Уолтер Тевис - The Man Who Fell to Earth

“Thank you, Oliver. I’ve been feeling especially well.”

Farnsworth led him down a hallway, past offices and into a suite of rooms with the plaque, W. E. Corp. They walked by a battery of secretaries, who became respectfully silent at their approach, and into Farnsworth’s office, with O. Y. Farnsworth, President, in small brass letters on the door.

Inside, the office was furnished as before, with mixed rococo pieces dominated by the huge, grotesquely ornamented Caffieri desk. The room was, as always, filled with music—a violin piece this time. It was unpleasant to Newton’s ears; but he said nothing.

A maid brought them tea, while they chatted for a few minutes—Newton had learned to like tea, although he had to drink it lukewarm—and then they began to talk about business; their status in the courts, the arranging and rearranging of directorships, holding companies, grants and licenses and royalties, the financing of new plants, the purchase of old ones, the markets, prices, and the fluctuation of public interest in the seventy-three consumer articles they made—television antennas, transistors, photographic film, and radiation detectors—and the three hundred-odd patents they leased out, from the oil refining process to a harmless substitute for gunpowder that was used in children’s toys. Newton was well aware of Farnsworth’s amazement—even more than usual—with his own grasp of these things, and he told himself it would be wise if he made a few intentional blunders in his recollection of figures and details. Yet it was enjoyable, exciting—even though he knew the vain and cheap pride that gave the pleasure—in using his Anthean mind on these matters. It was as if one of these people—he always thought of them as “these people,” much as he had grown to like and to admire them—should find himself dealing with a group of very alert and resourceful chimpanzees. He was fond of them and, with his fundamental human vanity, unable to resist the easy pleasure of exercising his mental superiority to their dumbfounded amazement. Yet, enjoyable as this might be, he had to remember that these people were more dangerous than chimpanzees—and it had been thousands of years since any of them had seen an Anthean undisguised.

They went on talking until the maid brought them lunch—sliced-chicken sandwiches and a bottle of Rhine wine for Farnsworth; oatmeal cookies and a glass of water for Newton. Oatmeal, he had found, was one of the most digestible foods for the peculiar qualities of his system, and he ate it frequently. They continued to talk for quite a while about the complex business of financing the various and widespread enterprises. Newton had come to enjoy this part of the game for its own sake. He had been forced to learn it from scratch—there were many things about this society and this planet that could not be learned from watching television—and he had found he had a natural bent for it, possibly an atavism tracing back to ancient ancestors in the old, strong days that had been the glory of primitive Anthean culture. That was during the time that this Earth had been in its second ice age—the time of harsh capitalism and warfare, before the Anthean power sources had been all but exhausted and the water gone. He enjoyed playing with the counters and the numbers of finance, even though this power gave him little excitement and though he had entered the game with the stacked deck that only ten thousand years of Anthean electronics, chemistry, and optics could have provided. But he never for a moment forgot what he had come to Earth for. It was always with him, unavoidable, like the dim ache that still lived in his strengthened, but always tired, muscles, like the impossible strangeness, however familiar it would become, of this huge and various planet.

He enjoyed Farnsworth. He enjoyed the few humans he knew. He was unacquainted with any women, for he feared them, for reasons he did not understand himself. He was sad, sometimes, that security made it too risky to know these people better. Farnsworth, hedonist that he was, was a shrewd man, a lusty player of the game of money; a man who required occasional watching; a possibly dangerous man, but one whose mind had many fine and subtle facets. He had not made his huge income—an income that Newton had trebled for him—solely on reputation.

When he had made it clear enough to Farnsworth what he wanted to have done, he leaned back in his chair for a moment, resting, and then said, “Oliver, now that the money is beginning to… accumulate, there is a new thing I want to undertake. I spoke to you before of a research project….”

Farnsworth did not seem surprised. But then he had probably been expecting something more important to be the subject of this visit. “Yes, Mr. Newton?”

He smiled gently. “It will be a different kind of undertaking, Oliver. And, I fear, an expensive one. I imagine you’ll have some work to do in setting it up—the financial end of it anyway.” He looked out the window for a moment, at the discreet row of gray Fifth Avenue shops, and at the trees. “It’s to be nonprofit, and I think the best thing is to set up a research foundation.”

“A research foundation?” The lawyer pursed his lips.

“Yes.” He turned back to Farnsworth. “Yes, I think we’ll incorporate in Kentucky, with about all the capital I can gather together. That’ll be about forty million dollars, I think—if we can get the banks to help us.”

Farnsworth’s eyebrows shot up. “ Forty million? You’re not worth half that, Mr. Newton. In another six months maybe, but we’ve only begun…”

“Yes. I know. But I think I’m going to sell my rights in Worldcolor to Eastman Kodak, outright. You may, of course, keep your share, if you wish. Eastman will make intelligent use of it, I imagine. They’re prepared to go rather high to get it—with a proviso that I don’t market a competitive color film within the next five years.”

Farnsworth was getting red in the face now. “Isn’t that like selling a life interest in the U.S. Treasury?

“I suppose it is. But I need the capital; and you know yourself that there’s an annoying danger of anti-trust action inherent in these patents. And Kodak has better access to the world markets than we have. Really, we’ll be saving ourselves a great deal of trouble.”

Farnsworth shook his head, somewhat placated. “If I had a copyright on the Bible I wouldn’t sell it to Random House. But I suppose you know what you’re doing. You always do.”

At Pendley State University in Pendley, Iowa, Nathan Bryce dropped by the office of his department head. This was Professor Canutti and his position was called Departmental Coordinator-Advisor, which was much like the titles of most department heads these days, since the time of the great labeling shift that had turned every salesman into a Field Representative, every janitor into a Custodian. It had taken a little longer to reach the universities. But it had reached them, and nowadays there were no more secretaries, only Receptionists and Administrative Aides, no more bosses, only Coordinators.

Professor Canutti, crew-cut, pipe-smoking and rubbery-complexioned, welcomed him with a twenty-dollar smile, waved him across the pigeons-egg-blue carpet to a lavender plastic-chair and said, “Good to see you, Nate.”

Bryce winced almost visibly at the “Nate.” and, looking at his watch as though in a hurry, said, “Something I’m curious about, Professor Canutti.” He was not in a hurry—except to get this interview over with; now that exams were ended he had nothing to do for a week.

Canutti smiled sympathetically, and Bryce momentarily cursed himself for coming to see this golf-playing idiot in the first place. But Canutti might know something of use to him; he was at least no fool as a chemist.