Troons: The Complete Stories by John Wyndham

Author:John Wyndham [Wyndham, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-09-10T00:00:00+00:00

He had gone on regarding Ticker steadily, with a length of inspection that passed the bounds of custom, and of comfort. Ticker grew embarrassed, and had to resist the temptation to shift uneasily. The old boy became aware of the awkwardness. His face relaxed into a smile that was friendly, and reassuring.

“Forgive me, my boy. I was fifty years away,” he said.

He glanced down at the forms. Ticker recognized some of them. His whole life history was there. Troon, G.M., aged twenty-four, single, C of E. Parentage . . . education . . . service details . . . medical report . . . C.O.’s report . . . security report, no. doubt . . . probably a privatelife report . . . notes on his friends, and so on, and so on . . . Quite a bundle of stuff, altogether. The old boy evidently thought so, too, for he pushed it all aside with a touch of impatience, waved his hand at an easy chair, and slid over a silver cigarette-box.

“Sit down there, my boy,” he invited.

“Thank you, sir,” Ticker had said. And he had taken the offered cigarette, doing his best to give an impression of ease.

“Tell me,” said the old boy, in a friendly tone, “what made you apply for transfer from Air to Space?”

It was an expected, standard question, to which there was a standard answer, but it was not put in the standard way, and, with the man’s eye thoughtfully upon him, Ticker decided, against giving the standard reply. He frowned, a little uncertainly.

“It isn’t easy to explain, sir. In fact, I’m not honestly sure that I know. It—well, it isn’t exactly that I had to do it. But there is a kind of inevitable feeling about it—as if it were a thing I was bound to do, sooner or later. My natural next step . . .”

“Next step,” repeated the air marshal. “Not your crowning ambition, then? Next step towards what?”

“I don’t really know, sir. Outwards, I think. There’s a sort of sense I can’t explain . . . a kind of urge onwards and outwards. It is not a sudden idea, sir. It seems always to have been there, at the back of my mind. I’m afraid it all sounds a bit vague . . .” He let himself trail off, inadequately.

But the old boy did not seem to find it inadequate. He gave a couple of his slow nods, and leant back in his chair. For a few moments he gazed up at the cornice of the ceiling, seeming to search his memory. Presently, he said:

“ ‘. . . for all the night

I heard their thin gnat-

voices cry

Star to faint star across the

sky.’ ”

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