Way Station (18 page)

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The family had been at supper, seated about a great round table set in the center of the kitchen. An ornate oil lamp stood in the center of the table. Hank had risen to his feet, but his three sons and the stranger still were seated.

“So you brung her back,” said Hank.

“I found her,” Enoch said.

“We quit hunting for her just a while ago,” Hank told him. “We was going out again.”

“You remember what you told me this afternoon?” asked Enoch.

“I told you a lot of things.”

“You told me that I had the devil in me. Raise your hand against that girl once more and I promise you I’ll show you just how much devil there is in me.”

“You can’t bluff me,” Hank blustered.

But the man was frightened. It showed in the limpness of his face, the tightness of his body.

“I mean it,” Enoch said. “just try me out and see.” The two men stood for a moment, facing one another, then Hank sat down.

“Would you join us in some victuals?” he inquired.

Enoch shook his head.

He looked at the stranger. “Are you the ginseng man?” he asked.

The man noped. “That is what they call me.”

“I want to talk with you. Outside.”

Claude Lewis stood up.

“You don’t have to go,” said Hank. “He can’t make you go. He can talk to you right here.”

“I don’t mind,” said Lewis. “In fact, I want to talk with him. You’re

Enoch Wallace, aren’t you?”

“That’s who he is,” said Hank. “Should of died of old age fifty years ago. But look at him. He’s got the devil in him. I tell you, him and the devil has a deal.”

“Hank,” Lewis said, “shut up.”

Lewis came around the table and went out the door. “Good night,” Enoch said to the rest of them. “Mr. Wallace,” said Ma Fisher, “thanks for bringing back my girl. Hank won’t hit her again. I can promise you. I’ll see to that.”

Enoch went outside and shut the door. He picked up the lantern. Lewis was out in the yard. Enoch went to him.

“Let’s walk off a ways,” he said.

They stopped at the edge of the garden and turned to face one another.

“You been watching me,” said Enoch.

Lewis noped.

“Official? Or just snooping?”

“Official, I’m afraid. My name is Claude Lewis. There is no reason I

shouldn’t tell you-I’m C.I.A.”

“I’m not a traitor or a spy,” Enoch said.

“No one thinks you are. We’re just watching you.”

“You know about the cemetery?”

Lewis noped.

“You took something from a grave.”

“Yes,” said Lewis. “The one with the funny headstone.”

“Where is it?”

“You mean the body. It’s in Washington.”

“You shouldn’t have taken it,” Enoch said, grimly. “You’ve caused a lot of trouble. You have to get it back. As quickly as you can.”

“It will take a little time,” said Lewis. “They’ll have to fly it out.

Twenty-four hours, maybe.”

“That’s the fastest you can make it?”

“I might do a little better.”

“Do the very best you can. It’s important that you get that body back.”

“I will, Wallace. I didn’t know …”

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“And, Lewis.”

“Yes.”

“Don’t try to play it smart. Don’t ap any frills. Just do what I tell you. I’m trying to be reasonable because that’s the only thing to be. But you try one smart move …”

He reached out a hand and grabbed Lewis’s shirt front, twisting the fabric tight.

“You understand me, Lewis?”

Lewis was unmoved. He did not try to pull away. “Yes,” he said. “I

understand.”

“What the hell ever made you do it?”

“I had a job.”

“Yeah, a job. Watching me. Not robbing graves.” He let loose of the shirt.

“Tell me,” said Lewis, “that thing in the grave. What was it?”

“That’s none of your damn’ business,” Enoch told him, bitterly.

“Getting back that body is. You’re sure that you can do it? Nothing standing in your way?”

Lewis shook his head. “Nothing at all. I’ll phone as soon as I can reach a phone. I’ll tell them that it’s imperative.”

“It’s all of that,” said Enoch. “Getting that body back is the most important thing you’ve ever done. Don’t forget that for a minute. It affects everyone on Earth. You and me and everyone. And if you fail, you’ll answer to me for it.”

“With that gun?”

“Maybe,” Enoch said. “Don’t fool around. Don’t imagine that I’d hesitate to kill you. In this situation, I’d kill anyone-anyone at all.”

