Return From The Stars Part 4

There was silence. It would not be easy for me, I thought, to stomach this new world. And suddenly came a reflection, surprising in that I myself would never have expected it if someone had presented me with this situation purely as a theoretical possibility: it occurred to me that this destruction of the killer in man was a disfigurement.

"Nais," I said, "it's already very late. I think I'll go."

"Where?"

"I don't know. Hold on! A person from Adapt was supposed to meet me at the station. I completely forgot! I couldn't find him, you understand. So I'll look for a hotel. There are hotels?"

"There are. Where are you from?"

"Here. I was born here."

With these words the feeling of the unreality of everything returned, and I was no longer certain either of that city, which existed only within me, or of this spectral one with rooms into which the heads of giants peered, so that for a second I wondered if I might not be on board and dreaming yet another particularly vivid nightmare of my return.

"Bregg." I heard her voice as if from a distance. I started. I had completely forgotten about her.

"Yes?"

"Stay."

"What?"

She did not speak.

"You want me to stay?"

She did not speak. I went up to her, bent over the chair, took hold of her by her cold arms, and lifted her up. She stood submissively. Her head fell back, I saw her teeth glistening; I did not want her, I wanted only to say, "But you're afraid," and for her to say that she was not. Nothing more. Her eyes were closed, but suddenly the whites shone from underneath her lashes; I bent over her face, looked closely into her gla.s.sy eyes, as though I wished to know her fear, to share it. Panting, she struggled to break loose, but I did not feel it, it was only when she began to groan "No! No!" that I slackened my grip. She practically fell. She stood against the wall, blocking out part of a huge, chubby face that reached the ceiling, that there, behind the gla.s.s, spoke endlessly, with exaggeration, moving its huge lips and meaty tongue.

"Nais. . ." I said quietly. I dropped my hands.

"Don't come near me!"

"But it was you who said. . ."

Her eyes were wild.

I paced the room. She followed me with her eyes, as if I were. . . as if she stood in a cage. . .

"I'm going now," I announced. She did not speak. I wanted to add something -- a few words of apology, of thanks, so as not to leave this way -- but I couldn't. Had she been afraid only as a woman is of a man, a strange, even threatening, unknown man, then I wouldn't have given a d.a.m.n; but this was something else. I looked at her and felt anger growing in me. To grab those naked white arms and shake her. . .

I turned and left. The outer door yielded when I pushed it; the large corridor was almost completely dark. I was unable to find the exit to that terrace, but I did come upon cylinders filled with an attenuated bluish light -- elevators. The one I approached was already on its way up; maybe the pressure of my foot on the threshold was enough. The elevator took a long time going down. I saw alternating layers of darkness, and the cross sections of ceilings; white with reddish centers, like fat on muscle, they pa.s.sed upward, I lost count of them; the elevator fell, fell, it was like a journey to the bottom, as if I had been thrown down a sterile conduit, and this colossal building, deep in its sleep and security, was ridding itself of me. A part of the transparent cylinder opened, I began walking.

Hands in pockets, darkness, a hard long stride, greedily I inhaled the cool air, feeling the movement of my nostrils, my heart working slowly, pumping blood; lights flickered in the low apertures over the road, covered from time to time by the noiseless machines; there was not one pedestrian. Between black silhouettes was a glow, which I thought might be a hotel. It was only an illuminated walkway. I took it. Above me the whitish spans of structures sailed by; somewhere in the distance, above the black edges of the buildings, tripped the steadily shining letters of the news; suddenly the walkway took me into a lighted interior and came to an end.

