Return from the Stars

ONE

I took nothing with me, not even a coat. Unnecessary, they said. They let me keep my black sweater: it would pass. But the shirt I had to fight for. I said that I would leam to do without things gradually. At the very ramp, beneath the belly of the ship, where we stood, jostled by the crowd, Abs offered me his hand with an understanding smile: “Easy, now…”

That, too, I remembered. I didn’t crush his fingers. I was quite calm. He wanted to say something more. I spared him that, turning away as if I had not noticed anything, and went up the stairs and inside. The stewardess led me between the rows of seats to the very front. I hadn’t wanted a private compartment. I wondered if they had told her. My seat unfolded without a sound. She adjusted the back of it, gave me a smile, and left. I sat down. The cushions were engulfingly soft, as everywhere. The back of my seat was so high that I could barely see the other passengers. The bright colors of the women’s clothes I had by now learned to accept, but the men I still suspected, irrationally, of affectation, and I had the secret hope that I would come across some dressed normally — a pitiful reflex. People were seated quickly, no one had luggage. Not even a briefcase or a package. The women, too. There seemed to be more of them. In front of me: two mulatto women in parrot-green furs, ruffled like feathers — apparently, that sort of bird style was in fashion. Farther away, a couple with a child. After the garish selenium lights of the platforms and tunnels, after the unbearably shrill incandescent vegetation of the streets, the light from the concave ceiling seemed practically a glow. I did not know what to do with my hands, so I put them on my knees. Everyone was seated now.

Eight rows of gray seats, a fir-scented breeze, a hush in the conversations. I expected an announcement about takeoff, signals of some sort, the warning to fasten seat belts, but nothing happened. Across the dull ceiling faint shadows began to move from front to rear, like paper cutouts of birds. What the hell is it with these birds? I wondered, perplexed. Does it mean something? I was numb from the strain of trying not to do anything wrong. This, for four days now. From the very first moment I was invariably behind in everything that went on, and the constant effort to understand the simplest conversation or situation turned that tension into a feeling horribly like despair. I was certain that the others were experiencing the same things, but we did not talk about it, not even when we were alone together. We only joked about our brawn, about that excessive strength that had remained in us, and indeed we had to be on our guard — in the beginning, intending to get up, I would go shooting toward the ceiling, and any object that I held in my hand seemed to be made of paper, empty. But I quickly learned to control my body. In greeting people, I no longer crushed their hands. That was easy. But, unfortunately, the least important.

My neighbor to the left — corpulent, tan, with eyes that shone too much (from contact lenses?) — suddenly disappeared; his seat expanded at the sides, which rose and joined to form a kind of egg-shaped cocoon. A few other people disappeared into such cubicles. Swollen sarcophagi. What did they do in them? But such things I encountered all the time, and tried not to stare, as long as they did not concern me directly. Curiously, the people who gaped at us on learning what we were I treated with indifference. Their dumbfoundedness did not concern me much, although I realized immediately that there was not an iota of admiration in it. What did arouse my antipathy were the ones who looked after us — the staff of Adapt. Dr. Abs most of all, because he treated me the way a doctor would an abnormal patient, pretending, and very well, too, that he was dealing with someone quite ordinary. When that became impossible, he would joke. I had had enough of his direct approach and joviality. If asked about it (or so, at least, I thought), the man on the sheet would say that Olaf or I was similar to himself — we were not so outlandish to him, it was just our past existence that was unusual. Dr. Abs, on the other hand, and all the workers at Adapt, knew better — that we were decidedly different. This differentness was no mark of distinction but only a barrier to communication, to the simplest exchange of words, hell, to the opening of a door, seeing as doorknobs had ceased to exist — what was it? — some fifty or sixty years earlier.

The takeoff came unexpectedly. There was no change at all in gravity, no sound reached the hermetically sealed interior, the shadows swam evenly across the ceiling — it might have been habit established over many years, an old instinct, that told me that at a certain moment we were in space, because it was certainty, not a guess.

But something else was occupying me. I sat half supine, my legs stretched out, motionless. They had let me have my way too easily. Even Oswamm did not oppose my decision too much. The counterarguments that I heard from him and from Abs were unconvincing — I myself could have come up with better. They insisted on one thing only, that each of us fly separately. They did not even hold it against me that I got Olaf to rebel (because if it had not been for me, he definitely would have agreed to stay there longer). That had been odd. I had expected complications, something that would spoil my plan at the last minute, but nothing happened, and now here I was flying. This final journey was to end in fifteen minutes.

Clearly, what I had devised, and the way, too, that I went before them to argue for an earlier departure, did not surprise them. They must have had a reaction of this type catalogued, it was a behavior pattern characteristic of a stalwart such as myself, assigned an appropriate serial number in their psycho-technical tables. They permitted me to fly — why? Because experience had told them that I would not be able to manage on my own? But how could that be, when this whole “independence” escapade involved flying from one terminal to another, where someone from the Earth branch of Adapt would be waiting and all I had to do was to find him at a prearranged location?

Something happened. I heard raised voices. I leaned out of my seat. Several rows in front of me a woman pushed away the stewardess, who, with a slow, automatic motion, as if from the push — though the push had not been all that hard — went backward down the aisle, and the woman repeated, “I won’t have it! Don’t let that touch me.” I did not see the face of the speaker. Her companion pulled at her arm, was saying something to calm her. What was the meaning of this little scene? The other passengers paid no attention to her. For the hundredth time I was possessed by a feeling of incredible alienation. I looked up at the stewardess, who had stopped by my side and was smiling as before. It was not merely an external smile of official politeness, a smile to cover an upsetting incident. She was not pretending to be calm, she truly was calm.

