Stranger Station by Damon Knight

Stranger Station by Damon Knight (F&SF, December 1956) opens with Paul Wesson arriving at a space station built far from Earth for the purpose of interacting with visiting members of an alien species whose proximity causes humans mental distress.
For the first month of Wesson’s six month stay he is alone, apart from an AI/computer network he calls “Aunt Jane”, who he quizzes about various matters while he waits for the alien to arrive—What do the aliens look like? Can he see a picture of them? How did the previous incumbents of the station cope with their tour of duty, etc.? But Aunt Jane won’t answer most of his questions, saying that it isn’t permitted. The computer does, however, read to him an account of the first contact with the aliens on Titan:

We gained access to the alien construction by way of a large, irregular opening . . . The internal temperature was minus seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit; the atmosphere appeared to consist of methane and ammonia . . . Inside the second chamber, an alien creature was waiting for us. We felt the distress which I have tried to describe, to a much greater degree than before, and also the sense of summoning or pleading . . . We observed that the creature was exuding a thick yellowish fluid from certain joints or pores in its surface. Though disgusted, I managed to collect a sample of this exudate, and it this was later forwarded for analysis . . .  p. 6

The rest of the month sees Wesson become slightly stir-crazy but then, one day when he is on a spacewalk to the much larger sector two of the station (built to house the alien), he starts to feel fearful, and then there is a booming sound—the alien visitor has arrived. Wesson now feels the same distress as the original contact team:

It was the scent of danger, hanging unseen up there in the dark, waiting, cold and heavy. It was the recurrent nightmare of Wesson’s childhood—the bloated unreal shape, no-color, no-size, that kept on hideously falling toward his face. . . . It was the dead puppy he had pulled out of the creek, that summer in Dakota . . . wet fur, limp head, cold, cold, cold. . . .
With an effort, Wesson rolled over on the couch and lifted himself to one elbow. The pressure was an insistent chill weight on his skull; the room seemed to dip and swing around in slow circles.  p. 11

During this part of the story we also learn that the alien’s golden fluid provides humans with increased longevity, and that Wesson’s bosses want him to ask the aliens if they intend continuing their twenty year visits. Then Wesson realises he can sense the position of the alien, and realises that it may be suffering too. Eventually he pressures Aunt Jane into showing him a video image of the alien, which precipitates a realisation (“When two alien cultures meet, the stronger must transform the weaker with love or hate.”). Wesson concludes (spoiler) that, while he and the alien are in close proximity, his mind is being changed so that he (and others like him) will be able to peacefully co-exist with them. When he explains all this to Aunt Jane however, he discovers that he can no longer understand her or speak, read or write English.
The last section sees Wesson decide to resist the emanations coming from the alien, which then causes it such pain that it breaches its sector and wrecks the station. There is a long description of the death throes and, before Wesson dies, his final realisation is that his actions will cause humanity to come into conflict with the aliens.
If the plot of this story sounds like it doesn’t makes much sense, that is because it doesn’t: I think Knight was writing a brooding psychological horror here, and hadn’t really thought through the internal logic. Now, if readers are happy to just immerse themselves in the descriptive writing and atmospherics, they will probably enjoy it—if you have an analytical mind, however, you will be distracted by many questions (Why does Masson have to be unconscious when he arrives at the station? Why does he spend a month there on his own before the alien arrives? How does humanity manage to get enough immortality fluid for everyone if the aliens only visit every twenty years? How did they discover that the fluid could be used for this purpose in the first place? Why do the aliens think they can affect humanity as a whole if they only “convert” one station keeper every twenty years? Why must the two races have a love/hate relationship, can’t they peacefully co-exist or ignore each other? Why does the last sentence have Aunt Jane sounding as if it loves Wesson?) Also on the debit side of the story is the fact that a lot of the writing is long-winded description (whereas the conversation Wesson has with his boss about a possible fluid shortage—and why he doesn’t have a cat on board with him—isn’t even that, it’s just padding). The final nail in the coffin is that a couple of major plot developments come from Wesson having realisations or intuitions about things, always a weak way of advancing a story.
Not one for the left-brained (analytical/methodical).
** (Average). 9,400 words.