as is EARTH, of course, with its color and variety. But K-PAX is also very lovely, especially when K-MON and K-RIL are in conjunction.'
'What are K-MON and K-RIL.?'
'Those are our two SUNS. What you call AGAPE and SATORI. One is much larger than yours, the other smaller, but both are farther from our PLANET than your SUN is from yours. K-MON is red and K-RIL blue. But owing to our larger and more complex orbital pattern, we have much longer periods of light and darkness than you do, and not so much variation. That is, most of the time on K-PAX it's something like your twilight. One of the things a visitor to your WORLD first notices is how bright it is here.'
'Is that why you are wearing dark glasses?'
'Naturally.
'I'd like to clarify something you said earlier.'
'Certainly.'
'I believe you stated that you have been on Earth for four years and-uh-some odd months.'
'Nine.'
'Yes, nine. What I'd like very much to know is: Where were you living for those four or five years?'
'Everywhere.'
'Everywhere?'
'I have traveled all over your WORLD.'
'I see. And where did you begin your travels?'
'In zaire '
'Why Zaire? That's in Africa, isn't it?'
'It happened to be pointing toward K-PAX at the time.'
'Ah. And how long were you there?'
'A couple of your weeks altogether. Long enough to become familiar with the land. Meet the beings there. All beautiful, especially the birds.'
'Mm. Uh-what languages do they speak in Zaire?'
'You mean the humans, I presume.'
'Yes.'
'Besides the four official languages and french, there are an amazing number of native dialects.'
'Can you say something in Zairese? Any dialect will do.'
'Certainly. Ma-ma kona rampoon.'
'What does that mean?'
'It means: Your mother is a gorilla.'
'Thank you.'
'No problem.'
'And then where did you go? After Zaire.'
'All over africa. Then to europe, asia, australia, antarctica, and finally to the americas. '
'And how many countries have you visited?'
'All of them except eastern canada, greenland, and iceland. Those are my last stops.'
'All-what-hundred of them?'
'More like two hundred at present, but it seems to change by the minute.'
'And you speak all the languages.'
'Only enough to get by.'
'How did you travel? Weren't you stopped at various borders?'
'I told you: It's difficult to explain...'
'You mean you did it with mirrors.'
'Exactly.'
'How long does it take to go from country to country at the speed of light or whatever multiples of it you use?'
'No time at all.'
'Does your father like to travel?' I detected a brief hesitation, but no strong reaction to the sudden mention of prot's father.
'I imagine. Most K-PAXians do.'
'Well, does he travel? What kind of work does he do?'
'He does no work.'
'What about your mother?'
'What about her?'
'Does she work?'
'Why should she?'
'They are both retired, then?'
'Retired from what?
'From whatever they did for a living. How old are they?'
'Probably in their late six hundreds.'
'Obviously they no longer work.'
'Neither of them has ever worked.' Apparently the patient considered his parents to be ne'er-do-wells, and the way he phrased his answer led me to believe that he harbored a deep-seated resentment or even hatred not only of his father (not uncommon) but of his mother (relatively rare for a man) as well. He continued: 'No one `works' on KPAX. That is a human concept.'
'No one does anything?'
'Of course not. But when you do something you want to do, it's not work, is it?' His grin widened.
'You don't consider what you do to be work, do you?'
I ignored this smug comment. 'We'll talk more about your parents later, all right?'
'If you like.'
'Fine. There are a couple of other things I'd like to clear up before we go on.'
'Anything you say.'
'Good. First, how do you account for the fact that, as a visitor from space, you look so much like an Earth person?'
'Why is a soap bubble round?'
'I don't know-why?'
'For an educated person, you don't know much, do you, gene? A soap bubble is round because that is the most energy-efficient configuration. Similarly, many beings around the UNIVERSE look pretty much like we do.'
'I see. Okay-you mentioned earlier that-mm EARTH is a particularly lively place as seen and heard from space.'
'What did you mean by that?'
'Your television and radio waves go out from EARTH in all directions. The whole GALAXY is watching and listening to everything you say and do.'
'But these waves travel only at the speed of light, don't they? They couldn't possibly have reached K-PAX as yet.'
He sighed again, more loudly this time. 'But some of the energy goes into higher overtones, don'tcha know? It's this principle, in fact, that makes light travel possible. Have you studied physics?'
I suddenly remembered my long-suffering high school physics teacher, who had tried to drum this kind of information into my head. I also felt a need for a cigarette, though I hadn't smoked one in years. 'I'll take your word for that, Mist-uh-prot. One more thing: Why do you travel around the universe all by yourself?'
'Wouldn't you, if you could?'
'Maybe. I don't know. But what I meant was: Why do you do it alone?'
'Is that why you think I'm crazy?'
'Not at all. But doesn't it get kind of lonely, all those years-four years and eight months, wasn't it?-in space?'
'No. And I wasn't in space that long. I've been here for four years and nine months.'