“Something to drink? Prum, extran, morr, cider?”

A melodious voice. I shook my head. I wanted to say something nice to her, but all I could come up with was the stereotyped question:

“When do we land?”

“In six minutes. Would you care for something to eat? There is no need to hurry. You can stay on after we land.”

“No, thank you.”

She left. In the air, right before my face, against the background of the seat in front of me, a sign that read STRATO lit up, as though written with the glowing end of a cigarette. I bent forward to see where the sign came from, and flinched. The back of my seat moved with my shoulders and clung to them elastically. I knew already that furniture accommodated every change in position, but I kept forgetting. It was not pleasant — as if someone were following my every move. I wanted to return to my former position but apparently overdid it. The seat misunderstood and nearly flattened itself out like a bed. I jumped up. This was idiotic! More control. I sat, finally. The pink letters of STRATO flickered and flowed into others: TERMINAL. No jolt, no warning, no whistle. Nothing. A distant voice resounded like the horn of a postilion, four oval doors opened at the end of the aisle, and a hollow, all-embracing roar, like that of the sea, rushed in. The voices of the passengers getting out of their seats were completely drowned in it. I remained seated while they exited, a file of silhouettes floating by before the outside lights, green, lilac, purple — a veritable masked ball. Then they were gone. I stood up. Mechanically straightened my sweater. Feeling stupid, somehow, with my hands empty. Through the open door came cooler air. I turned. The stewardess was standing by the partition wall, not touching it with her back. On her face was the same tranquil smile, directed at the empty rows of seats, which now on their own began to roll up, to furl, like fleshy flowers, some faster, some a little more slowly — this was the only movement in the all-embracing, drawn-out roar that flowed in through the oval openings and brought to mind the open sea. “Don’t let that touch me!” Suddenly I found something not right in her smile. From the exit I said:

“Good-bye…”

“Acknowledged.”

The significance of that reply, so peculiar coming from the lips of a beautiful young woman, I did not immediately grasp, for it reached me when my back was turned, as I was halfway out the door. I went to put my foot on a step, but there was no step. Between the metal hull and the edge of the platform yawned a meter-wide crevice. Caught off balance, unprepared for such a trap, I made a clumsy leap and, in midair, felt an invisible flow of force take hold of me as if from below, so that I floated across the void and was set down softly on a white surface, which yielded elastically. In flight, I must have had a none-too-intelligent expression on my face — I felt a number of amused stares, or so it seemed to me. I quickly turned away and walked along the platform. The rocket on which I had arrived was resting in a deep bay, separated from the edge of the platforms by an unprotected abyss. I drew close to this empty space, as if unintentionally, and for the second time felt an invisible resilience that kept me from crossing the white border. I wanted to locate the source of this peculiar force, but suddenly, as if I were waking up, it occurred to me: I was on Earth.

A wave of pedestrians caught me up; jostled, I moved forward in the crowd. It took a moment for me really to see the size of the hall. But was it all one hall? No walls: a glittering white high-held explosion of unbelievable wings; between them, columns, made not of any substance but of dizzying motion. Rushing upward, enormous fountains of a liquid denser than water, illuminated from inside by colored floodlights? No — vertical tunnels of glass through which a succession of blurred vehicles raced upward? Now I was completely at a loss. Constantly pushed and shoved in the swarming crowds, I attempted to work my way to some clear space, but there were no clear spaces here. Being a head taller than those around me, I was able to see that the empty rocket was moving off — no, it was we who were gliding forward with the entire platform. From above, lights flared, and in them the people sparkled and shimmered. Now the flat surface on which we stood close together began to move upward and I saw below, in the distance, double white belts packed with people, and gaping black crevices along inert hulls — for there were dozens of ships like ours. The moving platform made a turn, accelerated, continued to higher levels. Thundering, fluttering the hair of those who were standing with strong gusts of wind, there hurtled past on them, as on impossible (for completely unsupported) viaducts, oval shadows, trembling with speed and trailing long streaks of flame, their signal lights; then the surface carrying us began to branch, dividing along imperceptible seams; my strip passed through an interior filled with people both standing and seated; a multitude of tiny flashes surrounded them, as though they were engaged in setting off colored fireworks.

I did not know where to look. In front of me stood a man in something fluffy like fur, which, when touched by light, opalesced like metal. He supported by the arm a woman in scarlet. What she had on was all in large eyes, peacock eyes, and the eyes blinked. It was no illusion — the eyes on her dress actually opened and closed. The walkway, on which I stood behind the two of them and among a dozen other people, picked up speed. Between surfaces of smoke-white glass there opened colored, lighted malls with transparent ceilings, ceilings trod upon continuously by hundreds of feet on the floor above; the all-embracing roar now swelled, now was confined, as thousands of human voices and sounds — meaningless to me, meaningful to them — were swallowed by each successive tunnel of this journey whose destination I did not know. In the distance the surrounding space kept being pierced by streaks of vehicles unknown to me — aircraft, probably, because now and then they veered up or down, spiraling into space, so that I automatically expected a terrible crash, since I saw neither guide wires nor rails, if these were elevated trains. When the blurred hurricanes of motion were interrupted for a moment, from behind them emerged majestically slow, huge surfaces filled with people, like flying stations, which went in various directions, passed one another, lifted, and seemed to merge by tricks of perspective. It was hard to rest the eye on anything that was not in motion, because the architecture on all sides appeared to consist in motion alone, in change, and even what I had initially taken to be a vaulted ceiling were only overhanging tiers, tiers that now gave way to other, higher tiers and levels. Suddenly a heavy purple glare, as though an atomic fire had flared up somewhere far away in the heart of the building, filtered its way through the glass of the ceilings, of those mysterious columns, and was reflected by the silver surfaces; it bled into every corner, into the interiors of the passageways that glided by, into the features of the people. The green of the incessantly jumping neons became dingy; the milkiness of the parabolic buttresses grew pink. In this sudden saturation of the air with redness lay a foreboding of catastrophe, or so it seemed to me, but no one paid the least attention to the change, and I could not even say when it cleared away.