Wide steps ran down, silvery like a mute waterfall. The desolation surprised me; since leaving Nais, I had not encountered a single pa.s.ser-by. The escalator was very long. A wide street gleamed below, on either side opened pa.s.sageways in buildings; beneath a tree with blue leaves -- but possibly it was not a real tree -- I saw people standing; I approached them, then walked away. They were kissing. I walked toward the m.u.f.fled sound of music, some all-night restaurant or bar not set off from the street. A few people were sitting there. I wanted to go inside and ask about a hotel. Suddenly I crashed, with my whole body, into an invisible barrier. It was a sheet of gla.s.s, perfectly transparent. The entrance was nearby. Inside, someone began laughing and pointed me out to others. I went in. A man in a black undershirt that was actually somewhat similar to my sweater but with a full, inflated collar sat sideways at a table, a gla.s.s in his hand, and looked at me. I stopped in front of him. The smile froze on his half-open mouth. I stood still. There was a hush. Only the music played, as though from behind the wall. A woman made a strange, weak noise. I looked around at the motionless faces and left. Not until I was out on the street did I remember that I had intended to ask about a hotel.

I entered a mall. It was filled with displays. Tourist offices, sports shops, mannequins in different poses. These were not exactly displays, for everything stood and lay in the street, on either side of the raised walkway that ran down the middle. Several times I mistook the figures moving within for people. They were puppets, for advertising, performing a single action over and over again. For a while I watched one -- a doll almost as large as myself, a caricature with puffed-out cheeks, playing a flute. It did this so well that I had the impulse to call out to it. Farther along were halls for games of some kind; large rainbow wheels revolved, silver pipes hanging loosely from the ceiling struck one another with the sound of sleigh bells, prismatic mirrors glittered, but everything was deserted. At the very end of the mall, in the darkness, flashed a sign: HERE HAHAHA. It disappeared. I went toward it. Again the HERE HAHAHA lit up and disappeared as if blown out. In the next flash I saw an entrance. I heard voices. I entered through a curtain of warm, moving air.

Inside stood two of the wheelless cars; a few lamps shone, and under them three people gesticulated heatedly, as if quarreling. I went up to them.

"h.e.l.lo!"

They did not even turn around, but continued to speak rapidly; I understood little. "Then sap, then sap," piped the shortest, who had a potbelly. On his head he wore a tall cap.

"Gentlemen, I'm looking for a hotel. Where is there. . .?"

They paid no attention to me, as if I did not exist. I got furious. Without a word I stepped in their midst. The one nearest me -- I saw stupid eyes, whites shining, and trembling lips -- lisped: "I should sap? Sap yourself!"

Just as if he were talking to me.

"Why do you play deaf?" I asked, and suddenly, from the spot where I stood -- as if from me, from out of my chest -- came a shrill cry: "I'll show you. So help me!"

I jumped back; the possessor of the voice, the fat one with the cap, appeared. I went to grab him by the arm, but my fingers pa.s.sed clean through him and closed on air. I stood dumbstruck, and they prattled on; suddenly it seemed to me that from the darkness above the cars, from high up, someone was watching me. I went closer to the edge of the light and saw the pale blotches of faces; there was something like a balcony up there. Blinded by the light, I could not see much; enough, however, to realize what a terrible fool I had made of myself. I fled as if someone were at my heels. The next street headed up and ended at an escalator. I thought that maybe there I would find an infor, and got on the pale gold stairs. I found myself in a circular plaza, fairly small. In the center rose a column, high, transparent as gla.s.s; something danced in it, purple, brown, and violet shapes, unlike anything I knew, like abstract sculptures come to life, but very amusing. First one color and then another swelled, became concentrated, took shape in a highly comical way; this melee of forms, although devoid of faces, heads, arms, legs, was very human in character, like a caricature, even. After a while I saw that the violet was a buffoon, conceited, overbearing, and at the same time cowardly; when it burst into a million dancing bubbles, the blue set to work, angelic, modest, collected, but somehow sanctimonious, as if praying to itself. I do not know how long I watched. I had never seen anything remotely like it. Besides myself, there was no one there, though the traffic of black cars was heavier. I did not even know if they were occupied or not, since they had no windows. Six streets led from the circular plaza, some up, some down; they extended far, it seemed, in a delicate mosaic of colored lights. No infor. By now I was exhausted, not only physically -- I felt that I could not take in any more impressions. Occasionally, walking, I lost track of things, although I did not doze at all; I do not recall how or when I entered a wide avenue; at an intersection I slackened my pace, lifted my head, and saw the glow of the city on the clouds. I was surprised, for I had thought that I was underground. I went on, now in a sea of moving lights, of displays without gla.s.s fronts, among gesticulating mannequins that spun like tops, that furiously did gymnastics; they handed one another shining objects, were inflating something -- but I did not even look in their direction. In the distance several people were walking; I was not sure, however, that they were not dolls, and did not try to catch up with them. The buildings parted, and I caught sight of a huge sign -- TERMINAL PARK -- and a shining green arrow.

