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

CHAPTER ONE

On a lovely spring day in 2005, while I was answering some e-mail, there came a knock at the back door. Actually, it was more like someone was banging on it. Flower ran from the study, barking as usual (she even barks at falling leaves). Karen was out doing some shopping, and I thought it was probably her standing there, arms full of grocery bags. I left a note unfinished and hurried to open it. But when I looked through the window in the upper part of the door I saw something so strange, so unbelievable, that I froze, unable to turn the knob. I attributed the apparition to some ordinary portobello mushrooms (i.e., not the psychedelic kind) I had eaten the previous evening. I love the things, but they sometime make me feel a bit peculiar and see things a little off-kilter.

The hairy creature standing outside stared grotesquely in at me. I stared back. Finally she yelled, over Flower’s barking, “I have a message from prot!”

Still stunned, I opened the door a crack. That was all she needed. With an enormous foot she barged her way into the kitchen and gazed around with interest, as if we weren’t even there. Flower, for her part, gave her a good sniffing and ran hopefully to get a toy to play with, as she does with every visitor we have. I couldn’t help but notice that this one was wearing nothing. Finally she looked at me with her huge black eyes and said, “Prot told me you would put me up.”

I managed to squeak, “Put you up?”

“That’s what he said. It means you will give me food and some space in your dwelling for a while.”

“I know what it means.”

“Well?”

“All right, all right—I’m thinking about it.” She was literally covered with hair. Except for her face, and even that was quite fuzzy. She resembled more than anything else a large, talking chimpanzee. “Are you from K-PAX?”

“Of course I’m from K-PAX. Otherwise I wouldn’t know prot, would I?” She spoke quite loudly and very fast, much faster than prot. It was hard to keep up with her.

Despite her hirsute appearance and somewhat belligerent manner, I found myself drawn into the conversation whether I liked it or not. Apparently K-PAXians of whatever nature had this effect on people. “Not necessarily,” I countered. “You could have met him on one of the other planets he has visited.”

Flower came back with her squeaky rabbit, which this… being… grabbed and tossed into the living room. “Not likely. He’s retired from traveling, remember? Says he’s seen enough.”

“So he sent you.”

“I didn’t say he sent me, you doofus. I said he sent a message.”

At this point Karen drove up. I told our new guest to make herself at home, that I would be right back, explaining, “I have to help my wife with the groceries.” Of course I also wanted to prepare her for what she would find inside. Our visitor stared out the window for a moment—evidently she had never seen anything as primitive as a motor vehicle—before shrugging and wandering on into the house, Flower following eagerly with her toy.

I ran outside. Karen was already opening the car door. “Just a minute!” I yelled.

“What? What’s the matter?”

“There’s something I need to tell you.”

She got out of the car. “Fine, but help me with the groceries first, will you?”

“We have another visitor from K-PAX.”

She seemed amused. “Really? Who is it this time—prot’s mother?”

“She’s not related to prot, as far as I know. I don’t think she’s even the same species.”

“No kidding! Well, help me with these bags and let’s go in and meet her.” I should mention here that nothing on Earth fazes my wife. Even something from a different galaxy, forty feet tall and with seventeen eyes, would have to work hard at it.

I grabbed a couple of sacks and started toward the door. There was no point in trying to describe the alien creature. She would see for herself soon enough. “I should warn you—she seems a bit more outgoing than prot.”

“How refreshing.”

We set the groceries down on the kitchen cabinet. Karen looked around. “Well, where is she?”

“She must be in one of the other rooms.”

“This isn’t one of your mushroom dreams, is it?”

“I have a feeling I’m going to wish it were.”

At that point our visitor reappeared, Flower at the heels of her huge feet. “Why do you need all those rooms?” she demanded.

“Because we have a big family.”

“Oh, yes. Prot told me about your attachment to ‘families.’ Very peculiar, don’t you think?”

My wife was still unflapped. “What should we call you?”

“Call me ishmael.”

Neither of us responded.

The ape-like creature burst into laughter, or what passes for laughter in her species: a piercing, hoot-like giggle. “He said you had no sense of humor! Actually, my name is ‘fled.’”

We stared some more.

“You were expecting someone else?”

