The Man Who Fell to Earth

  “Our car should be in front of the building,” Newton said. Something that suggested pain was in his voice.

  Bryce nodded. They walked silently through the crowd and then out the doors. The cold air was a relief.

  The car was waiting for them, with a uniformed chauffeur. When they were inside and comfortable, Bryce said, “How do you like Chicago?” Newton looked at him for a moment and said, “I had forgotten about all the people.” And then, with a tight smile, he quoted Dante, “‘I had not thought death had undone so many.’” Bryce thought, If you’re Dante, among the damned—and you probably are—then I’m Virgil.

  After lunch in their hotel room they took the elevator to the lobby, where the delegates were milling about, trying to look happy and important and at ease. The lobby was filled with aluminum and mahogany furniture in the Japanese modern style that was the current substitute for elegance. They spent several hours talking to people whom Bryce was fairly acquainted with—and most of whom he did not like—and found three who seemed interested in coming to work for Newton. They made appointments. Newton himself said little. He would nod and smile when introduced, and occasionally make a remark. He attracted some attention—once the word got around who he was—but he seemed not to notice. Bryce got the distinct impression that he was under a considerable strain, yet his face remained as placid as ever.

  They were invited to a cocktail party in one of the suites, a tax-deductible affair being given by an engineering firm, and Newton accepted for them. The weasel-faced man who invited them seemed delighted by the acceptance, and said, looking up at Newton, who was a head taller than he, “It’ll be a real honor, Mr. Newton. A real honor to have a chance to talk with you.”

  “Thank you,” Newton said, smiling his unvarying smile. Then, when the man was gone, he said to Bryce, “I’d like to take a walk outside now. Would you come along?”

  Bryce nodded, relieved. “I’ll get my coat.”

  On his way toward the elevator he passed a group of three men, all well dressed in business suits, talking importantly and loudly. One of them said, as Bryce walked by, “…not just in Washington. Why, you can’t tell me there’s no future in chemical warfare. It’s a field that needs new men.

  Even though it was Christmas there were stores open. The streets were crowded with people. Most of them had their eyes fixed directly in front of them, their features set. Newton seemed nervous now. He appeared to respond to the presence of people as though they were a wave, or a palpable energy field like that of a thousand electromagnets, about to engulf him. It appeared to require an effort for him to keep moving.

  They went into several stores and were assaulted by bright overhead lights and sticky heat. “I think I should buy a gift for Betty Jo,” Newton said. Finally, in a jewelry store, he bought her a delicate little clock made of white marble and gold. Bryce carried it back to the hotel for him, in a brightly wrapped box.

  “Do you think she’ll like it?” Newton said.

  Bryce shrugged. “Of course she’ll like it.”

  It was beginning to snow….

  ***

  There were a great number of meetings during the afternoon and evening, but Newton made no mention of them, and Bryce was relieved that he did not have to go to any. He had never had any use for that kind of silliness—discussions of “challenges and “practicable concepts.” They spent the rest of the afternoon interviewing the three men who had shown interest in working for World Enterprises. Two of them accepted jobs to begin in the spring—as well they might, considering the salaries that Newton was paying. One of them would work with coolants for the vehicle’s engines; the other, a very bright, affable young man, would work under Bryce. He was a specialist in corrosion. Newton seemed pleased enough to get the two men, but it was also evident that he did not really care. Throughout the interviews he was distracted, vague, and Bryce was forced to do most of the talking. When it was all over Newton seemed relieved. But it was very hard to tell precisely how he felt about anything. It would be interesting to know what went on in that strange, alien mind, and what that automatic smile—that slight, wise, wistful smile—concealed.

  The cocktail party was in the penthouse. They entered from the short hallway into a broad, blue-carpeted room, filled with soft-spoken people, mostly men. One wall of the room was made entirely of glass, and lights from the city were spread across its surface as if painted there in some sort of elaborate molecular diagram. The furniture was entirely Louis Quinze, which Bryce liked. The pictures on the wall were good. A baroque fugue, soft but clear, came from a speaker somewhere; Bryce did not know the piece, but he liked it. Bach? Vivaldi? He liked the room and felt more willing to weather the party for the sake of being in it. Still, there was something incongruous about that glass wall, with Chicago flickering on its surface.

