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

CHAPTER THREE

The joys of (partial) retirement: Karen and I spent Tuesday morning and part of the afternoon wallpapering the guest bathroom in pastel blue and yellow flowers with dark green leaves.

When I checked my e-mail that evening I was surprised to discover more than a dozen messages requesting information about fled. The following is typical.

Hello,Dr.Brewer!

Ihearyou’vegotanothervisitorfromK-PAX!What’sshelike?Canyouaskhertotakemeandmygirlfriendoncearoundtheworld?Areyougoingtowriteanotherbookaboutthis?

Reasonable questions from interested people. I sent the same reply to all of them:

Howdidyouknowaboutfled’svisit?

A few minutes later the responses started to dribble in.

Itwasonthenews.TheyhadpicturesofherontopoftheEmpireStateBuilding,theEiffelTower,theGreatWallofChina,andsomeotherplaces.

Obviously she wasn’t keeping her presence on Earth a secret. Was she trying to get the attention of the United Nations? Or just showing off?

* * *

I hadn’t seen Jerry, our matchstick engineer, for quite a while, so I came in early on Wednesday for an overdue visit. I found him where he almost always is, sitting beside his latest model, the Manhattan Psychiatric Institute itself, complete with the new Villers wing. Now in his mid-thirties, Jerry has done little else during his entire stay with us except for his amazing creations, which are scattered around not only the Ward Three (seriously psychotic patients) activity room, but on other floors as well.

I didn’t say anything for a minute or two, just watched with profound admiration. His patience and the intricacy of his work are astonishing, all the more so since he has rarely been outside the building except to the big lawn facing Amsterdam Avenue, which allows him a view of only part of the hospital. Yet all the sides—the ones he has finished, anyway—are in perfect proportion, with uncanny accuracy in the smallest details. But I suppose if any of us were to virtually ignore our relationships with other people, as he (and other severe autists) does, who knows what we might accomplish.

He knew I was there, of course. Though he rarely speaks, there were little signs: a desultory humming, an occasional shuffling of feet. Ten years earlier he wouldn’t have paid the slightest bit of attention to me. When I first tried to make some kind of contact with him he almost seemed fearful, and certainly resented the intrusion. More recently, he almost seems to be glad to have me around. Or at least tolerates my presence without noticeable annoyance. Maybe it’s a matter of wearing down his resistance—a point for every visit that doesn’t cause him undue distress. Whatever the reason, he sometimes gives me a hug when I leave him. He doesn’t say anything, or even look at me, but I can often discern a hint of a smile. Whatever he feels about this superficial contact (maybe it isn’t superficial to him!) I feel very good about it. As if it’s a small victory of sorts. I only hope he feels the same way.

When I gave him his brief hug and said, “’Bye, Jer,” before leaving the room, I expected his usual, “’Bye, Jer,” in return. Instead, without taking his eyes off his newest work, he whispered, “Fled.”

“You want to meet her?”

A pause, followed by a vigorous nod.

“Why, Jerry?” I asked him, not expecting an answer.

As if his throat were constricted, he stuttered, “I think she c-can fix me.”

I don’t know where he got this idea, and perhaps he didn’t, either. “But you haven’t met her yet, have you?”

He shook his head.

“Then why do you think she can help you?”

I thought maybe he didn’t understand the question until he grunted, “Howard.”

“Howard told you she can fix you?”

He nodded again.

I warned him that fled wasn’t like prot, who had broken through Jerry’s communication barrier years before. But he knew that already, or didn’t care. The main thing was that she wasn’t human, whom severe autists can often barely relate to. “Sure, Jerry,” I assured him. “I’ll speak to her.” It had been, after all, the first time I could remember him requesting anything other than matchsticks.

* * *

While traipsing around the lawn looking for fled I spotted a couple of patients staring up at the sky. Curious, I ambled over. Rick was telling one of our newest inmates that the sky was actually green, though some people see it as blue. “That’s why grass is green, Barney. It’s just a reflection of the light from the sky.”

