The Man Who Fell to Earth

“Yet you’re one of the best educated persons I’ve ever met.” And then, before he could reply, “Yes. I know, you have a freak mind as well.” Bowen stifled a yawn. He seemed thoroughly bored.

“That’s right.”

“And you hid out in some obscure Kentucky ivory tower until you were sixty-five years old, and nobody ever saw you or heard of you?” Bowen smiled wearily at him.

The conception of that was, of course, absurd, but there was nothing he could do about it. Obviously nobody but a fool would believe it, but he had to have a story of some kind or other. He could have taken more pains to create some documents and to bribe some officials to make a more convincing past for himself; but that had been decided against long before he’d left Anthea as being more risky than it would have been worth. Even getting an expert to forge the birth document had been a difficult and perilous business.

“That’s right,” he smiled. “Nobody ever heard of me, except a few long-dead relatives, until I was sixty-five.”

Abruptly Bowen said something that was new. “And then you decided to start selling rings, from town to town?” His voice had become harsh. “You had made for yourself — out of local materials, I suppose — about a hundred gold rings, all exactly alike. And you suddenly decided, at the age of sixty-five, to start peddling them?”

That came as a surprise; they had not mentioned the rings before, although he had assumed that they must know about them. Newton smiled at the thought of the absurd explanation he was going to have to give for that one. “That’s right,” he said.

“And I suppose you dug up the gold in your back yard, and then made the gems with your Chem-Craft set, and did the engraving yourself with the point of a safety pin? All this so you could sell the rings for less than the gems alone were worth, to small jewelry stores.”

Newton could not help being amused. “I’m an eccentric, too, Mr. Bowen.”

“You’re not that eccentric,” Bowen said. “Nobody’s that eccentric.”

“Well, how would you explain it then?”

Bowen paused to light another cigarette. For all his show of irritation, his hand was perfectly steady. Then he said, “I think you brought the rings with you on a spaceship.” He raised his eyebrows slightly. “How’s that for a guess?”

Newton could not help being shocked, but he kept himself from showing it. “It’s interesting,” he said.

“Yes, it is. Even more interesting when you consider that we found the remains of a peculiar craft about five miles from the town where you sold your first ring. You may not know this, Mr. Newton, but that hull you left there was still radioactive in the right frequencies. It had been through the Van Allen belts.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Newton said. It was feeble, but there was nothing else for him to say. The FBI had turned out to be more thorough than he had expected. There was a lengthy pause. Then Newton said. “If I were an arrival by spaceship, wouldn’t I have a better way of getting money than by selling rings?” Although he had thought for some time that he did not particularly care whether they found out the truth about him or not, Newton was surprised to find himself feeling ill-at-ease from these new questions, and from their directness.

“What would you do,” Bowen said, “if you were from, say, Venus, and needed money?”

Newton found himself, for one of the first times in his life, having difficulty keeping his voice steady. “If Venusians could build spaceships, I suppose they could counterfeit money.”

“And where would you find, on Venus, a ten-dollar bill to copy?”

Newton did not answer, and Bowen reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a small object, laid it on the table beside him. The secretary looked up momentarily, waiting for someone to say something, apparently so that he could write it down. Newton blinked. The thing on the table was an aspirin box.

“Counterfeit money brings us to something else, Mr. Newton.”

He knew now what Bowen was gong to talk about, and there was really nothing much he could do about it. “Wherever did you get that?” he said.

“One of our men ran across it while he was searching your hotel room in Louisville. That was two years ago — just after you broke your leg in the elevator.”

“For how long have you been searching my rooms?”

“For a long time, Mr. Newton.”

“Then you must have had reason to arrest me long before this. Why didn’t you do it?”

“Well,” Bowen said, “naturally we wanted to find out what you were up to first. With that ship you’re making in Kentucky. And, you must be aware, the whole thing is pretty tricky. You’ve become a very rich man, Mr. Newton, and we can’t go around arresting very rich men with impunity — especially if we are running what is supposed to be a sane government and our only charge against the rich man is that he’s from someplace like Venus.” He leaned forward, his voice softer. “Is it Venus, Mr. Newton?”