At the sides of our ramp appeared whirling green circles, like neon rings suspended in midair, whereupon some of the people stepped down onto the approaching branch of another ramp or walkway; I observed that one could pass through the green lines of those lights quite freely, as if they were not material.

For a while I let myself be carried along by the white walkway, until it occurred to me that perhaps I was already outside the station and that this fantastic panorama of sloping glass, which looked constantly as if on the verge of flight, was in fact the city, and that the one I had left behind existed now only in my memory.

“Excuse me.” I touched the arm of the man in fur. “Where are we?”

They both looked at me. Their faces, when they raised them, took on a startled expression. I had the faint hope that it was only because of my height

“On the polyduct,” said the man. “Which is your switch?”

I did not understand.

“Are… are we still in the station?”

“Obviously,” he replied with a certain caution.

“But… where is the Inner Circle?”

“You’ve already missed it. You’ll have to backtrack.”

“The rast from Merid would be better,” said the woman. All the eyes of her dress seemed to stare at me with suspicion and amazement.

“Rast?” I repeated helplessly.

“Right over there.” She pointed to an unoccupied elevation with black-and-silver-striped sides; it resembled the hull of a peculiarly painted vessel lying on its side. This, visible through an approaching green circle. I thanked them and stepped off the walkway, probably at the wrong spot, because the momentum made me stumble. I caught my balance but was spun around, so that I did not know in which direction to go. I considered what to do, but by this time my transfer point had moved considerably from the black-and-silver hill that the woman had shown me, and I could not find it now. Since most of the people around me were stepping onto an upward ramp, I did the same. On it, I noticed a giant stationary sign burning in the air: DUCT CENT. The rest of the letters, on either side, were not visible because of their magnitude. Noiselessly I was carried to a platform at least a kilometer long from which a spindle-shaped craft was just departing, showing, as it rose, a bottom riddled with lights. But perhaps that leviathan shape was the platform and I was on the “rast” — there was not even anyone to ask, for the area around me was deserted. I must have taken a wrong turn. One part of my “platform” held flattened buildings without front walls. Approaching them, I found low, dimly lit cubicles, in which stood rows of black machines. I took these for cars. But when the two nearest me emerged and, before I had time to step back, passed me at tremendous speed, I saw, before they disappeared into the background of parabolic inclines, that they had no wheels, windows, or doors. Streamlined, like huge black drops of liquid. Cars or not — I thought — in any case this appears to be some kind of parking lot. For the “rasts"? I decided that it would be better for me to wait for someone to come along, and go with him: at least I would learn something. My platform lifted lightly, like the wing of an impossible airplane, but remained empty; there were only the black machines, emerging singly or several at a time from their metal lairs and speeding away, always in the same direction. I went down to the very edge of the platform, until once more that invisible, springy force made itself felt, assuring complete safety. The platform truly hung in the air, not supported by anything. Lifting my head, I saw many others like it, hovering motionless in space in the same way, with their great lights out; at some, where craft were arriving, the lights were on. But those rockets or projectiles were not like the one that had brought me in from Luna.

I stood there awhile, until I noticed, against the background of some further hallways — though I did not know whether they were mirrored reflections of this one or reality — letters of fire steadily moving through the air: SOAMO SOAMO SOAMO, a pause, a bluish flash, and then NEONAX NEONAX NEONAX. These might have been the names of stations, or possibly of advertised products. They told me nothing.

It’s high time I found that fellow, I thought. I tumed on my heel and, seeing a walkway moving in the opposite direction, took it back down. This turned out to be the wrong level, it was not even the hall that I had left: I knew this by the absence of those enormous columns. But, then, they might have gone away somewhere; by now I considered anything possible.

I found myself in a forest of fountains; farther along I came upon a white-pink room filled with women. As I walked by I put my hand, without thinking, into the jet of an illuminated fountain, perhaps because it was pleasant to come across something even a little familiar. But I felt nothing, the fountain was without water. After a moment it seemed to me that I smelled flowers. I put my hand to my nostrils. It smelled like a thousand scented soaps at once. Instinctively I rubbed my hand on my trousers. Now I was standing in front of that room filled with women, only women. It did not appear to me to be a powder room, but I had no way of knowing. I preferred not to ask, so I turned away. A young man, wearing something that looked as though mercury had flowed over him and solidified, puffed-out (or perhaps foamy) on the arms and snug about the hips, was talking with a blonde girl who had her back against the bowl of a fountain. The girl, wearing a bright dress that was quite ordinary, which encouraged me, held a bouquet of pale pink flowers; nestling her face in them, she smiled at the boy with her eyes. At the moment I stood before them and was opening my mouth to speak, I saw that she was eating the flowers — and my voice failed me. She was calmly chewing the delicate petals. She looked up at me. Her eyes froze. But to that I had grown accustomed. I asked where the Inner Circle was.

The boy, it seemed to me, was unpleasantly surprised, even angry, that someone dared to interrupt their tête-à-tête. I must have committed some impropriety. He looked me up and down, as if expecting to find stilts that would account for my height. He did not say a word.

“Oh, there,” cried the girl, “the rast on the vuk, your rast, you can make it, hurry!”

