“I was born in Indiana,” he confided. “Name used to be ‘Smith.’ Never quite lost my Hoosier twang.”
“How did you get to—”
“I was fascinated by British history in school. All those beheadings and the like. And when I went there, I found the people to be open and direct, unlike the impression most Americans have.” He confided: “They love a good gossip.”
I was beginning to detect a faint whiff of smarm. “Is that why you’re interviewing fled? To get some good gossip started?”
“Not really. We don’t start anything. We just reveal it. Spread it out a bit. One thing I’ve learned in my quarter-century in the business: you never know what juicy stuff is hiding below a person’s surface.”
“Fled isn’t a ‘person.’ She’s an orf.”
“Exactly. That’s part of the idea for the interview. Do orfs have all that juicy stuff hiding below their surfaces, just like we do?”
I could have answered that one, but chose not to. “Well, according to the rules, you’re allowed an hour. Will that be enough to tease out the juicy stuff, do you think?”
If he sensed a hint of sarcasm, he didn’t show it. “Shouldn’t take more than an hour to root ‘er out. I’m pretty good at what I do. And you should have a copy of LifeinGeneral in less than a fortnight.”
“That’s something like our ‘People’ magazine,” isn’t it?”
“Yes, I believe it is. We usually interview well-known people—movie stars and the like.” He glanced around before whispering, “You’d be surprised. They’re the dullest people imaginable. We usually have to work pretty hard to get anything intelligent out of them. Still,” he added cheerfully, “no matter what we come up with, our readers eat up everything we print about their faves. Which is fine with me. Otherwise I’d be out of a job.”
We got to the doctor’s dining room, which was empty. I found the teabags, hot water, and a carton of milk. “I’m afraid this will have to do.”
He seemed a trifle disappointed by the absence of a proper teapot and cozy, but graciously accepted the substitutes and proceeded to solemnly dunk the bag for exactly two minutes before filling the rest of the mug with milk and glugging it all down in one go as if his life depended on it. Spotting a case containing doughnuts and muffins, he helped himself to a few of those as well. While he gorged on these and made another cup of milky tea, I went over the ground rules with him, which had already been worked out between the lawyers. The principle details were that Smythe could tape the interview and we would get a copy of the tape, not a transcript; and that I would be allowed to preview the article for factual errors, but not content, prior to publication. If I insisted on changes—either additions or deletions—in the substance of the story all fees would be returned, though the magazine would retain the option to publish the edited version.
Smythe had no problem with any of this, and cheerfully signed the agreement, as did I. “One question: how did you know about fled?”
“She sent us an e-mail.”
“How did she know about you?”
“I don’t have a clue. But I understand that K-PAXians pick up all our electronic broadcasts. Maybe she reads our zine online.”
I checked my watch. Smythe quickly finished his third cup of tea and we headed for the lounge to look for fled, who had agreed to meet us there. She was speaking with Claire, or vice versa. I politely asked the latter to excuse us, and she graciously agreed. In fact, she seemed to be quite relaxed, a condition I didn’t usually associate with “Dr. Smith.” I wondered what fled had told her—that she would be out of here soon?
Smythe, too, was surprisingly at ease with fled. Of course he had been thoroughly briefed on her physical attributes, and they chatted amiably as we rode the elevator (he was in even worse shape than I—was she being solicitous of his welfare?) to Room 520. He took my place at Goldfarb’s desk, and fled her usual chair. I sat off to the side, planning to observe and say nothing (not a term in the agreement, but tacitly understood).
The first part of their discussion revealed no surprises—fled was from K-PAX; she was a trod, one of the orfs; she came here to study our various life forms; she planned to take 100,000 people back with her when she returned; a departure site had yet to be determined (any owners of football teams interested?); to facilitate the selection process, she had created a website listing the requirements needed to qualify for the journey. Nothing new there. But when fled mentioned her pregnancy I shouted, “What??”
Smythe, for his part, allowed himself a dignified “Yahoo!”
“I’m expecting a child, doctor b. Aren’t you thrilled?”
“You never told me!”
“You never asked!”
“Well, what the hell is he? A chimpanzee? A bonobo? What?”
“You shouldn’t get so excited, gino. Did you take your diuretic this morning?”
“All right, all right. I’m calm. Now will you tell me who the father of your child is?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea.”
“Well, how many chimpanzees have you had—uh—intercourse with?”
“Quite a few. But he could be half gorilla.”
“You had sex with a gorilla?”
“One or two. Or he could be human.”
“He’s human?”
“Could be. Now pay attention. I told you: I don’t know who the father is.”
“But how could you be pregnant? What about the yorts? We don’t have those on Earth, do we?”
“Obviously I don’t need them here. Amazing PLANET, don’t you think? Must have something to do with the way your sperm functions.”
The grin on Smythe’s face was a foot wide. Despite the tape recorder humming on the desk, he was furiously jotting everything down. He didn’t seem to mind at all that I had done half his work for him.
I didn’t hear much of the rest of the interview. When it was finally over (we overshot by half an hour), I told fled, “I’ll speak to you about this later.”
“No doubt,” she replied with a little snort.
I grimly escorted Smythe back to Goldfarb’s office. Halfway there, he decided to head directly for the airport. “This is too good to keep to myself,” he blurted before rushing toward the front door. “Cheerio!” he called out as he departed.
He was right: I wanted to tell someone, too. But not Goldfarb—I wanted to think about it first. It occurred to me to wonder what effect the news would have on the patients. And what Dartmouth and Wang were going to do about it.
As I was leaving the hospital, I met Chang and Roberts coming back in. Laura stopped me. “Claire discarded her stethoscope. I think fled told her she’s going to K-PAX.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised.”
Roberts added his two cents. “Maybe she only suggested that Claire retire and forget about psychiatry. Like Gene, here.”
As I passed by the lawn, I noticed that some of the patients had found Claire’s stethoscope and were examining each other’s heads with it. I wished them luck. They couldn’t do any harm, and they might even find something we had missed.
* * *
Karen thought fled’s pregnancy was funny. I didn’t, but her laugh is very infectious. We giggled like children. Then I told her about fled’s website describing the requirements for a one-way trip to K-PAX. “Let’s go take a look,” she said.
On the way to my study she asked me, in all seriousness, “Would you go with her?”
“I don’t know. Would you?”
“No.”
“Then neither would I.”
I found the site. It wasn’t fancy, but it was to the point. She had listed the requirements for the journey, all right. But I almost felt sorry for her: there probably weren’t many people on the entire planet, if any, who would be going along for the ride. Here’s what it said: