by Gene Brewer
“That is one option.”
“Is there another?”
“Proceed with the original plan.”
“Why?”
“Because no matter how miniscule the odds that you will all suddenly become pacifists, humans also have the characteristic feature of hoping that things will get better. And you have made some progress over the centuries.”
“If you hadn’t come to Earth, how long will it have taken before we would have reached the point where killing would be something we would no longer be proud of?”
“Your wife’s estimate was a reasonable one. Perhaps another millennium or two.”
“But you can’t let us reach that stage naturally, on our own?”
“We’ve explained that to you days ago. Think of all the lives that will be lost in the next thousand years, with your endless retaliatory wars and all the other forms of brutality. We can’t wait forever for you to evolve. Enough is enough.”
“Yet you think I should go through the motions of this farce.”
“No, we think you will want to go through the motions yourself.”
“Thanks again. I’ll take that as a compliment.” After a moment, I added an afterthought: “Did you take a look at the score? The symphony was beautiful, wasn’t it?”
“To a human, perhaps.”
“Aren’t there things that are intrinsically beautiful to anyone?”
“No. Beauty comes only from past experience. Your music would make no sense to most of the universe.”
“A pity.”
They completely ignored this pithy remark. “We encourage you to wander through your history. Take your time. The present isn’t going anywhere… .”
“How do I — ?” But of course he was gone again.
I had lost track of Beethoven, who was probably home by now, or drinking away his sorrows in some biergarten or other. I could probably have found him sooner or later, but the past was so vast! I closed my eyes and pictured as best I could the beatific smile on the Mona Lisa. The next thing I knew I was floating above a canvas, the painting nearly completed, with Leonardo himself studying what he had done so far. After a moment he mixed a little more oil on his palette and changed the tone of the face just a little, enough to give her cheeks a bit more of a rosy hue. I watched, fascinated, as the model for the work sat placidly, completely at home in the presence of the great man. Once in a while he would murmur something to her (I couldn’t hear the words, of course), and she would shift a bit, perhaps to catch the light a little better. I hovered up, down, and around her, gazed close-up into the craggy, bearded face of the artist, who seemed to be utterly lost in his occupation. The session lasted perhaps an hour and a half, after which he nodded to her and smiled a little. Without a word she arose and disappeared into the next room where, I supposed, she found a cape or other wrap and left the building. The great man left, too, maybe for lunch. An assistant picked up his paints and brushes, washed the latter with some kind of solvent, and generally cleaned up the area. After that I was left alone in the huge studio.
I floated around the room, absorbed in the tables of models — aircraft of one sort or another, ships, human bones, several notebooks and drawings, any of which would be worth a fortune in the “present.” The history of it all was staggering. Although I could see no one else, the artist-scientist’s studio might have been filled with time travelers coming from all eras of the future. Who could blame them? I hoped I would be able to come again.
But there was so much to see in the past that I hardly knew where (and when) to go next. Furthermore, it was wonderful to forget about the United Nations and Walter if only for a little while. A little while? I could stay here forever if I so chose. In fact, if I never returned, mankind would be safe, frozen in time. But it would be a lonely existence, if you could call it that. As many of my former patients used to remind me, you can’t win.
So I knew I would have to return at some point, and relentless time would start up again. Nevertheless, I decided to linger awhile in the past. After all, how many more opportunities would I have?
I couldn’t decide when to visit next. What would you do? Would you visit the era of the dinosaurs? Watch the signing of the Declaration of Independence? Listen as Mozart plunked out a new opera on the harpsichord? At this point I became confused. As warlike and vicious as we all are, there are so many good things about us that I suddenly saw everything from a different perspective. A moment ago I realized that we cause so much pain and suffering that we as a species didn’t deserve to live. Now I badly wanted us to survive. To create more music, more literature, even more touchdowns and home runs. There was no point in further delay. I had to go back and face up to my duty, with Walter’s help if necessary, as well as that of all the good people who were in the committee room and elsewhere working night and day to come up with the best way to save our species. I took one last look around Leonardo’s workplace, felt a little more amazement and awe (who wouldn’t?), and thought about Mike and the President waiting for me back at the Nerve Center.
“Good morning, Gene,” Mike said as I shuffled into the pre-fab structure, which would be gone in a few days, as if it had never been here. “Anything new from the Bullocks?”
“Not much,” I said. “But I’ve been… Well, never mind.”
He stared into my reddened eyes. “Anything you want to tell me? Are you okay?”
I waved him off. “Yes, fine. I’m ready for my close-up now.”
“Your close-up?”
“It’s a line from a movie.”
“Sunset Boulevard, right?”
“Yes.”
“One of the great ones.”
“Let’s hope it lives forever.”
“Amen to that, Gene.”
