The Humans Read Online Free PDF Page A

had broken the law simply by
not wearing clothes.
I was pretty sure that most humans must have known what a naked human looked like. It wasn’t as
though I had done something wrong while
not wearing clothes
. At least, not yet.
    They placed me inside a small room that was, in perfect accord with all human rooms, a shrine to the rectangle. The funny thing was that although this room looked precisely no better or worse
than anything else in that police station, or indeed that planet, the officers seemed to think it was a particular punishment to be placed in this place – a ‘cell’ – more
than any other room.
They are in a body that dies,
I chuckled to myself,
and they worry more about being locked in a room!
    This was where they told me to get dressed. To ‘cover myself up’. So I picked up those clothes and did my best and then, once I had worked out which limb went through which opening,
they said I had to wait for an hour. Which I did. Of course, I could have escaped. But I realised it was more likely that I would find what I needed by staying there, with the police and their
computers. Plus, I remembered what I had been told.
Use your gifts wisely. You must try and be like them. You must strive to be normal.
    Then the door opened.

Questions
    There were two men.
    These were different men. These men weren’t wearing the same clothes, but they did have pretty much the same face. Not just the eyes, protruding nose and mouth but also a shared look of
complacent misery. In the stark light I felt not a little afraid. They took me to another room for questioning. This was interesting knowledge: you could only ask questions in certain rooms. There
were rooms for sitting and thinking, and rooms for inquisition.
    They sat down.
    Anxiety prickled my skin. The kind of anxiety you could only feel on this planet. The anxiety that came from the fact that the only beings who knew who I was were a long way away. They were as
far away as it was possible to be.
    ‘Professor Andrew Martin,’ said one of the men, leaning back in his chair. ‘We’ve done a bit of research. We googled you. You’re quite a big fish in academic
circles.’
    The man stuck out his bottom lip, and displayed the palms of his hands. He wanted me to say something. What would they plan on doing to me if I didn’t? What could they have done?
    I had little idea what ‘googling’ me meant, but whatever it was I couldn’t say I had felt it. I didn’t really understand what being a ‘big fish in academic
circles’ meant either though I must say it was a kind of relief – given the dimensions of the room – to realise they knew what a circle was.
    I nodded my head, still a little uneasy about speaking. It involved too much concentration and co-ordination.
    Then the other one spoke. I switched my gaze to his face. The key difference between them, I suppose, was in the lines of hair above their eyes. This one kept his eyebrows permanently raised,
causing the skin of his forehead to wrinkle.
    ‘What have you got to tell us?’
    I thought long and hard. It was time to speak. ‘I am the most intelligent human on the planet. I am a mathematical genius. I have made important contributions to many branches of
mathematics, such as group theory, number theory and geometry. My name is Professor Andrew Martin.’
    They gave each other a look, and released a brief air chuckle out of their noses.
    ‘Are you thinking this is funny?’ the first one said, aggressively. ‘Committing a public order offence? Does that amuse you? Yeah?’
    ‘No. I was just telling you who I am.’
    ‘We’ve established that,’ the officer said, who kept his eyebrows low and close, like doona-birds in mating season. ‘The last bit anyway. What we haven’t
established is: what were you doing walking around without your clothes on at half past eight in the morning?’
    ‘I am a professor at Cambridge University. I am married to Isobel Martin. I have a son, Gulliver. I