The Man Who Fell to Earth

by Tevis, Walter

  “Haven’t you mixed that drink long enough?” Newton said. “You’d better drink it.” He took a swallow from his own. “I’ve been on your Earth five years.”

  Bryce stopped stirring the drink, poured it into a glass. Then, feeling expansive, he dropped in three olives. Some of the martini splashed out on to the white linen cover of the cart, making wet spots. “Do you intend to stay?” he said. It sounded as though he were in a Paris café, asking the question of another tourist. Newton should be wearing a camera around his neck.

  “Yes, I intend to stay.”

  Seated now, Bryce found his vision wandering around the room. It was a pleasant room, with pale green walls and innocuous pictures hung on them.

  He refocused his gaze on Newton. Thomas Jerome Newton, from Mars. Mars or somewhere. “Are you human?” he said.

  Newton’s drink was half empty. “A matter of definition,” he said. “I’m human enough, however.”

  He started to ask, Human enough for what? but did not. He might as well get down to the second big question, since he had already asked the first. “What are you here for?” he said. “What are you up to?”

  Newton stood up, poured some more gin in his glass, walked to an armchair, sat down. He looked at Bryce, holding the glass delicately in his slender hand. “I’m not certain that I know what I’m up to,” he said.

  “Not certain that you know?” Bryce said.

  Newton set his glass on the table by the bed and began taking off his shoes. “I thought I knew what I was here for, at first. But then, for the first two years I was busy, very busy. I’ve had more time to think, this past year. Possibly too much time.” He set his shoes neatly, side by side, under the bed. Then he stretched his long legs out on the bedspread and leaned against the pillow.

  He certainly looked human enough, in that pose. “What is the ship being built for? It is a ship, isn’t it, and not just an exploratory device?”

  “It’s a ship. Or, more precisely, a ferry boat.”

  For some time, ever since the talk with Canutti, Bryce had felt stunned; everything had seemed unreal. But now he was beginning to regain his grasp of things, and the scientist in him was beginning to assert itself. He set his glass down, deciding not to drink any more just now. It was important to keep a clear head. But his hand, as it put down the glass, was shaking.

  “Then you’re planning to bring more of your… people here? On the ferry?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are there any more of you here?”

  “I’m the only one.”

  “But why build your ship here? Certainly you must have them where you came from. You got here yourself.”

  “Yes, I got here. But in a one-man craft. The problem, you see, is fuel. There was only enough to send one of us, and only on one crossing.”

  “Atomic fuel? Uranium or something?”

  “Yes. Of course. But we have almost none left. Nor do we have petroleum, or coal, or hydroelectric power.” He smiled. “There are probably hundreds of ships, much superior to the one we are building in Kentucky; but there was no way to get them here. None of them has been used for over five hundred of your years. The one I came on was not even intended as an interplanetary vessel. It was originally designed as an emergency craft—a lifeboat. I destroyed the engines and the controls after landing, and left the hull in a field. I’ve read in the newspapers that there’s a farmer who charges people fifty cents to see it. He has it in a tent, and sells soft drinks. I wish him well.

  “Isn’t there some danger in that?”

  “Of my being found out by the FBI or someone? I don’t think so. The worst to happen was some Sunday supplement nonsense about possible invaders from outer space. But there have been more surprising curiosities for Sunday paper readers than spaceship hulls found in Kentucky fields. I don’t think anyone of importance has taken it seriously.”

  Bryce looked at him closely. “Is ‘invaders from outer space’ only nonsense?”

  Newton unbuttoned his shirt collar. “I think so.”

  “Then what are your people coming here for? As tourists?”

  Newton laughed. “Not exactly. We might be able to help you.”

  “How?” Somehow he did not like the way Newton had said it. “How help us?”

