Tomy and the Planet of Lies (4 page)

“Can you read my thoughts?” I asked.

“Not here. Not unless I do a takeover.”

“Take over what?” I asked.

“A consciousness,” smiled the stranger and shrugged his shoulders as if he regretted the statement.

“This is all just crazy,” Marc interjected. “Just shoot the damn thing and be done with it!” Marc tried to grab for the pistol. I asked him to stop it, explaining that we were the only witnesses to what was probably a unique experiment. We would find out soon enough what was going on, and until that time he should calm down.

“Good idea!” commented the stranger. “If we continue analytically, you will understand everything: one piece at a time. To start with,” now he was leaning on the hood of the car, “I come from out there,”—he pointed towards the sky with his thumb—“from a planet that you cannot imagine.”

“I don't believe it,” I said, and added, “We know of no planets outside of our own solar system.”

“Then it's about time you learnt something new. Time for exo-biology 101!” the stranger laughed as if he didn't have a care in the world. “And I'll show you my home sun when it gets dark again.”

It was only then that I realized that a glowing red sun had climbed over the horizon and the car, as well as the dunes all around us, was throwing long shadows across the sand. Unconcerned about my dubious expression the stranger explained.

“I was brought here by the impulse, and that must have come from you,” he pointed at me, “otherwise I wouldn't have ended up a younger version of you…”

Marc interrupted excitedly: “This is all bull! He's making up some crap and we're listening like school kids!”

The stranger's face took on a serious expression. I had used to look like that when I was trying to explain something important. He looked Marc and me both in the eyes, one after the other and said:

“I
cannot
lie!”

A moment later, after a pause in which it seemed we could have heard even the lightest breeze if there had been one, he asked again: “Give me a name, please.”

Seeing as I didn't answer because I was still busy trying to sort out my crazy thoughts, the stranger continued:

“You have two forenames. You are called Erich Anton von Däniken. You could give me your second forename.”

“
What
?” Marc broke in, “You're called Erich Anton? Toni?”

“I never use my second name,” I replied. “As far as I'm concerned,” I pointed at the stranger, “he can have it. He can be Toni.”

“Rubbish!” cried Marc, “Toni sounds like some kind of stolid, upright, Alpine farmer's name. Tomy is much better.”

“Whatever. Tomy is fine by me.” Then, I meant it mockingly, I shrugged my shoulders and nodded my head towards the stranger in the blanket: “I hereby name you Tomy! Happy?”

“Accepted!” Tomy replied and smiled an expansive smile, displaying ‘my' broad incisors, which I no longer had, at least as sweetly as I had done thirty years earlier.

Then there was a moment's silence and we all stared at each other goofily. Until Marc asked:

“So, when are you gonna disappear back into thin air?” Marc was getting more brazen.

“That might take a while,” grumbled Tomy coolly. “I am a human being, like you. And this body,” he pointed with both his hands at his chest, grimacing as if the body was repugnant to him, “will die some day.”

“Can you do magic, or fly, or something like that? Like Superman?” asked Marc, somewhat contemptuously.

“No,” answered Tomy with a smile and a hint of superciliousness. “But I can take over being like you. I had to do it to Erich for a short time—or do you think we speak Swiss German on my planet? Everything that Erich knew up until the age of … um … 22 years, four months and 24 days, I know too. The rest is somewhat patchy. And, of course, I know some things from where I come from.”

He still stood by the car door, the yellow-brown blanket hanging over his left shoulder like a tunic. The sun was now casting a mixture of crimson light and black shadows over the fantastic scene. Tomy repeatedly looked over to me as if he wanted to say: do you finally understand? Idiot! But he said nothing. Then I had the idea of giving him something to eat. Not out of pity, but simply to check if his body really was human. I was still holding the pistol, a ten-round SIG with the safety off, in my right hand, even if it was only pointed at the ground now. I asked Marc to fetch me a can of tuna from our provisions. I threw it over to Tomy and told him to eat.

“And how am I supposed to open the can?”

Marc dug the can opener out of a backpack and threw it over to land at Tomy's feet.

“He doesn't like me,” Tomy said grinning casually in Marc's direction. He opened the can by propping it on the hood and working at it with the opener.