I started running in the direction indicated, without knowing to what — I still hadn’t the faintest idea what that damned rast looked like — and after about ten steps I saw a silvery funnel descending from high above, the base of one of those enormous columns that had astonished me so much before. Could they be flying columns? People were hurrying toward it from all directions; then suddenly I collided with someone. I did not lose my balance, I merely stood rooted to the spot, but the other person, a stout individual in orange, fell down, and something incredible happened to him: his fur coat wilted before my eyes, collapsed like a punctured balloon! I stood over him, astounded, unable even to mutter an apology. He picked himself up, gave me a dirty look, but said nothing; he turned and marched off, fingering something on his chest — and his coat filled out and lit up again…

By now the place that the girl had pointed out to me was deserted. After this incident I gave up looking for rasts, the Inner Circle, ducts, and switches; I decided to get out of the station. My experiences so far did not encourage me to accost passers-by, so at random I followed a sloping sky-blue arrow upward; without any particular sensation, my body passed through two signs glowing in the air: LOCAL CIRCUITS. I came to an escalator that held quite a few people. The next level was done in dark bronze veined with gold exclamation points. Fluid joinings of ceilings and concave walls. Ceilingless corridors, at the top enveloped in a shining powder. I seemed to be approaching living quarters of some kind, as the area took on the quality of a system of gigantic hotel lobbies — teller windows, nickel pipes along the walls, recesses with clerks; maybe these were offices for currency exchange, or a post office. I walked on. I was now almost certain that this was not the way to an exit and (judging from the length of the ride upward) that I was in the elevated part of the station; nevertheless I kept going in the same direction. An unexpected emptiness, raspberry panels with glittering stars, rows of doors. The nearest was open. I looked in. A large, broad-shouldered man looked in from the opposite side. Myself in a mirror. I opened the door wider. Porcelain, silver pipes, nickel. Toilets.

I felt a little like laughing, but mainly I was nonplused. I quickly turned around: another corridor, bands, white as milk, flowing downward. The handrail of the escalator was soft, warm; I did not count the levels passed; more and more people, who stopped in front of enamel boxes that grew out of the wall at every step; the touch of a finger, and something would fall into their hands; they put this into their pockets and walked on. For some reason I did exactly as the man in the loose violet coat in front of me had done; a key with a small depression for the fingertip, I pressed, and into my palm fell a colored, translucent tube, slightly warm. I shook it, held it up to one eye; pills of some kind? No. A vial? It had no cork, no stopper. What was it for? What were the other people doing? Putting the things in their pockets. The sign on the dispenser: LARGAN. I stood there; I was jostled. And suddenly I felt like a monkey that has been given a fountain pen or a lighter; for an instant I was seized by a blind rage; I set my jaw, narrowed my eyes, and, shoulders hunched, joined the stream of pedestrians. The corridor widened, became a hall. Fiery letters: REAL AMMO REAL AMMO.

Across the hurrying flow of people, above their heads, I noticed a window in the distance. The first window. Panoramic, enormous.

All the firmaments of the night flung onto a flat plane. On a horizon of blazing mist — colored galaxies of squares, clusters of spiral lights, glows shimmering above skyscrapers, the streets: a creeping, a peristalsis with necklaces of light, and over this, in the perpendicular, cauldrons of neon, feather crests and lightning bolts, circles, airplanes, and bottles of flame, red dandelions made of needle-signal lights, momentary suns and hemorrhages of advertising, mechanical and violent. I stood and watched, hearing, behind me, the steady sough of hundreds of feet. Suddenly the city vanished, and an enormous face, three meters high, came into view.

“You have been watching clips from newsreels of the seventies, in the series Views of the Ancient Capitals. Now the news. Transtel is currently expanding to include cosmolyte studios…”

I practically fled. It was no window. A television screen. I quickened my pace. I was perspiring a little.

Down. Faster. Gold squares of lights. Inside, crowds, foam on glasses, an almost black liquid — not beer, with its virulent, greenish glint — and young people, boys and girls, arms around one another, in groups of six, eight, blocking the way across the entire thoroughfare, came toward me; they had to separate to let me through. I was buffeted. Without realizing it, I stepped onto a moving walkway. Quite close to me, a pair of startled eyes flashed by — a lovely dark girl in something that shone like phosphorized metal. The fabric clung to her: she was as if naked. White faces, yellow, a few tall blacks, but I was still the tallest. People made way for me. High above, behind convex windows, scattered shadows sped by, unseen orchestras played, but here a curious promenade went on; in the dark passages, the headless silhouettes of women: the fluff covering their arms gave off a light, so that only their raised necks showed in it like strange white stems, and the scattered glow in their hair — a luminescent powder? A narrow passage led me to a series of rooms with grotesque — because moving, even active — statues; a kind of wide street with raised sides boomed with laughter. People were being amused, but what was amusing them — the statues?

