Free Way Station by Clifford D. Simak Page B

energy-at times, maybe, too much energy.
    Enoch shook his head and went across the room to sit down at his desk.
    Drawing the bundle of mail in front of him, he slid it out of the string which Winslowe had used to tie it all together.
    There were the daily papers, a news weekly, two journals-Nature and
    Science-and the letter.
    He pushed the papers and the journals to one side and picked up the letter. It was, he saw, an air mail sheet and was postmarked London and the return apress bore a name that was unfamiliar to him. He puzzled as to why an unknown person should be writing him from London. Although, he reminded himself, anyone who wrote from London, or indeed from anywhere, would be an unknown person. He knew no one in London nor elsewhere in the world.
    He slit the air sheet open and spread it out on the desk in front of him, pulling the desk lamp close so the light would fall upon the writing.
    Dear sir [he read], I would suspect I am unknown to you. I am one of several editors of the British journal, Nature, to which you have been a subscriber for these many years. I do not use the journal’s letterhead because this letter is personal and unofficial and perhaps not even in the best of taste.
    You are, it may interest you to know, our eldest subscriber. We have had you on our mailing lists for more than eighty years.
    While I am aware that it is no appropriate concern of mine, I have wondered if you, yourself, have subscribed to our publication for this length of time, or if it might be possible that your father or someone close to you may have been the original subscriber and you simply have allowed the file:///F|/rah/Clifford%20D.Simak/Clifford%20Simak%20-%20Waystation.txt (28 of 103) [1/19/03 4:01:51 PM]
     
    file:///F|/rah/Clifford%20D.Simak/Clifford%20Simak%20-%20Waystation.txt subscription to continue in his name.
    My interest undoubtedly constitutes an unwarranted and inexcusable curiosity and if you, sir, choose to ignore the query it is entirely within your rights and proper that you do so. But if you should not mind replying, an answer would be appreciated.
    I can only say in my own defense that I have been associated for so long with our publication that I feel a certain sense of pride that someone has found it worth the having for more than eighty years. I doubt that many publications can boast such long time interest on the part of any man.
    May I assure, you, sir, of my utmost respect.
    Sincerely yours.
    And then the signature.
    Enoch shoved the letter from him.
    And there it was again, he told himself. Here was another watcher, although discreet and most polite and unlikely to cause trouble.
    But someone else who had taken notice, who had felt a twinge of wonder at the same man subscribing to a magazine for more than eighty years.
    As the years went on, there would be more and more. It was not only the watchers encamped outside the station with whom he must concern himself, but those potential others. A man could be as self-effacing as he well could manage and still he could not hide. Soon or late the world would catch up with him and would come crowding around his door, agog to know why he might be hiding.
    It was useless, he knew, to hope for much further time. The world was closing in.
    Why can’t they leave me alone? he thought. If he only could explain how the situation stood, they might leave him alone. But he couldn’t explain to them. And even if he could, there would be some of them who’d still come crowding in.
    Across the room the materializer beeped for attention and Enoch swung around.
    The Thuban had arrived. He was in the tank, a shadowy globular blob of substance, and above him, riding sluggishly in the solution, was a cube of something.
    Luggage, Enoch wondered. But the message had said there would be no luggage.
    Even as he hurried across the room, the clicking came to him-the Thuban talking to him.
    “Presentation to you,” said the clicking. “Deceased vegetation.”
    Enoch