“And what about a knife and fork?” Tomy made the same helpless gesture that I still make in such situations. Fingers spread, palms upwards, shoulders raised. I put the safety back on the pistol and shoved it in the pocket of my grey jeans, which I had been sleeping in on the roof of the car, and fetched him a fork. I hesitated for a second and then overcame my reluctance, walked over to Tomy and handed him the fork, a cheap camping fork. While Tomy reluctantly swallowed the first mouthful, Marc, who was still standing three meters away from us, remarked, “Can we touch him?”

I cautiously touched the left temple of my younger replica; then I grasped his shoulders somewhat more firmly with both hands. Tomy let it happen. He laid the fork and the can of tuna fish on the hood of the car and reached his hands out to me. I took them in mine and turned them over so I could appraise the young skin. I turned his left hand so the palm was facing down. On the back of his hand, in exactly the same place as on mine, was a small, brown birthmark. I looked deep into his eyes and took his right hand. This, too, he simply allowed to happen. This time I took his hand and placed it, palm up, on the hood of the car, which at this time of day had not yet heated up like the hotplate of a cooker. Then I laid my hand next to his and started comparing the lines on our hands. They were completely identical, except that the furrows in my palm had grown a bit deeper over the years.

I was confused and had to really make an effort to concentrate. Everyone in the world is unique—except that I wasn't any more. Here was a copy of me leaning on the door of the Range Rover grinning at me. In the meantime, Marc had crossed over to us with slow, deliberate steps. His cough seemed to have gone and the red blotches on his face had faded. Just stay calm, I told myself, there's a rational explanation for all this.

It had gotten slowly warmer, occasional gusts of wind swirled small spirals of sand around our feet. It occurred to me that in my youth I had had another birthmark that had bothered me so much that I had had it removed when I was 28. I reached for the blanket and pulled it off Tomy's shoulder. He seemed to guess what I wanted, as he let it all happen—albeit with a foolish grin constantly splitting his face.

“Spread your legs—please!” I said, unworried. Tomy placed his hands on the roof of the car and did as he was asked. I squatted down and then I saw it: a small, brown teardrop-shaped mark on the inner side of his right thigh, right in line with his scrotum. I gave up. This second birthmark was the final proof. Here stood my younger double, made of flesh and blood.

Marc asked what on earth I was up to, and so I explained my strange behavior. Tomy interrupted our conversation with the dry observation that the time for gaping at him was over and he would be grateful for some clothes. I had nothing that would have fit him, for at 52 I had developed a bit of a paunch. Cursing, Marc reluctantly dug out some underwear, socks, a pair of black denim pants and a blue-white checkered shirt from the muddle of his suitcase. After he had put everything on, Tomy posed for us.

“How do I look?” After an artificial pause in which he tilted his head and nodded in Marc's direction: “And who's this blond guy?”

I knew that I would have reacted in just the same way. I introduced Marc, but he didn't take Tomy's proffered hand. In a matter-of-fact manner, Tomy pointed out that we had no drinking water and the car's rear window was broken. A quick glance at the map showed us that the nearest settlement was called Taftan, which was around 90 kilometers away in the direction of the Iranian border. We should be able to manage that distance before dying of thirst. Tomy squeezed himself onto the rear seat in amongst the luggage and I tried the ignition. The engine only managed a stuttering “wow-wow,” but wouldn't fire up. The battery must be dead, which I couldn't understand, because yesterday it had been fine. The battery level indicator was registering nothing. I unscrewed the battery contacts and opened it up—there wasn't a trace of water left inside. It was the same with the two reserve batteries, which I had packed for emergencies.

“If we filter some radiator water through some cloth, we should be able to manage a few kilometers,” suggested Tomy. However, the radiator was just as dry as the batteries. Not a drop of water left. The sun was rising menacingly and a march of 90 kilometers on foot was unthinkable.

“I'm afraid that this is all down to my appearance,” said Tomy quietly. The regret in his voice was plain to hear. “The liquids were all … um … required to construct my body.”

I said nothing, and even Marc stayed silent for the moment. He seemed not to like Tomy very much, and the stranger's very presence seemed to confuse him. I noticed that he jerked away whenever Tomy came anywhere near him. After a short while, he sighed:

“Great. You're going to enjoy a really short life on this planet. And dying of thirst is not the best way to go, I've heard.”