An escalator began in the s.p.a.ce between the buildings, suddenly entered a tunnel, silver with a gold pulse in the walls, as though underneath the mercury mask of the walls the n.o.ble metal truly flowed; I felt a hot gust, everything went out -- I stood in a gla.s.s pavilion. It was in the shape of a sh.e.l.l, with a ribbed ceiling that glimmered a barely perceptible green; the light was from delicate veins, like the luminescence of a single giant trembling leaf. Doors opened in all directions; beyond them darkness and small letters, moving along the floor: TERMINAL PARK TERMINAL PARK.

I went outside. It was indeed a park. The trees rustled incessantly, invisible in the gloom. I felt no wind; it must have been blowing higher up, and the voice of the trees, steady, stately, encompa.s.sed me in an invisible arch. For the first time I felt alone, but not as in a crowd, for the feeling was agreeable. There must have been a number of people in the park: I heard whispers, occasionally the blur of a face shone, once I even brushed by someone. The crowns of the trees came together, so that the stars were visible only through their branches. I recalled that to reach the park I had ridden up, yet back there, in the plaza with the dancing colors and where the streets were filled with displays, I had had a cloudy sky over me; how, then, did it happen that now, a level higher, the sky I was seeing was starry? I could not account for this.

The trees parted, and before I saw the water, I smelled it, the odor of mud, of rotting, or sodden leaves; I froze.

Brushwood formed a black circle around the lake. I could hear the rustling of rushes and reeds, and in the distance, on the other side, rose, in a single immensity, a mountain of luminous, gla.s.sy rock, a translucent ma.s.sif above the plains of the night; spectral radiance issued from the vertical cliffs, pale, bluish, bastion upon bastion, crystal battlements, chasms -- and this shining colossus, impossible and unbelievable, was reflected in a long, paler copy on the black waters of the lake. I stood, dumbstruck and enraptured; the wind brought faint, fading echoes of music, and, straining my eyes, I could see the tiers and horizontal terraces of the giant. It came to me in a flash that for the second time I was seeing the station, the mighty Terminal in which I had wandered the day before, and that perhaps I was even looking from the bottom of the dark expanse that had puzzled me so in the place where I met Nais.

Was this still architecture, or mountain-building? They must have understood that in going beyond certain limits they had to abandon symmetry and regularity of form, and leam from what was largest -- intelligent students of the planet!

I went around the lake. The colossus seemed to lead me with its motionless, luminous ascent. Yes, it took courage to design such a shape, to give it the cruelty of the precipice, the stubbornness and harshness of crags, peaks, but without falling into mechanical imitation, without losing anything, without falsifying. I returned to the wall of trees. The blue of the Terminal, pale against the black sky, still showed through the branches, then finally disappeared, hidden by the thicket. With my hands I pushed aside the twigs; brambles pulled at my sweater, sc.r.a.ped the legs of my trousers; the dew, shaken from above, fell like rain in my face; I took a few leaves in my mouth and chewed them; they were young, bitter; for the first time since my return, I felt that I no longer desired, was looking for, was in need of a single thing; it was enough to walk blindly forward through this darkness, in the rustling brash. Had I imagined it thus, ten years before?

