Way Station

by Clifford D. Simak

He was at a disadvantage in that he must not kill the alien, but must capture it instead and drag it back, kicking and screaming, if need be, to the safety of the station.

“Ulysses!” Enoch gurgled, but the fearsome shape only hissed at him in a warning sound.

“The Talisman! He has the Talisman!”

Enoch jerked himself erect and atop the pile of rock, dark against the skyline, were two grappling figures. “Lucy!” he shouted. For one of them was Lucy and the other was the alien.

“Shoot,” said Ulysses,

Enoch squeezed the trigger

the creature stood for a second with only half a head and with tattered gouts of flesh

up on the pile of tumbled boulders was a soft and wondrous light, a soft and gentle light,

he could see Lucy moving with the light, as if she were walking toward them with a lantern in her hand.

“It is the Talisman,” Ulysses said, enraptured, his breath rasping in his throat. “And she is our new custodian. The one we’ve hunted through the years.”

You did not become accustomed to it, Enoch told himself

It was something that was past all description—a mother’s love, a father’s pride, the adoration of a sweetheart, the closeness of a comrade, it was all of these and more.

this ascendant instant kept going on and on.

“perhaps for many centuries, perhaps never, has it glowed so well. I myself cannot remember when it was like this. It is wonderful, is it not?”

“Now we shall be one again,” Ulysses said. “Now we shall feel again. Now we shall be a people instead of many people.”

“But the creature that had it …” “A clever one,” Ulysses said. “He was holding it for ransom.”

But let that one in many billions lay a finger on it and it becomes alive. There is a certain rapport, a sensitivity—I don’t know how to say it—that forms a bridge between this strange machine and the cosmic spiritual force.

It is the living creature’s mind, aided by the mechanism, that brings the force to us.”

“Yes, Winslowe. What is wrong?”

“Enoch, they are coming! A couple of carloads of them.

“That ginseng man is up there, waiting at the house for you. He has a panel truck.”

Ulysses spoke softly: “Perhaps it would be most proper to bear him to the grave in the full glory and unshielded light of our restored Talisman.”

the bag that had enclosed the Talisman, he saw, lay at Lucy’s feet and she held the glowing brightness high and proudly so that it spread its light across the yard and the ancient house, and some of it as well spilled out into the field.

the men were there, at the edge of the light cast by the Talisman, a gray, huddled group, like a pack of chastened wolves

Here lies one from a distant star, but the soil is not alien to him, for in death he belongs to the universe.

“The Earth,” said Enoch, “has not a thing to say. We Earth people are free agents. It is up to her.”

Love

“do you think our government—the Secretary of State, perhaps—might be persuaded to appoint one Lucy Fisher as a member of our peace conference delegation?”

And you might tell the good Secretary, too, that it would not be a bad idea to begin the formation of a world committee.”

Ulysses said, “for the Earth becoming one of us. We cannot accept a custodian, can we, from an outside planet?”

The Talisman had been restored and a new custodian had been found—a deaf-mute girl of Earth, the humblest of humans.

And there would be peace on Earth and in time the Earth would join the cofraternity of the galaxy.

in a million years from now there would be, if not Man, at least a caring thing.

his time would not be his own from now on, for the Earth would be pounding at the door.

he was alone just a few short hours before. Now he had the Earth and the galaxy, Lucy and Ulysses, Winslowe and Lewis and the old philosopher out in the apple orchard.

Now he could tell Winslowe where all the wood had come from.

the pyramid of spheres was a wonderful, and yet a simple, mechanism.

You made something as you wanted it and then turned on the pyramid and you had what you had made, as real as if it had never been illusion.

You can’t love the doll you made or I the toymaker.

Huh?

She moved swiftly and the pyramid of spheres was in her hand and lifted. “No, not that!” he shouted. “No, Mary …

The pyramid flashed, spinning in the air, and crashed against the fireplace. The flashing lights went out.

“Mary!” he shouted, and the shouting was a whimper. She was gone and she would not be back.