Title: The Passenger
Author: Harmon, Kenneth
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Passenger" ***


THE PASSENGER

By KENNETH HARMON


 _The classic route to a man's
 heart is through his stomach
 --and she was just his dish._


Illustrated by CONNELL


The transport swung past Centaurus on the last leg of her long journey
to Sol. There was no flash, no roar as she swept across the darkness of
space. As silent as a ghost, as quiet as a puff of moonlight she moved,
riding the gravitational fields that spread like tangled, invisible
spider webs between the stars.

Within the ship there was also silence, but the air was stirred by a
faint, persistent vibration from the field generators. This noiseless
pulse stole into every corner of the ship, through long, empty
passageways lined with closed stateroom doors, up spiraling stairways to
the bridge and navigational decks, and down into vast and echoing holds,
filled with strange cargo from distant worlds.

This vibration pulsed through Lenore's stateroom. As she relaxed on her
couch, she bathed in it, letting it flow through her to tingle in her
fingertips and whisper behind her closed eyelids.

"Home," it pulsed, "you're going home."

       *       *       *       *       *

She repeated the word to herself, moving her lips softly but making no
sound. "Home," she breathed, "back home to Earth." Back to the proud old
planet that was always home, no matter how far you wandered under alien
suns. Back to the shining cities clustered along blue seacoasts. Back to
the golden grainlands of the central states and the high, blue grandeur
of the western mountains. And back to the myriad tiny things that she
remembered best, the little, friendly things ... a stretch of
maple-shadowed streets heavy and still with the heat of a summer noon; a
flurry of pigeons in the courthouse square; yellow dandelions in a green
lawn, the whir of a lawnmower and the smell of the cut grass; ivy on old
bricks and the rough feel of oak bark under her hands; water lilies and
watermelons and crepe papery dances and picnics by the river in the
summer dusk; and the library steps in the evening, with fireflies in the
cool grass and the school chimes sounding the slow hours through the
friendly dark.

She thought to herself, "It's been such a long time since you were home.
There will be a whole new flock of pigeons now." She smiled at the
recollection of the eager, awkward girl of twenty that she had been when
she had finished school and had entered the Government Education
Service. "Travel While Helping Others" had been the motto of the GES.

She had traveled, all right, a long, long way inside a rusty freighter
without a single porthole, to a planet out on the rim of the Galaxy that
was as barren and dreary as a cosmic slag heap. Five years on the rock
pile, five years of knocking yourself out trying to explain history and
Shakespeare and geometry to a bunch of grubby little miners' kids in a
tin schoolhouse at the edge of a cluster of tin shacks that was supposed
to be a town. Five years of trudging around with your nails worn and
dirty and your hair chopped short, of wearing the latest thing in
overalls. Five years of not talking with the young miners because they
got in trouble with the foreman, and not talking with the crewmen from
the ore freighters because they got in trouble with the first mate, and
not talking with yourself because you got in trouble with the
psychologist.

They took care of you in the Education Service; they guarded your diet
and your virtue, your body and your mind. Everything but your happiness.

       *       *       *       *       *

There was lots to do, of course. You could prepare lessons and read
papers and cheap novels in the miners' library, or nail some more tin on
your quarters to keep out the wind and the dust and the little animals.
You could go walking to the edge of town and look at all the pretty gray
stones and the trees, like squashed-down barrel cactus; watch the larger
sun sink behind the horizon with its little companion star circling
around it, diving out of sight to the right and popping up again on the
left. And Saturday night--yippee!--three-year-old movies in the tin
hangar. And, after five years, they come and say, "Here's Miss
So-and-So, your relief, and here's your five thousand credits and
wouldn't you like to sign up for another term?"

Ha!

So they give you your ticket back to Earth. You're on the transport at
last, and who can blame you if you act just a little crazy and eat like
a pig and take baths three times a day and lie around your stateroom and
just dream about getting home and waking up in your own room in the
morning and getting a good cup of real coffee at the corner fountain and
kissing some handsome young fellow on the library steps when the Moon is
full behind the bell tower?

"And will the young fellow like you?" she asked herself, knowing the
answer even as she asked the question.

She whirled about in the middle of the stateroom, her robe swirling
around her, and ended with a deep curtsy to the full-length mirror.

"Allow me to introduce myself," she murmured. "Lenore Smithson, formerly
of the Government Education Service, just back from business out on the
Rim. What? Why, of course you may have this dance. Your name? Mr.
Fairheart! Of the billionaire Fairhearts?" She waltzed with herself a
moment. Halting before the mirror again, she surveyed herself
critically.

