Уолтер Тевис - The Man Who Fell to Earth

Bowen sipped his drink. “As a matter of fact, Mr. Newton, we’ve never let the FBI know about the recording. We merely gave them the order to make the arrest for us. The tape has never left my office.”

That was another surprise. But surprises had been coming so rapidly that he was getting used to them. “How can you keep them from demanding the tape?”

“Well,” Bowen said, “you might as well know that I have the good fortune to be director of the CIA. In a way, I outrank the FBI.”

“Then you must be—what’s his name, Van Brugh? I’ve heard of you.”

“We’re an elusive bunch in the CIA,” Bowen—or Van Brugh—said. “Anyway, once we had the tape, we knew what we wanted to know about you. And we also determined from the fact of your confession, that if the FBI did pick you up—which as I told you they were on the verge of doing—you might well spill out the whole story to them. We didn’t want that to happen, because we don’t trust the FBI. These are perilous times, Mr. Newton; they might have solved the problem that we’ve been wrestling with by killing you.”

“And you don’t intend to kill me?”

“It’s certainly occurred to us. I’ve never been for it mainly because—however dangerous you could be—doing away with you might be killing the goose that laid the golden eggs.”

Newton finished his drink, then refilled the glass. “How do you mean that?” he said.

“Right now we already have, over at Defense, a good many projected weapons based on data we pilfered from your private file over three years ago. These are, as I say, perilous times; there are a lot of ways in which we could use you. I imagine you Antheans know a great deal about weapons.”

Newton paused a minute, staring at his drink. Then he said, calmly, “If you heard me talking to Bryce you know what we Antheans did to ourselves with our weapons. I have no intention of trying to make the United States of America omnipotent. Nor, as a matter of fact, could I if I wished to. I’m not a scientist. I was picked for the trip because of my physical stamina, not my knowledge. I know very little about weapons—less than you do, I suspect.”

“You must have seen, or heard about, weapons on Anthea.”

Newton was regaining his composure now, possibly because of the drinks. He no longer felt defensive. “You’ve seen automobiles, Mr. Van Brugh. Could you explain, off-hand, to an African savage how to make one? With only locally available materials?”

“No. But I could explain internal combustion to a savage. If I could find a savage in modern Africa. And, if he were a smart savage he might be able to do something with that.”

“Probably kill himself,” Newton said. “In any event, I do not intend to tell you anything along that line, for whatever it might be worth to you.” He finished another drink. “I suppose you cold try torturing me.”

“A waste of time, I’m afraid,” Van Brugh said. “You see the reason we’ve been asking foolish questions of you for two months has been to conduct a kind of psychoanalysis. We’ve had cameras in here, recording eye-blink rates and things like that. We’ve already concluded that torture wouldn’t work on you. You’d go insane too easily under pain; and we just can’t learn enough about your psychology—guilt and anxieties and things like that—to do any kind of brainwashing on you. We’ve also loaded you with drugs—hypnotics, narcotics—and they don’t work.”

“Then what are you going to do? Shoot me?”

“No. I’m afraid we can’t even do that. Not without the President’s permission, and he won’t give it.” Then he smiled sadly. “You see, Mr. Newton, after all of the cosmic factors to be considered, the final one turns out to be a matter of practical, human politics.”

“Politics?”

“It just happens that this is 1988. And 1988 is an election year. The President is already campaigning for a second term, and he has it on good authority—did you know that Watergate changed nothing— nothing —the President uses us, in the CIA, to spy on the other party?—that the Republicans are going to turn this whole business into something like the Dreyfus case if we don’t either bring adequate charges against you or turn you loose with profuse apologies all around.”

Abruptly, Newton laughed. “And if you shoot me, the President might lose the election?”

“The Republicans have your brother industrialists in the NAM already worked up into a later. And those gentlemen, as you probably know, wield a lot of influence. They also protect their own.”

Newton was beginning to laugh even harder. It was the first time in his life that he had actually laughed aloud. He did not merely chuckle, or snicker, or snort; he laughed loudly and deeply. Finally, he said, “Then you’ll have to let me go?”

Van Brugh smiled grimly. “Tomorrow. We’re letting you go tomorrow.”

For more than a year it had become increasingly difficult for him to know how he felt about many things. This was not a difficulty characteristic of his people, but he had acquired it somehow. During those fifteen years that he had learned to speak English, learned to fasten buttons, to tie a tie, learned batting averages, the brand names of automobiles, and countless other bits and pieces of information, so much of which had turned out to be unnecessary, during all that time he had never suffered from self-doubt, had never questioned that plan he had been chosen to carry out. And now, after five years of actually living with human beings, he was unable to tell how he felt about such a clear-cut matter as being released from prison. As for the plan itself, he did not know what to think, and as a consequence he hardly thought about it at all. He had become very human.

In the morning he was given his disguises again. It seemed odd to put them on once more, before going back into the world, and it was silly as well, for from whom was he concealing himself now? Yet he was glad to have the contact lenses on again, the lenses that gave his eyes a more human appearance. Their light filters relieved his eyes from the strain of brightness that even the dark glasses he had been wearing continuously could not altogether protect him from. And when he put them on and looked in the mirror at himself, he was relieved to look human again.

A man he had not seen before took him from the room and down a hallway that was lighted by luminous panels—panels made under W. E. Corporation patents—and guarded by soldiers who carried guns. They entered an elevator.

The lights in the elevator were oppressively bright. He put on his dark glasses. “What have you told the newspapers about all this?” he asked, although he did not really care.

The man, though silent up to now, turned out to be quite affable. He was a short, stocky, bad-complexioned man. “That’s not my department,” he said pleasantly, “but I think they’ve said you were held in protective custody because of security reasons. Your work was vital to the national defense. Things like that.”

“Will there be reporters waiting? When I get out?”

I don’t think so.” The elevator stopped. The door opened into another guarded hallway. “We’re going to sneak you out the back door, so to speak.”

“Right away?”

“In about two hours. There are some routine things to do first. We have to process you out of this place. That’s what I’m here for.” They continued down the hallway, which was very long and, like the rest of the building, too brightly lighted. “Tell me,” the man said, “what were you being held for anyway?”

“You don’t know?”

“Those things are kept pretty quiet around here.”

“Doesn’t Mr. Van Brugh inform you of things like that?”