“Wallace, is there something you can tell me?”

“Not a thing,” said Enoch. He picked up the lantern. “You’re going home?”

Enoch noped.

“You don’t seem to mind us watching you.”

“No,” Enoch told him. “Not your watching. Just your interference. Bring back that body and go on watching if you want to. But don’t push me any.

Don’t lean on me. Keep your hands off. Don’t touch anything.”

“But good God, man, there’s something going on. You can tell me something.”

Enoch hesitated.

“Some idea,” said Lewis, “of what this is all about. Not the details, just …”

“You bring the body back,” Enoch told him, slowly, “and maybe we can talk again.”

“It will be back,” said Lewis.

“If it’s not,” said Enoch, “you’re as good as dead right now.”

Turning, he went across the garden and started up the hill.

In the yard, Lewis stood for a long time, watching the lantern bobbing out of sight.

Ulysses was alone in the station when Enoch returned. He had sent the

Tuban on his way and the Hazer back to Vega.

A fresh pot of coffee was brewing and Ulysses was sprawled out on the sofa, doing nothing.

Enoch hung up the rifle and blew out the lantern. Taking off his jacket, he threw it on the desk. He sat down in a chair across from the sofa.

“The body will be back,” he said, “by this time tomorrow.”

“I sincerely hope,” Ulysses said, “that it will do some good. But I’m inclined to doubt it.”

“Maybe,” said Enoch bitterly, “I should not have bothered.”

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“It will show good faith,” Ulysses said. “It might have some mitigating effect in the final weighing.”

“The Hazer could have told me,” Enoch said, “where the body was. If he knew it had been taken from the grave, then he must have known where it could be found.”

“I would suspect he did,” Ulysses said, “but, you see, he couldn’t tell you. All that he could do was to make his protest. The rest was up to you.

He could not lay aside his dignity by suggesting what you should do about it. For the record, he must remain the injured party.”

“Sometimes,” said Enoch, “this business is enough to drive one crazy.

Despite the briefings from Galactic Central, there are always some surprises, always yawning traps for you to tumble into.”

“There may come a day,” Ulysses said, “when it won’t be like that. I

can look ahead and see, in some thousands of years, the knitting of the galaxy together into one great culture, one huge area of understanding. The local and the racial variations still will exist, of course, and that is as it should be, but overriding all of these will be a tolerance that will make for what one might be tempted to call a brotherhood.”

“You sound,” said Enoch, “almost like a human. That is the sort of hope that many of our thinkers have held out.”

“Perhaps,” Ulysses said. “You know that a lot of Earth seems to have rubbed off on-me. You can’t spend as long as I did on your planet without picking up at least a bit of it. And by the way, you made a good impression on the Vegan.”

“I hadn’t noticed it,” Enoch told him. “He was kind and correct, of course, but little more.”

“That inscription on the gravestone. He was impressed by that.”

“I didn’t put it there to impress anyone. I wrote it out because it was the way I felt. And because I like the Hazers. I was only trying to make it right for them.”

“If it were not for the pressure from the galactic factions,” Ulysses said, “I am convinced the Vegans would be willing to forget the incident and that is a greater concession than you can realize. It may be that, even so, they may line up with us when the showdown comes.”

“You mean they might save the station?”

Ulysses shook his head. “I doubt anyone can do that. But it will be easier for all of us at Galactic Central if they threw their weight with us.”

The coffeepot was making sounds and Enoch went to get it. Ulysses had pushed some of the trinkets on the coffee table to one side to make room for two coffee cups. Enoch filled them and set the pot upon the floor.

Ulysses picked up his cup, held it for a moment in his hands, then put it back on the table top.

“We’re in bad shape,” he said. “Not like in the old days. It has

Galactic Central worried. All this squabbling and haggling among the races, all the pushing and the shoving.”

He looked at Enoch. “You thought it was all nice and cozy.”

“No,” said Enoch, “not that. I knew that there were conflicting viewpoints and I knew there was some trouble. But I’m afraid I thought of it as being on a fairly lofty plane-gentlemanly, you know, and good-mannered.”

