Science Fiction Short Story Review: "The Passenger" by Kenneth Harmon

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After knocking herself out for five years trying to explain history, Shakespeare and geometry to a bunch of miners’ grubby kids on a slag heap of a planet on the rim of the galaxy, twenty-five-year-old Lenore Smithson is going home. She’d heeded the call of the Government Education Service to “travel while helping others.” They’d finally a relief teacher for her. Who could blame her if she now ate like a pig and took three baths a day? If she did little more than lie around her stateroom? One day, alone in her stateroom, while talking to herself in the mirror, daydreaming of a reception back on earth and, later, of stolen kisses with a likely young man behind the church bell tower when the moon is full, she pauses: is that laughter? Where is it coming from? Maybe she’s not the only telepath aboard. Another passenger claims to be one. He’s from Dekker’s star. Lenore has heard of telepaths, but not from Dekker’s star. The telepath tells her he is lonely and confined to his stateroom. He sends her a mental image of himself: a likely enough young man in an orange and black bathrobe. Could Lenore possibly stop by for a visit…? This is a very short little “gotcha” tale that invites the reader in. It is imbued with some humor, but the reader is never able to fully relate to Lenore. This is well done with a surprise ending. I could find no bio info on author Kenneth Harmon. This is the only work listed for him in the Internet Speculative Fiction Database. Complicating matters is there’s a contemporary author by the same name. If that gentleman work this story, he was quite precocious indeed. The story is available from Project Gutenberg: ______ Title: “The Passenger” Author: Kenneth Harmon First published in Galaxy Science Fiction Feb. 1954 Source: ISFDB *An earlier version of this review appeared on another site. It has been updated and expanded for its inclusion in myLot.*