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

CHAPTER SIX

We watched the rain dribble down the window in Room 520. “Fled, we need to talk.”

She crunched down on a bunch of carrots. “I’m all ears.”

I couldn’t suppress a laugh.

She chortled, too, and bits of the orange root sprayed from her mouth. “There may be hope for you yet, doctor b!”

“Before we get started, though, just a quick question about a couple of e-mail messages I got the other day.” I related the ones from the Palestinian and Israeli teenagers and asked her what I should tell them.

“Very simple,” she said. “Tell them their governments should refrain from any form of retaliation, regardlessofwhattheothersidedoestothem, for six months. If they find they can’t live without the killing, they should feel free to go back to their plan to wipe each other off the face of the EARTH.”

“You think they should try to wipe each other off the—”

“Did I say that?”

“Not exactly.” We listened to the rain for another moment before I advised her, “You’re making our government nervous.”

“They’re always nervous. Or, more correctly, you’re always nervous. Your government is just a reflection of your own fears and desires, isn’t that true?”

“Well, theoretically, at least.”

“Theoretically? Remind me again: how does a ‘democracy’ work?”

“All right. You made your point. But that’s not what I wanted to discuss with you today.”

“Okay, tell me: what’s bothering them now?”

“They want to know how you read minds. Evidently the military people are very much interested in that.”

“Should I tell them?”

I hadn’t thought of that. “Uh…Uh…”

She reached over and patted my hand. “Don’t worry, gino. I’m not going to spill any beans. Go ahead—send them in.”

“They’re not here right now.” I glanced around the room. “As far as I know. But here’s the thing: they want to bring in a neurobiologist to take a look at you. He’d like to conduct some tests. That okay with you?”

“Love to meet one of your high-powered biologists. Maybe I could learn something from him.”

“Will you be here Friday?”

She went for a zucchini. “If you ask me nicely.”

“What about Congo?”

“Oh, I’m finished in Congo for the moment.”

“For the moment?”

“I’ll be making one last trip to pick up a few traveling companions. Otherwise, I’m off to see the rest of your WORLD.”

“Oh. Okay, I’ll set something up with the neurologist. By the way, the British journalist is in town now, unless the weather delayed his flight. He wants to have that interview with you after we finish here. Any problem with that?”

“Can I fool around with the bloke?”

I sighed—disgustedly, I’m afraid. “Not unless you arrange something with him for later. I’ll be there, too, by the way.”

“When I meet him later on?”

“No, damn it, for the interview.”

“To chaperone, is that it?”

“Something like that. Now before we discuss last Monday’s meeting, how are your plans for the return trip to K-PAX shaping up? Cassandra has been—”

“Have you been on the web lately?”

“Uh—not since yesterday. Why?”

“I’ve set up a website listing the requirements people must fulfill in order to emigrate. If you’re interested, you can check it out at www.K-PAXtrip.com.”

“You’ve got a website??”

“I don’t think there’s anything seriously wrong with your hearing, chief. I think it may be a comprehension problem.”

“I mean, how did you—”

“Why don’t you just check out the site? Save yourself a lot of valuable time.”

I jotted myself a little note to do that. “And what about the football stadium?”

“What about it?”

“Dammit, fled, have you got one lined up yet? That can’t be an easy thing to arrange.”

“Oh, you mean where am I going to get the rent money and all that. I don’t think it’s going to be very difficult. A lot of people are prepared to spend millions of dollars for a trip into outer space. I can do better than that. I can take one of the owners to Mars or Jupiter if he wants, in exchange for a few hours’ stadium rental. No big deal.”

“And how will you advertise this offer?”

“It’s already on the website.” Her eyes fluttered innocently. “Do you think I should mention it in the TV and magazine interviews?”

“I doubt if they’d be available in time. Of course it depends on when you’re leaving….”

“Asap.”

“What’s the rush?”

