Return From the Stars Read online

  “Col… ?” I heard; the word had probably been said more than once, but I did not immediately realize that it was addressed to me. I started to turn around, but the chair, quicker than I, did this for me. Standing in front of me was a girl, perhaps twenty years old, in something blue that clung to her like a liquid congealed; her arms and breasts were hidden in a navy-blue fluff that became more and more transparent as it descended. Her slim, lovely belly was like a sculpture in breathing metal. At her ears she had something shining, so large that it covered them completely. A small mouth in an uncertain smile, the lips painted, the nostrils also red inside — I had noticed that this was how most of the women were made up. She held the back of the chair opposite me with both hands and said:

  “How goes it, col?”

  She sat down.

  She was a little drunk, I thought.

  “It’s boring here,” she continued after a moment. “Don’t you think so? Shall we take off somewhere, col?”

  “I’m not a col…” I began. She leaned on the table with her elbows and moved her hand across her half-filled glass, until the end of the golden chain around her fingers dipped into the liquid. She leaned still closer. I could smell her breath. If she was drunk, it was not on alcohol.

  “How’s that?” she said. “You are. You have to be. Everybody is. What do you say? Shall we?”

  If only I knew what all that meant.

  “All right,” I said.

  She stood up. And I got up from my horribly low chair.

  “How do you do that?” she asked.

  “Do what?”

  She stared at my legs.

  “I thought you were on your toes…”

  I smiled but said nothing. She came up to me, took me by the arm, and was again surprised.

  “What have you got there?”

  “Where, here? Nothing.”

  “You’re singing,” she said and lightly tugged at me. We walked among the tables and I wondered what “singing” meant — perhaps “you’re kidding me"?

  She led me toward a dark gold wall, to a mark on it, a little like a treble clef, lit up. At our approach the wall opened. I felt a gust of hot air.

  A narrow silver escalator flowed down. We stood side by side. She did not even reach my shoulder. She had a catlike head, black hair with a blue sheen, a profile that was perhaps too sharp, but she was pretty. If it were not for those scarlet nostrils… She held on to me tightly with her thin hand, the green nails dug into my heavy sweater. I had to smile at the thought of where that sweater had been and how little it had in common with the fingers of a woman. Beneath a circular dome that breathed light — from pink to carmine, from carmine to pink — we went out into the street. That is, I thought it was a street, but the darkness above us was every now and then lit up, as if by a momentary dawn. Farther on, long, low silhouettes sailed past, much like cars, but I knew that there were no more cars. It must have been something else. Even had I been alone, I would have chosen this broad artery, because in the distance blazed the letters to the center, although that surely did not mean the center of the city. At any rate, I let myself be led. No matter how this adventure was going to end, I had found myself a guide, and I thought — this time without anger — of that poor fellow who now, three hours after my arrival, was undoubtedly hunting for me through all the infors of this station-city.

  We passed a number of half-empty bars, shopwindows in which groups of mannequins were performing the same scene over and over again, and I would have liked to stop and see what they were doing, but the girl hurried along, her slippers clicking, until, at the sight of a neon face with pulsating red cheeks, which continually licked its lips with a comically loose tongue, sheened:

  “Oh, bonses! Do you want a bons?”

  “Do you?” I asked.

  “I think I do.”

  We entered a small bright room. Instead of a ceiling it had long rows of tiny flames, like pilot lights; from above poured heat, so possibly it was indeed gas. In the walls I saw recesses with counters. When we approached one of these, seats emerged from the wall on either side of us; they seemed first to grow out from the wall in an undeveloped form, like buds, then flattened in the air, turned concave, and became motionless. We sat facing each other; the girl tapped two fingers on the metal surface of the table, and from the wall jumped a nickel claw, which tossed a small plate in front of each of us and with two lightning movements threw on each plate a portion of some white substance that foamed, turned brown, and hardened; meanwhile the plate itself grew darker. The girl then folded it — it was not a plate at all — into the shape of a pancake and began to eat.

  “Oh,” she said with a full mouth, “I didn’t know how hungry I was!”

  I did exactly as she. The bons tasted like nothing I had ever eaten. It crackled between the teeth like a freshly baked roll, but immediately crumbled and melted on the tongue; the brown stuff in the middle was sharply seasoned. I was going to like bonses, I decided.

  “Another?” I asked, when she had finished hers. She smiled, shaking her head. On the way out, in the aisle, she put both her hands into a small niche lined with tiles; something in there buzzed. I followed suit. A tickling wind blew on my fingers, and when I withdrew them, they were completely dry and clean. Next we ascended a wide escalator. I did not know if this was still the station but preferred not to ask. She led me to a small cabin inside a wall, not very brightly lit; I had the impression that above it trains of some kind were running, since the floor shook. It got dark for a fraction of a second, something beneath us gave a deep sigh, like a metal monster emptying its lungs of air, the light reappeared, the girl pushed open the door. A real street, apparently. We were quite alone on it. Bushes, trimmed fairly low, grew on either side of the sidewalk; somewhat farther along stood flat black machines, crowded together; a man came out of a shadow, disappeared behind one of the machines — I did not see him open any door, he simply vanished — and the thing took off with such force that it must have flattened him against his seat. I saw no houses, only the roadway, as smooth as a table and covered with strips of dull metal; at the intersections, hanging overhead, were shuttered lights, orange and red; they looked a little like models of wartime searchlights.