It was a mystery at first whether Rick saw things differently from the rest of us or was simply an incorrigible liar. It now seems clear that it’s a combination of both. Regardless of whether he knows he’s lying or not, however, the outcome is the same: no one can believe a word he says. As if he were a used-car salesman, he is the most unpopular of all our inmates. Indeed, most patients are religious about telling the truth, at least their own truth, and they expect the others to do the same. Trust is a very important issue among our inmates, just as it is with the general public.

Prot once suggested Rick go into politics.

Rocky actually goes out of his way to avoid Rick, calling him, simply, “the fucking liar.” Fortunately, for all his bottled-up anger, Rocky has never physically harmed anyone, as far as we know. Otherwise, we would have to transfer him to Ward Four, which houses the sociopaths. One of the former denizens of that floor is Charlotte, whom I spotted watering the flowers along the back wall. A confessed killer of at least seven young men, hers is a classic case of a patient who almost miraculously responded to a new medication, and she is now as docile as anyone here.

While observing Charlotte I was almost tackled by Georgie. With an IQ of forty, which is well below even most autistic savants, his interests are focused exclusively on football. For several frenetic moments at a time he kicks or tosses a ball high into the air, then runs and catches it—over and over again until he is exhausted. The rest of the time he sits and stares at whatever captures his attention: a flower, a brick, a face. Though short and wiry he is nevertheless dangerous at full speed, and the other patients try to hug the walls when he’s active. When he is resting they are quite solicitous of his needs, quite unlike their attitude toward Rick.

The latter was delighted when Barney arrived at the hospital. But the ease with which he is deceived is not the reason Barney is a patient at MPI. Since birth he has never been known to laugh. He’s not suffering from a pathological depression, however, like former patient Bess, for example. In fact, he seems to be reasonably happy. It’s just that he sees no humor in any situation, no matter how silly. As a child he was unable even to smile at clowns, animals in human clothing, simple jokes. He made it through high school, albeit with difficulty, and his family, owners of a prominent dry cleaning establishment in the city, finally brought their nineteen-year-old son to us to see if anything could be done.

Though we don’t usually accept such harmless neuroses, the blank check offered by the family was too enticing to refuse (it allows us to take on a few charity cases as well). His psychiatrist, who happens to be my own son, is stymied, as are the rest of the staff. However, we were given only a limited amount of time to come up with a drug or protocol that might help him find a bit of humor in his life. A life without which, in the eyes of most people, including his parents, is no life at all.

Apparently understanding this sad truth, many of the other patients try to help us out with Barney—making funny faces, doing pratfalls and all the rest. So far, nothing has worked, not even a talking chimpanzee.

* * *

I went in to see Goldfarb. She wasn’t there, but Margie handed me a manila folder containing the information about the proposed television and magazine interviews. I flipped through the few pages inside.

As far as I could see, no harm could come from a magazine article. But the TV show was a different matter entirely. Apparently it was supposed to be a live “reality” show, with the patients going about their usual routines while interviews with the staff would be cut in wherever it was deemed appropriate. It’s true that prot had appeared on one of the popular talk shows, but his segment had been taped prior to telecast and, in any case, his was a very different personality from fled’s. What the hell would happen if this particular K-PAXian exposed herself live in front of millions of viewers? I didn’t like the odds on that. All such considerations would become moot, however, unless she agreed to appear before the cameras. As far as I knew, Virginia hadn’t yet spoken to her about it. That, apparently, was my responsibility.

“Is she here, Margie?”

“Who—Dr. Goldfarb or fled?”

“Fled.”

“I don’t know. Should I page her for you?”

“No, not yet. Any feedback on what she’s been up to lately?”

“She’s spent a lot of time playing on Dr. Goldfarb’s old computer. I guess they don’t have many of those on K-PAX.”

“When will she be back?”

“Fled or Dr. Goldfarb?”

“The latter.”

“You’re already penciled in for lunch with her at 12:30. Is that convenient for you?”

“I guess so. I’ll just call my wife and—”

“Want me to take care of that for you?”

“Sure. Oh, and can you see that there is a bowl of vegetables in Dr. Goldfarb’s examining room?”

She flashed a lovely smile. “Any particular kind?”

