Way Station (8 page)

“Then you need a name to call you by,” he said, “and it shall be

Ulysses. I need to call you something,”

“It is agreeable,” said that strange one. “But might one ask why the name Ulysses?”

“Because it is the name,” said Enoch, “of a great man of my race.”

It was a crazy thing, of course. For there was no resemblance between the two of them-that slouchy Union general whittling as he perched upon the fence and this other who stood upon the porch.

“I am glad you chose it,” said this Ulysses, standing on the porch. “To my hearing it has a dignified and noble sound and, between the two of us, I

shall be glad to bear it. And I shall call you Enoch, as friends of the first names, for the two of us shall work together for many of your years.”

It was beginning to come straight now and the thought was staggering.

Perhaps it was as well, Enoch told himself, that it had waited for a while, that he had been so dazed it had not come on him all at once.

“Perhaps,” said Enoch, fighting back the realization that was crowding in on him, crowding in too fast, “I could offer you some victuals. I could cook up some coffee…”

“Coffee,” said Ulysses, smacking his thin lips. “Do you have the coffee?”

“I’ll make a big pot of it. I’ll break in an egg so it will settle clear …”

“Delectable,” Ulysses said. “Of all the drinks that I have drank on all the planets I have visited, the coffee is the best.”

They went into-the kitchen and Enoch stirred up the coals in the kitchen range and then put in new wood. He took the coffeepot over to the sink and ladled in some water from the water pail and put it on to boil. He went into the pantry to get some eggs and down into the cellar to bring up the ham.

Ulysses sat stiffly in a kitchen chair and watched him as he worked.

“You eat ham and eggs?” asked Enoch.

“I eat anything,” Ulysses said. “My race is most adaptable. That is the reason I was sent to this planet as a-what do you call it?-a looker-out, perhaps.”

“A scout,” suggested Enoch.

“That is it, a scout.”

He was an easy thing to talk with, Enoch told himself-almost like another person, although, God knows, he looked little like a person. He looked, instead, like some outrageous caricature of a human being.

“You have lived here, in this house,” Ulysses said, “for a long, long time. You feel affection for it.”

“It has been my home,” said Enoch, “since the day that I was born. I

was gone from it for almost four years, but it was always home.”

“I’ll be glad,” Ulysses told him, “to be getting home again myself.

I’ve been away too long. On a mission such as this one, it always is too long.”

Enoch put down the knife he had been using to cut a slice of ham and sat down heavily in a chair. He stared at Ulysses, across the table from him.

“You?” he asked. “You are going home?”

“Why, of course,” Ulysses told him. “Now that my job is nearly done. I

have got a home. Did you think I hadn’t?”

“I don’t know,” said Enoch weakly. “I had never thought of it.”

And that was it, he knew. It had not occurred to him to connect a being such as this with a thing like home. For it was only human beings that had a file:///F|/rah/Clifford%20D.Simak/Clifford%20Simak%20-%20Waystation.txt (26 of 103) [1/19/03 4:01:51 PM]

file:///F|/rah/Clifford%20D.Simak/Clifford%20Simak%20-%20Waystation.txt place called home.

“Some day,” Ulysses said, “I shall tell you about my home. Some day you may even visit me.”

“Out among the stars,” said Enoch.

“It seems strange to you now,” Ulysses said. “It will take a while to get used to the idea. But as you come to know us-all of us-you will understand. And I hope you like us. We are not bad people, really. Not any of the many different kinds of us.”

The stars, Enoch told himself, were out there in the loneliness of space and how far they were he could not even guess, nor what they were nor why. Another world, he thought-no, that was wrong-many other worlds. There were people there, perhaps many other people; a different kind of people, probably, for every different star. And one of them sat here in this very kitchen, waiting for the coffeepot to boil, for the ham and eggs to fry.

“But why?” he asked. “But why?”

“Because,” Ulysses said, “we are a traveling people. We need a travel station here. We want to turn this house into a station and you to keep the station.”