  A man detached himself from a group and came to greet them, smiling engagingly. With a start Bryce realized that he was the chemical warfare man from the lobby. He was wearing an excellently tailored black suit, and seemed pleasantly high. “Welcome to our refuge from suburbia,” he said, extending his hand. “I’m Fred Benedict. The bar’s in there.” He nodded conspiratorially toward a doorway.

  Bryce took his hand, somewhat annoyed by the calculated firm grip, and introduced himself and Newton.

  Benedict was visibly impressed. “Thomas Newton!” he said. “My God. I was hoping you’d come up. You know you’ve quite a reputation as a…” he seemed momentarily embarrassed, “a hermit.” He laughed. Newton looked down at him with the same placid smile. Benedict went on, his discomfiture now gone. “Thomas J. Newton—you know it’s hard to believe you really exist? My outfit leases seven processes from you—or from World, that is—and the only mental image I’ve ever had of you has been of some kind of computer.”

  “Maybe I am a computing machine,” Newton said. And then, “What is your outfit, Mr. Benedict?”

  Benedict looked for a moment as if he were afraid he was being mocked. Which, Bryce thought, he probably was.

  “I’m with Futures Unlimited. Chemical warfare mostly, although we do some work with plastics—containers and such.” He bowed slightly from the waist, in an attempt to be amusing. “Your hosts.”

  Newton said, “Thank you.” He took a step toward the doorway to the bar. “You have a lovely place here.”

  “We think so. And all deductible.” As Newton started to break away, he said, “Let me get your drinks, Mr. Newton. I’d like you to meet some of our guests.” He looked as though he wasn’t certain what to do with this tall and peculiar man, but was afraid to let him get away.

  “Don’t bother. Mr. Benedict,” Newton said. “We’ll rejoin you after a while.”

  Benedict did not seem pleased, but he made no protest.

  Entering the bar room. Bryce said. “I didn’t know you were so famous. When I tried to find you, a year ago, no one had ever heard of you.”

  “You can’t keep a secret forever.” Newton said, not smiling now.

  The room was smaller than the other, but just as elegant. Over the polished bar hung Manet’s Déjeuner sur l’herbe. The bartender was white-haired, elderly, and even more distinguished-looking than the scientists and businessmen in the other room. Sitting at the bar Bryce became aware of the shabbiness of his own gray suit, bought at a department store four years before. His shirt, too, he knew, was frayed at the collar, and the sleeves were too long.

  He ordered a martini, and Newton ordered plain water with no ice. While the bartender was fixing the drinks, Bryce looked around the room and said, “You know, sometimes I think I should have taken a job with a firm like theirs when I got my doctorate.” He laughed dryly. “I could be making eighty thousand a year now and be living like this.” He waved his hand out toward the room, letting his eye dwell, for a moment, on a gorgeously dressed, middle-aged woman, with a calculatedly preserved figure and a face that suggested money and pleasure. Green eye shadow, and a mouth for sex. “I could have developed
a new kind of plastic for kewpie dolls, or lubricants for outboard motors….”

  “Or poison gas?” Newton had got his water, and was opening a little silver box, taking out a pill.

  “Why not?” He picked up his martini, careful not to spill it. “Somebody has to make the poison gas.” He sipped. The drink was so dry it burned his throat and tongue and pushed his voice up a full octave. “Don’t they say we need things like poison gas to prevent wars? It’s been proved.”

  “Has it?” Newton said. “Didn’t you work somehow with the hydrogen bomb—before you went into teaching?”

  “Yes I did. How did you know about that?”

  Newton smiled at him—not the automatic smile, but a genuine one of amusement. “I had you investigated.”

  He took a bigger sip of the drink. “What for? My loyalty?”

  “Oh… curiosity.” He paused for a second, and asked, “Why did you work on the bomb?”

