Уолтер Тевис - The Man Who Fell to Earth

Feeling a little drunk—how long had it been since he had been drunk at midday?—he peered inquisitively at Newton and said, “Are you a Lithuanian?”

“No.” Newton was looking at the lake and did not turn at Bryce’s question. Then he said, abruptly, “This entire lake belongs to me. I bought it.”

“That’s nice.” He finished his glass of wine. It was the last of the bottle.

“A great deal of water,” Newton said. Then, turning to him, “How much, do you suppose?”

“How much water?”

“Yes.” Newton absently broke off a piece of cheese, and bit into it.

“God. I don’t know. Five million gallons? Ten?” He laughed. “I can hardly estimate the amount of sulphuric acid in a beaker.” He looked at the lake. “Twenty million gallons? Hell, I don’t have to know. I’m a specialist.” Then, remembering Newton’s reputation. “But you aren’t. You know every science that is. Maybe some that aren’t.”

“Nonsense. I’m only an… inventor. If that.” He finished his cheese. “I imagine I’m more of a specialist than yourself.”

“At what?”

Newton did not answer for a while. Then he said, “That would be hard to say.” He smiled again, cryptically. “Do you like straight gin?”

“Not exactly. Maybe.”

“I have a bottle in here.” Newton reached down to the basket at his feet and took out a bottle. Bryce laughed abruptly. He could not help it—Ichabod Crane with a fifth of gin in his lunch basket. Newton poured him a generous glassful, and then one for himself. Suddenly he said, still holding the bottle, “I drink too much.”

“Everybody drinks too much.” Bryce tasted the gin. He did not like it; gin had always tasted like perfume to him. But he drank it. How often does a man have a chance to get drunk with the boss? And how many bosses are Ichabod Crane—Hamlet—Cortés, fresh off the boat from Mars and about to conquer the world by spaceship in the fall of the year? Bryce’s back was tired and he let himself slip to the grass and lean against the log, his feet pointing out to the water of the lake. Thirty million gallons? He took another drink of gin and then fished a flattened pack of cigarettes from his pocket and offered one to Newton. Newton was still sitting on the log, and from Bryce’s low vantage point he looked even taller, more distant than ever.

“I smoked once, about a year ago,” Newton said. “It made me very sick.”

“Oh?” He took a cigarette from the package. “Would you rather I didn’t smoke?”

“Yes.” Newton looked down at him. “Do you think there’ll be a war?”

He held the cigarette speculatively, then flipped it into the lake. It floated. “Aren’t there three wars going now? Or four?”

“Three. I mean a war with big weapons. There are nine nations with hydrogen weapons; at least twelve with bacteriological ones. Do you think they’ll be used?”

Bryce took a larger sip of gin. “Probably. Sure. I don’t know why it hasn’t happened yet. I don’t know why we haven’t drunk ourselves to death yet. Or loved ourselves to death.” The Vehicle was across the lake from them, but could not be seen for the trees. Bryce waved his glass in its direction and said, “Is that going to be a weapon? If it is, who needs it?”

“It’s not a weapon. Not really.” Newton must be drunk. “I won’t tell you what it is.” And then, “After how long?”

“After how long what?” He felt high, too. Fine. It was a lovely afternoon to be high. It had been a long time.

“Until the big war begins? The one that will ruin everything.”

“Why not ruin everything?” He tossed off his drink, reached over to the basket for the bottle. “Everything may need ruining.” As he took the bottle he looked up at Newton, but could not see his face because the sun was behind him. “Are you from Mars?”

“No. Would you say ten years? I was taught it would be ten years at least.”

“Who teaches things like that?” He poured himself a glassful. “I’d say five years.”

“That’s not long enough.”

“Long enough for what?” The gin did not taste so bad now, even though it was warm in the glass.

“It’s not long enough.” Newton looked down at him, sadly. “But you’re probably wrong.”

“All right, three years. Are you from Venus? Jupiter? Philadelphia?”

“No.” Then he shrugged. “My name is Rumplestiltskin.”

“Rumplestiltskin what?”

Newton reached down, took the bottle from him, poured himself another glass of gin. “Do you think it might not happen at all?”

“Maybe. What would keep it from happening, Rumplestiltskin? Man’s higher instincts? Elves live in caves; do you live in a cave, when you’re not visiting?”

“Trolls live in caves. Elves live everywhere. Elves have the power of adapting themselves to extraordinarily difficult environments, such as this one.” He waved a shaky hand out toward the lake, spilling gin on his shirt. “I am an elf, Doctor Bryce, and I live alone everywhere. Altogether everywhere alone.” He stared at the water.

A large group of ducks had settled on the lake about a half mile from them, probably tired migrants on their way to the far South. They seemed to float like tiny balloons on the surface of the water, drifting, as if incapable of locomotion. “If you were from Mars, you would be alone, all right.” Bryce said, watching the ducks. If he were, he would be like a lone duck on the lake—a tired migrant.

“It’s not necessary.”

“What isn’t necessary?”

“To be from Mars. I imagine you have felt alone often enough, Doctor Bryce. Have felt alienated. Are you from Mars?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Philadelphia?”

Bryce laughed. “Portsmouth, Ohio. That’s farther from here than Mars.” With no apparent warning, the ducks on the lake began quacking confusedly. Suddenly they took off in flight, beginning in disarray, but then coordinating themselves into something loosely resembling a formation. Bryce watched them disappear over the mountains, still gaining in altitude. He thought fuzzily of the migration of birds, of birds and insects and small furry animals, moving, following old, old pathways to ancient homes and new deaths. And then the flock of ducks reminded him bitterly of a squadron of missiles he had seen pictured on a magazine cover years before, and this made him think again of the thing he was helping this strange man beside him to build, that sleek, missilelike ship that was supposed to explore or experiment or take pictures or something and that somehow, now, feeling very light and drunk in the mid-afternoon sun, he did not trust, did not trust at all.

Newton stood up, unsteadily, and said, “We can walk to the house. I’ll have Brinnarde drive you home from there, if you’d like.”

“I’d like.” He stood up, brushing leaves from his clothes, and then finished his gin. “I’m too drunk and too old to walk home.”

They walked, staggering slightly, in silence. But when they were near the house Newton said, “I hope it will be ten years.”

“Why ten years?” Bryce said. “If it’s that long the weapons will be even better. They’ll blow up everything. The whole business. Maybe even the Lithuanians’ll do it. Or the Philadelphians.”

Newton looked down at him strangely, and Bryce for a moment felt uneasy. “If we have ten years,” Newton said, “it may not happen at all. It may not be able to happen.”

“And what’s going to stop it then? Human virtue? The Second Coming?” Somehow he could not look Newton in the eye.

For the first time Newton laughed, softly and pleasantly. “Maybe it will be the Second Coming indeed. Maybe it will be Jesus Christ himself. In ten years.”