“This house?”

“We could not build a station, for then we’d have people asking who was building it and what it might be for. So we are forced to use an existing structure and change it for our needs. But inside only. We leave the outside as it is, in appearance, that is. For there must be no questions asked.

There must be …”

“But traveling …”

“From star to star,” Ulysses said. “Quicker than the thought of it.

Faster than a wink. There is what you would call machinery, but it is not machinery-not the same as the machinery you think of.”

“You must excuse me,” Enoch said, confused. “It seems so impossible.”

“You remember when the railroad came to Millville?”

“Yes, I can remember that. I was just a kid.”

“Then think of it this way. This is just another railroad and the Earth is just another town and this house will be the station for this new and different railroad. The only difference is that no one on Earth but you will know the railroad’s here. For it will be no more than a resting and a switching point. No one on the Earth can buy a ticket to travel on the railroad.”

Put that way, of course, it had a simple sound, but it was, Enoch sensed, very far from simple.

“Railroad cars in space?” he asked.

“Not railroad cars,” Ulysses told him. “It is something else. I do not know how to begin to tell you …”

“Perhaps you should pick someone else. Someone who would understand.”

“There is no one on this planet who could remotely understand. No, Enoch, we’ll do with you as well as anyone. In many ways, much better than with anyone.”

“But …”

“What is it, Enoch?”

“Nothing,” Enoch said.

For he remembered now how he had been sitting on the steps thinking how he was alone and about a new beginning, knowing that he could not escape a new beginning, that he must start from scratch and build his life anew.

And here, supenly, was that new beginning-more wondrous and fearsome than anything he could have dreamed even in an insane moment.

Enoch filed the message and sent his confirmation:

NO. 406302 RECEIVED. COFFEE ON THE FIRE. ENOCH.

Clearing the machine, he walked over to the No. 3 liquid tank he’d prepared before he left. He checked the temperature and the level of the file:///F|/rah/Clifford%20D.Simak/Clifford%20Simak%20-%20Waystation.txt (27 of 103) [1/19/03 4:01:51 PM]

file:///F|/rah/Clifford%20D.Simak/Clifford%20Simak%20-%20Waystation.txt solution and made certain once again that the tank was securely positioned in relation to the materializer.

From there he went to the other materializer, the official and emergency materializer, positioned in the corner, and checked it over closely. It was all right, as usual. It always was all right, but before each of Ulysses’s visits he never failed to check it. There was nothing he could have done about it had there been something wrong other than send an urgent message to Galactic Central. In which case someone would have come in on the regular materializer and put it into shape.

For the official and emergency materializer was exactly what its name implied. It was used only for official visits by personnel of Galactic

Center or for possible emergencies and its operation was entirely outside that of the local station.

Ulysses, as an inspector for this and several other stations, could have used the official materializer at any time he wished without prior notice. But in all the years that he had been coming to the station he had never failed, Enoch remembered with a touch of pride, to message that he was coming. It was, he knew, a courtesy which all the other stations on the great galactic network might not be accorded, although there were some of them which might be given equal treatment.

Tonight, he thought, he probably should tell Ulysses about the watch that had been put upon the station. Perhaps he should have told him earlier, but he had been reluctant to admit that the human race might prove to be a problem to the galactic installation.

It was a hopeless thing, he thought, this obsession of his to present the people of the Earth as good and reasonable. For in many ways they were neither good nor reasonable; perhaps because they had not as yet entirely grown up. They were smart and quick and at times compassionate and even understanding, but they failed lamentably in many other ways.

But if they had the chance, Enoch told himself, if they ever got a break, if they only could be told what was out in space, then they’d get a grip upon themselves and they would measure up and then, in the course of time, would be admitted into the great cofraternity of the people of the stars.

Once admitted, they would prove their worth and would pull their weight, for they were still a young race and full of energy-at times, maybe, too much energy.

Enoch shook his head and went across the room to sit down at his desk.