Huge figures in cones of floodlights; pouring from them was ruby light, honey light, as thick as syrup, an unusual concentration of colors. I walked on passively, squinting, abstracted. A steep green corridor, grotesque pavilions, pagodas reached by little bridges, everywhere small cafés, the sharp, persistent smell of fried food, rows of gas flames behind windows, the clinking of glass, metallic sounds, repeated, incomprehensible. The crowd that had carried me here collided with another, then thinned out; everyone was getting into an open carriage; no, it was only transparent, as if molded in glass, even the seats were like glass, though soft. Without knowing how, I found myself inside — we were moving. The carriage tore along, the people shouted over the sound of a loudspeaker that repeated, “Meridional level, Meridional, change for Spiro, Atale, Blekk, Frosom"; the entire carriage seemed to melt, pierced by shafts of light; walls flew by in strips of flame and color; parabolic arches, white platforms. “Forteran, Forteran, change for Galee, change for outer rasts, Makra,” babbled the speaker; the carriage stopped, then sped on. I discovered a remarkable thing: there was no sensation of braking or acceleration, as if inertia had been annulled. How was this possible? I checked, bending my knees slightly, at three consecutive stops. Nothing on the turns, either. People got off, got on. At the front stood a woman with a dog; I had never seen such a dog, it was huge, its head like a ball, very ugly; in its placid hazel eyes were reflected retreating, diminishing garlands of lights. RAMBRENT RAMBRENT. There was a fluttering from white and bluish fluorescent tubes, stairs of crystalline brilliance, black façades; the brilliance gave way slowly to stone; the carriage stopped. I got off and was dumbstruck. Above the amphitheater-like sunken dial of the stop rose a multistory structure that I recognized; I was still in the station, in another place within the same gigantic hall magnified in white sweeping surfaces. I made for the edge of the geometrically perfect depression — the carriage had already left — and received another surprise. I was not at the bottom, as I had thought; I was actually high up, about forty floors above the bands of the walkways visible in the abyss, above the silver decks of the ever-steadily gliding platforms; between them moved long, silent bodies, and people emerged from these through rows of hatches; it was as if monsters, chrome-plated fish, were depositing, at regular intervals, their black and colored eggs. Above all this, through the mist of the distance, I saw words of gold moving in a line:

I turned away. So even the way of telling time had changed. Hit by the light of the gigantic letters that flew above the sea of heads like rows of burning tightrope-walkers, the metallic fabrics of the women’s dresses flared up in sudden flames. I walked, oblivious, and something inside me kept repeating: So even time has changed. That somehow did me in. I saw nothing, though my eyes were open. I wanted one thing only, to get away, to find a way out of this infernal station, to be under the naked sky, in the open air, to see the stars, feel the wind.

I was attracted to an avenue of elongated lights. On the transparent stone of the ceilings, something was being written — letters — by a sharp flame encased in alabaster: TELETRANS TELEPORT TELETHON. Through a steeply arched doorway (but it was an impossible arch, pried out of its foundation, like the negative image of a rocket prow), I reached a hall upholstered in frozen gold fire. In recesses along the walls were hundreds of booths; people ran into these, burst out again in haste; they threw torn ribbons on the floor, not telegraph tapes, something else, with punched-out projections; others walked over these shreds. I wanted to leave; by mistake I went into a dark room; before I had time to step back something buzzed, a flash like that of a flashbulb, and from a metal-framed slot, as from a mailbox, slipped a piece of shiny paper folded in two. I took it and opened it, a face emerged, the mouth open, the lips slightly twisted, thin; it regarded me through half-closed eyes: myself! I folded the paper in two and the plastic specter vanished. I slowly parted the edges: nothing. Wider: it appeared again, popping out of nowhere, a head severed from the rest of the body, hanging above the paper card with a none-too-intelligent expression. For a moment I contemplated my own face — what was this, three-dimensional photography? I put the paper into my pocket and left. A golden hell seemed to descend on the crowd, a ceiling made of fiery magma, unreal but belching real flames, and no one paid attention; those with business ran from one booth to another; farther back, green letters jumped, columns of numerals flowed down narrow screens; other booths had shutters instead of doors, which lifted rapidly at anyone’s approach; at last I found an exit.

A curved corridor with an inclined floor, as sometimes in the theater; from its walls, stylized conches were shooting forth, while above them raced the words INFOR INFOR INFOR without end.

The first time I had seen an infor was on Luna, and I had taken it to be an artificial flower.

I put my face close to the aquamarine cup, which immediately, before I could open my mouth, froze in readiness.

“How do I get out of here?” I asked, none too brightly.

“Where are you going?” a warm alto answered immediately.

“To the city.”

“Which district?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Which level?”

“It doesn’t matter; I just want to get out of the station!”

“Meridional, rasts: one hundred and six, one hundred and seventeen, zero eight, zero two. Triduct, level AF, AG, AC, circuit M levels twelve, sixteen, the nadir level leads to every direction south. Central level — gleeders, red local, white express, A, B, and V. Ulder level, direct, all escals from the third up…” a singsong female voice recited.

I had the urge to tear from the wall the microphone that was inclined with such solicitude to my face. I walked away. Idiot! Idiot! droned in me at every step. EX EX EX EX — repeated a sign that was rising, bordered by a lemon haze. Exit? A way out?