  “Where shall we go?” asked the girl. She still held me by the arm. She slackened her pace. A red stripe passed across her face.

  “Wherever you like.”

  “My place, then. It isn’t worth taking a gleeder. It’s nearby.”

  We walked on. Still no houses in sight, and the wind that came rushing out of the darkness, from behind the shrubbery, was the kind you would expect in an open space. Here, around the station, in the Center itself? This seemed odd to me. The wind bore a faint fragrance of flowers, which I inhaled eagerly. Cherry blossom? No, not cherry blossom.

  Next we came to a moving walkway; we stood on it, a strange pair; lights swam by; now and then a vehicle shot along, as if cast from a single block of black metal; these vehicles had no windows, no wheels, not even lights, and careered as though blindly, at tremendous speed. The moving lights blazed out of narrow vertical apertures hanging low above the ground. I could not figure out whether they had something to do with the traffic and its regulation.

  From time to time, a plaintive whistle high above us rent the unseen sky. The girl suddenly stepped off the flowing ribbon, but only to mount another, which darted steeply upward, and I found myself suddenly high up; this aerial ride lasted maybe half a minute and ended at a ledge covered with weakly fragrant flowers, as if we had reached the terrace or balcony of a dark building by a conveyor belt set against the wall. The girl entered this loggia, and I, my eyes now accustomed to the dark, was able to discern, from it, the huge outlines of the surrounding buildings, windowless, black, seemingly lifeless, for they were without more than light — not the slightest sound reached me, apart from the sharp hiss that announced the passage, in the street, of those black machines. I was puzzled by this blackout, no doubt intentio
nal, as well as by the absence of advertising signs, after the orgy of neon at the station, but I had no time for such reflections. “Come on, where are you?” I heard her whisper. I saw only the pale smudge of her face. She put her hand to the door and it opened, but not into an apartment; the floor moved softly along with us — you can’t take a step here, I thought, it’s a wonder they still have legs — but this irony was a feeble effort; it came from the constant amazement, from the feeling of unreality of everything that had happened to me in the past several hours.

  We were in something like a huge entrance hall or corridor, wide, almost unlit — only the corners of the walls shone, brightened by streaks of luminous paint. In the darkest place the girl again reached out her hand, to place her palm flat against a metal plate on a door, and entered first. I blinked. The hall, brightly lit, was practically empty; she walked to the next door. When I came near the wall, it opened suddenly to reveal an interior filled with small metal bottles of some kind. This happened so suddenly that I froze.

  “Don’t set off my wardrobe,” she said. She was already in the other room.

  I followed her.

  The furniture — armchairs, a low sofa, small rabies — looked as though it had been cast in glass, and inside the semitransparent material swarms of fireflies circulated freely, sometimes dispersed, then joined again into streams, so that a luminous blood seemed to course within the furniture, pale green with pink sparks mixed in.

  “Why don’t you sit down?”

  She was standing far back. An armchair unfolded itself to receive me. I hated that. The glass was not glass at all; the impression I had was of sitting on inflated cushions, and, looking down through the curved, thick surface of the seat, I could, indistinctly, see the floor.

  I had thought, upon entering, that the wall opposite the door was of glass, and that through it I was looking into another room, which contained people, as though a party were in progress there; but those people were unnaturally tall — and all at once I realized that what I had in front of me was a wall-sized television screen. The volume was off. Now, from a sitting position, I saw an enormous female face, exactly as if a dark-skinned giantess were peering through a window into the room; her lips moved, she was speaking, and gems as big as shields covered her ears, glittered like diamonds.

  I made myself comfortable in the chair. The girl, her hand on her hip — her abdomen really did look like a sculpture in azure metal — studied me carefully. She no longer appeared drunk. Perhaps it had only seemed that way to me before.

  “What’s your name?” she asked.

  “Bregg. Hal Bregg. And yours?”

  “Nais. How old are you?”

  Curious manners, I thought. But, then, if that’s what’s done…

  “Forty — what of it?”

  “Nothing. I thought you were a hundred.”

  I had to smile.

  “I can be that, if you insist.” The funny thing is, it’s the truth, I thought.

  “What can I give you?” she asked.

  “To drink? Nothing, thank you.”

  “All right.”

  She went to the wall, and it opened like a small bar. She stood in front of the opening. When she returned, she was carrying a tray with cups and two bottles. Squeezing one bottle lightly, she filled me a cup to the brim with a liquid that looked exactly like milk.