“I don’t know. Just have the kitchen send up whatever they have.” I returned the folder to her and headed to the main lounge hoping to find fled. Unfortunately, she wasn’t there. Instead, I found her on the lawn near the front wall, defecating. The patients in the vicinity ignored her. I signaled an orderly to take care of the mess.

When she was finished I motioned for her to come over. Unlike chimpanzees, who run on all fours using the knuckles of their hands, she loped over to me on two. A bit angry at her inconsideration, I started to berate her, only to realize that she wasn’t a child or a trained animal, but an adult obeying her normal instincts. I did, however, suggest to her that, on this planet, we don’t use the hospital lawn as a toilet.

She roared with laughter. “You mean I’m supposed to hold it in?”

“No, dammit. You’re supposed to use the facilities inside, like everyone else.”

“It’s odd, don’t you think, that sapiens are so repulsed by natural processes and not by wars and slaughterhouses and the like?” She wagged her head. “Anyway, the first rain will wash it away.”

“There’s no rain in the immediate forecast,” I informed her. “And we have patients here who might—”

“Oh yes, prot told me there are people here who go apeshit over fecal matter. I can’t see it myself—it must be an acquired taste. But in the future I’ll dump elsewhere. Happy?”

“Delirious. Now how about another little talk? It looks like I’ll be coming in three days a week instead of two.”

“How fun!”

I couldn’t tell whether she was genuinely excited or merely mocking me. But she took the stairs three at a time to Goldfarb’s examining room. “I’m taking the elevator!” I shouted after her.

A very large bowl of broccoli sat on the desk. Perhaps, I hoped, it would take her mind off her preoccupation with sex, at least for the duration of our discussion. We sat down in our usual chairs and she dug in, but not before scrutinizing a stalk and carefully peeling off part of the outer layer.

I had made a mental list of the topics I wanted to cover in the conversation, paramount of which was her promiscuousness. After she had stuffed her mouth with the broccoli I laid down the law. “No sex in this office. Agreed?”

She looked up in apparent shock. “Are you sure? I guarantee you’ll have no problem ‘getting it up.’ Agreed?”

“NO!”

“Okay, coach. But if you change your mind…”

“You’re wasting your time.”

Fled shook her head. “There’s that time thing again. For your information, time can’t be ‘wasted,’ gino. It just is, and there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it.”

“Never mind that. Do we have an understanding?”

“It’s your loss. But I can’t force you—we K-PAXians aren’t rapists.”

“I’m relieved to hear that. Next thing on the agenda today are some invitations we’ve had for you. Did anyone tell you about these?”

“Yes, I saw Virginny not more than twenty-six minutes ago. Sounds interesting.”

“You have no problem with going on a live television show?”

“Why should I?”

“And you would agree to behave yourself?”

“You mean according to human standards.”

“Exactly.”

“Oh, what the hell. I guess I could try to be dull and stupid for a little while.”

“Then it’s okay if we accept the invitation? And for the magazine article as well?”

“Why not?” She burped softly and politely covered her mouth with the back of her hand. “Excuse me,” she whispered politely, batting her eyes. I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.

“Okay, next thing: Uh…” I looked over the sketchy notes I had compiled for the meeting. “Is there anyone in particular that you came to Earth to see?”

“You mean like Robert Porter—somebody like that?”

As usual, she was way ahead of me. “Well, yes. How did you know about—oh, prot told you.”

“Not everything. I read your books in the library. Fascinating.” She paused and stared at me, her mouth full of ground-up florets. “Did you ever decide whether he was from K-PAX or not?”

“Very funny. But let’s get back to the question, shall we? Did you—”

“I heard you the first time. Nope, there are no Robert Porters up here.” She pecked on her cranium.

I had no reason to doubt this. On the other hand, there could well be personalities she wasn’t aware of. “All right, let me ask you this: It occurs to me that I really don’t know much about you except that you’re an orf, one of the evolutionary stages before the dremers, and more specifically a trod, the final step in that process. Am I right so far?”

