The Man Who Fell to Earth

He took the hand, expecting an affectedly firm grip, pleased to receive a gentle one. “Professor no more,” he said, “but I’m Bryce.”

“Good. Good. I’m Hopkins. Foreman.” The man’s friendliness seemed doglike, as if he were pleading for approval. “What do you think of it all, Doctor Bryce?” He gestured toward the rows of buildings going up. Just beyond them was a tall tower, apparently a broadcasting antenna of some kind.

Bryce cleared his throat. “I don’t know.” He started to ask what they were making here, but decided that his ignorance would be embarrassing. Why hadn’t that fat buffoon, Farnsworth, told him what he was being hired for? “Is Mr. Newton expecting me?” he said aloud, not looking at the man.

“Sure. Sure.” Suddenly showing efficiency, the young man hustled him around to the other side of the plane, where a small monorail car, obscured before, sat atop a dully gleaming track that snaked away into the hills at the side of the valley like a thin, silvery pencil line. Hopkins slid the door back, revealing polished leather upholstery and a satisfyingly dark interior. “This’ll have you up at the house in five minutes.”

“The house? How far is it?”

“About four miles. I’ll call ahead and Brinnarde’ll meet you. Brinnarde’s Mr. Newton’s secretary; he’ll probably do the interviewing”

Bryce hesitated before getting into the car. “Won’t I meet Mr. Newton?” The thought upset him; after these two years, not to meet the man who invented Worldcolor, who operated the biggest oil refineries in Texas, who had developed three-D television, reusable photo negatives, the ATF process in dye-transfer — the man who was either the world’s most original inventive genius, or an extraterrestrial.

The young man frowned. “I doubt it. I’ve been here six months and I’ve never seen him, except from behind the window of that car you’re getting into. About once a week he comes down here in it, to look things over, I guess. But he never gets out, and it’s so dark inside that you can’t see his face, only the shadow of it, looking out.”

Bryce settled himself into the car. “Doesn’t he ever get out?” He nodded toward the plane, where a group of mechanics, seeming to have come from nowhere, were beginning to go over the jets. “To fly… places?”

Hopkins grinned, inanely, it seemed to Bryce. “Only at night, and you can’t see him then. He’s a tall man, though, and thin. The pilot’s told me that; but that’s about all. The pilot isn’t much of a talker.”

“I see.” He touched the door button and the door slid back, noiselessly. As it was shutting, Hopkins said, “Good luck!” and he replied quickly, “Thank you,” but was not sure whether or not his voice had been cut off by the door.

Like the plane, the car was soundproof and very cool. Also like the plane, it began moving with almost imperceptible acceleration, gathering speed so smoothly that there was little sensation of motion. He lightened the transparency of the windows by turning the little silver knob that was obviously for that purpose, and watched the frail-looking aluminum construction sheds, and the groups of working men — an unusual and, he felt, satisfactory sight, in these days of automatic factories and six-hour working days. The men seemed eager, working heartily, sweating under the Kentucky sun. It occurred to him that they must be very we’ll paid to have come to this barren place, so far from golf courses, municipal gambling halls, and other consolations of the working man. He saw one young man — so many of them seemed young — sitting atop a huge earthmover, grinning with the pleasure of pushing great quantities of mud; for a moment Bryce envied him his work and his young, unquestioning confidence, easy under the hot sun.