the TV show, which they apparently weren’t aware of. As fled’s departure date drew closer, the number of hits on her website was increasing exponentially (how she could field the huge number of inquiries was a mystery to me, if not “the boys”). And there was a disturbing trend: more and more people were not only ruining the economy with their dietary choices, but were also re-thinking their religious views, reconsidering whether they were worth the price—remaining on Earth.

“We simply cannot let this happen. Giving up meat is one thing,” he seethed, “but if people start to renounce their beliefs, they’re going to start thinking for themselves instead of doing what they need to do. Do you realize what this means, sir? It means we can no longer depend on them to buy our products. Fight our wars. They might not even understand the joy of manual labor. It would be chaos! What kind of world would we have then?”

“Who is ‘our’?”

He stared hard at me and grunted, “We need to talk to her.”

“So do I,” I said. “But we’ll both have to find her first.”

“Find her?” he snarled.

“I’ve told you before: I can’t control her movements, even within the hospital.”

“Friday midnight,” he commanded. “Here.”

“All I can do is ask her. I can’t promise anything.”

Wang sighed meaningfully. “Dr. Brewer, we’ve been nice to you so far, haven’t we?”

“Well—”

“You’re aware, of course, that things can get very rough when our national security is at stake….”

I guess I was too tired for this discussion. “I said I’d tell her!” I shouted. “If she doesn’t come, there’s nothing I can do about it!”

He repeated coldly, “See that she’s here on Friday at midnight.” They turned in unison and marched out the driveway.

I headed for the house.

“Have a nice day!” I heard Dartmouth call out (it was already past ten p.m.).

Karen was waiting in the kitchen for me. When I came in she inquired, “Who were you speaking to out there?”

We both laughed until we cried.

* * *

I don’t know whether or not it had anything to do with the boys, but that night I dreamed my editor called. He had decided not to publish the fourth, and possibly the final, volume of the K-PAX saga. J.D. Salinger had come up with a three million-word novel/essay/autobiography/screenplay/short story/poetry collection, and everyone in the entire publishing house would be busy with that for many years.

I was awakened, thrashing and snorting, at 5:00 a.m. by the telephone. Karen answered it and handed it to me. It was Smythe, reporting that the British magazine article, the one announcing to the world that fled was pregnant, had appeared on the racks in Great Britain the previous afternoon, today in the U.S. “Sorry to bother you,” he apologized cheerfully, “but I thought you’d want to know it’s already sold out over here and we’re rushing another edition into print.”

“Couldn’t this wait until later?”

“I thought you might also want to know that the calls and e-mails are already coming in, and they’re two to one in favor.”

“In favor of what?”

“Of the pregnancy.”

“What are you talking about?”

“We expected a lot of protest letters about the mixed sex thing, but most of the people who wrote in simply asked when the baby was due, what sort of gift should they send it and all that.”

“Ah, motherhood.”

“Fatherhood, too.”

“You mean they wanted to know who—”

“Yes, of course. We’ve got dozens of men already claiming to be the father. And that’s just the beginning. The bloody article only just came out!”

“You’re saying that they’re all trying to—”

“Not exactly. I think she might actually have had sex with the lot of them.”

“How is that possible?”

“She seems to get around.”

“What next?” I wondered rhetorically.

Smythe answered anyway. “The naming contest. It was the biggest hit of the whole article. In another month we’ll have our winner. Do you think fled will still be around then? She could make a fortune on the worldwide talk-show circuit until the time she delivers her—uh—whatever it is. It’s going to be the best-selling issue (pardon the pun) we’ve ever had, bigger than John and Yoko, even. Remind me to send you a jar of piccalilli or something.” He went on for a while about the raise and promotion he would be getting. Before he hung up he asked me: “Are you expecting any more visitors from K-PAX?”

“Who knows?”

“I hope you’ll give me first crack at him. Or her….”

“Better make that two jars of piccalilli,” I yawned. He giggled hysterically before finally hanging up.

I tried unsuccessfully to go back to sleep. One thing was certain: if another visitor came, someone else would have to supervise their comings and goings. I finally got up at about seven and went out to get the paper. Wang flashed his badge and handed me the Times. There was no sign of Dartmouth. “Don’t you guys ever sleep?” I asked him, annoyed but genuinely curious.

“That’s classified,” he replied. “But I can tell you this much: sleep is a sign of weakness.”

“I must be very strong,” I said. “I can’t sleep, either.”

He stared back without comment.

“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.

Anyway, I asked some of the patients why they were so eager to see her again, expecting them to say she was going back to K-PAX soon and they wanted to be first in line. But it was more than that. Part of it was the motherhood thing, and part was her television interview. They didn’t like the host’s grilling her about who she’s had sex with, or who was the father of her child. Beyond that, they were concerned that there may be some Badguys who were watching us from afar, ready to step in when we got completely out of hand, and they thought she might be able to do something about that. The fact is, I think they gave a fuck.

Whatever the reasons, they wanted her back. And so did I. There were innumerable things I wanted to talk to her about. For example, I hadn’t had the chance to warn her that Messrs. Dartmouth and Wang might want to see her at midnight on Friday in order to perform classified acts on her to keep her from leaving the Earth with 100,000 Earth people, particularly if any of them were American citizens who were planning to diminish the GDP. In fact, I had come to believe that these agents of the government would stop at nothing to hold on to the beliefs and values they (us?) held dear.

As far as the patients were concerned, I desperately wanted to give her one last chance to talk to each of them. If she could get to the heart of their problems, maybe some would change their minds about taking the long, and perhaps dangerous, voyage with her.

While I was dwelling on this hopeful dream, Rocky came up. “She back yet?” he asked me for about the tenth time.

“I don’t think so.”

“I’m going to get even with her for this.”

“Get even with fled? For what?”

“She said she would look into my head and find out how to help me feel better. She hooked me up to something, all right, but she never told me what she found out. And now she’s disappeared again. That was a rotten thing to do.”

“She what? She hooked you up to something?”

“That’s right. And most of the others, too.”

“What did she hook you up to?”

“I don’t know. Some cone-shaped thing.”

“And she told you it would look into your head?”

“Yes. Why? Did she do something to us she shouldn’t have?”

“Nothing harmful, I’m sure. Anyway, I think she’s coming back, Rocky. At least one more time. But if she does, there’s no guarantee she can do anything for you anyway.”

“Yes there is.”

“What makes you think so?”

“She told me she could.”

Darryl came up. “She told me, too.”

Claire, who had been taking notes on a yellow pad a short distance away, called over. “I’m not a patient,” she reminded me, “I’m a staff physician. But fled said she would help me with some personal problems I’ve been having.”

“I thought you said fled was no more alien than I am.”

“She’s not. She’s just a lot smarter than the rest of you are.”

Barney came up behind me. “You should talk to her, too, Dr. B,” he advised me in all seriousness.

Rick wasn’t far behind him. “She didn’t tell me nothin’.” Translation: she could do something for him as well. By now, almost everyone on the lawn had turned up to assure me that when she returned, fled had a cure for everyone. I didn’t know whether to believe any of them or not, except for Rick.

Or did she mean she could do something for all of them by providing them with a radical change of scene?