Way Station

"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 begi

"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 co

"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 begi

And here, suddenly, was that new begi

11

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 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 perso

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.