Drawing the bundle of mail in front of him, he slid it out of the string which Winslowe had used to tie it all together.

There were the daily papers, a news weekly, two journals-Nature and

Science-and the letter.

He pushed the papers and the journals to one side and picked up the letter. It was, he saw, an air mail sheet and was postmarked London and the return apress bore a name that was unfamiliar to him. He puzzled as to why an unknown person should be writing him from London. Although, he reminded himself, anyone who wrote from London, or indeed from anywhere, would be an unknown person. He knew no one in London nor elsewhere in the world.

He slit the air sheet open and spread it out on the desk in front of him, pulling the desk lamp close so the light would fall upon the writing.

Dear sir [he read], I would suspect I am unknown to you. I am one of several editors of the British journal, Nature, to which you have been a subscriber for these many years. I do not use the journal’s letterhead because this letter is personal and unofficial and perhaps not even in the best of taste.

You are, it may interest you to know, our eldest subscriber. We have had you on our mailing lists for more than eighty years.

While I am aware that it is no appropriate concern of mine, I have wondered if you, yourself, have subscribed to our publication for this length of time, or if it might be possible that your father or someone close to you may have been the original subscriber and you simply have allowed the file:///F|/rah/Clifford%20D.Simak/Clifford%20Simak%20-%20Waystation.txt (28 of 103) [1/19/03 4:01:51 PM]

file:///F|/rah/Clifford%20D.Simak/Clifford%20Simak%20-%20Waystation.txt subscription to continue in his name.

My interest undoubtedly constitutes an unwarranted and inexcusable curiosity and if you, sir, choose to ignore the query it is entirely within your rights and proper that you do so. But if you should not mind replying, an answer would be appreciated.

I can only say in my own defense that I have been associated for so long with our publication that I feel a certain sense of pride that someone has found it worth the having for more than eighty years. I doubt that many publications can boast such long time interest on the part of any man.

May I assure, you, sir, of my utmost respect.

Sincerely yours.

And then the signature.

Enoch shoved the letter from him.

And there it was again, he told himself. Here was another watcher, although discreet and most polite and unlikely to cause trouble.

But someone else who had taken notice, who had felt a twinge of wonder at the same man subscribing to a magazine for more than eighty years.

As the years went on, there would be more and more. It was not only the watchers encamped outside the station with whom he must concern himself, but those potential others. A man could be as self-effacing as he well could manage and still he could not hide. Soon or late the world would catch up with him and would come crowding around his door, agog to know why he might be hiding.

It was useless, he knew, to hope for much further time. The world was closing in.

Why can’t they leave me alone? he thought. If he only could explain how the situation stood, they might leave him alone. But he couldn’t explain to them. And even if he could, there would be some of them who’d still come crowding in.

Across the room the materializer beeped for attention and Enoch swung around.

The Thuban had arrived. He was in the tank, a shadowy globular blob of substance, and above him, riding sluggishly in the solution, was a cube of something.

Luggage, Enoch wondered. But the message had said there would be no luggage.

Even as he hurried across the room, the clicking came to him-the Thuban talking to him.

“Presentation to you,” said the clicking. “Deceased vegetation.”

Enoch peered at the cube floating in the liquid.

“Take him,” clicked the Thuban. “Bring him for you.”

Fumblingly, Enoch clicked out his answer, using tapping fingers against the glass side of the tank: “I thank you, gracious one.” Wondering as he did it, if he were using the proper form of apress to this blob of matter. A

man, he told himself, could get terribly tangled up on that particular point of etiquette. There were some of these beings that one apressed in flowery language (and even in those cases, the floweriness would vary) and others that one talked with in the simplest, bluntest terms.

He reached into the tank and lifted out the cube and be saw that it was a block of heavy wood, black as ebony and so close-grained it looked very much like stone. He chuckled inwardly, thinking how, in listening to

Winslowe, he had grown to be an expert in the judging of artistic wood.