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  “Does he regret his decision to get married and raise a family?”

  “Oh, no. He is truly devoted to his wife and daughter, whatever that means.”

  “Tell me about his wife.”

  “Cheerful. Energetic. Dull. Like most of the housewives you see at the a&p.”

  “And the daughter?”

  “A carbon copy of her mother.”

  “Do they all get along well?”

  “They idolize one another.”

  “Do they have a lot of friends?”

  “None.”

  “None?”

  “Sarah’s a catholic. I told you—it’s a small town....”

  “They never see anyone else?”

  “Only her family. And his mother.”

  “What about his sisters?”

  “One lives in alaska. The other is just like everyone else in town.”

  “Would you say he hates her?”

  “He doesn’t hate anyone.”

  “What about male friends?”

  “There ain’t none.”

  “What about the bully and the kid he beat up on?”

  “One is in prison, the other was killed in lebanon.”

  “And he never stops off at a tavern after work for a beer with his fellow knockers?”

  “Not anymore.”

  “He did earlier?”

  “He used to joke around with the others, have a beer or two. But whenever he invited someone for supper, they always found some excuse not to come. And no one ever invited him and his family for a barbecue or anything else. After a while he began to get the idea. Now they stick to their trailer most of the time. I tried to tell him this would happen.”

  “Sounds like a pretty lonely existence.”

  “Not really. Sarah has a million brothers and sisters.”

  “And now they’re going to buy a house?”

  “Maybe. Or build one. They’ve got their eye on a few acres of land. It’s a beautiful spot, a part of a farm that someone split up. It has a stream and a couple of acres of trees. A lovely place. Reminds me of home. Except for the stream.”

  “Tell him I hope he gets it.”

  “I’ll do that, but he still won’t tell you his name.”

  At that point Mrs. Trexler barged in, out of breath, whispering frantically about a disturbance in the psychopathic ward: Someone had kidnapped Giselle! I quickly hushed her up and reluctantly brought prot back from his hypnotic state, left him with Mrs. T, and took off for the fourth floor.

  Giselle! It is hard to express the feelings I had in the few seconds it took me to make it downstairs. I couldn’t have been more distressed if it had been Abby or Jenny in the hands of whichever lunatic had grabbed her. I saw her slouched down in my office chair, heard her childish voice, smelled her sweet, piney scent. Giselle! All my fault. All my fault. Allowing a helpless girl to “cruise the corridors” of the psych ward. I tried not to imagine a pair of hairy arms wrapped around her neck, or worse....

  I banged into Four. Everyone was milling around or chatting amiably, some even beginning to return to their regular routines. I couldn’t believe how unconcerned they seemed to be. All I could think of was: What kind of people are these?

  The kidnapper’s name was Ed. He was a handsome, white, fifty-year-old man who had gone berserk six years earlier and gunned down eight people with a semiautomatic rifle in a shopping mall parking lot. Until that time he had been a successful stockbroker, a model husband and father, sports fan, church elder, six-handicap golfer, and all the rest. Afterward, even with regular medication, he suffered periods of episodic dyscontrol accompanied by significant electrical activity in his brain, which usually ended with utter exhaustion and fists bloodied by pounding them against the walls of his room.

  But it wasn’t Giselle he had kidnapped. It was La Belle.

  I never did find out whether Mrs. Trexler’s tongue had slipped or whether I misheard her—I had been worried about Giselle’s safety all along. In any case the kitten had gotten into the psychopathic ward, and when the orderlies opened Ed’s door to take away his dirty laundry, she slipped inside. It wasn’t long before he was banging on the bars of his window and threatening to wring La Belle’s little neck unless he could talk to “the guy from outer space.”

  Villers was there to remind me that he had opposed the idea of having animals in the wards, and perhaps he was right—this would never have happened without the kitten and, furthermore, if anything happened to it, the effect on Bess and the others could be quite demoralizing. I thought Ed was bluffing; he was not in one of his violent phases. But I could see no compelling reason not to let him talk briefly with prot, and I asked Betty to send for him. Prot, however, was already there. Apparently he had followed me down the stairs.

  There was no need to explain the situation, only to tell him to assure Ed there would be no reprisal if he let the kitten go. Prot, requesting that no one accompany him, headed for Ed’s room. I assumed they would talk through the barred window, but suddenly the door opened and prot darted inside, slamming it behind him.

  After a few minutes I cautiously approached the window and peered into the room. They were standing over by the far wall, talking quietly. I couldn’t hear what they were saying. Ed was holding La Belle, stroking her gently. When he glanced toward me I backed off.

  Prot finally came out, but without the kitten. After making sure the security guard had locked Ed’s door, I turned to him, puzzled. Anticipating my question, he said, “He won’t harm her.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “He told me.”

  “Uh huh. What else did he tell you?”

  “He wants to go to K-PAX.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I said I couldn’t take him with me.”

  “What did he say to that?”

  “He was disappointed until I told him I would come back for him later.”

