“You see, it’s like this,” said Crennick a few moments later, while standing before Marshall, donut box in hand. “You reach a point in your medical career, or whatever you were doing, when you’d like to see a few changes.”
A couple of snorts arose from the furniture. “Come on, Myron,” said someone. “Try not to put him to sleep.”
But Crennick, ignoring them, forged on.
“Maybe you're tired of the old rut. Same old life, same old wife. So you think to yourself, hey, everyone’s looking to slim down; I’ll do a diet. Something that hasn’t been tried before, or at least not in the last fifty years. So you come up with a regimen, test it on some patients, get a ghost writer, a publisher, and before long it’s out there—a bestseller. Then a huge bestseller, and you’ve got everything you were hoping for. And hell, I mean everything. No more morning rounds for you. No more poking your fingers up the tushies of geriatric fart machines.
“Am I right?” he added incautiously. And in an instant the room was alive with merriment.
“Yes! Yes! He said it!”
“He said it!”
“So is he?”
“Well, what do you think?”
“Of course he is.”
“How could he not be?”
“The man is . . .”
“Was . . .”
“And always will be . . .”
Together they chorused.
“RIGHT!!!”
“All right, all right,” said Crennick over the din. “How do you expect me to maintain any authority if you carry on like that?”
“What authority do you need?” said von Freunhoffer. “Mr. Shmishkiss knows that you speak for all of us. Do you not, Mr. Shmishkiss?”
“Oh, for sure,” said Marshall.
“Very good,” said von Freunhoffer. He gave Crennick a short upward jut of his chin. “Proceed.”
“Yeah, well where was I?”
“Bestseller.” “Fart machines.” “Being right.” Helpful cues like these flew at him from around the room.
For a moment he seemed about to respond angrily, but instead opened his box, took out a donut and bit in. The anger left him and he regained his composure, though not his power of speech until he had savored the first magnificent mouthful.
“All right then,” he said. “I mentioned book sales, freedom, liberation from unpleasant routine. But that, you see, is only part of what a diet brings you, when combined of course with speaking engagements, energy bars and other assorted merchandise.”
He began to pace. “You’re also on the Oprah network, Dr. Oz, The View. The public wakes up to you on Good Morning America and goes to sleep to you on The Tonight Show. And if you choose to have any patients, well, who knows? One of them might be a Victoria’s Secret model who is exceptionally grateful when you help her shed a couple of ounces—not that she really needed to—and also kind of likes the lifestyle your income would allow. And those Victoria’s Secret girls, they know how to express gratitude. Am I—?” In the nick of time, he checked himself. “Well, how would you know? You wouldn’t. But believe me, I present an accurate depiction.
“So now,” he continued, “you have your new supermodel wife, your fifteen-million Manhattan condo, your friends who include just about everybody you’ve ever wanted to meet. There’s just one little problem.”
Despite the donut, he scowled.
“You see, everyone else can watch you on television, get super-enthusiastic, buy the book, try the diet, lose the weight, regain the weight and forget about it. Everyone, that is, except you. Because this diet, you see, has your name on it. You created it. You told everyone how easy it was. And because of it, you’re a celebrity. Which means everyone watches you, all the time. And that means everyone: Oprah, the taxi driver, the convenience store clerk in the Podunk town, not to mention your shiny new wife. And what do they want when they’re watching you? Obviously, to see you, the master, show them, the fat person, or scared-to-be-fat person, how it’s done. At Sardi’s, at the Four Seasons, while they're orgasming over their mousses and bisques, they want to see you over the moon over your three ounces of lean skinless chicken breast garnished with half an acre of vegetables and a few teardrops of oil. That’s what they want—what they demand when they’re not ogling your midsection to see just how taut and tight a middle-aged tummy can be.”
Crennick’s midsection was about eye-level with Marshall, who could not help noticing, again, how taut and tight it actually was.
“Until one day,” said the doctor, “it hits you as if you’re hearing it from a judge, that this is a life sentence with no possibility of parole. Your guards are . . . everybody. And don’t even think of sneaking out for a snack. Never mind what it would do to your waistline, a paparazzo would make his career by catching you in an assignation with a potato chip.”
Exclamations, but no longer mocking ones, came from around the room.
“You know what it’s like, don’t you, Ellerbee,” said Crennick to the oat bran crusader, who nodded, frowning. “Low-fat, low-carb, what’s the difference? Even he knows.” Now he was addressing Mend. “Even though his shtick was exercise.”
Mend smiled, stretched languorously and settled even more deeply into his chaise lounge.
Crennick turned back to Marshall. “But now comes the surprising part. Because it turns out your situation isn’t hopeless after all. And getting into the diet business was, despite everything, the brightest move you could make.
“Though, speaking from my own experience, things have to get pretty crazy before you find that out.”
“They always wait until you are at your most desperate,” said von Freunhoffer. “Somehow they know.”
“Yeah,” said Crennick. “They know. And when the time comes, there they are. In my case, on my New Hampshire property, when Illeana's off on a shoot.”