“Close enough.” She peeled another piece of broccoli, bit off the stem and proceeded to crunch it, baring her teeth and sluicing it around in her mouth as if it were a hot potato. As she chewed, she vigorously scratched her ribs with another stalk. A bit of green saliva dripped from her protruding lips. So much for etiquette.

I tried to disregard her repulsive table manners. “Okay. So tell me the rest.”

“The rest of what?” she mumbled through the macerated vegetable.

“Where you were born, what your childhood was like, what sexual experiences you’ve had, do you have any children of your own—that sort of thing.”

“Ah. You want an autobiography.”

“Well, not minute by minute. Just the highlights.”

“All right, I’ll sum it up for you. Without going into any of the tiresome details, of course….” With a fingernail, she picked at the bits of broccoli stuck in her teeth and facial hair.

“Fine”—I waved my hand impatiently—“please proceed.”

She flung her feet onto the desk and began. “First, we trods aren’t as nomadic as the dremers. We like the woods or, more correctly, the little clumps of trees here and there. There isn’t enough water on K-PAX to support the kinds of forests you still have on B-TIK. That is, if some fernad hasn’t burned them all down overnight.”

“Fernad?”

“Anal orifice. Anus. Or asshole, if you prefer. You know—like your president and his wealthy corporate cronies.”

“Thank you for clearing that up.”

She paused for a moment, apparently deep in thought. “On K-PAX, childhood is wonderful for everyone. All our species interact from the beginning, and none would think of hurting any of the others. I rolled around with korms and homs and— Oh, you probably want EARTHLIKE equivalents, right? Well, we have all kinds of primates, reptiles, insects, every kind of land creature you can imagine, and a lot more. No sea beings though. For that you need a sea. And birds of every size and color. All of us can communicate with everyone else, so we chatter about whatever comes to mind. Your children start out this way, too, equal to and with empathy for other animals, but it’s quickly driven out of them. You tell them the other species are ‘dirty,’ or ‘dangerous.’ But on K-PAX, everyone enjoys every minute of his or her life, you see, without fear of dirt or danger. You probably can’t imagine such a situation, total freedom from fear of any kind, can you?”

I declined to comment on that. “Does everyone speak the same language?”

“Well, some creatures don’t speak, of course. Not in the way you mean. But for those who do, certainly. On EARTH, even the humans have several hundred languages among them. It’s as if no one wants to communicate with anyone else.”

“Go on.”

“So early on we find out what’s good to eat and where to find it, why there are stars and galaxies, where babies come from, and so on. You know—the important things. And of course we learn to share everything. We aren’t taught to take whatever we want from someone else, like certain beings I could spit on.”

“Let’s try to focus on—”

“Yes, I didn’t think you’d want to talk about that. Anyway, on K-PAX it’s different. As I started to say before the rude interruption, as children we spend a lot of our time, together or individually, just sitting and looking at the fields, and the mountains, and the sky, and all the things that are going on there—you know, the totality of it. How it’s all related, and how the littlest thing would change the balance and ruin everything. We absorb that at a very young age. And when it gets dark, which doesn’t happen often because of our two suns, practically everyone on the PLANET lies down and contemplates the sky. It’s probably the most beautiful thing there is. Most of the beings on your WORLD, on the other hand, can’t even see the sky, your cities are so polluted by your streetlights and neon advertising and all the rest. Not that it matters: hardly anyone would look anyway. Have you ever noticed that your fellow sapiens don’t care about much, doc? Except themselves, of course. Not their fault—that’s how they’ve been taught. Anyhoo, on K-PAX we never get enough of the sky. I suppose that’s why we start wandering around the galaxy at an early age—it’s such a natural part of our existence.” She paused to take a breath. “I don’t know which is more fascinating to the children of K-PAX: the sky or sex.”

Ah, I thought. Now we’re getting somewhere. “Your children are interested in sex? When does puberty happen?”

“At birth.”

“Birth?? Good God! And you remember that occasion, right?”

“Of course.”

“Do you recall your first sexual encounter?”

“I remember everything.”

“No lapses. No sessions with a krolodon (a memory-restoring device).”

“Nope. Never needed one.”