  Bryce thought for a minute. Then he laughed at his situation: using a Martian, in a bar, for a confessor. But perhaps it was appropriate. “I didn’t know it was going to be a bomb at first,” he said. “And in those days I believed in pure science. Reaching for the stars. Secrets of the atom. Our only hope in a chaotic world.” He finished the martini.

  “And you don’t believe those things anymore?”

  “No.”

  The music from the other room had changed to a madrigal which he vaguely recognized. It moved delicately, intricately, with the false implication of naiveté that old polyphonic music seemed to have for him. Or was it false? Weren’t there naive arts and sophisticated arts? And corrupt arts as well? And might that not be true of the sciences, too? Could chemistry be more corrupt than botany? But that wasn’t so. It was the uses, the ends….

  “I don’t suppose I do, either,” Newton said.

  “I think I’ll have another martini.” Bryce said. A nice, unquestionably corrupt martini. From his mind somewhere came the words, O ye of little faith. He laughed to himself, and looked at Newton. Newton sat straight, erect, drinking his water.

  The second martini did not burn his throat so much. He ordered a third. After all, the chemical warfare man was paying. Or was it the taxpayers? It depended on how you looked at it. He shrugged. Everybody would pay for all of it anyway—Massachusetts and Mars; everybody everywhere would pay.

  “Let’s go back in the other room,” he said, taking the new martini in his hand, and sipping it cautiously so that it wouldn’t spill. His shirt cuff, he noticed, was entirely out from the end of the coat sleeve, like a wide and shabby wristband.

  As they came through the doorway into the big room their way was blocked by a small, stubby man, talking in slightly drunken agitation. Bryce turned away quickly, hoping the man would not recognize him. He was Walter Canutti from Pendley University, in Pendley, Iowa.

  “Bryce!” Canutti said. “Well I’ll be damned! Nathan Bryce!”

  “Hello, Professor Canutti.” He shifted the martini glass to his left hand, awkwardly, and they shook hands. Canutti’s face was flushed; he was obviously quite drunk. He was wearing a green silk jacket and a tan shirt, with small, discreet ruffles at the collar. The outfit was much too youthful for him. He looked, except for the pink, soft face, like a mannequin on the cover of a men’s fashion magazine. Bryce tried to keep the revulsion from showing in his voice. “Nice to see you again!”

  Canutti was looking questioningly at Newton, and there was nothing to do but introduce them. Bryce stumbled through the names, enraged at himself for being awkward.

  Canutti, was, if anything, more impressed with Newton’s name than the other man, Benedict, had been. He pumped Newton’s hand with both of his, saying, “Yes. Yes, of course. World Enterprises. Biggest thing since General Dynamics.” He was laying it on as if he were hoping for a fat research contract for Pendley. It always horrified Bryce to see professors fawn on businessmen—the very men they ridiculed in their private conversations—whenever a research contract might be in the offing.

  Newton murmured and smiled, and finally Canutti released his hand, made an attempt at a boyish grin, and said, “Well!” And then, throwing his arm over Bryce’s shoulder, “Well, it’s a lot of water under the bridge, Nate.” Abruptly, a thought seemed to strike him, and Bryce winced inwardly in apprehension. Canutti looked at both of them, Bryce and Newton, and said, “Why, are you working for World Enterprises, Nate?”

  He didn’t answer, knowing what would be coming next.

  Then Newton said, “Doctor Bryce has been with us for over a year.”

  “Well I’ll be…” Canutti’s face was reddening, above the frilled collar. “Well I’ll be damned. Working for World Enterprises!” A look of uncontrollable mirth spread across his chubby face, and Bryce, drinking off his martini at a gulp, felt that he could readily plant a heel into that face. The grin became a belching chuckle, and then Canutti turned to Newton and said, “This is priceless. I’ve got to tell you this, Mr. Newton.” He chuckled again. “I’m sure Nate won’t mind, because it’s all over now. But do you know. Mr. Newton, when Nate left us out at Pendley he was worrying his head off about some of the very things that he’s probably helping you make, over at World?”

  “Really?” Newton said, filling the pause.

