Free Way Station by Clifford D. Simak Page A

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.

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 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