“It’s depressing here.” Still munching, she stood up, scratched her ribs, farted. The phony demure act had been set aside for the time being, apparently. “Is that all you wanted to talk about today?”

“No. I wanted to discuss the results of the hypnosis we did last Friday.”

The back of a hairy hand flapped against her forehead. “There are results??”

“Yes and no. There’s an affliction called dissociative—”

“Identity disorder. That’s what you accused prot of having, right?”

“That’s right. And I think you may have caught it.”

“I didn’t know it was catching!”

“It’s not. That was a joke.” I shook my head. “You K-PAXians have no sense of—”

“I know it was a joke, you ninny. So who are my other alleged ‘identities’?”

“I don’t know yet. I don’t even know how many you have.”

“I hope one of them is male. I’ve always wondered what it would be like for a guy.”

“I don’t know what gender any of them are. Shut up and let me talk for a minute, will you?”

After swallowing the last of the zucchini, she clamped her lips tightly together and nodded solemnly.

“All right, let’s cut the clowning, shall we? When I put you under hypnosis and asked if there were anyone else with you, someone seemed to come forward. For the moment I’m assuming it’s a ‘she.’ Anyway, whoever it was seemed very timid. Withdrawn, I would say. In fact, she seemed to be trying to hide from me.”

Fled waited for me to go on. When I didn’t, she said, through tight lips, “Are you finished? Am I allowed to speak now?”

“Yes, goddamm it, speak. Doesn’t having an alter ego like that interest you at all?”

“Okay, I’ll play your little game for a minute. Why should it interest me? If you’re right about all these ‘alter egos,’ doesn’t everyone have a few?”

“No.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’m a psychiatrist, remember?”

“Yes, I do remember, and I think you’ve said on more than one occasion that we can never be sure what is going on in someone’s brain, human or otherwise. For all you know, every being on EARTH may have hundreds of these ‘egos’ wandering around in their heads. Eating potato chips, playing baseball, whatever—right?”

“Well, technically, that’s right. However, in the absence of symptoms….” But the fact is, she was absolutely correct. We still know very little about how the brain operates, and in particular, how individual personalities are formed. “In your case, though, there’s a complication.”

“Oh, my god!”

“Look—do you want to discuss this or not?”

“Sure.” She yawned loudly. “It’s fascinating.”

I luxuriated in a momentary glower before moving on. “The fact that you’ve made several trips to Congo suggests to me that your alter ego may be Congolese. She might even be a chimpanzee. What do you think about that idea?”

“Interesting speculation.”

“The question I wanted to ask you about all this is: how do I communicate with her?”

“What languages does she speak?”

“I don’t know. She wouldn’t talk to me. So here’s my suggestion. Actually it’s my son Will’s suggestion: I’d like to videotape today’s ses—I mean discussion—and ask you to watch it. See if you can figure out who your apparent alter is and what she’s trying to communicate to me, if anything. Even a gesture might tell us something. Maybe you can at least determine whether she’s a chimpanzee, an abused human being, or maybe something else.”

“Sure. Tape the hell out of it.”

“Fine. Then let’s not waste any more time.” I went to the camera Will had set up for me. There was a sign hanging off one of the switches, complete with instructions indicating which way to flip it. When I did that, a satisfying whirring sound came from the thing and I returned to fled. She was calmly waiting for me, and in less than a minute she was under.

I had spent so much time worrying about whether I was going to screw up the equipment that I forgot to think about what to do once we got started. “Okay, fled, just relax. Imagine, if you like, that you’re in Congo in your favorite part of the forest.” I waited for a moment. “You may open your eyes if you wish.”

Her eyes popped open. She seemed to be gazing at me, but whatever she was seeing was inside her head.

“Good. Now I’m going to ask your companion to come forward. Just relax and let her come into the room with me.”

As before, fled slumped down in the chair for a second or two. Suddenly, as if noticing me for the first time, she made a little choking sound and climbed down behind the desk, apparently hoping I hadn’t seen her. I got up and quietly peered over it. “Hello,” I said, as gently as I could. “It’s okay—you’re safe here.”