"Well," she said aloud, "the five years didn't completely ruin you,
after all. Your nose still turns up and your cheeks still dimple when
you smile. You have a nice tan and your hair's grown long again.
Concentrated food hasn't hurt your figure, either." She turned this way
and that before the mirror to observe herself.

Then suddenly she gave a little gasp of surprise and fright, for a
cascade of laughter had flooded soundlessly inside her head.

       *       *       *       *       *

She stood frozen before the mirror while the laughter continued. Then
she slowly swung around. It ceased abruptly. She looked around the
compartment, staring accusingly at each article of furniture in turn;
then quickly spun around to look behind her, meeting her own startled
gaze in the mirror.

Opening the door slowly, she ventured to thrust her head out into the
corridor. It was deserted, the long rows of doors all closed during the
afternoon rest period. As she stood there, a steward came along the
corridor with a tray of glasses, nodded to her, and passed on out of
sight. She turned back into the room and stood there, leaning against
the door, listening.

Suddenly the laughter came again, bursting out as though it had been
suppressed and could be held back no longer. Clear, merry, ringing and
completely soundless, it poured through her mind.

"What is it?" she cried aloud. "What's happening?"

"My dear young lady," said a man's voice within her head, "allow me to
introduce myself. My name is Fairheart. Of the billionaire Fairhearts.
May I have the next dance?"

"This is it," she thought. "Five years on the rock pile would do it to
anyone. You've gone mad."

She laughed shakily. "I can't dance with you if I can't see you."

"I really should explain," the voice replied, "and apologize for my
silly joke. It was frightfully rude to laugh at you, but when I saw you
waltzing and preening yourself, I just couldn't help it. I'm a telepath,
you see, from Dekker's star, out on the Rim."

That would explain, she thought, his slightly stilted phraseology;
English was apparently not his native tongue--or, rather, his native
thought.

"There was a mild mutation among the settlers there, and the third
generation all have this ability. I shouldn't use it, I know, but I've
been so lonely, confined here to my room, that I cast around to see if
there were anyone that I could talk to. Then I came upon you considering
your own virtues, and you were so cute and funny that I couldn't resist.
Then I laughed and you caught me."

       *       *       *       *       *

"I've heard of telepaths," she said doubtfully, "though I've never heard
of Dekker's star. However, I don't think you have any right to go
thinking around the ship spying on people."

"Sh!" whispered the silent voice. "You needn't shout. I'll go away if
you wish and never spy on you again, but don't tell Captain Blake, or
he'll have me sealed in a lead-lined cell or something. We're not
supposed to telepath around others, but I've been sitting here with all
sorts of interesting thoughts just tickling the edges of my mind for so
long that I had to go exploring."

"Why not go exploring on your own two feet like anyone else? Have you so
much brains, your head's too heavy to carry?"

"Unfortunately," the voice mourned, "my trouble is in my foot and not in
my head. On the second night out from Dekker's star, I lost my footing
on the stairs from the dining hall and plunged like a comet to the
bottom. I would probably have been killed but for the person of a stout
steward who, at that moment, started to ascend the stairs. He took the
full impact of my descent on his chest and saved my life, I'm sure.
However, I still received a broken ankle that has given me so much pain
that I have been forced to remain in my cabin.

"I have had no one to talk to except the steward who brings me my meals,
and, as he is the one whom I met on the stairs, he has little to say. In
the morning he frowns at me, at noon he glowers, and in the evening he
remarks hopefully, 'Foot still pretty bad?' Thus, I'm starved for
conversation."

[Illustration]

Lenore smiled at this earnest speech. "I might talk with you for a
minute or two, but you must admit that you have one advantage over me.
You can see me, or so you say, and know what I look like, but I can't
see you. It isn't fair."

"I can show myself to you," he said, "but you'll have to help me by
closing your eyes and concentrating very hard."

       *       *       *       *       *

She closed her eyes and waited expectantly. There was a moment of
darkness; then there appeared in the middle of the darkness a point of
light, a globe, a giant balloon of color. Suddenly she was looking into
the corner of a stateroom which appeared to hang in space. In the center
of the area stood a handsome young man in a startling black and orange
lounging robe, holding on to the back of a chair.

She opened her eyes; for an instant the vision of the young telepath
hung in the air over her couch like a ghostly double exposure. Then it
faded and the room was empty.

"That's a terrible effort," came his thought, "particularly when I have
to balance on one foot at the same time. Well, now are we even?"