Karen said, “We weren’t really expecting anyone. But please—sit down. Are you hungry? Has Gene shown you the facilities?”

“No, but if you mean the excrement catchers, I found three of them. Isn’t one enough? And yes, of course I’m hungry. I haven’t eaten in months. Your months, of course.”

“Of course,” I murmured dismally. I was already contemplating a long period of disruption, confusion, and possibly even debacle. I excused myself to make use of the facilities.

* * *

While I was sitting there I ran over in my mind some of the ramifications of what I had just seen. K-PAXians seemed to sleep wherever they found themselves and eat whatever was around. So what did she mean by our “putting her up”? Would she want a room of her own or, since the weather was already growing warm, would she prefer to sleep outside in a tree? What did her species (whatever it was) eat? Could we get her to wear clothes, and if so, would she look as silly as a performing chimp? (I should mention that her genitalia, like her face, were not covered by hair, and were quite noticeable.) But, if not, would she be subject to stares and ridicule for running around naked?

More importantly, perhaps: why did she come here? And how long was she planning to stay? I remembered her opening statement: “I have a message from prot.” What was the message—another attempt to get us Homo sapiens to behave ourselves? No, that’s wrong; prot never made such an appeal. In fact, he didn’t seem to care much what happened to us. He was, he said, merely observing the Earth and its inhabitants (see “Prot’s Report to K-PAX” in K-PAX:TheTrilogy, Bloomsbury, London, 2003).

It briefly occurred to me to wonder how we would know whether she really came from K-PAX. But of course she couldn’t have come from here—we have no talking (in the usual sense) apes on this planet, as far as I know. I laughed, hollowly to be sure; I was going around the same circle I had traveled with prot nearly fifteen years earlier (God, has it been that long?). While reaching for the toilet paper, I came to an understanding with myself: this time I wouldn’t fight it. I would just accept her statements at face value and see what came of them.

When I got back to the kitchen our unannounced guest was digging into a large bowl of uncooked kidney beans. Not with those long, hairy fingers, but with her protruding lips. She was obviously enjoying them, washing them down with loud swigs of apple juice. Flower was sitting beside her chair patiently waiting for something to fall, as if our surprise visitor had been living with us all her life, while I tried to take it all in—her rapid movements, the air of self-assurance. It occurred to me that she could take care of herself in any situation. I certainly wouldn’t want to tangle with her.

While I waited for her to finish her simple meal, Karen filled me in on what I had missed. Fled had told her that Robert and Giselle were as happy as gonks (clamlike beings on K-PAX), and that “baby” Gene, almost eight years old now (in Earth terms, of course), was becoming, like his father, quite an expert on the native flora and fauna. He even had a girlfriend about his age, formerly from Ukraine. Oxeye, too, was still fit and energetic at fifteen, having a whole planet to run around in. He, too, had a playmate, another Dalmatian prot had rescued from a pound “nine thousand jarts west of MPI.”

Bess and Frankie were fine, too, though fled didn’t see them much. Bess, our former psychotic depressive, spent much of her time visiting other worlds. As a retired psychiatrist I suspected that this was her attempt to make up for her childhood years tied to the family tenement, endlessly cleaning and cooking for her parents and siblings and rarely leaving the place. But who knows how the mind works, human or otherwise? During prot’s visit it became painfully obvious to me that I certainly didn’t.

Frankie, on the other hand, never did much of anything, though she, too, had apparently been able to shed much of the bitterness she had accumulated on her former world. Indeed, all the hundred beings prot had taken back with him to K-PAX were doing very well. There was a little homesickness, of course, but not one person (mammal, insect, whatever) wanted to return to Earth. Since the publication of K-PAXIII, we’ve (the hospital and myself) received literally thousands of e-mail messages requesting a placement on the passenger list for the next trip to that idyllic planet. Thus, it occurred to me to ask fled, when she finally finished crunching the bowl of beans, whether she planned to take anyone back with her if, and when, she returned.

She sat back and—you guessed it—burped loudly, as though she were a character in some bad movie. From somewhere—an armpit, maybe—she pulled out a small device of some sort. It appeared to be made of a soft metal, or hard plastic, and shaped like a cone. When she set it on its flat end, an apparition immediately flashed into the kitchen. Here, in the dim light, were Robert and Giselle and their son Gene, running naked in a field of flowers and grains among several kinds of animals. The sky was filled with birds, and behind them stood a row of purple mountains. Eventually they headed toward the camera, or whatever it was, waving.