She remained motionless for a few moments before slowly looking up at me. She blinked, but said nothing.

“Can you say something to me in English? Or maybe French? Parlez-vous français?” I waited, but she seemed content to simply watch me from her “hiding” place. “Hello? Can you just say hello?”

She either could not or would not do so.

At this point I took a chance. I padded softly around the desk, my fingers outstretched. As soon as she saw me coming toward her she screamed and covered her head with her hands. I backed away and she stopped, but she was breathing hard and making soft guttural noises. Her eyes darted here and there around the room, presumably searching for an escape route.

Slowly I raised my right hand in the universal gesture of peace. “I won’t harm you,” I promised her. This elicited only a flinch, and an arm came up to ward off any impending blows.

I waited patiently. She refused to move except for a slight rocking motion. There didn’t seem to be much point in going further. Unless— I moved incrementally toward her. Again she became agitated and started to babble something I couldn’t understand. I backed away a few steps and she quieted down a little. I wanted to touch her, but thought better of it. I think I could actually smell her fear. Realizing that this could go on for a very long time, and might be causing her severe distress, I decided to call it off for the moment. “Okay, fled, we’re finished. You can come back out now.”

In a minute or two she began to straighten up. Finally, her eyes came to a focus on me.

“Thank you,” I said. “Now I’m going to count backward from five to one. When I get to—”

“Yes, I know.” She was already back to full consciousness and waiting for me to say something.

I got up and switched off the camera. “Now let’s see if we can get this thing to rewind….”

She jumped up. “Move over,” she commanded. In a short while she held a tape in her hairy hands. “Well, bozo, is there a player in here?”

There wasn’t. She took off and I followed—down the stairs to the first-floor lounge, where a few of the patients were napping or just staring into space. She found an unwatched television set and pushed the tape into the player. I sat down beside her on the nearest sofa and watched it with her. I had seen it all before, of course, but fled hadn’t, and neither had the patients, who began to amble toward the set. As it went on, and her evident alter ego screamed, and later babbled something incomprehensible, fled’s eyes got bigger. So did those of the audience.

“If I hadn’t seen this for myself…” she whispered.

“What is it? Do you know her?”

“No. She’s a young female chimpanzee. Probably from the mountains of Rwanda or Cameroon.”

“Can you tell what she’s saying?”

“Not entirely. She only spoke a few words. Something about her mother.”

“If I could get her to say something else, would you be able to make it out?”

“Don’t know. I’m not familiar with every dialect spoken on EARTH, you know. Or even in Africa.”

“Chimpanzees have dialects?”

“Of course. All beings separated by geographical barriers do.”

“So how do you suggest I communicate with her?”

“Isn’t it obvious? What you need is a translator. Someone who can speak to her.”

Several voices chorused, “Yeah. A translator!”

“And where do you suggest we find this translator?”

“There are plenty of captive chimpanzees who might be able to speak to her. All you have to do is find one of them.”

“You know, that might work! But wait—how do I speak to this captive chimpanzee?”

“There are a few humans around who can talk to chimpanzees. In only one language, but that might be enough.”

“What language?”

“I think you call it ‘American sign language.’”

“American sign language….” echoed our audience.

It sounded like a good idea until I realized: “That wouldn’t help. Your alter ego might not know sign language. Probably doesn’t, in fact.”

“No, you dummy. The primary translator would be the chimpanzee who speaks sign language with his guardian, and who also knows the languages of the jungle. Get it?”

“Yes! Why didn’t I think of that?”

“No comment.”

The patients all laughed. “No comment! No comment!”

“Uh—do you happen to know any—”

“Hell’s bells, doctor! Do I have to do everything for you?”

“But there isn’t enough time to find these translators. I can’t travel at the speed of light, you know.”

“Yes, you can.”

“I can?”

“Telephone, e-mail, other electromagnetic devices.”