Abandoning her post by the door, she moved to the couch and sat down.
"I'm really disappointed," she smiled. "I was sure you'd have two heads.
But I think you do have nice eyes and a terrible taste in bathrobes."
She took a cigarette from her case and lit it carefully. Then she
remembered her manners and extended the case to the empty air. "Won't
you have one?"

"I certainly would like to. I'm all out of them until the steward brings
my dinner. But I'm afraid I'll have to wait, unless you can blow the
smoke through the ventilators to me, or unless ... you bring me one?"

Lenore blushed and changed the subject. "Tell me, what do you do all day
in your stateroom? Do you read? Do you play the flute? Do you telepath
sweet nothings across the light-years to your girl friend on Dekker's
star?"

"I'm afraid my telepathic powers are a bit short-ranged to reach
Dekker's star," he replied. "Besides, what girl would commune with me
through the depths of space when some other young man is calling her
from the dancing pavilion? And my musical talents are limited. However,
I do read. I brought some books connected with the research I intend to
do on Earth for my degree, and I have spent many happy hours poring over
the thrilling pages of _Extraterrestrial Entomology_ and _Galactic
Arachnida_."

"I came better prepared than you did," she said. "Perhaps I could lend
you some of my books. I have novels, plays, poetry, and one very
interesting volume called _Progressive Education under Rim Star
Conditions_. But," she lowered her voice to a whisper, "I must tell you
a secret about that last one."

"What is it?"

"I haven't even opened it."

       *       *       *       *       *

They laughed together, her merriment bubbling aloud in her cabin, his
echoing silently inside her mind.

"I haven't time to read a novel," his thought came, "and drama always
bored me, but I must confess to a weakness for poetry. I love to read it
aloud, to throw myself into a heroic ballad and rush along, spouting
grand phrases as though they were my own and feeling for a moment as
though I were really striding the streets of ancient Rome, pushing west
on the American frontier or venturing out into space in the first wild,
reckless, heroic days of rocket travel. But I soon founder. I get swept
away by the rhythm, lost in the intricacies of cadence and rhyme, and,
when the pace slows down, when the poem becomes soft and delicate and
the meaning is hidden behind a foliage of little gentle words, I lose
myself entirely."

She said softly, "Perhaps I could help you interpret some verses."

Then she waited, clasping her hands to keep them from trembling with the
tiny thrill of excitement she felt.

"That would be kind of you," he said after a pause. "You could read,
there, and I could listen, here, and feel what you feel as you read ...
or, if you wished ..." Another pause. "Would you care to come down?"

She could not help smiling. "You're too good a mind reader. A girl can't
have any secrets any more."

"Now look here," he burst out. "I wouldn't have said anything, but I
was so lonely and you're the only friendly person I've come in contact
with and ..."

"Don't be silly," she laughed. "Of course I'll come down and read to
you. I'd love to. What's your cabin number?"

"It hasn't got a number because--actually I work on this ship so I'm
away from the passengers' quarters. But I can direct you easily. Just
start down the hall to your left and ..."

"My dear sir," she cried, "just wait a minute! I can't come visiting in
my robe, you know; I'll have to change. But while I dress, you must take
your spying little thoughts away. If I detect you peeking in here at the
wrong moment, I'll run straight to Captain Blake and have him prepare
his special lead-lined cell for one unhappy telepath. So you just run
along. When I'm ready, I'll call you and you can lead me to your lair."

He thought only the one word, "Hurry," but in the silence after he was
gone she fancied she heard her heart echoing him, loud in the stillness.

       *       *       *       *       *

She laughed gaily to herself. "Now stop acting like a schoolgirl before
the Junior Prom. You've got to get busy and wash and dress and comb and
brush." And then to her reflection in the mirror: "Aren't you a lucky
girl? You're still millions and billions of miles from Earth and it's
starting already, and he's going to do research there for some time, and
maybe at the university in your home town if you tell him just how nice
it is, and he doesn't know any other girls, you'd have an inside track.
Now you'd better get going or you'll never be ready.

"For reading poetry, don't you think this dress is just the thing, this
nice soft blue one that goes so well with your tan and shows your legs,
which are really quite pretty, you know.... And your silver sandals and
those silver pins ... just a touch of perfume.... That's right; and now
a little lipstick. You do have a pretty smile.... There, that's right.
Now stop admiring yourself and let's go."