The huge sign said EXOTAL. A sudden rush of warm air made the legs of my trousers flap. I found myself beneath the open sky. But the blackness of the night was kept at a great distance, pushed back by the multitude of lights. An immense restaurant. Tables whose tops blazed with different colors; above them, faces, illuminated from below, therefore somewhat eerie, full of deep shadows. Low armchairs, a black liquid with green foam in glasses, lanterns that spilled tiny sparks, no, fireflies, swarms of burning moths. The chaos of lights extinguished the stars. When I lifted my head I saw only a black void. Yet, strangely enough, at that moment its blind presence gave me courage. I stood and looked. Someone brushed by me; I caught the fragrance of perfume, sharp yet at the same time mild; a young couple passed; the girl turned to the man; her arms and breasts were submerged in a fluffy cloud; she entered his embrace; they danced. They still dance, I thought to myself. That’s good. The pair took a few steps, a pale, mercurylike ring lifted them up along with the other couples, their dark red shadows moved beneath its huge plate, which rotated slowly, like a record. It was not supported by anything, did not even have an axis, but, hanging in the air, it turned to the music. I walked among the tables. The soft plastic underfoot ended, gave way to porous rock. I passed through a curtain of light and found myself inside a rocky grotto. It was like ten, fifty Gothic naves formed out of stalactites; veined deposits of pearly minerals surrounded the mouths of the caves; in these people sat, legs dangling; small flames flickered between their knees, and at the bottom lay the unbroken black surface of an underground lake, which reflected the vaults of the rocks. There, too, on flimsy little rafts, people were reclining, all facing the same way. I went down to the water’s edge and saw, on the other side, on the sand, a female dancer. She appeared to be naked, but the whiteness of her body was not natural. With short, unsteady steps she ran to the water; when her body was reflected in it, she stretched out her arms suddenly and bowed — the end — but no one applauded; the dancer remained motionless for a few seconds, then slowly went along the shore, following its uneven line. She was perhaps thirty paces from me when something happened to her. One moment I saw her smiling, exhausted face, then, suddenly, as if something had got in the way, her outline trembled and disappeared.

“A raft for you, sir?” came a courteous voice behind me. I turned around; no one, only a streamlined table strutting on comically bowed legs; it moved forward, glasses of sparkling liquid, arranged in rows on side trays, shook, one arm politely offering me this drink, the other reaching for a plate with a fingerhole, something like a small, concave palette — it was a robot. I could see, behind a small glass pane in the center, the glow of its transistorized heart.

I avoided those insect arms stretched out to serve me, loaded with delicacies, which I refused, and I quickly left the artificial cave, gritting my teeth, as if I had somehow been insulted. I crossed the full width of the terrace, among S-shaped tables, under avenues of lanterns, showered with a fine powder of disintegrating, dying fireflies, black, gold. At the very edge, a border of stone, old, covered with a yellowish lichen, and there I felt, at last, a real wind, clean, cool. Nearby stood a vacant table. I sat awkwardly, my back to the people, looking out into the night. Below lay the darkness, vast, formless, and unexpected; only far, very far away, at its perimeter, glowed thin, flickering lights, curiously uncertain, as though not electric, and even farther off, swords of light rose up cold and thin into the sky, whether homes or pillars, I did not know; I would have taken them for the beams of floodlights had they not been traced by a delicate network — a glass cylinder might have looked thus, its base in the earth, its tip in the clouds, filled with alternating concave and convex lenses. They must have been incredibly high; around them, a few lights glimmering, pulsing, so that they were encircled now by an orange haze, now by a nearly white one. That was all, that was how the city looked; I tried to find streets, to guess where they would be, but the dark and seemingly lifeless space below spread out in all directions, not illuminated by a single spark.

“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 intentional, 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?”

“What do you mean?”

“Something toxic, you understand. Strong. Alcohol… or don’t they drink it any more?”

“Very rarely,” she replied softly, as if thinking of something else. Her hands fell slowly, touched the metallic blue of her dress.

“I’ll give you some… angehen, is that all right? But you don’t know what it is, do you?”

“No, I don’t,” I replied, unexpectedly stubborn. She went to the bar and brought back a small, bulging bottle. She poured me a drink. It had alcohol in it — not much — but there was something else, a peculiar, bitter taste.

“Don’t be angry,” I said, emptying the cup, and poured myself another one.

“I’m not angry. You didn’t answer, but perhaps you don’t want to?”

“Why not? I can tell you. There were twenty-three of us altogether, on two ships. The second was the Ulysses. Five pilots to a ship, and the rest scientists. There were no women.”

“Why?”

“Because of children,” I explained. “You can’t raise children on such ships, and even if you could, no one would want to. You can’t fly before you’re thirty. You have to have two diplomas under your belt, plus four years of training, twelve years in all. In other words — women of thirty usually have children. And there were… other considerations.”

“And you?” she asked.

“I was single. They picked unmarried ones. That is — volunteers.”

“You wanted to…”

“Yes. Of course.”

“And you didn’t…”

She broke off. I knew what she wanted to say. I remained silent.

“It must be weird, coming back like this,” she said almost in a whisper. She shuddered. Suddenly she looked at me, her cheeks darkened, it was a blush.

“Listen, what I said before, that was just a joke, really…”

“About the hundred years?”

“I was just talking, just to talk, it had no…”

“Stop,” I grumbled. “Any more apologizing and I’ll really feel all that time.”

She was silent. I forced myself to look away from her. Inside that other room, the nonexistent room behind glass, an enormous male head sang without sound; I saw the dark read of the throat quiver at the effort, cheeks glistening, the whole face moving to an inaudible rhythm.

“What will you do?” she asked quietly.

“I don’t know. I don’t know yet.”

“You have no plans?”

“No. I have a little — it’s a… bonus, you understand. For all that time. When we left, it was put into the bank in my name — I don’t even know how much there is. I don’t know a thing. Listen, what is this Cavut?”

“The Cavuta?” she corrected me. “It’s… a sort of school, plasting; nothing great in itself, but sometimes one can get into the reals…”

“Wait… then what exactly do you do?”

“Plast. You don’t know what that is?”

“No.”

“How can I explain? To put it simply, one makes dresses, clothing in general — everything…”

“Tailoring?”

“What does that mean?”

“Do you sew things?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Ye gods and little fishes! Do you design dresses?”

“Well… yes, in a sense, yes. I don’t design, I only make…”

I gave up.

“And what is a real?”

That truly floored her. For the first time she looked at me as if I were a creature from another world.

“A real is… a real…” she repeated helplessly. “They are… stories. It’s for watching.”

“That?” I pointed at the glass wall.