“Who was your first experience with?”

“A little boy I knew.”

“Knew? You don’t know him now?”

“I see him once in a while. But he’s not a boy any more.”

“And do you remember him fondly when you see him?”

“Not especially. It was just a brief encounter. Not one of your ‘love affairs.’ We don’t have soap operas on K-PAX.”

“Well, do you remember all of your sexual encounters?”

“Not in intimate detail, I suppose. But basically, yes. Don’t you?”

“No.”

“Pity.”

“And nothing traumatic happened during those early years? Unpleasant? Frightening?”

“You mean sex-wise?”

“Any-wise.”

“Not really. Unless you count my mother leaving me when I was weaned.”

“How old were you then?”

“About one EARTH year, give or take a few weeks. She just got itchy feet, as you sapiens so descriptively put it.”

“And you never saw her again?”

“No.” She stopped chewing for a moment and stared off into space. Thinking about the good times with her mother before she disappeared, I presumed.

“And your later years? Anything traumatic, unusual?”

She snapped back to attention. “Not really. Some extraplanetary adventures, nothing to e-mail home about.”

“Just sex and more sex, is that it?”

“Whenever possible.”

An interesting, if rather distasteful, thought suddenly came to me. “Fled, you don’t have sex with all those other K-PAX species, do you?”

“Well, not with spiders or worms, of course. But with other species, sure. And if the genus is different, there can never be any children to complicate the issue. No pun intended. Didn’t you ever have a biology course, gino?”

“Not one on K-PAXian biology,” I replied, with some exasperation.

“Well, that part’s the same as it is here. And on all the other PLANETS I’ve visited, too. Of course the shoe has to fit before you can wear it….”

“The shoe—ah, I see what you mean. All right, then, tell me: do you experience any pain when you have sex?”

“Are you kidding? Do I look like a masochist to you?”

“Can you tell me why the dremers have that problem?”

“No idea, coach. Why didn’t you ask prot?”

In fact, that’s one thing I didn’t ask him—whether he knew why it was so physically painful for his species. I’ve kicked myself every day for that little oversight. “So you’ve had sex with how many partners? Of whatever species.”

She scratched her head. “Well, let me see. There was oker, and rabo and—”

“Not all the names. Just—”

“Oh, I don’t know—ten thousand, maybe.”

“And with members of your own species? No pun intended.”

“Who knows? A few thousand, probably?”

“Good God. And how many—uh—children do you have?”

“None.”

“None?”

“You’re playing deaf again, gene. You’re a psychiatrist; why do you suppose you do that?”

I chose to ignore that comment. “You mean you use contraceptives?”

She grinned, perhaps amused by my ignorance. “No, it’s just the opposite. On K-PAX, in order to produce children, you need to add something to the recipe that stimulates the fusion of sperm and egg. If you don’t have that ingredient, nothing happens.”

“How fortunate for you. And what is this magic potion you need for procreation on K-PAX?”

“It’s not an ‘potion.’ It’s a fruit.”

“What fruit?”

“Sugar plums.”

“And you’ve never had a sugar plum?”

“Once or twice. They’re delicious! But then I abstained from sex with another orf for a while.”

“Does this mean you don’t want any children?”

“No one on K-PAX wants any children, boss, or very few. Otherwise, we’d soon be overwhelmed with adults. That’s a no-brainer, wouldn’t you say? Everywhere but on EARTH, anyway.”

“How old are you, fled?”

“Twenty-three, in EARTH terms.”

“So from the time you were born until now, you’ve had sex innumerable times, and with any number of other species, correct?”

“Pretty much. But why this sudden prurient interest?”

I paused for a moment before asking, not certain that I wanted to know the answer, “Have you had sex with anyone since you’ve been on Earth?”

“Of course.”

I had to ask: “Any humans?”

“A few.”

I paused again before following up with: “Any of the patients?”

“One or two.”

“For God’s sake, fled! That’s one of the rules here—no sex with the patients!!”

“Oh, the rules! The rules! When are you people going to loosen up?”

“Dammit, which ones?”

