The World Well Lost

"The World Well Lost" is a science fiction short story by American writer Theodore Sturgeon, first published in the June 1953 issue of Universe.

[1] It has been reprinted several times, for instance in Sturgeon's collections E Pluribus Unicorn, Starshine, and A Saucer of Loneliness.

[4] In a postscript to his 1960 novel Venus Plus X, Sturgeon complained that following the publication of "The World Well Lost" he received a great volume of "cards drenched with scent and letters written in purple ink with green capitals."

Earth's government, hoping to profit by cooperation with this powerful planet, dispatches spacers Rootes and Grunty to return the Loverbirds.

The faster than light propulsion employed by Earthmen has the side-effect of stunning the human nervous system to a variable degree.

While Rootes sleeps off the first jump, Grunty realizes that the Loverbirds are telepathic and have sensed a deep personal secret of his.

Grunty, having known this, allows Rootes to think this is why he set the Loverbirds free, avoiding the potential consequences if it were to be discovered that an Earth operative had killed Dirbanu citizens.

Upon arriving at the Dirbanu homeworld, Rootes reports that the Loverbirds died of natural causes in transit, and the Earth ship is abruptly dismissed, leaving future interactions between the two worlds questionable.

Earlier in the story, the omniscient narrator had noted that the only way to destroy the pair's working bond would be to attempt "to explain it to Rootes".