“Oh no, that’s vision…”

“What, then? Movies? Theater?”

“No. Theater, I know what that was — that was long ago. I know: they had actual people there. A real is artificial, but one can’t tell the difference. Unless, I suppose, one got in there, inside…”

“Got in?”

The head of the giant rolled its eyes, reeled, looked at me as if it were having great fun, observing this scene.

“Listen, Nais,” I said suddenly, “either I’ll go now, because it’s very late, or…”

“I’d prefer the ‘or.’ “

“But you don’t know what I want to say.”

“Say it, then.”

“All right. I wanted to ask you more about various things. About the big things, the most important, I already know something; I spent four days at Adapt, on Luna. But that was a drop in the bucket. What do you do when you aren’t working?”

“One can do a heap of things,” she said. “One can travel, actually or by moot. One can have a good time, go to the real, dance, play tereo, do sports, swim, fly — whatever one wants.”

“What is a moot?”

“It’s a little like the real, except you can touch everything. You can walk on mountains there, on anything — you’ll see for yourself, it’s not the sort of thing you can describe. But I had the impression you wanted to ask about something else… ?”

“Your impression is right. How is it between men and women?”

Her eyelids fluttered.

“I suppose the way it has always been. What can have changed?”

“Everything. When I left — don’t take this in bad part — a girl like you would not have brought me to her place at this hour.”

“Really? Why not?”

“Because it would have meant only one thing.”

She was silent for a moment.

“And how do you know it didn’t?”

My expression amused her. I looked at her; she stopped smiling.

“Nais… how is it… ?” I stammered. “You take a complete stranger and…”

She was silent.

“Why don’t you answer?”

“Because you don’t understand a thing. I don’t know how to tell you. It’s nothing, you know…”

“Aha. It’s nothing,” I repeated. I couldn’t sit any longer. I got up. I nearly leapt, forgetting myself. She flinched.

“Sorry,” I muttered and began to pace. Behind the glass a park stretched out in the morning sunlight; along an alley, among trees with pale pink leaves, walked three youths in shirts that gleamed like armor.

“Are there still marriages?”

“Naturally.”

“I don’t understand! Explain this to me. Tell me. You see a man who appeals to you, and without knowing him, right away…”

“But what is there to tell?” she said reluctantly. “Is it really true that in your day, back then, a girl couldn’t let a man into her room?”

“She could, of course, and even with that purpose, but… not five minutes after seeing him…”

“How many minutes, then?”

I looked at her. She was quite serious. Well, yes, how was she to know? I shrugged.

“It wasn’t a matter of time only. First she had to… see something in him, get to know him, like him; first they went out together…”

“Wait,” she said. “It seems that you don’t understand a thing. After all, I gave you brit.”

“What brit? Ah, the milk? What of it?”

“What do you mean, what of it? Was there… no brit?”

She began to laugh; she was convulsed with laughter. Then suddenly she broke off, looked at me, and reddened terribly.

“So you thought… you thought that I… no!”

I sat down. My fingers were unsteady; I wanted to hold something in them. I pulled a cigarette from my pocket and lit it. She opened her eyes.

“What is that?”

“A cigarette. What — you don’t smoke?”

“It’s the first time I ever saw one… So that’s what a cigarette looks like. How can you inhale the smoke like that? No, wait — the other thing is more important. Brit is not milk. I don’t know what’s in it, but to a stranger one always gives brit.”

’To a man?”

“Yes.”

“What does it do, then?”

“What it does is make him behave, make him have to. You know… maybe some biologist can explain it to you.”

“To hell with the biologist. Does this mean that a man to whom you’ve given brit can’t do anything?”

“Naturally.”

“What if he doesn’t want to drink?”

“How could he not want to?”

Here all understanding ended.

“But you can’t force him to drink,” I continued patiently.

“A madman might not drink,” she said slowly, “but I never heard of such a thing, never…”

“Is this some kind of custom?”

“I don’t know what to tell you. Is it a custom that you don’t go around naked?”

“Aha. Well, in a sense — yes. But you can undress on the beach.”

“Completely?” she asked with sudden interest.

“No. A bathing suit… But there were groups of people in my day, they were called nudists…”

“I know. No, that’s something else. I thought that you all…”

“No. So this drinking is like wearing clothes? Just as necessary?”

“Yes. When there are… two of you.”

“Well, and afterward?”

“What afterward?”

“The next time?”

This conversation was idiotic and I felt terrible, but I had to find out.

“Later? It varies. To some… you always give brit.”

“The rejected suitor,” I blurted out.

“What does that mean?”

“No, nothing. And if a girl visits a man, what then?”

“Then he drinks it at his place.”

She looked at me almost with pity. But I was stubborn.

“And when he doesn’t have any?”

“Any brit? How could he not have it?”

“Well, he ran out. Or… he could always lie.”

She began to laugh.

“But that’s… you think that I keep all these bottles here, in my apartment?”

“You don’t? Where, then?”

“Where they come from, I don’t know. In your day, was there tap water?”

“There was,” I said glumly. There might not have been. Sure! I could have climbed into the rocket straight from the forest. I was furious for a moment, but I calmed down; it was not, after all, her fault.

“There, you see — did you know in which direction the water flowed before it… ?”

“I understand, no need to go on. All right. So it’s a kind of safety measure? Very strange!”

“I don’t think so,” she said. “What do you have there, the white thing under your sweater?”

“A shirt.”

“What is that?”

“You never saw a shirt? Sort of, well, clothing. Made of nylon.”

I rolled up my sleeve and showed her.

“Interesting,” she said.