“Hi, Dr. B,” Giselle shouted. “You should come here for a visit. It’s unbelievable!”

Robert added a few words of thanks for my part in getting him there, and finally my godson said something in pax-o. His mother whispered a request in his ear and he repeated, in English, “I want to come and visit you, too!” But it wasn’t like watching a movie. It was as if they were actually in the kitchen with us, except that the walls had disappeared and we were all sitting in the—well, it’s hard to explain. But then something even more magical happened. Giselle stepped up and hugged me! As did Gene and, finally, Robert. Everyone hugged everyone else.

Finally, just before the “materialization” ended, prot appeared, as if in a cameo role. Neither of us said anything, we merely shook hands. I found myself tearing up a little—I thought I’d never see my old friend again.

Then the walls reappeared and K-PAX was gone. Fled stuck the device back under her arm. “Prot said you wouldn’t believe me unless I had proof.” The only thing I had difficulty believing was that they had all been here (or we had been there?—it was impossible to tell the difference). All I could think to say was, “You don’t have another one of those things to give away, do you?”

“I’ll leave this one with you when I go. Until then, I’ll just hang onto it in case I need to use it again.”

“When you go back to K-PAX, you mean.”

“Yes, I will definitely be going back to K-PAX. And to answer your question (I hadn’t asked it yet): when I do I will be taking 100,000 of your beings with me. If that many want to go, of course.”

“A hundred—I presume you mean mostly bugs and worms?”

“No, this time it’s people.”

That I had trouble believing. “Did you say people?”

“Prot told me your hearing was going. I repeat for the deaf among us: I can take 100,000 people back with me when I go.”

“But— But how?”

“Well, I’m happy to see that you’re still curious about math and science, doctor b. It’s simple, really. All I need is a place big enough to hold everyone.”

“You mean… a football stadium or something like that?”

“Something like that. The dimensions have already been programmed, and there’s a comparable place on K-PAX waiting for our arrival. It’s just a matter of setting a time.”

“And may I ask when that might be?”

“Sure. Why not?”

“All right, dammit, what date have you selected?”

“I have reserved six windows for the trip, each about twenty-six days apart, in case we don’t make the first window. Do you think we can gather together everyone who wants to go in three weeks?”

We? I thought. “I haven’t a clue.”

At this point the telephone rang. Karen answered it. It was Will, just checking up on the old folks on a Saturday morning in May. It suddenly occurred to me that perhaps fled might be more comfortable living at the Institute while she was on Earth. They could keep an eye on her, she would be safe, there would be food and a place to sleep, and patients who would be delighted to learn that the “legend of K-PAX” had come true again (though none of them had ever doubted it would).

“Sure,” fled agreed. “I’ll stay where prot did when he was here.”

But I hadn’t asked yet. “You— You can read minds?”

“Of course.”

“But prot couldn’t do that, as far as I know.”

“Don’t tell him I said this, but we trods are a little more advanced in some ways than the dremers.”

“How do you do that?”

“Well, the brain gives off electromagnetic waves—that’s how your encephalographs work. Of course you have to know how to interpret them….”

I asked her a bit apprehensively, “Can you project your thoughts into other people’s minds?”

“Not exactly. But we could influence your own thoughts so you would think whatever we’d like you to think.”

“You could, but you don’t?”

“Spoken like a true homo sapiens,” she snorted, and a glob of mucus (or something) plopped onto the table. “Your governments and your clergy would love to know how to do that, wouldn’t they?”

Trying unsuccessfully to ignore the snot lying on my usual eating place, I got up and took the receiver. “Will,” I said, probably a bit too desperately, “How would you like a new patient?”

“I don’t think I can fit in a new patient right now, Dad, but bring her in, anyway, and we’ll find someone to look after her. Let me talk to Virginia (Goldfarb, the hospital director) about it.”

I promised to bring her in the next day and, for the time being, we left it at that. As for fled, herself, I told her the hospital would “put her up” on condition that she cooperate with Goldfarb and Will and the rest of the staff, quickly adding, “and that you would be willing to meet with my son or another staff member two or three times a week to talk about your visit to Earth and the problems of the patients there” (we needed all the help we could get).

