The Man Who Fell to Earth

Newton smiled back. Actually the new information hadn’t really changed things very much. “I never said it was anywhere but Idle Creek, Kentucky.”

Bowen looked down at the aspirin box thoughtfully. He picked it up, weighed it in the palm of his hand. Then he said, “As I’m sure you already know, this box is made of platinum, which you’ll admit is striking. It is also striking that, considering the — the quality of the materials and workmanship, as the phrase goes, it is a very inept imitation of a Bayer Aspirin box. For example, it’s a good fourth of an inch too large, and the colors are way off. Nor is the hinge made the way the Bayer people make them.” He looked at Newton. “Not that it’s a better hinge — just different.” He smiled again. “But probably the most striking thing about it is that there’s no fine print on the box, Mr. Newton — just vague lines that look like print.”

Newton was feeling uncomfortable, and angry with himself for not having remembered to destroy the box. “And what have you concluded from all that?” he said, knowing full well what they would have concluded.

“We concluded that someone had counterfeited the box as well as he could from a picture on a television commercial.” He laughed briefly. “From television in an extreme fringe area.”

“Idle Creek.” Newton said, “is an extreme fringe area.”

“So is Venus. And they sell Bayer Aspirin boxes, complete with aspirin, in the Idle Creek drugstore, for a dollar. There’s no need at all to make you own, in Idle Creek.”

“Not even if you happen to be a freakish eccentric, with very odd obsessions?”

Bowen still seemed amused — possibly with himself. “Not very likely,” he said. “As a matter of fact I might as well end all of this fencing.” He looked at Newton carefully. “One of the fascinating things about it is that a… a person of your intelligence could make so many blunders. Why do you suppose we happened to decide to pick you up when you were in Chicago? You’ve had two months to think about it.”

“I don’t know.” Newton said.

“That’s what I mean. Apparently you — Antheans, isn’t it? — aren’t altogether accustomed to thinking as we do. I believe any ordinary, human, detective magazine reader would have realized that we were bound to have had a microphone in your room in Chicago, when you were explaining yourself to Doctor Bryce.”

He remained silent for a full minute, stunned. Then, finally, he said, “No, Mr. Bowen, apparently Antheans don’t think as you people do. But then we wouldn’t lock a person up for two months so that we could ask him questions, the answers to which we already knew.”

Bowen shrugged his shoulders. “Modern governments move in mysterious ways, their wonders to perform. However, it wasn’t my idea to arrest you; it was the FBI’s. Somebody high up panicked. They were afraid you were going to blow the world up with that ferry boat of yours. In fact that has been their theory about you from the very beginning. Their operatives filed reports about the project and the assistant directors would try to decide when you were going to launch it against Washington or New York.” He shook his head in mock sadness. “Ever since Edgar Hoover, that’s been a damn apocalyptic outfit.”

Newton got up abruptly and went to make himself a drink. Bowen asked him to fix three. Then he stood up himself and, hands in pockets, stared for a while at his shoes while Newton was making the drinks.

Handing the glasses to Bowen and the secretary — the secretary avoided his eyes as he took the drink — Newton thought of something. “But once the FBI heard your recording — I suppose you made a recording — they must have changed their minds about my purposes.”

Bowen sipped his drink. “As a matter of fact, Mr. Newton, we’ve never let the FBI know about the recording. We merely gave them the order to make the arrest for us. The tape has never left my office.”

That was another surprise. But surprises had been coming so rapidly that he was getting used to them. “How can you keep them from demanding the tape?”

“Well,” Bowen said, “you might as well know that I have the good fortune to be director of the CIA. In a way, I outrank the FBI.”

“Then you must be — what’s his name, Van Brugh? I’ve heard of you.”

“We’re an elusive bunch in the CIA,” Bowen — or Van Brugh — said. “Anyway, once we had the tape, we knew what we wanted to know about you. And we also determined from the fact of your confession, that if the FBI did pick you up — which as I told you they were on the verge of doing — you might well spill out the whole story to them. We didn’t want that to happen, because we don’t trust the FBI. These are perilous times, Mr. Newton; they might have solved the problem that we’ve been wrestling with by killing you.”

“And you don’t intend to kill me?”

“It’s certainly occurred to us. I’ve never been for it mainly because — however dangerous you could be — doing away with you might be killing the goose that laid the golden eggs.”