“In my case, in my kitchen, while I’m swearing at a bowl of oatmeal,” said Quinn.
“In my case,” said Mend, “on one of my wooded trails. I’m running, and suddenly a deer is running beside me, talking.”
“And boy were you ready for what it had to say,” said Crennick. “Am I . . .?” Again he squelched himself.
“All right, say it,” said Khuldip. “We give you a pass.”
“Well, weren’t you?” said Crennick. “Once they proved they were genuine, wasn’t it the most wonderful thing you could hear?”
“Who’s they?” asked Marshall. “Do you mean aliens?”
“We mean our friends,” said von Freunhoffer. “They prefer we call them that.”
“Yes, our friends,” said Crennick. “One way or another they introduce themselves and make a suggestion. Maybe we’d like to get off the hamster wheel. Eat the way we want. Seven meals a day if we like. Real meals with real ingredients—sugar, fat, refined carbohydrates—in a place where we’ll never be hounded again. A place where food is only the start. Do we have a condition—an arthritic joint, perhaps? Not if we cooperate. Do we have a yen for something? Say, I don’t know, farm girls. We have only to ask.”
“Never gain an ounce or clog an artery,” said Kirby.
“Or age a day,” added Mend.
“But hold on,” said Marshall, curious how his mind, inventive as it was, would deal with an inconsistency. “Your bodies, I’m sure, in most cases, were found. And in the case of a murder”—he indicated von Freunhoffer—“even autopsied.”
“Ever heard of clones?” said Mend.
“They grow, essentially, flesh-and-blood mannequins that duplicate a person in every outward aspect,” said von Freunhoffer. “One of those was exchanged for each of us at the necessary moment.”
“So there must be a clone version of me as well. A dead me back on Earth,” said Marshall, more delighted with his ingenuity than ever.
“Nah, you were just lost in the woods,” said Crennick. “You’re a missing person.”
“Thanks to your well-chosen rendezvous point, there was no need for a clone in your case,” said von Freunhoffer.
“Well,” said Marshall, “I’m just glad I could make it easy for everyone.”
Once again he believed he'd said something innocuous.
And once again he was wrong.
“Easy?” snapped Quinn. “You think spending hours over your necrotizing carcass was easy?” He turned to Crennick. “Didn’t tell him about that either, did you?”
“No time,” said Crennick, his mouth partly full again. “Like I said.”
“Myron, I cannot even begin to comprehend this,” said Khuldip. “Just imagine the difference in his demeanor if he realized what he owes us.” Exasperated, he addressed Marshall directly. “You were a goner for sure, let me tell you. A goner or at best a multiple amputee. Without us, you could kiss all your fingers and toes goodbye.”
“We pulled out the stops for you, buddy,” said Quinn. “And not only us. Couple of the friends, too.”
“Well, uh . . . thanks,” said Marshall. “Truly. From the bottom of my heart.”
“Which we also fixed,” said Quinn. “You were headed for some valve issues.”
“The fact is,” said von Freunhoffer, “that despite your thanks, you still have no idea how much you have to be thankful for. It will take weeks until your body, as a result of our efforts, has shed its surplus fat and attained a peak state of vigor. And then, who knows? You may still be bamboozling yourself that none of it is real.”
Marshall tried to respond, to disagree, but couldn’t. This von Freunhoffer seemed able to read his mind.
Or rather, his mind seemed able to read itself. Not nearly so impressive.
But would his mind really choose a word like bamboozling?
“Marshall,” coaxed the old doctor, “we have seen your transmissions. We know what you have always wanted. Now would it not be a shame if, having finally achieved this extraordinary objective, you insisted on denying it ever occurred?”
He had to admit: it would be a shame.
“And is this not what you are doing?” said von Freunhoffer. “Here you are, in outer space, aboard an inconceivably sophisticated vessel, and dismissing the entire experience.”
“But suppose it is real,” said Marshall, back to wondering if maybe it was. “How could I believe it when everything’s so . . .”
He checked himself.
“Everything is so what?” said von Freunhoffer.
“Never mind. You’ll only get angry with me again.”
“I promise you we will not. Everything is so what?”
He hesitated. “So ridiculous.”
And von Freunhoffer kept his promise. He did not get angry. Rather, he said, “What is ridiculous? That explorers from another world would seek out experts in the human body to assist them in their research? That certain of those experts would be more willing to cooperate than others?”
“Anyone looking into it,” said Quinn, “will find that an improbable number of people like us have died under unusual circumstances. Or seem to have, anyway.”
Marshall considered and then realized, with a surge of excitement and, for some reason, anxiety, that it actually made sense. At least, it made as much sense as the notion that ordinary rescuers had found him, at the last moment, in a place where he had never seen another person during any of his off-season visits.
“Look,” said Khuldip. “His expression.”
“Indeed,” said von Freunhoffer.
Of course, there was still the question of why. Why would advanced beings go to the trouble of faking deaths, manufacturing clones and supplying donuts?
But maybe these men, these colleagues, could explain that as well.
And he began asking them to.
Just as they began leaping up and crowding through the opening in the clubroom wall.