The Man Who Fell to Earth

“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.”