The World Well Lost
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The World Well Lost is a science-fiction short story by Theodore Sturgeon, first published in the June 1953 issue of Universe. It has been reprinted several times, for instance in Sturgeon's collections E Pluribus Unicorn, Starshine, and A Saucer of Loneliness.
In the future, two members of the alien race called the Dirbanu come to Earth and win humanity's heart by their grace and love for each other. However, when their powerful home planet, heretofore having almost no contact with Earth, declares them to be fugitive criminals and demands their extradition, Earth's government, hoping to profit by the cooperation, dispatches spacers Rootes and Grunty to return the two "Loverbirds," as Earth's media has dubbed them. Rootes is an arrogant womanizer and Grunty a hulking, taciturn poet, but despite their radically different personalities, the two friends are famed in space travel circles for their teamwork and efficiency.
While Rootes sleeps during part of the voyage, Grunty realizes that the telepathic Loverbirds have sensed a deep personal secret of his and prepares to kill them. However, the Loverbirds show him a series of four drawings, and when Grunty realizes their significance, he sets them free in an escape pod.
Upon awakening, Rootes is furious that Grunty has seemingly sabotaged the mission, but Grunty shows him the four sketches: The first is of Rootes, Grunty, and a human woman. The second depicts all three nude. The third depicts the Loverbirds themselves and a short extraterrestrial very dissimilar to them in appearance. The fourth sketch depicts the three aliens nude, making it clear that the short alien is a Dirbanu female, that Dirbanu males and females vary vastly from each other in appearance, and that the two Loverbirds, whom humanity had presumed to be male and female, were actually both male. Realizing that the Loverbirds were a pair of male lovers, the outraged Rootes declares that he would've killed them if he had known, and Grunty allows Rootes to think this is why he set them free, to avoid the potential consequences if it was discovered that an Earth operative had killed Dirbanu citizens. His anger abated, Rootes is impressed by what he perceives as Grunty's cleverness.
Pondering aloud, Rootes realizes their discovery is the key to the Dirbanu government's reluctance to interact with Earth, which, since human males and females both resemble Dirbanu males, seems to the Dirbanu to be a "planet full of fairies." Even though the homophobic Dirbanu intellectually know this is not the case, their visceral reaction to the concept nonetheless repels them.
Upon arriving at the Dirbanu homeworld, Rootes reports that the Loverbirds died in transit, and the Earth ship is summarily dismissed. On the return trip, while Rootes again takes his turn at sleep, Grunty ponders him lovingly, and the reader realizes that Grunty is gay and secretly in love with Rootes.
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." The story's conclusion clarifies the full meaning of this statement.
"The World Well Lost" is noted for its sensitive treatment of homosexuality, which was unusual for science fiction published at that time. According to an anecdote related by Samuel R. Delany, when Sturgeon first submitted the story, his editor not only rejected it but phoned every other editor he knew and urged them to reject it as well. It is nonetheless regarded as a classic by many.
