'K-PAX. '
'Kaypacks?'
'Kay-hyphen-pee-ay-ex. K-PAX.'
'With a capital kay?'
'It is all capitals.'
'Oh. K-PAX. Is that an island?'
He smiled at this, apparently realizing I already knew he believed himself to be from another world. But he said, simply, 'K-PAX is a PLANET.' Then: 'But don't worry I'm not going to leap out of your chest.'
I smiled back. 'I wasn't worried. Where is K-PAX?' He sighed, tolerantly it seemed, and shook his head.
'About seven thousand light-years from here. It's in what you would call the CONSTELLATION LYRA.'
'How did you get to Earth?'
'That's somewhat difficult to explain....'
At this point I noted on my pad the surprising observation that, even though we had only been together a few minutes, and despite all my years of experience, I was becoming a little annoyed by the patient's obvious condescension. I said, 'Try me.'
'It's simply a matter of harnessing the energy of light. You may find this a little hard to believe, but it's done with mirrors.'
I couldn't help feeling he was putting me on, but it was a good joke, and I suppressed a chuckle. 'You travel at the speed of light?'
'Oh, no. We can travel many times that speed, various multiples of c. Otherwise, I'd have to be at least seven thousand years old, wouldn't I?'
I forced myself to return his smile. 'That is very interesting,' I said, 'but according to Einstein nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, or one hundred eighty-six thousand miles per second, if I remember correctly.'
'You misunderstand einstein. What he said was that nothing can accelerate to the speed of light because its mass would become infinite. Einstein said nothing about entities already traveling at the speed of light, or faster.'
'But if your mass becomes infinite when you-'
His feet plopped onto my desk. 'In the first place, dr. brewer-may I call you gene?-if that were true, then photons themselves would have infinite mass, wouldn't they? And beyond that, at tachyon speeds-'
'Tachyon?'
'Entities traveling faster than the speed of light are called tachyons. You can look it up.'
'Thank you. I will.' My reply sounds a bit peevish on rehearing the tape. 'If I understand you correctly, then, you did not come to Earth in a spaceship. You sort of `hitched a ride' on a beam of light.'
'You could call it that;'
'How long did it take you to get to Earth from your planet?'
'No time at all. Tachyons, you see, travel faster than light and, therefore, backward in time. Time passes for the traveler, of course, and he becomes older than he was when he left.'
'And how long have you been here on Earth?'
'Four years and nine months. Your years, that is.'
'And that makes you how old now? In Earth terms, of course.'
'Three hundred and thirty-seven. '
'You are three hundred and thirty-seven years old?'
'Yes. '
'All right. Please tell me a little. more about yourself.' Although I recognized the unreality of the man's story, it is standard psychiatric practice to draw out an amnesiacal patient in hopes of obtaining information about his true background.
'You mean before I came to EARTH? Or-'
'Let's start with this: How did you happen to be chosen to make the journey from your planet to ours?'
Now the patient was actually grinning at me. Though it seemed innocent enough, perhaps even ingenuous, I found myself poring through his file rather than gaze at his Cheshire-cat face in dark glasses. He said, ''Chosen.' That's a peculiarly human concept.' I looked up to find him scratching his chin and searching the ceiling in an apparent attempt to locate the appropriate words to explain his lofty thoughts to someone as lowly as myself. What he . came up with was: 'I wanted to come and I am here.'
'Anyone who wants to come to Earth may do so?'
'Anyone on K-PAX. And a number of other PLANETS, of course.'
'Did anyone come with you?'
'No.'
'Why did you want to come to Earth?'
'Several reasons. For one, EARTH is a particularly lively place as seen and heard from space. And it is a Class III-B PLANET.'
'Meaning ... ?'
'Meaning early stage of evolution, future uncertain.'
'I see. And is this your first trip to our planet?'
'Oh, no. I've been here many times.'
'When was the first time?'
'In 1963, your calendar.'
'And has anyone else from K-PAX visited us?'
'No. I am the first.'
'I'm relieved to hear that.'
'Why?'
'Let's just say it would cause a lot of people a certain amount of consternation.'
'Why?' .
'If you don't mind, I'd rather we talk about you today. Would that be all right?'
'If you wish.'
'Good. Now-where else have you been? Around the universe, I mean.'
'I have been to sixty-four PLANETS within our GALAXY.'
'And on how many of those have you encountered life?'
'Why, on all of them. The ones that are barren don't interest me. Of course there are those who are fascinated by rocks and weather patterns and-'
'Sixty-four planets with intelligent life?'
'All life is intelligent.'
'Well, how many have human beings such as ourselves?'
'EARTH is the only one with the species homo sapiens that I have visited so far. But we know there are a few others here and there.'
'With intelligent life?'
'No, with human life. The PLANETS that support life number into the millions, possibly the billions. Of course we haven't visited them all. That is only a rough estimate.'
'We' meaning inhabitants of K-PAX.'
'K-PAXians, NOLLians, FLORians...'
'Those are other races on your home planet?'
'No. They are inhabitants of other worlds.'
Most delusionals are confused to the point that they stutter or stumble considerably when trying to answer complex questions in a consistent manner. This patient was not only knowledgeable about a variety of arcane topics, but also confident enough of his knowledge to weave a cogent story. I scribbled on my pad the speculation that he might have been a scientist, perhaps a physicist or astronomer, and made a further note to determine how far his knowledge extended into those fields. For now, I wanted to learn something about his early life.
'Let's back up just a bit, if you don't mind. I'd like you to tell me something about K-PAX itself.'
'Certainly. K-PAX is somewhat bigger than your PLANET, about the size of NEPTUNE. It is a beautiful world,