  “And that satisfied him?”

  “He said he would wait if he could keep the kitten.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t worry. He won’t hurt her. And he won’t cause you any more trouble, either.”

  “How can you be so sure of that?”

  “Because he thinks that if he does, I won’t come back for him. I would anyway, but he doesn’t know that.”

  “You would? Why?”

  “Because I told him I would. By the way,” he said as we were walking out together, “you’ll need to find a few more furry beings for the other wards.”

  Here was Howie’s final task: to be ready for anything. To respond at a moment’s notice to whatever prot, without warning, might challenge him with.

  For a day or two he raced at tachyon speed from the library to his room and back to the library—same old Howie. He didn’t sleep for forty-eight hours. He was reading Cervantes, Schopenhauer, the Bible. But suddenly, as he was darting past the lounge window where he had spotted the bluebird, he stopped and took his old seat on the ledge. He began to chuckle, then to roar. Pretty soon the whole ward, except perhaps for Bess, was giggling, then the whole hospital, staff and all. The absurdity of prot’s charge, that he be ready for anything that might possibly happen, had sunk in.

  “It is stupid to try to prepare for life,” Howie told me later, on the lawn. “It happens, and there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it.” Prot was over by the side wall examining a sunflower. I wondered what he saw in it that we didn’t.

  “What about your task?” I asked him.

  “Qué será, será,” he whistled, leaning back to soak up the warm sunshine. “I think I’ll take a nap.”

  I suggested he think about the possibility of moving to Ward One. “I’ll wait until Ernie’s ready,” he said.

  The problem was that Ernie didn’t want to leave. I had already proposed, at the last staff meeting, that Ernie be transferred to One as well. He had shown no sign of the debilitating phobia since his “cure”—no mask, no complaints about the food, no ho
g-tying himself at night or sleeping on the floor. He was, in fact, spending most of his time with the other patients, particularly Bess and Maria. He had already become quite adept at recognizing the latter’s various alters, learning all their names and characteristics, waiting patiently for the “real” Maria to make an appearance, then going out of his way to keep her around, gently encouraging her interests in needlepoint and macramé. It was obvious that Ernie had a talent for helping others, and I encouraged him to consider going into one of the health or social professions. His reply was, “But there’s so much that needs to be done here.”

  It was about this time that Chuck organized an essay contest to decide who would be the one to go with prot on August seventeenth. The plan called for submission of all entries by August tenth, a week before his “departure,” a date that was rapidly approaching. Prot had apparently agreed to read all the essays by the seventeenth.

  Several staff members noted that Ward Two was unusually quiet during that two-week period with everyone sitting off by him/herself, thinking hard, bending over periodically to write something down. The only patients who didn’t seem to want to go to K-PAX were Ernie and Bess—Ernie because there was work to be done here, and Bess because she felt she didn’t deserve a free trip. And, of course, Russell, who called the contest “the work of the devil.”

  Session Thirteen

  Ever since she ran off to Texas with a guitar player at the age of fifteen, my daughter Abby has been a vegetarian. She won’t wear fur, either, and has long opposed the use of animals in medical research. I have tried many times to explain to her the benefits to mankind of the latter endeavor, but her mind is closed on the subject. “Explain that to all the dead dogs,” is her standard reply. We haven’t discussed the subject in years.

  Abby once gave me a tape recording of whale songs. At the beginning of session thirteen, while prot was digging into a watermelon, I played it for him. He stopped chewing and tilted his head to one side, much as Shasta had done when she had heard the same tape. By the time it was over he was grinning even more broadly than usual. A piece of the rind was stuck in his teeth. I said, “Can you make anything out of that?”

  “Of course.”

  “What is it? Is it some kind of communication?”

  “What did you think it was—stomach gas?”

  “Can you tell me what they’re saying?”

  “Sure.”

  “Well?”

  “They’re passing on all kinds of very complex navigational data, temperature and solute and food type and distribution charts, and lots of other things, including some poetry and art. It is rich in imagery and emotion, which you would probably dismiss as ‘sentimental.’”

  “Can you give me a literal translation of all that?”

  “I could, but I won’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you would use it against them.”

  I felt a certain amount of resentment at being held personally responsible for the decimation of many of the world’s cetaceans, but could think of no good reply.

  “There was also a message for all the other beings on the PLANET.” He paused here, peering at me out of the corner of an eye, and took another bite of fruit.

  “Well? Are you going to tell me what it was? Or are you going to keep that a secret, too?”

  “They’re saying, ‘Let’s be friends.’” He finished the melon, counted, “One-two-three-four-five,” and was out like a light.

  “Comfortable?” I said, when I realized he had already hypnotized himself.

  “Perfectly, my dear sir.”

  “Good.” I took a very deep breath. “Now I’m going to give you a specific date, and I want you to remember where you were and what you were doing on that day. Do you understand?”

  “Jawohl.”