The shrubbery parted. A winding path. Gravel crunched beneath my feet, shining faintly; I preferred darkness but walked on straight ahead to a stone circle, where a human figure stood. I do not know where the light that bathed it came from; the place was deserted, around it were benches, seats, an overturned table, and sand, loose and deep; I felt my feet sink into it and found it was warm, despite the coolness of the night.

Beneath a dome supported by cracked, dumbling columns stood a woman, as though she had been waiting for me. I saw her face now, the flow of sparks in the diamond disks that hid her ears, the white -- in the shadow, silvery -- dress. This was not possible. A dream? I was still a few dozen paces from her when she began to sing. Among the unseen trees her voice was weak, childlike almost, I could not make out the words, perhaps there were no words. Her mouth was half open, as if she were drinking, no sign of effort on her face, nothing but a stare, as though she had seen something, something impossible to see, and it was of this that she sang. I was afraid that she might see me, I walked more and more slowly. I was already in the ring of brightness that surrounded the stone circle. Her voice grew stronger, she summoned the darkness, pleaded, unmoving; her arms hung as if she had forgotten she had them, as if she now had nothing but a voice and lost herself in it, as if she had cast off everything, relinquished it, and was saying farewell, knowing that with the last, dying sound more than the song would end. I had not known that such a thing was possible. She fell silent, and still I heard her voice; suddenly light footsteps pounded behind me; a girl ran toward the singer, pursued by someone; with a short, throaty laugh she flew up the steps and ran clean through the singer -- then hurried on; the one who was chasing her burst out in front of me, a dark outline; they disappeared, I heard once more the teasing laugh of the girl and stood like a block of wood, rooted in the sand, not knowing whether I should laugh or cry; the nonexistent singer hummed something softly. I did not want to listen. I went off into the darkness with a numb face, like a child who has been shown the falseness of a fairy tale. It had been a kind of profanation. I walked, and her voice pursued me. I made a turn, the path continued, I saw faintly gleaming hedges, wet bunches of leaves hung over a metal gate. I opened it. There was more light behind it. The hedges ended in a wide clearing, from the gra.s.s jutted boulders, one of which moved, increased in size; I looked into two pale flames of eyes. I stopped. It was a lion. He lifted himself up heavily, the front first. I saw all of him now, five paces from me; he had a thin, matted mane; he stretched, once, twice; with a slow undulation of his shoulders he approached me, not making the slightest sound. But I had recovered. "There, there, be nice," I said. He couldn't be real -- a phantom, like the singer, like the ones down by the black cars -- he yawned, one step away, in the dark cavern there was a flash of fangs, he shut his jaws with the snap of a gate bolted, I caught the stench of his breath, what. . .

He snorted. I felt drops of his saliva, and before I had time to be terrified he b.u.t.ted me in the hip with his huge head, he rubbed against me, purring; I felt an idiotic tickling in my chest. . .

He presented his lower throat, the loose, heavy skin. Semiconscious, I began to scratch him, stroke him, and he purred louder; behind him flashed another pair of eyes, another lion, no, a lioness, who shouldered him aside. There was a rumbling in his throat, a purr, not a roar. The lioness persisted. He struck her with a paw. She snorted furiously.

This will end badly, I thought. I was defenseless, and the lions were as alive, as authentic, as one could imagine. I stood in the heavy fetor of their bodies. The lioness kept snorting; suddenly the lion tore his rough s.h.a.g from my hands, turned his enormous head toward her, and thundered; she fell flat on the ground.

I must be going now, I told them voicelessly, with my lips only. I began to back off in the direction of the gate, slowly; it was not a pleasant moment, but he seemed not to notice me. He lay down heavily, again resembling an elongated boulder; the lioness stood over him and nudged him with her snout.

When I closed the gate behind me, it was all I could do to keep from running. My knees were a bit weak, and my mouth was dry, and suddenly my throat-clearing turned to mad laughter. I recalled how I had spoken to the lion, "There, there, be nice," convinced that he was only an illusion.