“I don’t screw and tell. You’ll have to ask them.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“Welcome.”

“Uh… did you happen to have a sugar plum at the time?”

“Not to worry, dear sir. I didn’t bring any yorts with me this trip.”

“I’m glad to hear that. All right—I just have one or two more questions.”

“Ah, your endless questions. Prot warned me about those.”

“Never mind prot. It’s you I’m concerned with right now. You seemed to imply that you had a simple, delightful childhood on K-PAX, full of sex and skywatching. I just want to ask you one last time whether there were any—uh—serious issues back then.”

“Like bathing a stranger in a hollow log with a fallid leaf?”

“Or any other unexplained incidents that have happened to you.”

“None that I can remember. And I have a pretty good memory.”

“Even so, I’d like to put you under hypnosis the next time we meet. That okay with you? Do you know how it works?”

“No, and neither do you. But why the quackery? What are you looking for?”

“If I knew that, I wouldn’t have to look for it, would I? I just wanted to know if there’s anything significant you’ve forgotten.”

“Why would I forget anything significant?”

“That’s what I’m hoping the hypnosis will tell me.”

“Sure. I’ll play your silly little game.” Her head fell suddenly and she seemed to fall asleep.

I had to chuckle at this. “Okay, fled, you can wake up now. We’ll do it on Friday. Will you be here then?”

Her eyes came open slowly. “Is— Is it over?”

“Yes, except for one or two more things. I was wondering whether you’re planning another trip to Congo or elsewhere. Will you be here Friday or not?”

She grabbed another stalk of broccoli and bit off the head. “Let me consult my calendar.” She went for the one on Goldfarb’s desk, pretended to check it. “As it happens, I’m free that morning.” She tossed it back to where it had been lying.

“No more trips until then?”

“Did I say that?”

“Not really.”

“Has my obligation for today been satisfied, then?”

“Not quite. You might be interested to know that the U.S. government takes a dim view of your taking 100,000 people to another planet. Especially if any of them are Americans.”

“No doubt. That’s 100,000 less robots to buy stuff they don’t need, right?”

“Well, it’s probably a little more complicated than that.”

“Very little more. And how do they plan to stop me if I decide to take an American or two? That is, if I can find any who meet the criteria.”

“They didn’t say.”

“Oooh. I’m skeered.” The rest of the stalk disappeared into her maw.

“Let me tell you something, fled.” I waited until the munching had stopped and I had her attention. “The government—maybe all governments—may be bumbling idiots, but they’re dangerous ones, nevertheless.”

“That’s why we don’t have them on K-PAX!”

“Yes, I know. Well, you’ve been warned. Ignore it at your own risk.”

“Much obliged. That it for now, pardner?”

“For now, yes, we’re finished.”

She grabbed another handful of broccoli. “Good stuff, but how about a little more variety next time? See you Friday, doc.” She strolled out of the room, leaving me to wonder about the possible consequences if she tried to leave our planet with 100,000 of us in tow. And, on the other hand, what consequences we might expect if she didn’t show up on K-PAX at the appointed time.

* * *

I joined Goldfarb in the faculty dining room. We usually meet informally once a month or so to discuss administrative matters (I was acting hospital director for a while before she got the job), and she sometimes asks for what she calls my “conservative” opinon. Generally, I look forward to these meetings, especially the food, which is no longer limited to the cottage cheese of my working days. But today the subject was fled, a very wiggly worm in a whole can of them. I was already beginning to re-evaluate my poorly-considered volunteering to “supervise” her while she was on Earth.

“Too late for that, Gene,” she pleasantly reminded me before whipping out the familiar folder with the information about the television and magazine interviews.

The former was to be a full-fledged network pilot for a reality series featuring various settings of interest to the public—hospital emergency rooms, police precincts, military camps, and the like. According to the attached blurb, the individual episodes would attempt to “put the viewer into intimate contact with the raw inner workings of these fascinating cauldrons of human drama.” A mental hospital wasn’t originally planned to lead off the series, but fled’s visit changed all that. They wanted to feature her in the show as a “special guest.” “Such an opportunity is not to be missed,” the info sheet concluded. Nevertheless, the focus of the program(s) would be the day-to-day interactions between the inmates.