  “We might be able to save you from destroying yourselves, if we are quick enough about it.” Then, when Bryce started to speak, he said, “Let me talk for a while. I don’t think you know what a pleasure it gives me to talk about it—to talk at length.” He had not picked his glass up again, after getting in bed. He folded his hands over his stomach, and, looking gently at Bryce, went on. “We’ve had our own wars, you see. A great many more than you have had, and we have only barely survived them. That’s where most of our radioactive materials went, into bombs. We used to be a very powerful people, very powerful; but that has been over for a long time. Now we barely survive.” He looked down at his hands, as if in speculation. “It’s a strange thing that most of your imaginative literature about life on the other planets always assumes that each planet would have only one intelligent race, one type of society, one language, one government. On Anthea—our name is Anthea, although, of course, that is not the name in your astronomy books—we had, at one time, three intelligent species and seven major governments. Now there is only one species left of any consequence, and that is my own. We are the survivors, after five wars fought with radioactive weapons. And there are not very many of us. But we know a great deal about warfare. And we have a great deal of technical knowledge.” Newton’s eyes were still fixed on his hands; his voice had assumed a monotone, as if he were reciting a prepared speech. “I have been here for five years, and I own property worth more than three hundred million dollars. In five more years it will be double that. And that is only a beginning. If the plan is carried out there will eventually be the equivalent of World Enterprises in every major country of this world. Then we will go into politics. And the military. We know about weapons and defenses. Yours are still crude. We can, for instance, render radar impotent—a thing quite necessary when I landed my craft here and more necessary when the ferry boat returns. We can also generate an energy system that will prevent the detonation of any of your nuclear weapons within a five-mile radius.”

  “Is that enough?”

  “I don’t know. But my superiors aren’t stupid, and they seem to think it can be done. As long as we keep our devices and our knowledge under our own control, building up the economy of one small country here, buying a critical food surplus there, starting an industry somewhere else, giving one nation a weapon, and another a defense against it….”

  “But, damn it, you’re not gods.”

  “No. But have your gods ever saved you before?”

  “I don’t know. No, of course not.” Bryce lit a cigarette. It took three tries; his hands refused to hold steady. He inhaled deeply, trying to calm himself. He felt somehow like a college sophomore, arguing human destiny. But this was not exactly abstract philosophizing. “Doesn’t mankind have a right to choose its own form of destruction?” he said.

  Newton waited a moment before he spoke. “Do you really believe that mankind does have such a right?”

  Bryce ground his cigarette, only partly smoked, into the ashtray beside him. “Yes. No. I don’t know. Isn’t there such a thing as human destiny? The right to fulfill ourselves, to live out our own lives and take our own consequences?” Saying this it suddenly struck him that Newton was the only link with—what was it?—Anthea. If Newton were destroyed there could be no carrying out of that plan; it would all be over. And Newton was frail, very frail. The thought held him fascinated for a minute; he, Bryce, was potentially the hero of all heroes—the man who could, with a heavy blow from his fist, probably save the world. This could have been very amusing; but it was not.

  “There may be such a thing as human destiny,” Newton said, “but I rather imagine it resembles passenger-pigeon destiny. Or the destiny of those large creatu
res with small brains—I think they were called dinosaurs.”

  That seemed a little supercilious. “We won’t necessarily become extinct. Disarmament is being negotiated. Not all of us are insane.”

  “But most of you are. Enough of you are—it only requires a few insane ones, in the right places. Suppose your man Hitler had been in possession of fusion bombs and intercontinental missiles? Wouldn’t he have used them, regardless of the consequences? He had nothing to lose toward the end.”

  “How do I know that your Antheans won’t be Hitlers?”

  Newton looked away. “It’s possible, but unlikely.”

  “Do you come from a democratic society?”

  “We have nothing resembling a democratic society on Anthea. Nor do we have democratic social institutions. But we have no intention of ruling you, even if we could.”

  “Then what do you call it,” Bryce said, “if you plan to have a bunch of Antheans manipulating men and governments all over the Earth?”