“That was the way it was at one time. There always have been differing opinions, but they were based on principles and ethics, not on special interests. You know about the spiritual force, of course-the universal spiritual force.”

Enoch noped. “I’ve read some of the literature. I don’t quite understand, but I’m willing to accept it. There is a way, I know, to get in contact with the force.”

“The Talisman,” said Ulysses.

“That’s it. The Talisman. A machine, of sorts.”

“I suppose,” Ulysses agreed, “you could call it that. Although the word, ‘machine’ is a little awkward. More than mechanics went into the file:///F|/rah/Clifford%20D.Simak/Clifford%20Simak%20-%20Waystation.txt (65 of 103) [1/19/03 4:01:52 PM]

file:///F|/rah/Clifford%20D.Simak/Clifford%20Simak%20-%20Waystation.txt making of it. There is just the one. Only one was ever made, by a mystic who lived ten thousand of your years ago. I wish I could tell you what it is or how it is constructed, but there is no one, I am afraid, who can tell you that. There have been others who have attempted to duplicate the Talisman, but no one has succeeded. The mystic who made it left no blueprints, no plans, no specifications, not a single note. There is no one who knows anything about it.”

“There is no reason, I suppose,” said Enoch, “that another should not be made. No sacred taboos, I mean. To make another one would not be sacrilegious.”

“Not in the least,” Ulysses told him. “In fact, we need another badly.

For now we have no Talisman. It has disappeared.”

Enoch jerked upright in his chair.

“Disappeared?” he asked.

“Lost,” said Ulysses. “Misplaced. Stolen. No one knows.”

“But I hadn’t …”

Ulysses smiled bleakly. “You hadn’t heard. I know. It is not something that we talk about. We wouldn’t dare. The people must not know. Not for a while, at least.”

“But how can you keep it from them?”

“Not too hard to do. You know how it worked, how the custodian took it from planet to planet and great mass meetings were held, where the Talisman was exhibited and contact made through it with the spiritual force. There had never been a schedule of appearances; the custodian simply wandered. It might be a hundred of your years or more between the visits of the custodian to any particular planet. The people hold no expectations of a visit. They simply know there’ll be one, sometime; that some day the custodian will show up with the Talisman.”

“That way you can cover up for years.”

“Yes,” Ulysses said. “Without any trouble.”

“The leaders know, of course. The administrative people.”

Ulysses shook his head. “We have told very few. The few that we can trust. Galactic Central knows, of course, but we’re a close-mouthed lot.”

“Then why …”

“Why should I be telling you. I know; I shouldn’t. I don’t know why I

am. Yes, I guess I do. How does it feel, my friend, to sit as a compassionate confessor?”

“You’re worried,” Enoch said. “I never thought I would see you worried.”

“It’s a strange business,” Ulysses said. “The Talisman has been missing for several years or so. And no one knows about it-except Galactic Central and the-what would you call it?-the hierarchy, I suppose, the organization of mystics who takes care of the spiritual setup. And yet, even with no one knowing, the galaxy is beginning to show wear. It’s coming apart at the seams. In time to come, it may fall apart. As if the Talisman represented a force that all unknowingly held the races of the galaxy together, exerting its influence even when it remained unseen.”

“But even if it’s lost, it’s somewhere,” Enoch pointed out. “It still would be exerting its influence. It couldn’t have been destroyed.”

“You forget,” Ulysses reminded him, “that without its proper custodian, without its sensitive, it is inoperative. For it’s not the machine itself that does the trick. The machine merely acts as an intermediary between the sensitive and the spiritual force. It is an extension of the sensitive. It magnifies the capability of the sensitive and acts as a link of some sort.

It enables the sensitive to perform his function.”

“You feel that the loss of the Talisman has something to do with the situation here?”

“The Earth station. Well, not directly, but it is typical. What is happening in regard to the station is symptomatic. It involves the sort of petty quarreling and mean bickering that has broken out through many file:///F|/rah/Clifford%20D.Simak/Clifford%20Simak%20-%20Waystation.txt (66 of 103) [1/19/03 4:01:52 PM]