Tomy and the Planet of Lies Read Online Free PDF Page A

breath almost caught in my throat. In my youth, I had had two prominent, white teeth on my upper jaw, which I had later lost in a car accident. The being on the desert floor had my old teeth! He continued smiling, looked me up and down, and then noticed the gun in my hand.
    â€œYou don’t really want to shoot yourself, do you?” he said in the voice of my younger days, and what’s more in Swiss German! “Yourself” he had said, not “me.” Those were his first words, which Marc and I would always both remember exactly.
    â€œShoot, for God’s sake!” shouted Marc, “This monster isn’t real!”
    The stranger sat down in a crouch, propping himself up on his arms.
    â€œI’m cold,” he said, and leaned his head a little to one side, a typical gesture of mine.
    â€œWho are you?” I asked fearlessly, ready at any second to squeeze the trigger.
    â€œI haven’t got any name yet. And as to who I am… you should be able to see that. For goodness sake, it’s damn cold here. Erich, help me—please!”
    He knew my name! Marc stood next to me and said, flabbergasted:
    â€œIt’s unbelievable. He speaks Swiss German and knows your name! Have you got an explanation for this ?”
    I didn’t. I wandered over to the Range Rover, grabbed Marc’s woolen blanket from the front seat and threw it over to the stranger. He stood up, shook himself, wiped the sand from his naked body, and wrapped himself gratefully in it.
    â€œThanks,” he said, dryly.
    Suddenly the similarity between the stranger and me struck Marc, too. He pointed at the stranger’s face and then at me.
    â€œIs that you?” Then a few seconds later: “Is this some kind of projection?”
    â€œI’m real enough,” answered the stranger before I could. “Projections don’t freeze and don’t wrap themselves in blankets.” He checked out Marc, “And who are you? Actually it wasn’t such a bad guess.”
    â€œMe…?” Marc looked helplessly over to me: “What the…? Shouldn’t he be introducing himself to us and explaining this … um … performance?” And while speaking, he returned to my side. He didn’t trust anything that was going on here and squinted constantly down at the pistol.
    â€œWho I am,” mocked the stranger, “Wouldn’t help you much right now. And as for a name… As I said, I don’t have one yet.” Then he looked directly at me and said: “Erich, give me a name. Please.”
    He said, “please,” and I remembered how I used to always do the same. The situation was grotesque. A human being materializes in the desert sand, growing in slow-motion into a man before our eyes, a man who just happens to be a copy of my own body as a young man. Our entire supply of water had exploded and now the stranger stood there, wrapped in a woolen blanket, and demanded a name. The whole thing was just unreal.
    â€œCan you read my thoughts?” I asked.
    â€œNot here. Not unless I do a takeover.”
    â€œTake over what?” I asked.
    â€œA consciousness,” smiled the stranger and shrugged his shoulders as if he regretted the statement.
    â€œThis 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.
    â€œGood 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.”
    â€œI don’t believe it,”