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Authors: Clifford D. Simak
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solidness, as if it might have planted itself upon that ridgetop and meant to stay forever.
It would stay, of course, if one wanted it, as long as one wanted it.
For there was nothing that could touch it.
Even should he be forced some day to remain within its walls, the station still would stand against all of mankind’s watching, all of mankind’s prying. They could not chip it and they could not gouge it and they could not break it down. There was nothing they could do. All his watching, all his speculating, all his analyzing, would gain Man nothing beyond the knowledge that a highly unusual building existed on that ridgetop. For it could survive anything except a thermonuclear explosion-and maybe even that.
He walked into the yard and turned around to look back toward the clump of trees from which the flash had come, but there was nothing now to indicate that anyone was there.
10
Inside the station, the message machine was whistling plaintively.
Enoch hung up his gun, dropped the mail and statuette upon his desk and strode across the room to the whistling machine. He pushed the button and punched the lever and the whistling stopped.
Upon the message plate he read:
NO. 406,302 TO STATION 18327. WILL ARRiVE EARLY EVENING YOUR TIME. HAVE
THE COFFEE HOT. ULYSSES.
Enoch grinned. Ulysses and his coffee! He was the only one of the aliens who had ever liked any of Earth’s foods or drinks. There had been others who had tried them, but not more than once or twice.
Funny about Ulysses, he thought. They had liked each other from the very first, from that afternoon of the thunderstorm when they had been sitting on the steps and the mask of human form had peeled off the alien’s face.
It had been a grisly face, graceless and repulsive. The face, Enoch had thought, of a cruel clown. Wondering, even as he thought it, what had put that particular phrase into his head, for clowns were never cruel. But here was one that could be-the colored patchwork of the face, the hard, tight set of jaw, the thin slash of the mouth.
Then he saw the eyes and they canceled all the rest. They were large and had a softness and the light of understanding in them, and they reached file:///F|/rah/Clifford%20D.Simak/Clifford%20Simak%20-%20Waystation.txt (24 of 103) [1/19/03 4:01:51 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Clifford%20D.Simak/Clifford%20Simak%20-%20Waystation.txt out to him, as another being might hold out its hands in friendship.
The rain had come hissing up the land to thrum across the machine-shed roof, and then it was upon them, slanting sheets of rain that hammered angrily at the dust which lay across the yard, while surprised, bedraggled chickens ran frantically for cover.
Enoch sprang to his feet and grasped the other’s arm, pulling him to the shelter of the porch.
They stood facing one another, and Ulysses had reached up and pulled the split and loosened mask away, revealing a bullet head without a hair upon it-and the painted face. A face like a wild and rampaging Indian, painted for the warpath, except that here and there were touches of the clown, as if the entire painting job had been meant to point up the inconsistent grotesqueries of war. But even as he stared, Enoch knew it was not paint, but the natural coloration of this thing which had come from somewhere among the stars.
Whatever other doubt there was, or whatever wonder, Enoch had no doubt at all that this strange being was not of the Earth. For it was not human.
It might be in human form, with a pair of arms and legs, with a head and face. But there was about it an essence of inhumanity, almost a negation of humanity.
In olden days, perhaps, he thought, it might have been a demon, but the days were past (although, in some areas of the country, not entirely past)
when one believed in demons or in ghosts or in any of the others of that ghastly tribe which, in man’s imagination, once had walked the Earth.
From the stars, he’d said. And perhaps he was. Although it
It would stay, of course, if one wanted it, as long as one wanted it.
For there was nothing that could touch it.
Even should he be forced some day to remain within its walls, the station still would stand against all of mankind’s watching, all of mankind’s prying. They could not chip it and they could not gouge it and they could not break it down. There was nothing they could do. All his watching, all his speculating, all his analyzing, would gain Man nothing beyond the knowledge that a highly unusual building existed on that ridgetop. For it could survive anything except a thermonuclear explosion-and maybe even that.
He walked into the yard and turned around to look back toward the clump of trees from which the flash had come, but there was nothing now to indicate that anyone was there.
10
Inside the station, the message machine was whistling plaintively.
Enoch hung up his gun, dropped the mail and statuette upon his desk and strode across the room to the whistling machine. He pushed the button and punched the lever and the whistling stopped.
Upon the message plate he read:
NO. 406,302 TO STATION 18327. WILL ARRiVE EARLY EVENING YOUR TIME. HAVE
THE COFFEE HOT. ULYSSES.
Enoch grinned. Ulysses and his coffee! He was the only one of the aliens who had ever liked any of Earth’s foods or drinks. There had been others who had tried them, but not more than once or twice.
Funny about Ulysses, he thought. They had liked each other from the very first, from that afternoon of the thunderstorm when they had been sitting on the steps and the mask of human form had peeled off the alien’s face.
It had been a grisly face, graceless and repulsive. The face, Enoch had thought, of a cruel clown. Wondering, even as he thought it, what had put that particular phrase into his head, for clowns were never cruel. But here was one that could be-the colored patchwork of the face, the hard, tight set of jaw, the thin slash of the mouth.
Then he saw the eyes and they canceled all the rest. They were large and had a softness and the light of understanding in them, and they reached file:///F|/rah/Clifford%20D.Simak/Clifford%20Simak%20-%20Waystation.txt (24 of 103) [1/19/03 4:01:51 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Clifford%20D.Simak/Clifford%20Simak%20-%20Waystation.txt out to him, as another being might hold out its hands in friendship.
The rain had come hissing up the land to thrum across the machine-shed roof, and then it was upon them, slanting sheets of rain that hammered angrily at the dust which lay across the yard, while surprised, bedraggled chickens ran frantically for cover.
Enoch sprang to his feet and grasped the other’s arm, pulling him to the shelter of the porch.
They stood facing one another, and Ulysses had reached up and pulled the split and loosened mask away, revealing a bullet head without a hair upon it-and the painted face. A face like a wild and rampaging Indian, painted for the warpath, except that here and there were touches of the clown, as if the entire painting job had been meant to point up the inconsistent grotesqueries of war. But even as he stared, Enoch knew it was not paint, but the natural coloration of this thing which had come from somewhere among the stars.
Whatever other doubt there was, or whatever wonder, Enoch had no doubt at all that this strange being was not of the Earth. For it was not human.
It might be in human form, with a pair of arms and legs, with a head and face. But there was about it an essence of inhumanity, almost a negation of humanity.
In olden days, perhaps, he thought, it might have been a demon, but the days were past (although, in some areas of the country, not entirely past)
when one believed in demons or in ghosts or in any of the others of that ghastly tribe which, in man’s imagination, once had walked the Earth.
From the stars, he’d said. And perhaps he was. Although it
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