  “Excellent.” I braced myself. “The date is August seventeenth, 1985.”

  There was no hint of shock or other emotion. “Yes,” was all he said.

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m on K-PAX. Harvesting some kropins for a meal.”

  “Kropins?”

  “Kropins are fungi. Something like your truffles. Big truffles. Delicious. Do you like truffles?”

  I was a bit annoyed by his attention to trivia at a time like this, though it was I who had pursued the topic. “I’ve never had truffles. But let’s get on with this, shall we? Is anything else happening? Any calk from Earth?”

  “There it is now, as a matter of fact, and I’m on my way.”

  “What did it feel like when the call came?”

  “He needed me. I felt that he needed me.”

  “And how long will it take you to get to Earth?”

  “No time at all. You see, at tachyon speed, time goes backward, so that—”

  “Thank you. You’ve already explained to me all about light travel.”

  “Funny, I don’t remember doing that. But then you must know it takes no time at all.”

  “Yes. I had forgotten. So now you are on Earth?”

  “Yes. In zaire.”

  “Zaire?”

  “It is pointing toward K-PAX at this moment.”

  “And now you’ll be heading for—”

  “And now I am with him.”

  “Your friend?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where are you? What is happening?”

  “By a river in back of his house. It is dark. He is taking off his clothes.”

  “He called you to Earth to go for a nighttime swim with him?”

  “No. He is trying to kill himself.”

  “Kill himself? Why?”

  “Because something terrible has happened.”

  “What happened?”

  “He doesn’t want to talk about it.”

  “Damn it, I’m trying to help him.”

  “He knows that.”

  “Then why won’t he tell me?”

  “He feels terribly hurt and ashamed. He doesn’t want you to know.”

  “But I can’t help him unless he tells me what happened.”

  “He knows that, too.”

  “Then why—”

  “Because then you’d know what even he doesn’t want to know.”

  “Do you know what happened?”

  “No.”

  “No? Doesn’t he tell you everything that happens to him?”

  “Not anymore.”

  “Then will you help him? If you can get him to tell me what happened you would be taking the first step toward helping him deal with it.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “He doesn’t want to talk about it—remember?”

  “But time’s running out for him!”

  “Time is running out for everyone.”

  “All right. What is happening now?”

  “He is floating down the river. He is drowning. He wants to die.” Prot stated this matter-of-factly, as if he were a disinterested observer.

  “Can’t you stop him?”

  “What can I do?”

  “You could talk to him. Help him.”

  “If he wants to die, that’s his right, don’t you think?”

  “But he is your friend. If he dies you will never see him again.”

  “I am his friend. That is why I won’t interfere.”

  “All right. Is he still conscious?”

  “Barely.”

  “But still in the water?”

  “Yes.”

  “There is still time. Help him, for God’s sake.”

  “There is no need. The stream has washed him onto the bank. He will survive.”

  “How far downstream did it carry him?”

  “Just a few jarts—a mile or so.”

  “What is he doing now?”

  “He’s coughing. He’s full of water, but he’s coming around.”

  “And you are with him?”

  “As close as I am to you right now.”

  “Can you talk to him?”

  �
��I can talk to him, but he won’t talk to me.”

  “What is he doing now?”

  “He’s just lying there.” At this point prot took off his shirt and lay it on the floor in front of him.

  “You covered him?”

  “He is shivering.” Prot lay down on the carpet beside his shirt.

  “You are lying down beside him?”

  “Yes. We are going to sleep now.”

  “Yes, you do that. And now I’m going to ask you to come forward in time to the next morning. The sun is up. Where are you now?”

  “Still lying here.”

  “He is sleeping?”

  “No. He just doesn’t want to get up.”

  “Did he say anything during the night?”

  “No.”

  “Did you say anything to him?”

  “No.”

  “All right. Now it’s late afternoon. Where are you now?”

  Prot got up and returned to his chair. “In zaire.”

  “Zaire? How did you get to Zaire?”

  “It’s difficult to explain. You see, light has certain—”

  “What I meant was, why did you go back there? Is your friend with you?”

  “It looked like a beautiful country. I thought some sightseeing might cheer him up.”

  “Did you talk to him about it?”

  “Yes. I said, ‘Let’s get out of here.’”

  “What did he say?”

  “Nothing.”

  “So now you’re in Zaire.”

  “Yes.”

  “Both of you.”

  “Yes.”

  “What will you do next?”

  “Get to know the beings here.”

  “And then what?”

  “We’ll move on to another place.”

  “All right. It’s six months later. February seventeenth, 1986. Where are you?”

  “Egypt.”

  “Still in Africa?”

  “It’s a big continent. By EARTH standards, anyway.”

  “Is your friend still with you?”

  “Of course.”

  “What did you use for money on these travels?”

  “Nothing. We just took what we needed.”

  “And nobody objected?”

  “Not after I explained who we were.”

  “All right. It’s one year after you left the river. August seventeenth, 1986. Where are you now?”