Earthmen had never ventured into the vast
unknown beyond the galaxy. But now a survey was
ordered and a ship sent out. So Braun went on—
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
April 1955
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
They still talk of Braun, and the Fourth Intergalactic Survey.
Other men before him had gone out into the far, dark places. Threeprevious expeditions had gone out and vanished completely. Then theVenture IV went out and out and out countless miles and light-yearsand whatever else it is—and out there in the lonely darkness somethinghappened. Nobody knew exactly what happened, but there was a lot ofguessing. Only one man came back. Braun. And there was talk....
Tending bar anywhere is better, they say, than an academic degree inpsychology. Tending bar on one of the way stations to the stars yousee people—most of them human—as they really are, and in all stagesof emotion. You see them coming and going, and a few already gone. Bylittle signs, you can tell a lot about them, and make a guess at whatis wrong with the wrong ones.
There was Braun.
Angular as a stick-bug, he stood at the bar, elbows digging into thepolished mahogany, one foot cocked on the rail. He was drinking aloneas if it had become a habit, and the customers edged away from him asif not wanting to make it too obvious. As usual, his go-to-hell facelooked past you into the backbar mirror and out again to cover thewhole place. He was older and changed, though, as he would be. Deeplines furrowed the tight, tanned, leathery features, and his eyes stillheld some of that awful emptiness of space between the star-packs.
Nobody said anything, at first.
Braun watched them, a humorous half-defiant glint in his eye. But therewas pain in him, in his voice as he spoke.
"What's the matter? Am I poison, or something?"
Somebody said it, then. In a stage whisper. "I had friends on theVenture IV."
"So did I," Braun answered quickly. "A lot of friends. So beforesomebody works up nerve to ask, I don't know."
"Don't know?" a man named Cutter pursued the point coldly. "You werethere!..."
"I was there," admitted Braun. "I still say it. I don't know whathappened to anybody. I've told the authorities that over and over. I'vetold anybody who'd listen. You don't have to believe me. I don't givea—"
"Nobody's told us anything," Cutter insisted. "We haven't heard awhisper about it. And, speaking for all of us, we'd like to be sureabout you ... before we go on drinking at the same bar...."
It was going to be like that as long as Braun lived. People will talk,and if there's a choice, they'll guess the ugly thing, every time.Wherever he went, there would be people to ask that question, andsomebody to smirk if he answered it.
You could see trouble coming. Whatever Braun answered....
Braun was never a man to talk much about himself. It was alwaysthe places he had been and seen, or wanted to go. Like all old-timespacemen, he was a bird of passage. Between trips, he came in a fewtimes, got to be a fixture. But he was always coming or going somewherenever lighting or staying put.
You don't learn too much about a man in a bar, casually. Little thingsadd up and hint at the bigger ones. You can call him by his first namecasually, and hash over mutual acquaintances, that's all.
Maybe you talk about the things men talk about. Life and death. Menand spaceships. Life on distant worlds. Braun had knocked around thegalaxy like a lot of