Way Station

Way Station is a science fiction novel by the American writer Clifford D. Simak, published in book form in 1964 after appearing in two parts in Galaxy Magazine the year before under the title Here Gather the Stars. It won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1964.

Enoch Wallace was born in 1840 and fought at Gettysburg. An alien he chose to call Ulysses recruited him to operate a station for travellers crossing the galaxy, and the equipment was installed in his house while he moved into a shed beside it. His job is to watch the machinery, including the materialisers that move passengers in and out, and to see that a very varied clientele gets what it needs.

The arrangement leaves him outside ordinary time, because he does not age while he is inside the station, and the neighbours long ago accepted that the man on the farm does not change. He has a few friends, among them a young deaf-mute woman called Lucy and the local mailman, and he has kept his work to himself, which becomes harder once the United States government begins to wonder what is in the house.