“It’s a custom,” I said, at a loss. Actually, they had told me at Adapt to stop dressing in the style of a hundred years ago; I didn’t want to. I had to admit, however, that she was right; brit was for me what a shirt was for her. In the final analysis, no one had forced people to wear shirts, but they all had. Evidently, it was the same with brit.

“How long does brit work?” I asked.

She blushed a little.

“You’re in such a hurry. You still know nothing.”

“I didn’t say anything wrong,” I defended myself. “I only wanted to know… Why are you looking at me like that? What’s the matter with you? Nais!”

She got up slowly. She stood behind the armchair.

“How long ago, did you say? A hundred and twenty years?”

“A hundred and twenty-seven. What about it?”

“And were you… betrizated?”

“What is that?”

“You weren’t?”

“I don’t even know what it means. Nais… girl, what’s the matter with you?”

“No, you weren’t,” she whispered. “If you had been, you would know.”

I started toward her. She raised her hands.

“Keep away. No! No! I beg you!”

She retreated to the wall.

“But you yourself said that brit… I’m sitting now. You see, I’m sitting. Calm yourself. Tell me what it is, this bet… or whatever.”

“I don’t know exactly. But everyone is betrizated. At birth.”

“What is it?”

“They put something into the blood, I think.”

“To everyone?”

“Yes. Because… brit… doesn’t work without that. Don’t move!”

“Child, don’t be ridiculous.”

I put out my cigarette.

“I am not, after all, a wild animal. Don’t be angry, but… it seems to me that you’ve all gone a little mad. This brit… well, it’s like handcuffing everyone because someone might turn out to be a thief. I mean, there ought to be a little trust.”

“You’re terrific.” She seemed calmer, but still she did not sit. “Then why were you so indignant before, about my bringing home strangers?”

“That’s something else.”

“I don’t see the difference. You’re sure you weren’t betrizated?”

“I wasn’t.”

“But maybe now? When you returned?”

“I don’t know. They gave me all kinds of shots. Is it so important?”

“It is. They did that? Good.”

She sat down.

“I have a favor to ask you,” I said as calmly as I could. “You must explain to me…”

“What?”

“Your fear. Did you think I would attack you, or what? But that’s ridiculous!”

“No. If one looks at it rationally, no, but — it was overwhelming, you see. Such a shock. I never saw a person who was not…”

“But surely you can’t tell?”

“You can. Oh, you can!”

“How?”

She was silent.

“Nais…”

“And if…”

“What?”

“I’m afraid.”

“To say?”

“Yes.”

“But why?”

“You’d understand if I told you. Betrization, you see, isn’t done by brit. With the brit, it’s only — a side effect… Betrization has to do with something else.” She was pale. Her lips trembled. What a world, I thought, what a world this is!

“I can’t. I’m terribly afraid.”

“Of me?”

“Yes.”

“I swear that…”

“No, no. I believe you, only… no. You can’t understand this.”

“You won’t tell me?”

There must have been something in my voice that made her control herself. Her face became grim. I saw from her eyes the effort it was for her.

“It is… so that… in order that it be impossible to… kill.”

“No! People?”

“Anyone.”

“Animals, too?”

“Animals. Anyone.”

She twisted and untwisted her fingers, not taking her eyes off me, as if with these words she had released me from an invisible chain, as if she had put a knife into my hand, a knife I could stab her with.

“Nais,” I said very quietly. “Nais, don’t be afraid. Really, there’s nothing to fear.”

She tried to smile.

“Listen…”

“Yes?”

“When I said that…”

“Yes?”

“You felt nothing?”

“And what was I supposed to feel?”

“Imagine that you are doing what I said to you.”

“That I am killing? I’m supposed to picture that?”

She shuddered.

“Yes.”

“And now?”

“And you feel nothing?”

“Nothing. But, then, it’s only a thought, and I don’t have the slightest intention…”

“But you can? Right? You really can? No,” she whispered, as if to herself, “you are not betrizated.”

Only now did the meaning of it all hit me, and I understood how it could be a shock to her.

“This is a great thing,” I muttered. After a moment, I added, “But it would have been better, perhaps, had people ceased to do it… without artificial means.”

“I don’t know. Perhaps,” she answered. She drew a deep breath. “You know, now, why I was frightened?”

“Yes, but not completely. Maybe a little. But surely you didn’t think that I…”

“How strange you are! It’s altogether as though you weren’t…” She broke off.

“Weren’t human?”

Her eyelids fluttered.

“I didn’t mean to offend you. It’s just that, you see, if it is known that no one can — you know — even think about it, ever, and suddenly someone appears, like you, then the very possibility… the fact that there is one who…”

“I can’t believe that everyone would be — what was it? — ah, betrizated!”

“Why? Everyone, I tell you!”

“No, it’s impossible,” I insisted. “What about people with dangerous jobs? After all, they must…”

“There are no dangerous jobs.”

“What are you saying, Nais? What about pilots? And various rescue workers? And those who fight fire, floods… ?”

“There are no such people,” she said. It seemed to me that I had not heard her right.

“What?"

“No such people,” she repeated. “All that is done by robots.”

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 glassy 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 glass, 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 damn; 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 passed 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 passer-by. The escalator was very long. A wide street gleamed below, on either side opened passageways 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 muffled 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 glass, 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 glass 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.

“Hello!”

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 passed 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 glass; 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 glass 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 space 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 noble metal truly flowed; I felt a hot gust, everything went out — I stood in a glass pavilion. It was in the shape of a shell, 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, encompassed 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, glassy rock, a translucent massif 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, scraped 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 grass 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 butted 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 shag 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 passed 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 passed 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 glass 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.