She moved to the bookshelf, frowning now, considered, selected and
rejected. Finally she settled on three slim books bound in russet
leather, in glossy plastic, in faded cloth. She took a little purse from
the table, put the cigarette case into it. Then, with a laugh, she took
one cigarette and slipped it into a tiny pocket on her skirt.

"I really meant to bring you one," she whispered to the empty air, "but
wasn't I mean to tease?"

In the corridor, she walked quickly past the rows of closed doors to the
tiny refreshment stand at the foot of the dining room stairs. The
attendant rose from his stool as she approached, and came to the
counter.

"I'd like two frosted starlights, please," she said, "on a tray."

"Two," said the attendant, and nothing more, but his eyebrow climbed up
his forehead, hung for a second, then slowly drooped back to normal, as
if to say that after all these years he no longer puzzled about a lovely
young girl who came around in the middle of a Wednesday rest period,
dressed like Saturday night and smelling of perfume, ordering two
intoxicating drinks--when she was obviously traveling alone.

       *       *       *       *       *

Lenore felt a thrill of secret pleasure go through her, a feeling of
possessing a delicious secret, a delightful sensation of reckless
gaiety, of life stirring throughout the sleepy ship, of a web of secrets
and countersecrets hidden from everyone but this unconcerned observer.

She walked back down the corridor, balancing the tray. When a little
splashed over the rim of the tall glasses, she took a sip from each,
tasting the sweet, cold liquid in her throat.

When she came to the head of the stairs, she realized that she did not
even know her telepath's name. Closing her eyes, she said very slowly
and distinctly inside her head, "Mr. Fairheart?"

Instantly his thought was with her, overpowering, as breathless as an
embrace. "Where are you?"

"At the head of the central stairs."

"Down you go."

She went down the stairs, through more corridors, down more stairs,
while he guided her steps. Once she paused to sip again at each glass
when the liquid splashed as she was going down. The ice tickled her nose
and made her sneeze.

"You live a long way down," she said.

"I've got to be near my charges," he answered. "I told you I work on the
ship; I'm a zoologist classifying any of the new specimens of
extraterrestrial life they're always picking up. And I always get stuck
with the worst quarters on the ship. Why, I can't even call all my suite
my own. The whole front room is filled with some sort of ship's gear
that my steward stumbles over every meal time."

She went on and on, down and down. "How many flights?" she wondered.
"Two or twelve or twenty?" Now, why couldn't she remember? Only four
little sips and her mind felt so cloudy. Down another corridor, and what
was that funny smell? These passages were poorly ventilated in the lower
levels; probably that was what made her feel so dizzy.

"Only one more flight," he whispered. "Only one more."

Down and along and then the door. She paused, conscious of rising
excitement, conscious of her beating heart.

Dimly she noticed the sign on the door. "You--you mean whatever it is
you're taking care of is in there with you?"

"Don't be frightened," his persuasive thought came. "It can't hurt you.
It's locked in a cage."

Then she slid the bolt and turned the handle. Her head hurt for an
instant; and she was inside, a blue and silver shadow in the dim
anteroom, with the tray in her hand and the books under her arm and her
pulse hammering.

She looked around the dim anteroom, at the spidery tangle of orange and
black ropes against the left-hand wall; then at the doorway in the
right-hand wall with the warm light streaming through. He was standing
in the second room, one hand on the chair for support, the other
extended toward her. For the first time he spoke aloud.

"Hello, butterfly," he said.

"Hello," she said. She smiled and walked forward into the light. She
reached out for his hand.

Then she stopped short, her hand pressed against an impenetrable wall.

       *       *       *       *       *

She could see him standing there, smiling, reaching for her hand, but
there was an invisible barrier between them. Then, slowly, his room
began to fade, the light dimmed, his figure grew watery, transparent,
vanished. She was standing, staring at the riveted steel bulkhead of a
compartment which was lit only by the dim light filtering through the
thick glass over the transom.

She stood there frozen, and the ice in the glasses tinkled nervously.
Then the tray slipped from her fingers and clattered to the floor. Icy
liquid splashed the silver sandals. In the silent gloom she stood
immobile, her eyes wide in her white face, her fist pressed to her
mouth, stifling a scream.

Something touched her gently at head and wrist and ankle--all over her
body. The web clung, delicate as lace, strong as steel.

Even if she had been able to move, she could not have broken free as the
thing against the wall began to clamber down the strands on eight furred
legs.

"Hello, butterfly," he said again.

                                                      --KENNETH HARMON



Transcriber's Note:

    This etext was produced from _Galaxy Science Fiction_ February 1954.
    Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
    copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and
    typographical errors have been corrected without note.





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