We opened all the car doors, but remained sitting in the car. It was the only shade. A light breeze kept the temperature within bearable. Tomy touched my shoulder lightly from behind as he unexpectedly held out his right hand as if he wanted to apologize or say farewell. “Look after my body,” he said, “even if Marc can't stand the sight of me. Please.” Then he suddenly tipped backwards like a sack of flour.

“Is he dead?” asked Marc unemotionally, as if it meant nothing to him.

I felt a weak pulse and suddenly I realized what had happened. Tomy was fetching help. Hadn't he said that he could take over other bodies? A small glimmer of hope lit up in my mind.

“And what happens if he leaves us in the lurch?”

“He won't, Marc. He's like me, and I would never have left my friends in the lurch when I was 22.”

“Are we his friends, then?” asked Marc.

“Probably more than that. And if Tomy is what he claims, then you could be too.”

“Doubt it,” growled Marc in a surly manner. “The way he barged in here wasn't exactly friendly and you can see yourself what kind of mess we're in now.”

We leaned our heads back onto the headrests and waited. Thirty-four years ago, I had done military service at the Swiss Army's school for tank recruits. I suddenly remembered one of the daft songs that we had roared out back then after a few beers: “On the tank grave, the roses won't bloom, on the tank grave, the edelweiss won't bloom. The only decorations are shot up old tanks and the hot tears of a girl who cries.” Here, 90 kilometers from Taftan in the Baluchistan desert we didn't even have the hot tears. I dug up a few old jokes out of the depths of my grey matter and told them. Marc listened apathetically. After a while, we said nothing more. I thought about my wife and my daughter, Cornelia. I had been married for 27 years and my wife and I had experienced many highs and lows, had some major fights and celebrated sex together. I knew that Ebet—that was my pet name for my wife, Elisabeth—had not only enjoyed the good times with me, we had had some pretty difficult times, too, and financial problems—tax, what else?—which had driven me to the brink of despair. Somehow, we had mastered every challenge, and after my first book, the worst of the unpleasantness was behind us. These days it was less about money, more about malicious critics who slandered me. Of course, there are also those who are correct and helpful, the paternal and the know-it-alls, but they remain in the minority. Really, the best years should have just been starting for Ebet and me…

I thought about Marc's parents and how I had asked Marc to join me on this journey. How would they react to the news of Marc's death? While I was having these thoughts, it became clear to me that I was never going to be in a position to have to explain to Marc's parents that their only son had lost his life. Marc's father, a dynamic sporty type, would have cursed me to all eternity. And his mother, a kind-hearted, industrious woman, would probably have died of a broken heart. My position was pretty hopeless. Marc himself, a loyal, decent lad, was the kind of man who would have fit the leading role in Plato's story about Charmides. Uncomplicated and blessed with a gentleness of heart. Now he sat lethargically next to me.

“Marc,” I jabbed him in the ribs, “Are you still there?”

He looked up, changing his position as if he didn't want to be disturbed. “Don't lose heart, kid. We're gonna get out of here,” I said to boost his morale a bit, although I was close to losing hope myself.

Our trip had been a journey into the highlands of Kashmir; we had had the Range Rover flown in from Paris to Karachi and had driven from there up the Indus Valley to Srinagar. We had managed to get to all the destinations on our agenda: surveyed the temple ruins of Martand, visited the incredible ruins of Parashapur, which still today look like a nuclear weapon had exploded there; and even documented the “Jesus tomb” in Srinagar. I had photocopies of 2000-year-old conversations between Jesus and the King of Kashmir with me in the car. One hundred and eighty rolls of exposed film in the cool box…

“Cool box!” I cried and jumped up from my seat. Quickly, I maneuvered Tomy's body to one side and rummaged through the confusion of clothes and destroyed water bottles until I was able to rip open the foam lid of the box. Marc had perked up and looked hopefully over at me with his mouth hanging open. There they were—180 small, black containers floating in a puddle of water. Luckily, they were waterproof. Next to them a two-liter bottle of water—still intact. How could we have forgotten the cool box, especially in our situation? I had bought it especially for this trip and the mechanic in the repair shop had run an extra cable from the main battery to the transformer. The batteries were dead now and the ice had melted and the contents were lukewarm. We took it in turns to take small swigs of water, enjoying it as if were top quality champagne. I sprinkled some of the water on Tomy's face and body to keep him cool.