“Seems like a fair exchange.”

For the rest of the afternoon and evening fled slept in the backyard, Flower alternately standing guard and curled up beside her.

* * *

She hooted when we started for the city, presumably at the primitive type of conveyance she was riding in. “You just sit here in this little room, is that it?” she asked me, “and the thing moves along by itself on those little round feet?”

“Well,” I corrrected her, “it’s not quite that simple.” I started to explain how a car operates, but found that I had forgotten most of what I had learned in driver’s ed half a century ago. I did mention, however, that the energy came from the oxidation of refined hydrocarbons, which pushed down on the pistons, and somehow this turned the crankshaft, and then the driveshaft, and finally, through a system of gears, the “feet.”

She laughed again. “And I suppose one of your ‘airplanes’ works the same way?”

“Uh, not exactly. The fuel part is similar, but the propeller or jet engine pulls the plane forward.”

“So what makes it fly?”

I started to tell her, but she interrupted: “Besides money, of course.”

“It has something to do with the shape of the wings. Actually, there are a couple of different theories on that….”

I had given her the stack of e-mail messages I had received from people who had professed an interest over the last several years in going to K-PAX, and she perused these for a few minutes. When we merged into traffic on the interstate, I glanced over at the passenger in the pickup truck passing us on our left. I couldn’t hear anything, but I could see that she was screaming. She turned toward the driver and suddenly the truck accelerated to about 90 mph and pulled away from us. Fled chortled again as she tossed the mail into the back seat. “We won’t need these,” she explained. “It’s a whole new ball game.”

I was still trying to collect my thoughts on how the shape of the wings lifts a plane into the air.

“Never mind,” she said. “I get it.” After a moment she added, “One day I’ll take you for a ride in the sky with me.”

A chill shot up my spine. What effect would that have on the physiology of a sixty-six-year-old human? Even John Glenn had some medical problems with his final trip into orbit. I realized that Karen would go with her in a heartbeat.

“Her, too,” fled promised.

Since we were on the subject of light travel, and not knowing whether I’d ever have a chance like this again, I started to bring up some of the questions I had about cosmology. For example, if the universe recycles over and over again, where did it come from in the first place, and when would the reverse process begin?

She yawned. “That stuff doesn’t interest me.”

Thoroughly disappointed, I asked her what did.

“Life on other PLANETS. EARTH, for example.” (NB: For a K-PAXian, only heavenly bodies are deemed worthy of capitalization. Everything else, including people, are lower-case entities.)

“Why the Earth?”

“Who knows? I’m not a shrink.” She glanced at me accusingly before continuing. “Some of your beings study the biology of your oceans, right? I’m interested in the biology of other PLANETS. Besides,” she added matter-of-factly, “I wanted to come to EARTH before it was too late….”

“Too late for what?”

“Too late to find any sapiens.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. “Is that why you’re planning to take 100,000 of us back to K-PAX with you? To sort of ‘preserve’ us? Put us in zoos, maybe?”

“Not at all. We’re not humans, gino. Prot informed me that most of you want to get off this WORLD. I thought: what the hey? As long as I was here, I might as well help some of you out.”

“What kinds of people will you be taking?”

“If I told you that up front, it wouldn’t be much of a book, would it?”

“What makes you think I’m going to write a book about your visit?”

“You can’t help yourself!”

“Well, what about you? Aren’t you writing a report about us?”

“Nope. Most K-PAXians know all they care to know about you.”

While she gazed at the suburban landscape, I thought: how could she possibly determine which of us to take out of so many possibilities?

“Well, you can eliminate anyone with a cell phone in her ear, for example.”

We “talked” on about prot and Robert and Giselle, and I learned that my namesake was going to have a little sister in a few months. “That must be quite a rarity on K-PAX,” I noted. “Given your reluctance to have—uh—sexual relations.”

“Oh, that only applies to the dremers. And a few other species. The rest of us can’t get enough of it.”

I changed the subject. “When you got here, you said you had ‘a message from prot.’ What was it?”

“Nine suggestions.”

“Nine?”

“Yes, nine, o deaf one.”