  “Thank you,” I said, “not for me…”

  “But I’m not giving you anything.” She was surprised.

  Seeing I had made a mistake, although I did not know what kind of mistake, I muttered under my breath and took the cup. She poured herself a drink from the second bottle. This liquid was oily, colorless, and slightly effervescent under the surface; at the same time it darkened, apparently on contact with air. She sat down and, touching the glass with her lips, casually asked:

  “Who are you?”

  “A col,” I answered. I lifted my cup, as if to examine it. This milk had no smell. I did not touch it.

  “No, seriously,” she said. “You thought I was sending in the dark, eh? Since when! That was only a cals. I was with a six, you see, but it got awfully bottom. The orka was no good and altogether… I was just going when you sat down.”

  Some of this I could figure out: I must have sat at her table by chance, when she was not there; could she have been dancing? I maintained a tactful silence.

  “From a distance, you seemed so…” She was unable to find the word.

  “Decent?” I suggested. Her eyelids fluttered. Did she have a metallic film on them as well? No, it must have been eye shadow. She lifted her head.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Well… um… someone you could trust…”

  “You talk in a strange way. Where are you from?”

  “From far away.”

  “Mars?”

  “Farther.”

  “You fly?”

  “I did fly.”

  “And now?”

  “Nothing. I returned.”

  “But you’ll fly again?”

  “I don’t know. Probably not.”

  The conversation had trailed off somehow. It seemed to me that the girl was beginning to regret her rash invitation, and I wanted to make things easy for her.

  “Maybe I ought to go now?” I asked. I still held my untouched drink.

  “Why?” She was surprised.

  “I thought that that would… suit you.”

  “No,” she said. “You’re thinking — no, what for? Why don’t you drink?”

  “I am.”

  It was milk after all. At this time of day, in such circumstances! My surprise was such that she must have noticed it.

  “What, it’s bad?”

  “It’s milk,” I said. I must have looked like a complete idiot.

  “What? What milk? That’s brit…”

  I sighed.

  “Listen, Nais… I think I’ll go now. Really. It will be better that way.”

  “Then why did you drink?” she asked.

  I looked at her, silent. The language had not changed so very much, and yet I didn’t understand a thing. Not a thing. It was they who had changed.

  “All right,” she said finally. “I’m not keeping you. But now this…” She was confused. She drank her lemonade — that’s what I called the sparkling liquid, in my thoughts — and again I did not know what to say. How difficult all this was.

  “Tell me about yourself,” I suggested. “Do you want to?”

  “OK. And then you’ll tell me… ?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m at the Cavuta, my second year. I’ve been neglecting things a bit lately, I wasn’t plasting regularly and… that’s how it’s been. My six isn’t too interesting. So really, it’s… I don’t have anyone. It’s strange…”

  “What is?”

  “That I don’t have…”

  Again, these obscurities. Who was she talking about? Who didn’t she have? Parents? Lovers? Acquaintances? Abs was right after all when he said that I wouldn’t be able to manage without the eight months at Adapt. But now, perhaps even more than before, I did not want to go back, penitent, to school.

  “What else?” I asked, and since I was still holding the cup, I took another swallow of that milk. Her eyes grew wide in surprise. Something like a mocking smile touched her lips. She drained her cup, reached out a hand to the fluffy covering on her arms, and tore it — she did not unbutton it, did not slip it off, just tore it, and let the shreds fall from her fingers, like trash.

  “But, then, we hardly know each other,” she said. She was freer, it seemed. She smiled. There were moments when she became quite lovely, particularly when she narrowed her eyes, and her lower lip, contracting, revealed glistening teeth. In her face was something Egyptian. An Egyptian cat. Hair blacker than black, and when she pulled the furry fluff from her arms and breasts, I saw that she was not nearly so thin as I had thought. But why had she ripped it off? Was that supposed to mean something?

 
“Your turn to talk,” she said, looking at me over her cup.

  “Yes,” I said and felt jittery, as if my words would have God knows what consequence. “I am… I was a pilot. The last time I was here… don’t be frightened!”

  “No. Go on!”

  Her eyes were shining and attentive.

  “It was a hundred and twenty-seven years ago. I was thirty then. The expedition… I was a pilot on the expedition to Fomalhaut. That’s twenty-three light years away. We flew there and back in a hundred and twenty-seven years Earth time and ten years ship time. Four days ago we returned… The Prometheus — my ship — remained on Luna. I came from there today. That’s all.”

  She stared at me. She did not speak. Her lips moved, opened, closed. What was that in her eyes? Surprise? Admiration? Fear?

  “Why do you say nothing?” I asked. I had to clear my throat.

  “So… how old are you, really?”

  I had to smile; it was not a pleasant smile.

  “What does that mean, ‘really’? Biologically I’m forty, but by Earth clocks, one hundred and fifty-seven…”

  A long silence, then suddenly:

  “Were there any women there?”

  “Wait,” I said. “Do you have anything to drink?”