Way Station

by Clifford D. Simak

But the endurance was of the spirit and the mind, for nothing else endured.

This was the Earth, he thought – a planet made for Man. But not for Man alone, for it was as well a planet for the fox and owl and weasel, for the snake, the katydid, the fish, for all the other teeming life that filled the air and earth and water.

‘it don’t matter much what any of us are, just so we get along with one another.

A man, he told himself, must belong to something, must have some loyalty and some identity. The galaxy was too big a place for any being to stand naked and alone.

‘No one told me,’ said the Hazer, speaking softly. ‘Told you what?’ ‘The memorial. And what is written on it. I was not aware that you knew our language.’ ‘I learned it long ago. There were scrolls I wished to read. I’m afraid it’s not too good.’ ‘Two misspelled words,’ the Hazer told him, ‘and one little awkwardness. But those are things which do not matter. What matters, and matters very much, is that when you wrote, you thought as one of us.’