“What are they?”

“Prot advised me not to tell you until later.”

“Why not?”

“He thinks I should tell everyone at the same time.”

“You mean go to the UN?”

“Unless there’s something better.”

“That’s awfully ‘science fiction,’ don’t you think?”

“Except in sci-fi they never make it to the UN.”

The city of New York came suddenly into view. “Whoa!” she exclaimed. “It’s just like prot said. Except that the world trade center is gone now, of course.”

I shrugged defensively. As we were crossing the George Washington Bridge I began to think about fled’s visit and what we might learn from her. I didn’t want to screw it up and find myself remembering to ask her something after she had gone.

Despite her brusque nature she must’ve felt a little sorry for me. “Okay, gene,” she sighed. “I’ll answer one question about cosmology. What will it be?”

There were so many that I had to ponder for a minute or two. Finally, I came up with: “Is there a Grand Unification Theory?”

“You mean to resolve the apparent dichotomy between relativity and quantum mechanics.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“You mean no one will ever—”

“Forget quantum mechanics and superstrings. It’s all fantasy. Mathematical farting.”

There was only one appropriate response to that. “You would know.”

As we turned onto Amsterdam Avenue she told me, “Albert lives on K-PAX. As a ‘hologram,’ of course. He’s still mad at himself for wasting so much of his time on Earth with the GUT, as you call it. A fascinating guy with a childlike curiosity. He’s great pals with Wolfgang.”

“Mozart?”

“No, you twit. Wolfgang Schwartz, the physicist.”

“Oh.” I wanted to hear more, but we were almost to the Manhattan Psychiatric Institute. “And Robert Porter’s father—is he there, too?”

“Oh, yes. Rob talks to him all the time.”

I parked illegally right in front of the hospital and hustled fled past the gate and into the building as quickly as possible, informing Officer Wilson that I had an emergency case to admit. The elderly guard’s mouth was still open when we hurried inside.

Fled was far more demonstrative than prot had ever been. She waved and smiled (at least I think it was a smile) at everyone milling on the lawn or in the main (first-floor) lounge. A few of the inmates waved back, including Phyllis,* who thinks she is invisible, but most of them seemed confused by what they were seeing. A couple of the patients tried to follow us into the elevator (fled was greatly amused by this contraption), but I admonished a bug-eyed nurse to take them back to what they had been doing.

Goldfarb knew who was coming, but even she was shocked by the appearance of our guest. Nevertheless, she managed to return fled’s grin and offered a hand, which our newest visitor enthusiastically shook. Evidently fled had been coached by prot on the proper protocol with respect to introductions.

After we had all sat down and fled was gawking at everything around her, I put it right to Virginia: did she have someone to look after prot’s K-PAXian friend? I presumed Will had spoken to her about the matter. By now she had regained her composure. “I was thinking you might take care of fled.”

It hadn’t even occurred to me that she would come up with this nutty idea, and I told her so. I protested further that I was retired, and didn’t even live near the city anymore. Goldfarb wasn’t daunted. She’s never daunted. “That’s precisely it. No one on the staff has room for another patient. You do, and you come in once a week anyway just to hang out and get in everyone’s way. Why not do something useful while you’re here?”

* As always, the names of the patients have been changed to protect the anonymity of their families.

“What about—?”

“Your son has more than he can handle. So does Chang and Menninger and Rothstein and Rudqvist and Roberts. We have more patients than we’ve ever had, and none of them seems to want to leave. They’re all waiting for someone from K-PAX to come and get them. And who knows more about alien visitors than you do?”

My last feeble defense: “I don’t have an examining room.”

“You can use mine. It has a separate entrance and I don’t have that many patients anymore.”

She had me and she knew it. And the truth is, I rather missed the direct interaction with the residents of MPI, though, technically, fled wasn’t a patient. “I’ll have to clear it with Karen.” But I knew my long-suffering wife would have no objection to getting me out of the house a couple of days a week.

When I turned to see how fled was taking all this, I found that she had fallen asleep again, her feet curled around the legs of her chair.

I whispered to Virginia, “We’re going to have to do something about the front gate. If people see a large chimpanzee loping around the lawn they’re going to think this is a zoo.”

“I’ll take care of it,” she promised.