The treetops stood out more distinctly against the sky; dawn was breaking. I was glad of this, because I did not know how to get out of the park. It was now completely empty. I pa.s.sed the stone circle where the singer had appeared; in the next avenue I came upon a robot mowing the lawn. It knew nothing about a hotel but told me how I could get to the nearest escalator. I rode down several levels, I think, and, getting off on the street at the bottom, was surprised to see the sky above me again. But my capacity for surprise was pretty well exhausted. I had had enough. I walked awhile. I remember that later I sat by a fountain, though perhaps it was not a fountain; I got up, walked on in the spreading light of the new day, until I woke from my stupor in front of large, glowing windows and the fiery letters ALCARON HOTEL.

In the doorkeeper's box, which was like a giant's overturned bathtub, sat a robot, beautifully styled, semitransparent, with .long, delicate arms. Without asking a thing, it pa.s.sed me the guest book; I signed it and rode up, holding a small, triangular ticket. Someone -- I have no idea who -- helped me open the door or, rather, did it for me. Walls of ice; and in them, circulating fires; beneath the window, at my approach, a chair emerged from nothing, slid under me; a flat tabletop had begun to descend, making a kind of desk, but it was a bed that I wanted. I could not find one and did not even attempt to look. I lay down on the foamy carpet and immediately fell asleep in the artificial light of the windowless room, for what I had at first taken to be a window turned out to be, of course, a television, so that I drifted off with the knowledge that from there, from behind the gla.s.s plate, some giant face was grimacing at me, meditating over me, laughing, chattering, babbling. . . I was delivered by a sleep like death; in it, even time stood still.

TWO.

My eyes still closed, I touched my chest; I had my sweater on; if I'd fallen asleep without undressing, then I was on watch duty. "Olaf!" I wanted to say, and sat up suddenly.

This was a hotel, not the Prometheus. I remembered it all: the labyrinths of the station, the girl, my initiation, her fear, the bluish cliff of the Terminal above the black lake, the singer, the lions. . .

Looking for the bathroom, I accidentally found the bed; it was in a wall and fell in a bulging pearly square when something was pressed. In the bathroom there was no tub or sink, nothing, only shining plates in the ceiling and a small depression for the feet, padded with a spongy plastic. It did not look like a shower, either. I felt like a Neanderthal. I quickly undressed, then stood with my clothes in my hands, since there were no hangers; there was instead a small compartment in the wall, and I tossed everything into it. Nearby, three b.u.t.tons, blue, red, and white. I pushed the white. The light went off. The red. There was a rushing sound, but it was not water, only a powerful wind, blowing ozone and something else; it enveloped me; thick, glittering droplets settled on my skin; they effervesced and evaporated, I did not even feel moisture, it was like a swarm of soft electrodes ma.s.saging my muscles. I tried the blue b.u.t.ton and the wind changed; now it seemed to go right through me, a very peculiar feeling. I thought that once a person became used to this, he would come to enjoy it. At Adapt on Luna they didn't have this -- they had only ordinary bathrooms. I wondered why. My blood was circulating more strongly, I felt good; the only problem was that I did not know how to brush my teeth or with what. I gave up on that in the end. In the wall was still another door, with the sign "Bathrobes" on it. I looked inside. No robes, just three metal bottles, a little like siphons. But by that time I was completely dry and did not need to rub myself down.

I opened the compartment into which I had put my clothes and received a shock: it was empty. A good thing I had put my shorts on the top of the compartment. Wearing my shorts, I went back into the room and looked for a telephone, to find out what had happened to my clothes. A predicament. I discovered the telephone, finally, by the window -- in my mind I still called the television screen the window -- it leapt from the wall when I began to curse out loud, reacting, I guess, to the sound of my voice. An idiotic mania for hiding things in walls. The receptionist answered. I asked about my clothes.

"You placed them in the laundry," said a soft baritone. "They will be ready in five minutes."

Fair enough, I thought. I sat near the desk, the top of which obligingly moved under my elbow the moment I leaned forward. How did that work? No need to concern myself; the majority of people benefit from the technology of their civilization without understanding it.

