No matter how smoothly the departure process takes place, there is not much that can prepare a Traveller for the stern and suspicious face of The Man at Colonization Control. He does not care that I have given up everything and everyone I love and sacrificed my comfortable life. He does not care that I have wept a bit, wondering if I’ve done the right thing and he certainly does not care that I am exhausted after a sleepless five nights with a screaming ten legged crustacean kicking the back of my chair for the last 102 hours.
No, his job is to make sure that I am here legally, that I can support and accommodate myself and the fruit of my loins without recourse to Community Cash, and also, to make sure that I do not have TB (Transgalactic Bercolosus). In the event that I did not realise this was an entry requirement and do not have the necessary x-rays (which I don’t) I am ushered to a refrigerated room, made to wait endlessly, then asked to disrobe so my lungs can be x-rayed.
Once this is done, I wait in petrified silence till said x-rays are developed and they are certain I am not bringing in any nasty diseases or contraband secreted in one of my cavities. I then return to the strict Man at Colonization Control who gives me a bit of a grilling and then because he’s in a good mood having already refused entry to 503 aliens that morning, he lets me through reluctantly with a look that says, “we’ll be watching you”.
I am allowed to collect my handkerchief and golf club and merge into the crowd. The ten legged crustacean is not as lucky and is searched, questioned and detained for hours before they politely put it on the next spacecraft and send it back.
And so the adventure begins…
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