* * *

As usual when visiting the hospital I decided to have lunch in the faculty dining room. Several of the staff psychiatrists were there and they greeted me warmly when I came in. I thought that rather odd, as I had been showing up fairly regularly almost since my retirement. It turned out that they were all relieved and happy that I had taken fled off their hands and they didn’t have to deal with her.

I sat down with our two most recent arrivals, Cliff Roberts and Hannah Rudqvist. The latter had arrived only three weeks before, on a sabbatical leave from the Karolinska Institute to work with Ron Menninger. (As part of an international exchange, Arthur Beamish was on leave in Stockholm for the year. Carl Thorstein, incidentally, left the Institute for good four years ago.) I didn’t yet know Hannah very well, but I wasn’t especially fond of Cliff, the hospital’s only African-American staff psychiatrist, who seemed to personify the unappealing self-centeredness of the younger generation of whatever race or ethnic origin. He was rumored to be a womanizer as well. On the other hand, he was a bright young doctor who had taken on some of the institute’s most difficult patients, including Howard, “the toad man of Milwaukee,” and Rocky, who cannot forget a slight, regardless of how miniscule, until an apology is made or revenge taken.

As do most psychiatrists, Hannah has her own little neuroses, and for reasons of her own, blushed when I sat down. In an attempt to put her at her ease, I asked her about invisible Phyllis, who is one of her responsibilities. Phyllis’s affliction, though rare, does occur occasionally, and it’s a difficult one for both patients and staff. If someone comes up and stares right into her eyes, for example, or punches her on a shoulder, she is convinced that the offender is merely looking at himself in a mirror, or shadow-boxing, or whatever. As with most delusionals, nothing can persuade her of the unreality of her situation. I mentioned that Phyllis seemed to wave at fled when we came in.

“Maybe you could get your monkey friend to help us out with her,” Cliff interjected brightly. Obviously he already knew something about our alien visitor.

“I’ll check with her, but I think it’s a little early to know whether she has the same chairside manner as prot. In fact, she seems to have different interests entirely.”

“That’s too bad,” he said. “I was hoping she could do something about our ridiculous workload.”

Another reason I didn’t like Cliff: he seemed more interested in his own personal well-being than in helping the patients. I noticed that his teeth could use some work, too. Perhaps I would ask fled if she had any interest in dentistry….

But a light seemed to click on in Hannah’s head. “Perhaps she knows fled can see her!” she exclaimed. (Though her English was flawless, she spoke with a lilting Swedish accent.) “Maybe Dr. Roberts is right: maybe we can get Phyllis to tell your new patient what troubles her!”

I pointed out that fled was a visitor from a faraway planet, and not a new patient. But Hannah was undeterred, and her enthusiasm was infectious. I was starting to get that feeling I had whenever I talked with prot. What could fled do for us, for the patients—for the world—that we couldn’t yet imagine?

At this point Ron Menninger and Laura Chang pulled up chairs. Both tried to speak at the same time. Ron finally gave way to his more persistent colleague. “Will you ask her to speak with Claire?” she pleaded. “Sometimes I think I’ve gotten somewhere with her, and the next thing I know we’re right back to square one.”

“Yes,” Menninger piped up,” and Charlotte has suddenly gone into a deep depression for no discernible reason.” Anticipating my next question, he added, “No, it’s not a side effect of her medication, which she’s been taking for some time. But all of a sudden she doesn’t seem to care about anything. I think she’s just lonely.”

“And Jerry,” Chang interjected. “Prot got through to him. Maybe fled can, too.”

“Hey, take a number!” Roberts shouted out. “Let her take a look at Rocky first!”

“Whoa!” I said. “Slow down! Give me a chance to talk to her. She may not want to practice Earth-bound psychiatry. She’s only here to study turtles and trees, as far as I can tell.”

They all backed off for the moment, but I knew they would be waiting impatiently for a verdict, and considerable help, from fled. And who can blame them? The Manhattan Psychiatric Institute takes only the most difficult patients, often those that other mental hospitals have given up on. Many have been here for years. I, too, hoped with all my heart that fled could relieve them of their suffering, help bring a measure of peace and happiness to their endlessly tormented lives. But that depended entirely on her willingness to cooperate with us and take an interest in their problems.