The audience looked at one another and shrugged.

“All right, I’ll give it a try. Let’s take a break now and I’ll go see if the reporter has shown up. Shall we meet again in, say, an hour?”

“One hour. A twenty-fourth of a day. A hundred sixty-eighth of a week. One sixty-one thousand three hundredth—”

The patients began to applaud. I didn’t wait around to hear the rest.

* * *

When I got to the administrative office I found the British magazine editor waiting for me. Margie had been keeping him occupied. “I always wanted to visit England!” she gushed. “My great-grandparents were born there!”

“Come on over!” he replied with equal enthusiasm, though he was thirty years her senior. “I’ll give you a pub tour!” He jumped up when he saw me, and thrust out a hand. “Smythe,” he said pleasantly, with barely a hint of an accent. The rest of him, however, was thoroughly British—ruddy complexion, handlebar mustache, a tweed jacket and vest, and he carried himself in a dignified manner. “Love your weather here!”

I admired his energy, especially after a long flight and rainy taxi ride into the city. Of course he was younger than I was, I mused, but so was almost everyone I saw these days. I asked Margie whether Dr. Goldfarb was in.

“She’s already met Mr. Smythe. She says he’s all yours!”

“Fine.” I turned to our guest. “It’s a bit early for lunch, Mr. Smythe. But maybe you’d like a cup of coffee before we get started with fled?”

“I’d love a cup of tea, if you have it.”

“Of course. Let’s go to the dining room.”

On the way there I commented on his almost nonexistent English accent. “In fact, you could almost be from the American Midwest.”

“I was born in Indiana,” he confided. “Name used to be ‘Smith.’ Never quite lost my Hoosier twang.”

“How did you get to—”

“I was fascinated by British history in school. All those beheadings and the like. And when I went there, I found the people to be open and direct, unlike the impression most Americans have.” He confided: “They love a good gossip.”

I was beginning to detect a faint whiff of smarm. “Is that why you’re interviewing fled? To get some good gossip started?”

“Not really. We don’t start anything. We just reveal it. Spread it out a bit. One thing I’ve learned in my quarter-century in the business: you never know what juicy stuff is hiding below a person’s surface.”

“Fled isn’t a ‘person.’ She’s an orf.”

“Exactly. That’s part of the idea for the interview. Do orfs have all that juicy stuff hiding below their surfaces, just like we do?”

I could have answered that one, but chose not to. “Well, according to the rules, you’re allowed an hour. Will that be enough to tease out the juicy stuff, do you think?”

If he sensed a hint of sarcasm, he didn’t show it. “Shouldn’t take more than an hour to root ‘er out. I’m pretty good at what I do. And you should have a copy of LifeinGeneral in less than a fortnight.”

“That’s something like our ‘People’ magazine,” isn’t it?”

“Yes, I believe it is. We usually interview well-known people—movie stars and the like.” He glanced around before whispering, “You’d be surprised. They’re the dullest people imaginable. We usually have to work pretty hard to get anything intelligent out of them. Still,” he added cheerfully, “no matter what we come up with, our readers eat up everything we print about their faves. Which is fine with me. Otherwise I’d be out of a job.”

We got to the doctor’s dining room, which was empty. I found the teabags, hot water, and a carton of milk. “I’m afraid this will have to do.”

He seemed a trifle disappointed by the absence of a proper teapot and cozy, but graciously accepted the substitutes and proceeded to solemnly dunk the bag for exactly two minutes before filling the rest of the mug with milk and glugging it all down in one go as if his life depended on it. Spotting a case containing doughnuts and muffins, he helped himself to a few of those as well. While he gorged on these and made another cup of milky tea, I went over the ground rules with him, which had already been worked out between the lawyers. The principle details were that Smythe could tape the interview and we would get a copy of the tape, not a transcript; and that I would be allowed to preview the article for factual errors, but not content, prior to publication. If I insisted on changes—either additions or deletions—in the substance of the story all fees would be returned, though the magazine would retain the option to publish the edited version.

