Encounter Story

It Pays to Be Smart

An Encounter Story

Chuck had been gone for two days. Sally called this morning from work. I told her no, I hadn't seen him and yes, I could go over to their house. She was worried he might come home to an empty house.

Only two blocks down, so I headed over right after I hung up. I was glad to hear she finally went back to her new job. She had missed work, worrying and looking for him, filing a missing person's report....

Their run of good luck had turned to bad. Just two months ago, they bought the new house, Chuck finally got the promotion, then he got shot in the head. Senseless. Went into an all night convenience store. Some convenience.

Chuck tried to be a hero. Now, look at him. Drooling idiot. Slurred speech. I was his best friend and I couldn't understand him. Sally and the boys couldn't either, most of the time. Physical therapy was going better than the speech therapy. Lately, Chuck seemed more alert, but then he up and left two days ago.

I glanced down the sidewalk going up to their house, then noticed the front door was ajar. Wonder if Sally left the door unlocked? Somebody was moving in the house. Damn. Could be Chuck, but I couldn't be sure. He looked different.

Before I could reach the step, the door flew open and Chuck was talking a mile a minute. He grabbed my coat and said, "Something happened to me. I can't figure it out. One minute I'm struggling with two bums who were trying to rob me and the next thing I remember is waking up a while ago."

"Whoa, slow down. Why were you struggling with two bums? Start at the beginning." I didn't know if I was about to piss in my pants or run. This man in front of me was not the Chuck I knew. "And why can I understand you all of a sudden?"

Chuck let go, his hands clenched and unclenched as he took a deep breath. "Thank God you can. It was so frustrating for me. Grunting for everything, playing twenty questions everytime I needed a drink of water, or a snack."

I couldn't believe he was talking like this. I looked closer. This guy I'm looking at has perfectly smooth and even features. What gives? He should have a noticeable chunk of cranium missing.

"Let me look at your head a minute." He complained as I ran my fingers through his hair. Good God almighty. I saw a small pink ridge, a faint scar where there should have been a big hole. Okay, starfish might grow a leg back, but humans don't grow brains back.

He dragged me by the arm into his living room. "I've got to tell you. After I left a while ago, I cut across the burnt out woods and ran into two bums. They demanded money. I pulled out my gun and...."

"Wait. Wait a minute." I said as I tried to take it all in. "You've been missing for two damn days. Start at the beginning. Why did you leave in the first place?"

He took a deep breath and said, "I'm ashamed to admit it now, but I was tired. Tired of being a slobbering idiot. Once in a while I could think clearly. But only once in a while. Mostly I felt brain dead and ashamed. I thought I'd be worth more dead. Not such a drag on Sally and the kids. I was going to shoot myself. That's why I had a gun."

"You poor S. O. B. The insurance doesn't pay if you commit suicide."

"I realize that now. I guess I wouldn't have put up a fight if I really wanted to die. But those guys knocked me out. I woke up this morning with a headahce and I saw a bright light."

"Probably, the sun."

"No, it wasn't the sun. It was like a ball of light going up into the sky. Then it shot off like a shooting star, only it was going the wrong way. Going up." He had absent-mindedly pulled an envelope out of his pocket and was turning it over and over in his hands as he spoke.

"Chuck, let me see that."

He looked at it, shrugged and then handed it to me. It was an envelope with some sort of gobbledygook like Greek hieroglyphics on it. Chuck didn't know no foreign language. I handed it back.

He stared at the symbols for the longest moment. "I remember something else now. I don't remember any pain, but I had a strange dream. Let me sit down for a minute."

I briefly thought about calling Sally, but didn't want to interrupt his story until I heard it all. We both sat down as he continued.

"I dreamed I floated up in the air toward some sort of ship. I felt people near me. I didn't get a good look at them, but they seemed sort of short. Next thing I knew, I was in an operating room for some sort of physical test. I remember joking with the surgeon while he had me playing computer games. All sorts of equipment and several technicians were crammed in the room. And a big robot.

Later, it seemed I was in another room with two men and a lady. I was talking with them. It was a husband and wife and their best friend. I found out they got picked up on the way from a Mensa meeting."

"A Mensa what?"

"You know, Mensa. The high I. Q. society. You have to be a genius, or nearly a genius to join up. I was a member once."

"Oh, come on. You?"

"Why would I lie to you? I passed the entrance test, went to some meetings, then dropped out. Anyway, it seems our hosts were pretty upset. Spouted all sorts of figures and statistics. How we were a random sample and the odds against all of us being so smart were pretty high. Sounded like twelve million, four hundred thousand to one or more. They figured we were just average and the rest of the population must be super intelligent. The aliens were ready to pack up and go home. Evidently, they thought we didn't need their help."

"What happened to the other people?"

"You mean the Mensans? Oh, the aliens invited them to come help solve some problems on their home world. The woman said she always wanted to be picked up by aliens. The men thought it would be a great adventure, so they all signed on as consultants."

"Didn't they invite you?"

"Well, yeah. I looked over the contract. All one hundred twenty-one pages of it. Some of the fringe benefits sounded pretty good, but I knew I'd miss my boys. And Sally, too."

While Chuck told his story, I was trying to decide if he had really been on a spaceship, or if it was just a dream. I still wasn't sure I was buying it, but how could he lie about a thing like that? He was a drooling idiot one day, normal the next. Or maybe the day after. And somebody had fixed his head.

He was still turning the envelope over in his hands.

I said, "Let's take a look at that envelope. Was that your suicide note?"

He studied the envelope and pulled a flap open. "I didn't write a suicide note. Look here. There's a computer disk inside the paper."

We talked some more, then decided to head down to the computer store and try it on one of their computers. Maybe it would tell us something.

* * *

The eager young salesman pointed to the demo model. When he walked away to help another customer, Chuck tried the disk. "Damn. I'm getting an error message."

He looked around, turned on another computer, then slid in the disk. As I stood there, I really wished I had taken speed reading, because this short message rolled quickly across the screen.

I could only catch snatches. "...repaired Charles as a gesture of good will. Merchants. Traders. Friends. Willing to establich an outpost. Be back in fifty-four years if you send signal. Instructions for signal enclosed."

More of that gobbledygook writing. Chuck stared at the screen and nodded his head like he understood it all.

All of a sudden I smelled something, like butter burning. Then I heard a whirring, banging noise and the screen went blank.

The salesman heard the noise and hurried over. He started screeching at us. "You stupid jerks. What did you do? Who's going to pay for this?"

Chuck was able to snatch the disk in between screeches. It looked kind of melted.

I thought, Oh great! Who's going to believe it now?

While we moved quickly toward the exit, I said, "At least we still have the envelope with the gobbledygook."

And as we ran out of the store, Chuck shouted, "Isaac Asimov and Carl Sagan would have loved it!"

The End

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