The proposal involved setting up their equipment on the lawn for a full day (June 15th, from six a.m. to ten p.m.), with an additional “roaming” camera or two keeping a watchful eye on the goings-on inside. Cassandra was already predicting fair weather for that Wednesday (otherwise the date would have been changed). Although Goldfarb was a bit concerned about the effect the program might have on the hospital’s reputation, especially if anything went wrong, she was also well aware that it could be a great promotional and fundraising opportunity.

Despite the “ad lib” nature of the telecast, two or three members of the staff would be interviewed for voiceover purposes in addition to fled; those details would have to be worked out between our attorneys and theirs. Much of the air time, however, would be spent silently observing the events taking place on the lawn, in the dining rooms and lounges, with supporting background narrative (I had been wrong about the “live” aspect; it was to be “live on tape,” a concept I have never understood). It sounded like another can of worms to me, with all kinds of legal and ethical considerations. Nevertheless, I agreed with Goldfarb that it was an offer we couldn’t refuse. I had nothing to lose, of course; such decisions were no longer my responsibility.

The magazine interview was a different matter. It involved only the reporter and fled. “I want to be in on that,” I said. “I don’t want to find out the hard way that I missed something.”

“Consider it done. And by the way, he wants to come next week.”

After that we discussed the usual matters—old patients leaving, new ones arriving (where are they all coming from?)—and finished with a summary of what I had learned about fled’s visit so far. There wasn’t much to summarize. About all I knew was that she had come to Earth to “study’ its inhabitants, learn what she could from them, and take 100,000 people with her when she departed, the date for which had not yet been determined. And, of course, she had to be the most promiscuous being in the galaxy.

“Try to keep your hands off her,” she advised. I wasn’t sure whether or not she was joking—with Goldfarb you can never tell. “Do you know how many people she’s selected so far?”

“No.”

“Or how many countries she’s visited?”

“I don’t know that, either. All she’s mentioned so far is Congo.”

“Maybe that’s the only country she wants to visit. Maybe that’s the reason she came here.”

“Why would— Ah!” I mentioned Will’s idea that she could have an alter ego living on Earth. “Maybe her alter is from Congo!”

“Slow down, Gene. You’re getting way ahead of yourself here.”

“Could be. But it occurred to me that her alter might be a prostitute. I suspect they have those in Congo just like everywhere else.”

Goldfarb pondered this suggestion for a moment. “Maybe she is and maybe she isn’t. Can you hypnotize her?”

“I’ve already arranged to do that.”

“Personally, I don’t think you’re going to find another Robert Porter in Congo. I think she’s looking for something else.”

“Whatever she’s looking for, the government wants in on it.”

“Which government—the U.S. or Congo?”

“Ours.”

“Try to keep them out of the hospital,” she said.

* * *

On the way out I decided to relax a bit on the lawn before heading home. It was a wonderful day, the kind where the sun was shining brightly, the birds were singing, and everyone seemed to be in very good spirits.

I noticed that Cassandra was wandering around the “back forty,” not sitting and contemplating the heavens as she usually does, so I headed in her direction. Many readers will remember her as an uncanny prognosticator. Perhaps like the autistic savants, she is somehow able to think deeply enough about a single subject to come up with patterns and connections the rest of us miss. In Cassie’s case, she can somehow discern meteorological trends, for example, or extrapolate from past and present events to get a glimpse of what is going to happen in the near future. I wondered what she saw in fled’s. But I knew I had only a few minutes before she retreated into her cocoon, presumably to mull over further developments.

“Hello, Dr. Brewer,” she called out when she saw me coming. “Fine day!” She was neither smiling about that nor apparently even concerned with the weather of the moment, good or bad. It was the changes in store for us that interested her.

“Beautiful. But—”

“It’s going to be like this for another week, and then the rains will come again. For three days. And then—”

“Thank you. I’ll make a note of that. But I wanted to ask you whether you’ve met fled, and what you think of her.”

“I try to keep out of her way, like everyone else.”