Smythe had no problem with any of this, and cheerfully signed the agreement, as did I. “One question: how did you know about fled?”

“She sent us an e-mail.”

“How did she know about you?”

“I don’t have a clue. But I understand that K-PAXians pick up all our electronic broadcasts. Maybe she reads our zine online.”

I checked my watch. Smythe quickly finished his third cup of tea and we headed for the lounge to look for fled, who had agreed to meet us there. She was speaking with Claire, or vice versa. I politely asked the latter to excuse us, and she graciously agreed. In fact, she seemed to be quite relaxed, a condition I didn’t usually associate with “Dr. Smith.” I wondered what fled had told her—that she would be out of here soon?

Smythe, too, was surprisingly at ease with fled. Of course he had been thoroughly briefed on her physical attributes, and they chatted amiably as we rode the elevator (he was in even worse shape than I—was she being solicitous of his welfare?) to Room 520. He took my place at Goldfarb’s desk, and fled her usual chair. I sat off to the side, planning to observe and say nothing (not a term in the agreement, but tacitly understood).

The first part of their discussion revealed no surprises—fled was from K-PAX; she was a trod, one of the orfs; she came here to study our various life forms; she planned to take 100,000 people back with her when she returned; a departure site had yet to be determined (any owners of football teams interested?); to facilitate the selection process, she had created a website listing the requirements needed to qualify for the journey. Nothing new there. But when fled mentioned her pregnancy I shouted, “What??”

Smythe, for his part, allowed himself a dignified “Yahoo!”

“I’m expecting a child, doctor b. Aren’t you thrilled?”

“You never told me!”

“You never asked!”

“Well, what the hell is he? A chimpanzee? A bonobo? What?”

“You shouldn’t get so excited, gino. Did you take your diuretic this morning?”

“All right, all right. I’m calm. Now will you tell me who the father of your child is?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea.”

“Well, how many chimpanzees have you had—uh—intercourse with?”

“Quite a few. But he could be half gorilla.”

“You had sex with a gorilla?”

“One or two. Or he could be human.”

“He’s human?”

“Could be. Now pay attention. I told you: I don’t know who the father is.”

“But how could you be pregnant? What about the yorts? We don’t have those on Earth, do we?”

“Obviously I don’t need them here. Amazing PLANET, don’t you think? Must have something to do with the way your sperm functions.”

The grin on Smythe’s face was a foot wide. Despite the tape recorder humming on the desk, he was furiously jotting everything down. He didn’t seem to mind at all that I had done half his work for him.

I didn’t hear much of the rest of the interview. When it was finally over (we overshot by half an hour), I told fled, “I’ll speak to you about this later.”

“No doubt,” she replied with a little snort.

I grimly escorted Smythe back to Goldfarb’s office. Halfway there, he decided to head directly for the airport. “This is too good to keep to myself,” he blurted before rushing toward the front door. “Cheerio!” he called out as he departed.

He was right: I wanted to tell someone, too. But not Goldfarb—I wanted to think about it first. It occurred to me to wonder what effect the news would have on the patients. And what Dartmouth and Wang were going to do about it.

As I was leaving the hospital, I met Chang and Roberts coming back in. Laura stopped me. “Claire discarded her stethoscope. I think fled told her she’s going to K-PAX.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.”

Roberts added his two cents. “Maybe she only suggested that Claire retire and forget about psychiatry. Like Gene, here.”

As I passed by the lawn, I noticed that some of the patients had found Claire’s stethoscope and were examining each other’s heads with it. I wished them luck. They couldn’t do any harm, and they might even find something we had missed.

* * *

Karen thought fled’s pregnancy was funny. I didn’t, but her laugh is very infectious. We giggled like children. Then I told her about fled’s website describing the requirements for a one-way trip to K-PAX. “Let’s go take a look,” she said.