I sat naked, except for my shorts, and considered the possibilities. I could go to Adapt. If it were only an introduction to the technology and the customs, I would not have hesitated, but I had noticed on Luna that they tried at the same time to instill particular approaches, even judgments of phenomena; in other words, they started off with a prepared scale of values, and if one did not adopt them, they attributed this -- and, in general, everything -- to conservatism, subconscious resistance, ingrained habits, and so on. I had no intention of giving up such habits and resistance until I was convinced that what they were offering me was better, and my lessons of the previous night had done nothing to change my mind. I didn't want nursery school or rehabilitation, certainly not with such politeness and not right away. Curious, that they had not given me that betrization. I would have to find out why.

I could look for one of us; for Olaf. That would be in clear contravention of the recommendations of Adapt. Ah, because they never ordered; they repeated continually that they were acting in my best interest, that I could do what I liked, even jump straight from the Moon to Earth (jocular Dr. Abs) if I was in such a hurry. I was choosing to ignore Adapt, but that might not suit Olaf. In any case I would write him. I had his address.

Work. Try to get a job? As what, a pilot? And make Mars-Earth-Mars runs? I was an expert at that sort of thing, but. . .

Suddenly I remembered that I had some money. It wasn't exactly money, for it was called something else, but I failed to see the difference, inasmuch as everything could be obtained with it. I asked the receptionist for a city connection. In the receiver, a distant singing. The telephone had no numbers, no dial; would I need to give the name of the bank? I had it written on a card; the card was with my clothes. I looked into the bathroom, and there they lay in the compartment, freshly laundered; in the pockets were my odds and ends, including the card.

The bank was not a bank -- it was called Omnilox. I said the name, and, quickly, as if my call had been expected, a rough voice responded: "Omnilox here."

"My name is Bregg," I said, "Hal Bregg, and I understand that I have an account with you. . . I would like to know how much is in it."

Something crackled, and another, higher, voice said: "Hal Bregg?"

"Yes."

"Who opened the account?"

"Cosnav -- Cosmic Navigation -- by order of the Planetological Inst.i.tute and the Cosmic Affairs Commission of the United Nations, but that was a hundred and twenty-seven years ago."

"Do you have any identification?"

"No, only a card from Adapt on Luna, from Director Oswamm. . ."

"That's in order. The state of the account: twenty-six thousand, four hundred and seven ets."

"Ets?"

"Yes. Do you require anything further?"

"I would like to withdraw a little mon -- some ets, that is."

"In what form? Perhaps you would like a calster?"

"What is that? A checkbook?"

"No. You will be able to pay cash right away."

"Yes. Good."

"How high should the calster be?"

"I really don't know -- five thousand. . ."

"Five thousand. Good. Should it be sent to your hotel?"

"Yes. Wait -- I've forgotten the name of this hotel."

"Is it not the one from which you are calling?"

"It is."

"That is the Alcaron. We will send you the calster right away. But there is one more thing: your right hand has not changed, has it?"

"No. Why?"

"Nothing. If it had, we would need to change the calster. You will receive it very soon."

"Thank you," I said, putting down the receiver. Twenty-six thousand, how much was that? I did not have the faintest idea. Something began to hum. A radio? It was the phone. I picked up the receiver.

"Bregg?"

"Yes," I said. My heart beat stronger, but only for a moment. I recognized her voice. "How did you know where I was?" I asked, for she did not speak immediately.

"From an infer. Bregg. . . Hal. . . listen, I wanted to explain to you. . ."

"There is nothing to explain, Nais."

"You're angry. But try to understand. . ."

"I'm not angry."

"Hal, really. Come over to my place today. You'll come?"

"No, Nais; tell me, please -- how much is twenty-six thousand ets?"

"What do you mean, how much? Hal, you have to come."

"Well. . . how long can one live on that much?"

"As long as you like. Living costs nothing, after all. But let's forget about that. Hal, if you wanted to. . ."

"Wait. How many ets do you spend in a month?"