“See any patterns emerging from her stay with us?”

“All I can tell you is that she’ll be around for a while.”

“And what does this bode for the patients?”

“It doesn’t bode badly. It will take some time, but she will attract a following, just like prot did.”

“Here’s what I’d especially like to know: do you have any idea whether she’s going to take any of you back with her when she returns to K-PAX?”

“I don’t know how many. Only that some of us will be going along on the trip.”

“Some? How many is ‘some’?”

“I don’t know exactly how many. Several.”

“Several from the hospital?”

“That’s right. Only she won’t be leaving the Earth from here. The lawn won’t hold 100,000 people.”

“Any idea where her departure point will be?”

“Somewhere west of here.”

That didn’t help much. Far enough west and you end up east. “Chicago? L.A.? Japan?”

But she had already begun to get that faraway look, and she wandered off to find a bench. Reluctantly, I took my leave.

On the way home I pondered our brief encounter. She hadn’t told me very much, but at least she hadn’t mentioned anything about government interventions, or harm coming to anyone, which was something I had begun to fear. Of course her prognostications were only good for a week or two….

* * *

The next night Steve called me at home. Actually it was Abby who called and Karen answered, but after a fifteen-minute gabfest she turned the phone over to me. I always enjoy talking to my eldest daughter, who never fails to come up with something unexpected. This time it was a story about Star, who was performing in a school play. One of the scenes required him to cry, and his uncle Fred had told him that an actor doesn’t sob about whatever it is that he’s supposed to be crying about onstage; the trick is to recall some other sad moment in his life. Anyway, the sad event he had decided to think about for his lachrymal outburst was the death of our former canine companion, Shasta Daisy. He had watched her health deteriorate until she was nearly blind and deaf and unable to walk very well. We had talked about her impending demise at the time, and he seemed to understand that death was a necessary part of life. The good news was that Shasta had lived a long and happy one, and she would die quietly, without a whimper, with Karen and me at her side.

Nevertheless, he had wept for two days after we had her put down. It was this time period that he thought about during his performance. It worked, too. Onstage he bawled like a baby, to much critical acclaim. I could understand how he felt. I, too, get choked up whenever I think about Shasta’s leaving us with such great dignity.

Freddy, who caught Star’s final performance, thinks his nephew might have a great future in the theater. Of course I’m still hoping he’ll think about psychiatry as a profession. That’s one of the joys of parenthood (and grandparenthood): seeing how the lives of the people you love turn out.

Abby herself was as busy as ever with the many volunteer programs that constitute her repertoire. My lovely daughter continues to fight for everyone who is downtrodden or in need, including battered women and children and all the unwanted animals at the local shelter. If she had her way, spaying and neutering of all pets would be a federal law, soon followed by a similar requirement for abusive parents and spouses. After that familiar diatribe she finally turned me over to Steve.

He was not in a good mood. “When can Ah talk to fled?” he demanded.

“As soon as I have time to ask her about a meeting with you,” I replied, as calmly as I could, “and as soon as she has time for it. I don’t think she came to Earth just to visit with you, Steve. She seems to have her own agenda. Right now I think she’s in Africa.”

“All Ah need is an hour or two, Gene. Who knows how the Earth might benefit if she could just answer a few simple questions.”

“I don’t think she came to help out the Earth. She just wants to study us. Like she was an entomologist and we were bugs.”

“Could you just find time to ask her? If she doesn’t want to talk to me, well, okay.”

“As soon as I get an opportunity, Steve.”

“Thank you. Ah appreciate that.” The phone clicked in my ear.

I like my son-in-law, but sometimes he can be a bit obnoxious. On the other hand, I could see his point. This could be a twice-in-a-lifetime opportunity for him (his brief conversation with prot had catapaulted him into the chairmanship of his department). He wasn’t planning to make a lot of money on a meeting with fled, after all, he just wanted to get the answers to some very important questions. Perfectly understandable. There was a time when I would have tried as hard as he does to get them.

Is that what getting old is about? Do you just lose interest? I don’t yet know the answer to that, but, like all of us, I suspect I’ll find out soon enough.