On the way to my study she asked me, in all seriousness, “Would you go with her?”

“I don’t know. Would you?”

“No.”

“Then neither would I.”

I found the site. It wasn’t fancy, but it was to the point. She had listed the requirements for the journey, all right. But I almost felt sorry for her: there probably weren’t many people on the entire planet, if any, who would be going along for the ride. Here’s what it said:

ATTENTION!PEOPLEOFEARTH!

FREETRIPTOK-PAX!

SICKOFYOURLIFEONTHISPLANET?WANTACHANGEOFHABITAT?THESHIPISLEAVINGSOON!SENDYOURAPPLICATIONNOW!!!

REQUIREMENTS

1. Vegan

2. Pacifist

3. Musthavenomorethantwochildren(theyarewelcomealso)

4.Preparedtogiveawayanymoneyorproperty

5.Opposedtozoosandallotherexploitationsofnon-humananimals

6.Willingtoleaveallflagsbehind

7.AbletolivewithoutTV

8.Allreligionsmustbeleftatthedoor

9.Senseofhumorpreferred

HUNTERS,CORPORATEEXECUTIVES,ANDPOLITICIANS

NEEDNOTAPPLY

ONLY100,000SEATSAVAILABLE

SENDAPPLICATIONTOfled@mpi.com

(includeGPSco-ordinates,ifknown)

P.S.WANTED:FOOTBALLSTADIUMFORADAY.WILLEXCHANGEFORQUICKTRIPTOPLANETOFYOURCHOICE

“Surely there are a few people out there who can meet these criteria,” Karen observed. “Abby, for one.”

“Do you think she would go without Steve?”

“Probably.”

We giggled some more.

* * *

Normally I have a brief afternoon snooze right after lunch. This time, to my wife’s amazement, I stayed in my study to see what I could find about the use of sign language to speak with the various apes. A number of primatologists have utilized this technique to communicate with certain of their subjects, and have discovered, for example, that they possess considerable language skills, and even the ability to create new words to express themselves when the old ones seem inadequate. Koko, a female gorilla, possesses a Stanford-Binet IQ of 85-95, boasts a vocabulary of about a thousand words, and can understand several thousand more. Moreover, I learned, all of the ape families demonstrate long-term memories, are self-aware, and exhibit rich emotional lives. I knew that of all the animals, the chimpanzees were genetically most similar to humans, but was surprised to learn that even gorillas share a whopping 97% of our DNA. Surprisingly, though, it’s their Asian cousins, the orangutans, who are most like humans in hair pattern, gestation period, and dental characteristics, as well as hormonal levels, sexual physiology, and copulatory behavior. But there is no question that all of the great apes are truly our very close cousins. Literally, in fact, since we both evolved from the same ancestor!

There were dozens of books listed on amazon.com, but I didn’t want to wait the few days it would take to get them. I told my wife where I was going. “Bring me back a good mystery,” she called out. “See if you can get MurderonSpruceIsland!”

If the “boys” were waiting for me outside, they didn’t try to stop me from jumping into the car and zooming off to the library, perhaps because of the rain.

Only three of the books I had found on the Internet were available. I checked out the one that seemed most informative, as well as the mystery Karen had requested. With less than two days before my next meeting with fled, I began reading as soon as I got home, and by evening I had compiled a list of six individuals who were experts on ape communications.

But calling them would have to wait until the next morning. We had dinner guests that evening.

* * *

Just before the Siegels arrived, our lovely daughter Jennifer called from California. She was very excited: the HIV vaccine she had been working on had passed the initial tests for safety and effectiveness, and would be going into larger-scale clinical trials in the next few months. With all that hard work behind her, she and her partner (an ophthalmologist) were planning to come east for a short vacation in July. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t be staying with us long; they would be spending most of the time in Massachusetts, the only state where they could be legally married. Though we talk to her regularly we hadn’t seen her and Anne for nearly two years, and we quickly assured her we would take whatever time she could give us.