We came to the familiar yellow committee room, which was stuffed with even more people than were there the afternoon before. Only the President was missing; apparently he had a few other things to attend to. This time the meeting was chaired by the Vice-President, who brought everything to order. Someone may have realized that his avuncular presence (even though he was younger than I) was somehow soothing to me and, indeed, I liked the man very much. He started off by asking me how I was doing and whether I needed anything.
“Only for this thing to be over,” I said.
“I think we can all sympathize with that,” he said with one of his wide smiles. He turned to the other members of the task force. “Okay, let’s get on with this, shall we? Everyone have a copy of the ‘final’ draft?”
Everyone did but me; I was quickly supplied with one. It began this way: Ladies and gentlemen of the Security Council, I bring greetings from the citizens of the United States of America and the world. No more time was wasted in pleasantries. Today we are here to discuss an ultimatum brought to us by an alien race called the Bullocks. One week ago we were visited — Well, you know the rest. It seemed to me to be a perfect speech: concise, to the point. Every word was necessary; those that weren’t had been cut. The only thing I didn’t like about it was its coldness, its lack of emotion, despite the fact that everyone on the planet was faced with total annihilation. Nevertheless — what did I know? — I assumed protocol and experience dictated such an approach. Even though it was already perfected to the standards of diplomatic speechwriters, it apparently wasn’t good enough. For the next several hours the subcommittee went over every line again — every word — until most of the participants (though not all) were satisfied with the syntax, continuity, and all the other grammatical necessities to make sure that there would be no misunderstanding, and that no one could accuse the United States of being too arrogant or demanding. Though I was tempted to go watch Babe Ruth hit a home run, I stuck it out through the whole thing.
I spent the time trying hard to imagine what it would be like sitting at the big round Security Council table reading the damn thing. But I could
not. It was all so unreal: is this really happening? I asked myself, or was it just a bad (if vivid) dream? It was all so out of the blue, so to speak. One week ago I was in the grocery store looking for pickles, for God’s sake! Now I could pick anytime in history, anyplace in the universe I could visualize, and go there. This just couldn’t be happening, despite the fact that it was. The Vice-President wasn’t a figment of my imagination. He was here, as real as you or I. I had shaken his hand! And that of the President, too! And countless other dignitaries that I had never seen before except on TV. So I listened to the discussion with increasing trepidation and decreasing confidence. Then it was over. Suddenly the Vice-President was saying, “We’ll take an hour and a half for lunch, and reconvene at 1:30. If you have no objection, Gene, after that we’re going to show you a short film that will demonstrate what it’s physically like to be in the Security Council chamber, what you will be seeing and hearing when you are there, what the protocols will be, and all of that. The idea is to get you intimately familiar with the environment, so that it will be almost like a visit to your own living room. After that, we’ll ask you to read the speech again in its entirety. There won’t be any surprises — you’ve already gone over it with us several times. When we hear you read it we’ll know what, if anything, needs further work or further revision. Sound okay to you?”
“Can’t wait,” I said, to the usual encouraging grins and nods.
“Incidentally,” he added, “the President couldn’t be here this morning because of pressing business, mainly that of negotiating the details of your presentation — who will be allowed in the room, things like that. But he will be in attendance this afternoon. The meeting stands adjourned.”
I felt my shoulders noticeably slump. Everyone nodded and smiled yet again as they walked out, on their way to further discussion and nice lunches, I presumed. As always, Mike escorted me to the door. ‘I could probably find my way out,” I told him.
“I’m sure you could,” he said with a kindly laugh. “But for one more day it’s still my responsibility to see that you get home safely and back here again.” He shook my hand. “Don’t worry about practicing the speech in front of us today. You’re already intimately familiar with it, and it’s simple and straightforward. Just come relaxed and ready to go.”
“No problem,” I lied, and started across the lawn to the house. Halfway there it started to rain. More importantly, something occurred to me. “Walter, are you here?”
“Is the Pope Catholic?”
For some reason that struck me as uproariously funny, and I laughed loudly. The Secret Service, of course, pretended they heard nothing. I don’t know whether the Bullocks were practicing their version of our humor, but it just seemed — Well, I guess you had to be there. “I was just wondering what you think of the speech the task force has come up with. Do you think we can make it better?”
“One thing we have noticed about Homo sapiens is that with you nothing is ever perfect. Of course you can make it better, Gene. But don’t worry about that. It’s sufficient that you got your foot in the door.”
“What do you mean by that?” I asked, shielding my eyes from the raindrops.
No response.
“Walter?” What was he saying? That it didn’t matter what I said to the Security Council? Were they just using me to get to the chamber themselves? “Walter?” I continued to the house where Flower greeted me warmly in the little entryway. I hung up my jacket and went into the living room. Karen, of course, was waiting for me there. But so was someone else: my son-in-law. “Steve! What are you doing here?”
“Ah came to speak to the aliens.”
“But how did you get through the security people?”
