Robert Silverberg - One-Way Journey

Behind the comforting walls of Terra Import’s headquarters on Kollidor, commander Leon Warshow was fumbling nervously with the psych reports on his mirror-bright desk. Commander Warshow was thinking about spaceman Matt Falk, and about himself. Commander Warshow was about to react very predictably.

Personnel Lieutenant Krisch had told him the story about Falk an hour before, and Warshow was doing the one thing expected of him: he was waiting for the boy, having sent for him, after a hasty conference with Cullinan, the Magyar ’s saturnine psych officer.

An orderly buzzed and said, “Spaceman Falk to see you, sir.”

“Have him wait a few minutes,” Warshow said, speaking too quickly. “I’ll buzz for him.”

It was a tactical delay. Wondering why he, an officer, should be so tense before an interview with an enlisted man, Warshow riffled through the sheaf of records on Matt Falk. Orphaned, 2543…Academy…two years’ commercial service, military contract…injury en route to Kollidor…

Appended were comprehensive medical reports on Falk’s injury, and Dr. Sigstrom’s okay. Also a disciplinary chart, very favorable, and a jaggle-edged psych contour, good.

Warshow depressed the buzzer. “Send in Falk,” he said.

The photon beam clicked and the door swung back. Matt Falk entered and faced his commander stonily; Warshow glared back, studying the youngster as if he had never seen him before. Falk was just twenty-five, very tall and very blond, with wide, bunch-muscled shoulders and keen blue eyes. The scar along the left side of his face was almost completely invisible, but not even chemotherapeutic incubation had been able to restore the smooth evenness of the boy’s jaw. Falk’s face looked oddly lopsided; the unharmed right jaw sloped easily and handsomely up to the condyle, while the left still bore unseen but definitely present echoes of the boy’s terrible shipboard accident.

“You want me, commander?”

“We’re leaving Kollidor tomorrow, Matt,” Warshow said quietly. “Lieutenant Krisch tells me you haven’t returned to ship to pack your gear. Why?”

The jaw that had been ruined and rebuilt quivered slightly.

“You know, sir. I’m not going back to Earth, sir. I’m staying here…with Thetona.”

There was a frozen silence. Then, with calculated cruelty, Warshow said, “You’re really hipped on that flatface, eh?”

“Maybe so,” Falk murmured. “That flatface. That gook. What of it?” His quiet voice was bitterly defiant.

Warshow tensed. He was trying to do the job delicately, without inflicting further psychopersonal damage on young Falk. To leave a psychotic crewman behind on an alien world was impossible—but to extract Falk forcibly from the binding webwork of associations that tied him to Kollidor would leave scars not only on crewman but on captain.

Perspiring, Warshow said, “You’re an Earthman, Matt. Don’t you—”

“Want to go home? No.”

The commander grinned feebly. “You sound mighty permanent about that, son.”

“I am,” Falk said stiffly. “You know why I want to stay here. I am staying here. May I be excused now, sir?”

Warshow drummed on the desktop, hesitating for a moment, then nodded. “Permission granted, Mr Falk.” There was little point in prolonging what he now saw had been a predeterminedly pointless interview.

He waited a few minutes after Falk had left. Then he switched on the communicator. “Send in Major Cullinan, please.”

The beady-eyed psychman appeared almost instantly. “Well?”

“The boy’s staying,” Warshow said. “Complete and singleminded fixation. Go ahead—break it.”

Cullinan shrugged. “We may have to leave him here, and that’s all there is to it. Have you met the girl?”

“Kollidorian. Alien. Ugly as sin. I’ve seen her picture; he had it over his bunk until he moved out. And we can’t leave him here, major.”

Cullinan raised one bushy eyebrow quizzically. “We can try to bring Falk back, if you insist—but it won’t work. Not without crippling him.”

Warshow whistled idly, avoiding the psychman’s stern gaze. “I insist,” he said finally. “There’s no alternative.”

He snatched at the communicator.

“Lieutenant Krisch, please.” A brief pause, then: “Krisch, Warshow. Tell the men that departure’s been postponed four days. Have Molhaus refigure the orbits. Yes, four days. Four.”

Warshow hung up, glanced at the heaped Falk dossier on his desk, and scowled. Psych Officer Cullinan shook his head sadly, rubbing his growing bald spot.

“That’s a drastic step, Leon.”

“I know. But I’m not going to leave Falk behind.” Warshow rose, eyed Cullinan uneasily, and added, “Care to come with me? I’m going down into Kollidor City.”

“What for?”

“I want to talk with the girl,” Warshow said.

Later, in the crazily twisting network of aimless streets that was the alien city, Warshow began to wish he had ordered Cullinan to come with him. As he made his way through the swarms of the placid, ugly, broad-faced Kollidorians, he regretted very much that he had gone alone.

What would he do, he wondered, when he finally did reach the flat where Falk and his Kollidorian girl were living? Warshow wasn’t accustomed to handling himself in ground-borne interpersonal situations of this sort. He didn’t know what to say to the girl. He thought he could handle Falk.

The relation of commander to crewman is that of parent to child, the Book said. Warshow grinned self-consciously.

He didn’t feel very fatherly just now—more like a Dutch uncle, he thought.

He kept walking. Kollidor City spread out ahead of him like a tangled ball of twine coming unrolled in five directions at once; it seemed to have been laid down almost at random. But Warshow knew the city well. This was his third tour of duty to the Kollidor sector; three times he had brought cargo from Earth, three times waited while his ship was loaded with Kollidorian goods for export.

Overhead, the distant blue-white sun burnt brightly. Kollidor was the thirteenth planet in its system; it swung on a large arc nearly four billion miles from its blazing primary.

Warshow sniffled; it reminded him that he was due for his regular antipollen injection. He was already thoroughly protected, as was his crew, against most forms of alien disease likely to come his way on the trip.

But how do you protect someone like Falk? The commander had no quick answers for that. It wouldn’t ordinarily seem necessary to inoculate spacemen against falling in love with bovine alien women, but—

“Good afternoon, Commander Warshow,” a dry voice said suddenly.

Warshow glanced around, surprised and annoyed. The man who stood behind him was tall, thin, with hard, knobby cheekbones protruding grotesquely from parchmentlike chalk-white skin. Warshow recognized the genetic pattern, and the man. He was Domnik Kross, a trader from the quondam Terran colony of Rigel IX.

“Hello, Kross,” Warshow said sullenly, and halted to let the other catch up.

“What brings you to the city, commander? I thought you were getting ready to pack up and flit away.”

“We’re—postponing four days,” Warshow said.

“Oh? Got any leads worth telling about? Not that I care to—”

“Skip it, Kross.” Warshow’s voice was weary. “We’ve finished our trading for the season. You’ve got a clear field. Now leave me alone, yes?”

He started to walk faster, but the Rigelian, smiling bleakly, kept in step with him.

“You sound disturbed, commander.”

Warshow glanced impatiently at the other, wishing he could unburden himself of the Rigelian’s company. “I’m on a mission of top security value, Kross. Are you going to insist on accompanying me?”