  “We could call it what you just called it—manipulation, or guidance. And it might not work. It might not work at all. You might blow your world apart first, or you might find us out and begin a witch hunt—we are vulnerable, you know. Or, even if we do get a large measure of power, we cannot control every accident. But we can reduce the probability of Hitlers, and we can protect your major cities from destruction. And that.” he shrugged, “is more than you can do.”

  “And you want to do this just to help us?” Bryce heard the sarcasm in his voice, and hoped that Newton did not notice.

  If Newton had noticed he gave no sign of it. “Of course not. We are coming here to save ourselves. But,” he smiled, “we do not want the Indians burning up our reservation after we have settled on it.”

  “What are you saving yourselves from?”

  “Extinction. We have almost no water, no fuel, no natural resources. We have feeble solar power—feeble because we are so far from the sun—and we still have large stores of food. But they are dwindling. There are less than three hundred Antheans alive.”

  “Less than three hundred? My God, you did almost wipe yourselves out!”

  “We did indeed. As, I imagine, you will do before long, if we don’t come.

  “Maybe you should come,” he said. “Maybe you should.” Bryce felt a tenseness in his throat. “But if something should… happen to you, before the ship is complete? Wouldn’t that be the end of it?”

  “Yes. That would end it.”

  “No fuel for another ship?”

  “No fuel.”

  “Then.” Bryce said, feeling himself tense, “what is to prevent me from stopping this—this invasion, or manipulation? Shouldn’t I kill you? You’re very weak, I know. I imagine your bones are like a bird’s, from what Betty Jo told me.”

  Newton’s face was completely undisturbed. “Do you want to stop it? You’re quite right; you could snap my neck like a chicken’s. Do you want to? Now that you know my name is Rumplestiltskin do you want to drive me from the palace?”

  “I don’t know.” He looked at the floor.

  Newton’s voice was soft. “Rumplestiltskin did weave straw into gold.”

  Bryce looked up, suddenly angry. “Yes. And he tried to steal the princess’s child.”

  “Of course he did,” Newton said. “But if he hadn’t woven the straw into gold the princess would have died. And there would not have been any child at all.”

  “All right,” Bryce said. “I won’t wring your neck to save the world.”

  “Do you know?” said Newton, “I almost wish, now, that you could. It would make things much simpler for me.” He paused. “But you can’t.”

  “Why can’t I?”

  “I didn’t come to your world unprepared for discovery. Although I did not expect to be telling anyone what I have told you. But there was a great deal I did not expect.” He looked down at his hands again, seeming to examine the nails. “In any event, I am carrying a weapon. I always carry it.”

  “An Anthean weapon?”

  “Yes. A very effective one. You would never have made it across the floor to my bed.”

  Bryce inhaled rapidly. “How does it work?”

  Newton grinned. “Does Macy’s tell Gimbel’s?” he said. “I may have to use it on you yet.”

  A quality in the way that Newton had just spoken—not the ironic or pseudo-sinister quality of the statement itself, but some minor strangeness in the manner—reminded Bryce that he was, after all, talking to someone not human. The practiced veneer of humanness that Newton assumed might be merely that; a very thin veneer. Whatever was beneath the veneer, the essential part of Newton, his specifically Anthean nature, might very well be inaccessible to him, Bryce, or for that matter to anyone on Earth. The way that Newton actually felt or thought might be beyond his comprehension, totally unavailable to him.

  “Whatever your weapon is,” he spoke more carefully now, “I hope you won’t have to use it.” And then he looked around him again, at the big hotel room, the almost untouched tray of liquor, and back at Newton, reclining in bed. “My God,” he said. “It’s hard to believe. To sit in this room and believe that I’m talking to a man from another planet.”

  “Yes,” Newton said, “I’ve thought that myself. I’m talking to a man from another planet too, you know.”

  Bryce stood up and stretched. Then he walked to the window, parted the draperies, looked down at the street. Car headlights were everywhere, hardly moving. A huge, illuminated billboard directly across from the hotel showed Santa Claus drinking a Coca-Cola. Clusters of flickering bulbs made Santa’s eyes twinkle, made the soft drink sparkle. Somewhere, faintly, Bryce could hear chimes playing Adeste Fideles.