Karen spoke up. “I told them it was all right. Steve is very persistent, honey. I thought it was better to get it over with.”
“They’re not here, Steve.”
“They’re not? Where are they?”
“I have no idea.”
“C’mon, Gene. Are you telling me you’re doin’ all this on your own?”
“No. It’s just that they come and go. Too bad. They were in the backyard a few minutes ago.”
He ran to the front door, yelling, “Then maybe they’re still there!”
“It doesn’t work that way, Steve. They come and go without warning. Maybe they’re here in the living room right now. Should I ask?”
His eyes darted around the room. “Ah don’t see anyone.”
“They’re not corporeal in the usual sense.”
“What does that mean?”
“They can occupy someone else’s body, even an insect, maybe even a rusty nail. But otherwise they’re like a — I don’t know — a vapor or a spirit.”
“Can you find out if they’re here?” He was pleading now. “Ah’m only asking for five minutes.”
I knew they weren’t, but I asked anyway just to get rid of him. “Walter?”
“Yes, doctor?”
“Walter!” I spoke quickly before he had a chance to leave again. “This is my — ”
Surprisingly, I heard them speak out loud for the first time since Day Two. “I’ve been waiting for you, Steve. What would you like to know?”
Steve audibly gulped, but didn’t waste a minute. “Just one thing. Is there a Grand Unified Theory?”
“No. Why should there be?”
“According to current theory — ”
“Theories change. It’s all on the cone.”
Steve turned to me. “What cone?”
“It’s a long story. I haven’t had a chance to — ”
Walter ignored me and went on. “I’ll give you a hint. The ‘dark matter,’ or ‘missing mass,’ as you like to call it, is real.”
I could actually hear my son-in-law panting. “What is it made of?”
“Gravity, of course.”
“It’s gravity itself?”
“What did you think it was?”
“Well, uh — ” I could tell that Steve was overcome with emotion. He knew something now that no one else in the world knew, and apparently that was quite enough for the time being. He couldn’t think of a single follow-up question. But he quickly regained his wits and asked, “And dark energy?”
“There is no such thing as ‘dark energy.’ It is a figment of the human imagination that attempts to explain the absurd hypothesis that the expansion of the universe will go on forever. It’s all on the cone.”
“What about string theory?”
“Another crude attempt to explain something you don’t understand. Strings don’t exist, either. Nor does the creation of the universe from nothing. It has always been here and will be forever, even when it collapses into a black hole.”
“You’re kiddin’!” Steve squealed.
But there was no answer. The interview was over.
Steve grabbed his hat, the beret that he was so fond of, and literally ran again for the door. He didn’t say good-bye or ask me to tell him about the cone. I never even got to ask him whether he would like to help decipher it.
“See?” said my perceptive wife. “He won’t be back. It’ll take him the rest of his life to digest that information. C’mon into the kitchen. Lunch will be coming soon, and you’re wet. I hope they bring some hot soup.”
I took her hand. “Just one thing.”
“What, hon?”
“I saw Leonardo da Vinci painting the Mona Lisa this morning. And Beethoven conducting his ninth symphony. All I could think of was how I wished you could have been there with me.”
“Did Walter send you there? Or have you figured out how to do it yourself?”
“I think I’ve got it figured out. Maybe I can teach you how to do it and we can go back to those places together.”
“Oh, that would be wonderful. But — ”
“Do you want to try it?�
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“What if I go somewhere and you aren’t there?” As I said, she is perceptive, far more so than I am. “And if that happened, are you sure I’d be able to get back?”
“Just look around and picture what you see now. The way I figure it, this is the only moment in all of time that we will see this exact scene.”
“But what if I get it wrong? What if you get it wrong?”
“What if we get it right? Isn’t it worth the risk?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t know. And what about lunch?”
“Won’t matter. Time stops while we’re gone. We could stay away a century and everything will be just like this when we get back.”
“Would Walter help us if we get stuck somewhere?”
“Good question. I don’t know. But I think they’re here to make sure the Security Council meeting happens tomorrow. I don’t think he will let us disappear and not make it to that meeting.”
“They won’t let you disappear, anyway. But what the hell — we only live once,” she accurately predicted. “Let’s go for it!”
This is why I love her so much: even though she had grave doubts about the outcome, she was game to try it. How many spouses do you know like her?
“So what do I think of?”
“Let’s try something I’ve already done; it should be easier than, say going back to the building of the pyramids. Which, by the way, is on my list of things to see. You know I’ve always been fascinated by them.”
“What have you already done?”
“Well, I’ve been to K-PAX a few times… .”
“Can we try something a little closer?”
“Do you have a suggestion?” I asked her. “Something that would be intimately familiar to both of us?”
“Our wedding day?”
“Perfect! Okay, let’s take the very moment when the minister said, “I now pronounce you… Uh, I forget the rest of it.”
“Very funny. All right. How do we do it?”