  “But the clincher is this.” Canutti reached a fumbling hand out and laid it on Bryce’s shoulder. Bryce felt as though he could have bitten it off, but he listened, fascinated, at what he knew was coming.

  “The clincher is that old Nate here thought you were producing all that stuff you make by some kind of voodoo. Right, Nate?”

  “That’s right,” Bryce said. “Voodoo.”

  Canutti laughed. “Nate’s one of the top men in the field, as I’m sure you know, Mr. Newton. But maybe it was going to his head. He thought your color films were invented on Mars.”

  “Oh?” Newton said.

  “That’s right. Mars or somewhere. ‘Extraterrestrial’ is what he said.” Canutti squeezed Bryce’s shoulder, to show he meant no harm. “I bet when he saw you he expected somebody with three heads. Or tentacles.”

  Newton smiled cordially. “That’s very amusing.” Then he looked at Bryce. “I’m sorry I disappointed you.” he said.

  Bryce looked away. “No disappointment at all.” he said. His hands were trembling, and he set his glass on a table, forced his hands into his jacket pockets.

  Canutti was talking again, this time about some magazine article he’d read, something about World Enterprises and its contributions to the gross national product. Abruptly, Bryce interrupted. “Excuse me.” he said. “I think I’ll get another drink.” Then he turned and went quickly back into the room with the bar, not looking at either of the other two as he did so.

  But when he got his drink he did not want it. The bar had become oppressive to him; the bartender no longer looked distinguished but seemed merely a pretentious flunky. The music from the other room—now a motet—was nervous and shrill. There were too many people in the bar, and their voices were too loud. He looked around him, as if in desperation; the men were all sleek, smug; the women were like harpies. To hell with it, he thought, to hell with it all. He pushed himself from the bar, leaving his untouched drink, and walked purposely back into the main room.

  Newton was waiting for him, alone.

  Bryce looked him directly in the eyes, trying not to flinch. “Where’s Canutti?” he said.

  “I told him we were leaving.” He shrugged his shoulders, in the implausible French gesture that Bryce had seen him use before. “He’s an offensive man, isn’t he?”

  Bryce kept looking up at him for a moment, at his untranslatable eyes. Then he said, “Let’s get out of here.”

  They left in silence and walked side by side, saying nothing, down the long, heavily carpeted hallway to their room. Bryce unlocked the door with his key, and after he had closed it behind them he said, quietly now, his voice steady, “Well, are you?”

  Newton sat on the edge of th
e bed, smiled wearily at him, and said, “Of course I am.”

  There was nothing to say. Bryce found himself muttering, “Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ.” He seated himself in an armchair, and stared at his feet. “Jesus Christ.”

  He sat there for what seemed like a long time, staring at his feet. He had known it, but the shock of hearing it said was another thing.

  Then Newton spoke. “Do you want something to drink?”

  He looked up and, suddenly, laughed. “God, yes.”

  Newton reached for the bedside phone and called room service. He asked for two bottles of gin, vermouth, and ice. Then, hanging up the receiver, he said, “Let’s get drunk. Doctor Bryce. It’s an occasion.”

  They did not talk until the bellboy came, bringing a cart with the liquor and ice and a martini pitcher. On the tray was a dish of cocktail onions, lemon peel, and green olives. Another dish had nuts in it. When the boy had left, Newton said, “Would you mind fixing the drinks? I’d like plain gin.” He was still sitting on the edge of the bed.

  “Sure.” Bryce got up, feeling lightheaded. “Is it Mars?”

  Newton’s voice seemed peculiar. Or was it only that he, Bryce, was drunk? “Does it make any difference?”

  “I’m sure it does. Are you from this… solar system?”

  “Yes. As far as I know, there aren’t any others.”

  “No other solar systems?”

  Newton took the glass of gin that Bryce offered him, and held it speculatively. “Only suns,” he said, “no planets. Or none that I know of.”

  Bryce was stirring a martini. His hands were perfectly steady now; he had passed over some kind of hump. He felt as though nothing further could touch him, could shake him. “How long have you been here?” he said, stirring, listening to the ice clink against the side of the pitcher.