  He turned back to Newton, who had not moved. “Why have you told me? You didn’t have to.”

  “I wanted to tell you.” He smiled. “I haven’t been at all sure of my motives for the past year; I’m not certain why I wanted to tell you. Antheans don’t necessarily know everything. Anyway, you already knew about me.”

  “Are you talking about what Canutti said? That might have been only a stab in the dark on my part. It might have been nothing.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of what Professor Canutti said. Although I found your reaction to it amusing; I thought you might have a stroke of apoplexy when he said ‘Mars.’ But his saying that forced your hand, not mine.”

  “Why not yours?”

  “Well, Doctor Bryce, there are a great many differences between you and me of which you could hardly be aware. One of them is that my vision is much more acute than yours, and its effective range of frequencies is considerably higher. This means that I cannot see the color that you call red. But I can see X-rays.”

  Bryce opened his mouth to speak, but then said nothing.

  “Once I had seen the flash,” Newton said, “it wasn’t difficult to determine what you were doing.” He looked at Bryce inquisitively. “How was the picture?”

  Bryce felt foolish, like a trapped schoolboy. “The picture was… remarkable.”

  Newton nodded. “I can imagine. If you could see my internal organs you would have some surprises too. I went to a natural history museum once, in New York. A very interesting place for a… for a tourist. It occurred to me there that I myself was the only truly unique biological specimen in the building. I could picture myself pickled, in a jar, with the label, Extraterrestrial humanoid. I left rather quickly.”

  Bryce could not help laughing. And, Newton, now that he had, as it were, made his confession, seemed expansive, seemed paradoxically even more “human,” now that he had made it clear that he was, in fact, no such thing. His face was more expressive, his manner more relaxed, than Bryce had ever seen them. But there was still that hint of another Newton, a thoroughly Anthean Newton, unapproachable and alien. “Do you plan to go back to your planet?” Bryce said. “On the ship?”

  “No. It won’t be necessary. The ship will be guided from Anthea itself. I’m afraid I’m a permanent exile he
re.”

  “Do you miss your… your own people?”

  “I miss them.”

  Bryce walked back to his chair and seated himself again. “But you will be seeing them before long?”

  Newton hesitated. “Possibly.”

  “Why possibly? Something might go wrong?”

  “I wasn’t thinking about that.” And then, “I told you earlier that I was not at all certain what I was up to.”

  Bryce looked at him, puzzled. “I don’t understand what you me an.”

  “Well,” Newton smiled faintly, “for some time now I have been considering not completing the plan, not sending the ship anywhere—not even finishing the construction. It would only require a single order.”

  “For God’s sake, why?”

  “Oh, the plan was an intelligent one, although desperate. But what else could we do?” Newton was looking at him, but did not seem to be seeing him. “However, I have developed some doubts about its final worth. There are things about your culture here, your society, that we did not know about on Anthea. Do you know, Doctor Bryce,” he shifted his position on the bed, leaning over closer to Bryce, “that I sometimes think that I will be insane in a few more years? I’m not certain that my people will be able to stand your world. We’ve been in an ivory tower for a long time.

  “But you could isolate yourselves from the world. You have money; you could stay with your own, build your own society.” What was he doing—defending the Anthean… invasion? After he had just been frightened and stunned by it? “You could make your own city, in Kentucky.”

  “And wait for the bombs to fall? We would be better off on Anthea. There at least we can live for another fifty years. If we are to live here, it won’t be as an isolated colony of freaks. We’ll have to disperse ourselves over your entire world, place ourselves in positions of influence. Otherwise it would be foolish for us to come.”

  “Whatever you do you’ll be taking a great risk. Can’t you gamble on our solving our own problems, if you are afraid of close contact with us?” He smiled wryly. “Be our guests.”