But the main reason she had called was that she was wondering what was going on with fled, whom Karen had told her about earlier. Forgetting that the government boys might be monitoring what we said, I filled her in on everything I knew. She listened silently, and when I was finished she posed an interesting question: if fled’s child were half human, would he or she be treated as human or chimpanzee, i.e., would the baby be welcomed by the general public or ostracized as a “freak of nature”? I hadn’t really thought about that, but her point was obvious. Just as children of mixed parentage are considered to be non-white by almost everyone, probably most people would consider fled’s half-human child to be “sub-human.”

But an even more frightening possibility crossed my mind, and I asked her whether she thought that some people—particularly those professing certain fundamentalist religious faiths—would want to harm fled and the child, claiming it to be the “work of the devil”? Privately, I wondered whether Wang and his partner might not reach the same conclusion.

Jenny, always the practical one, advised, “Dad, see if you can get her to leave before that happens.”

* * *

Despite the fact that we shared a granddaughter (Will’s wife Dawn is Bill and Eileen’s daughter), and were nearby neighbors, we hadn’t seen our old friends the Siegels for several weeks, mainly because they had only recently returned from a visit to Poland. “It’s an amazing country,” they informed us. “They are enjoying their freedom from communism tremendously, and are open to all kinds of new ideas. And,” said Bill, taking a forkful of couscous, “the food is wonderful.”

After they had raved about the scenery and architecture, particular that of the many well-preserved and charming old Polish towns, the conversation turned to fled, whom they had only just learned about. I reported, “She told me this morning that she’s pregnant, and that the father may be human.”

Bill stopped chewing. “That’s a little far-fetched, isn’t it? Maybe she’s just pulling one of your legs.”

“What motive would she have for lying about it?”

“Who knows? To get attention, maybe. To achieve a degree of sympathy or popularity with the patients. Motherhood is still a powerful force, even in a mental institution.”

“And it sells a hell of a lot of magazines,” his wife observed.

“Not to mention newspapers and TV programs,” Karen added.

That kind of deviousness hadn’t occurred to me, but it probably deserved serious consideration. I’ve learned never to take lightly anything Bill tells me. It was he, after all, who got me into psychiatry. Then I told them about her website.

“She’s recruiting?” Bill asked, incredulously. “Why would she do that?”

“She says she’s trying to help people who aren’t happy here.”

“But won’t we just screw up K-PAX like we did the Earth?”

“Claims she’s not taking the ones responsible for that.”

“We’re all responsible for that,” Eileen pointed out.

This led, inevitably, to politics (with the Siegels, something always does). They were no more fans of the current administration and the party in power than we were (though none of us were thrilled with the opposition, either). “What we need,” Bill opined, “is a third party.”

“What we need,” countered his wife, “are responsible news media that aren’t beholden to their advertisers. Otherwise a new party, or even a new idea, doesn’t stand a chance. The news has become a form of propaganda.”

“Even so,” I put in, “two parties would be enough if the Democrats had any guts. I don’t know what they’re so afraid of.”

“Same thing as everyone else,” Karen answered. “Losing their jobs.”

Perhaps I shouldn’t have had a second glass of wine, but I found myself telling the Siegels about Dartmouth and Wang, and their theory that the best way to protect us from terrorists is to bug every home in the country. “In fact,” I confidently assured them, “they could be listening to every word we’re saying.”

Bill raised his glass. “To Dartmouth,” he toasted.

“And Wang,” seconded Eileen.

I took part in the toast and merrily carried on. “They suggested that any one of our neighbors could be working for them, keeping their eyes open for the terrorists.” I couldn’t resist the urge to ask, with a stupid little laugh, “You guys aren’t spying on us, are you?”

Bill, who possesses an arid sense of humor, made no response to this, but pulled out a little notebook and jotted something into it. Without putting it away he asked, “What is your opinion on the nuclear weapons programs in Iran and North Korea?”

I hoped he was joking.