The story itself has a history that may be more interesting than its content. I dreamed it up, literally, woke and recorded it, filed it for future reference—and forgot I had done so. Later, coming across the note, I wondered where it had come from. So I described it to several writing acquaintances, inquiring whether they had seen any such story in print. None had, so I assumed it really was mine. Then when I decided to write it up for Harry, I couldn't find my note. So I had to re-create it from scratch. After selling it to Nova, I found my original note—and discovered that it was better than the story I had actually written. Sigh—it really was Not That Good.
Unfortunately, the impersonal military regulations said, multiple-manned stations were not feasible at this time. Numerous learned articles had been published refuting the validity of this policy, but they were under civilian bylines and therefore ignored. That was why Leo MacHenry was a lonely man.
He had been warned that his imagination might conjure company from the vacuum, just to break the monotony of fourteen months of isolation. Such cautions were unnecessary; he knew better than to yield to hallucination. One million dollars was good pay even in the face of rampant cool-war inflation, for a single tour—but it would do him little good in the psycho ward. Thus he was cautious about crediting what he saw.
Still, it did look like a man. A live one.
The figure drifted directly toward the station, brightly illuminated by this system's nameless sun. Behind it were the stars, clear even in this seeming day because of the absence of obscuring atmosphere. An intermittent jet of gas shot out from the suit, suggesting the tail of a comet as the light caught it momentarily. Braking action; weightlessness was a far cry from masslessness, and a collision at speed with the station would flatten the visitor in ugly fashion.
Leo watched it through the small scope. What he saw was a standard UN space suit of the type suitable for survival-of-wearer up to four days in deep space, conditions permitting, and somewhat longer in a semiprotected situation. That was sufficient margin for rescue in most cases—if rescue were, according to the manual, feasible at all. Evidently there had been a wreck in space, and this survivor had been close enough.
And that was suspicious. Leo's station was mounted on a planetoid that orbited a numbered star far from Sol. Human traffic was sparse here. There was potentially valuable real estate in this system and Earth wanted to hold a lease on it so that other starfaring creatures would stay clear, but it would be years before proper development occurred. The odds against a human shipwreck here at this time, let alone a single survivor—well, it was improbable.
Yet this was persistent for a hallucination. His instruments picked up the visitor, and he was not given to misreading their signals. He had been on duty two weeks; the novelty was only now beginning to wear down, and in any event it was a little soon for cross-referenced mind-warping. It was now fairly safe to assume that what he saw was real, physically.
The odds remained bad, however. He had not wanted to think about the next most likely prospect, but now he had to. What he saw could be a Dep.
The Deps were an alien species whose stellar ambition matched Man's own. Their technology lagged slightly behind Earth's, but they made up for this by other abilities. Because they were GO star-system residents of an Earthtype planet, their needs were basically parallel to Man's, and that meant specific competition for choice worlds. A state of war did not exist currently, but the peace, to put it euphemistically, was uncertain.
The UN suit fired a last burst from its center of gravity—jokes were rife and obvious—and contacted the surface of the planetoid. It tumbled and bounced, the wearer not expert at this maneuver. Then it righted itself and attempted to walk toward the station.
Leo smiled grimly. Walking on a low-G rock was not the same as doing it on a smooth metal hull. Here the magnetic shoes had nothing to cling to, and friction with the surface was virtually nil. The figure rose slowly into the black sky rather than going forward.
Why hadn't he spotted the wreck? It should have been well within the range of his instruments, and the telltales should have Christmassed. That was another augury in favor of a Dep intruder: a deliberately landed spy. Though it was not like them to oversight such an important detail as a fake wreck.
The Deps: vernacular for Adepts, in turn the informal term for the species that could change its physical features at will to match those of any similar animal. Man was similar. Coupled with this was a certain force of personality that, it was said, caused the viewer to overlook minor discrepancies. Thus a Dep spy could be frighteningly effective. He looked like a man, and his faked identification seemed to check out. Even machine inspection was not always proof against error. Cases were on record where an identified Dep had been passed in spite of mechanical protest. The operator had been sure the device was malfunctioning, since the subject was obviously human.
Strenuous measures had been required to root out Dep spies from Earth's environs, and some innocent humans had been liquidated in the process. But the job had been done. Computerized laboratories were capable of identifying suspects and passing sentence, and were not affected by the subjective aura. The threat of Dep infiltration, while still present, was no longer serious.
The suited figure finally got its bearings and made respectable progress toward the entry port. Leo had to make his decision soon.
Space was large, suit-range small. Human survivor of unobserved wreck, thousand-to-one odds against? Million-to-one?
On the other hand, how about a Dep infiltration attempt, here and now? Maybe only ten-to-one against.
He could blast the human-looking figure where it stood. He had more destructive power under his thumb than Man had been capable of imagining through most of his history. He could devastate men, ships and even small planets. He was the guardian of this system, equipped to make intrusion by aliens entirely too costly to be worthwhile.
But suppose the visitor were legitimate? Overwhelming as the odds against it were, it was possible. Should he risk murder?
The visitor was at the port. He could not ignore it. A human would soon die out there, as the suit ran down; an alien would arrange somehow to sabotage the station.
It would be safer to blast it. His duty required that he act with cognizance of the odds. Nothing should jeopardize Earth security.
Yet—he was lonely. Two weeks had impressed him forcefully what fourteen months would be like. If he blasted now, he would not know whether he had done right or wrong. Not for thirteen and a half months, when the relief ship took in the frozen toasted fragments and analyzed the flesh.
Loneliness was bad, but that grisly uncertainty would be worse. And if the body were human...
He was fairly secure, physically. He could admit the visitor and make his own investigation. He would be reprimanded, of course. It was not his business to take chances.
He was lonely. His resistance to temptation was not that good. He pressed the stud that opened the lock.
The figure entered. The port swung shut, resealed. Air cycled into the chamber. Now Leo could talk to his guest without employing monitored radio.