Return from the Stars

TWO

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Omnilox here.”

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

Something crackled, and another, higher, voice said:

“Hal Bregg?”

“Yes.”

“Who opened the account?”

“Cosnav — Cosmic Navigation — by order of the Planetological Institute and the Cosmic Affairs Commission of the United Nations, but that was a hundred and twenty-seven years ago.”

“Do you have any identification?”

“No, only a card from Adapt on Luna, from Director Oswamm…”

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

“Ets?”

“Yes. Do you require anything further?”

“I would like to withdraw a little mon — some ets, that is.”

“In what form? Perhaps you would like a calster?”

“What is that? A checkbook?”

“No. You will be able to pay cash right away.”

“Yes. Good.”

“How high should the calster be?”

“I really don’t know — five thousand…”

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

“Yes. Wait — I’ve forgotten the name of this hotel.”

“Is it not the one from which you are calling?”

“It is.”

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

“No. Why?”

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

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

“Bregg?”

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

“From an infer. Bregg… Hal… listen, I wanted to explain to you…”

“There is nothing to explain, Nais.”

“You’re angry. But try to understand…”

“I’m not angry.”

“Hal, really. Come over to my place today. You’ll come?”

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

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

“Well… how long can one live on that much?”

“As long as you like. Living costs nothing, after all. But let’s forget about that. Hal, if you wanted to…”

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

“It varies. Sometimes twenty, sometimes five, or nothing.”

“Aha. Thank you.”

“Hal! Listen!”

“I’m listening.”

“Let’s not end it this way…”

“We’re not ending a thing,” I said, “because nothing ever began. Thanks for everything, Nais.”

I put down the receiver. Living costs nothing? That interested me most at the moment. Did that mean that there were some things, some services, free of charge?

The telephone again.

“Bregg here.”

“This is reception. Mr. Bregg, Omnilox has sent you a calster. I am sending it up.”

“Thank you — hello!”

“Yes?”

“Does one pay for a room?”

“No, sir.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing, sir.”

“And is there a restaurant in the hotel?”

“Yes, there are four. Do you wish to have breakfast in your room?”

“All right, and… does one pay for meals?”

“No, sir. You now have the calster. Breakfast will be served in a moment.”

The robot hung up, and I did not have time to ask where I was supposed to look for the calster. I had no idea what it looked like. Getting up from the desk, which, abandoned, immediately shrank and shriveled up, I saw a kind of stand growing out of the wall next to the door; on it lay a flat object wrapped in transparent plastic and resembling a small cigarette case. On one side it had a row of little windows, in them showed the number 1100 1000. At the bottom were two tiny buttons labeled “1” and “0.” I looked at it, puzzled, until I realized that the sum of five thousand had been entered in the binary system. I pressed the “1” and a small plastic triangle with the number 1 stamped on it fell into my hand. This, then, was a kind of stamping machine or press for money, up to the amount indicated in the windows — the number at the top decreased by a unit.

I was dressed and ready to leave when I remembered about Adapt. I phoned and told them that I had been unable to find their man at the Terminal.

“We were getting worried about you,” said a woman’s voice, “but we learned this morning that you were staying at the Alcaron…”

They knew where I was. Why, then, had they not found me at the station? Planned that way, no doubt. I was supposed to get lost, so as to realize how rash my “rebellion” on Luna had been.

“Your information is correct,” I replied politely. “At present I am going out to see the city. I’ll report to you later.”

I left the room; corridors flowed, silver and in motion, and the wall along with them — something new to me. I took an escalator down and on successive floors passed bars; one of them was green, as if submerged in water; each level had its own dominant color, silver, gold, already this had begun to annoy me. And after a single day! Odd that they liked it. Strange tastes. But then I recalled the view of the Terminal at night,

I needed to get myself some clothes. With that decision I stepped out into the street. The sky was overcast, but the clouds were bright, high up, and the sun shone through them occasionally. Only now did I see — from the boulevard, down the center of which ran a double line of huge palms with leaves as pink as tongues — a panorama of the city. The buildings stood like islands, set apart, and here and there a spire soared to the heavens, a frozen jet of some liquid material, its height incredible. They were no doubt measured in whole kilometers. I knew — someone had told me back on Luna — that no one built them any more and that the rush to construct tall buildings had died a natural death soon after these had been put up. They were monuments to a particular architectural epoch, since, apart from their immensity, offset only by their slimness of form, there was nothing in them to appeal to the eye. They looked like pipes, brown and gold, black and white, transversely striped, or silver, serving to support or trap the clouds, and the landing pads that jutted out from them against the sky, hanging in the air on tubular supports, were reminiscent of bookshelves.

Much more attractive were the new buildings, without windows, so that all their walls could be decorated. The entire city took on the appearance of a gigantic art exhibit, a showcase for masters of color and form. I cannot say that I liked everything that adorned those twenty- and thirty-floor heights, but for a hundred-and-fifty-year-old character I was not, I dare say, overly stuffy. To my mind the most attractive were the buildings divided in half by gardens. Maybe they were not houses — the fact that the structures were cut in the middle and seemed to rest on cushions of air (the walls of those high-level gardens being of glass) gave an impression of lightness; at the same time pleasantly irregular belts of ruffled green cut across the edifices.

On the boulevards, along those lines of fleshlike palms, which I definitely did not like, flowed two rivers of black automobiles. I knew now that they were called gleeders. Above the buildings flew other machines, though not helicopters or planes; they looked like pencils sharpened at both ends.

On the walkways were a few people, but not as many as there had been in the city a hundred years earlier. There had been a marked easing of traffic, pedestrian especially, perhaps because of the multiplication of levels, for beneath the city that I had seen spread successive, lower, subterranean tiers, with streets, squares, stores — a corner infor told me, for example, that it was best to shop at the Serean level. It was a first-rate infor, or maybe by now I was expressing myself better, because it gave me a little plastic book with four fold-outs, maps of the city’s transit system. When I wanted to go somewhere, I touched the silver-printed name — street, level, square — and instantly on the map a circuit of all the necessary connections lit up. I could also travel by gleeder. Or by rast. Or — finally — on foot; therefore, four maps. But I realized now that traveling on foot (even with the moving walkways and escalators) often took many hours.

Serean, unless I was mistaken, was the third level. And again the city astounded me: coming out of the tunnel, I found myself not underground but on a street beneath the open sky, in the full light of the sun; in the center of a square grew great pines, farther off the striped spires took on a blue tint, and, in the other direction, behind a small pool in which children were splashing, riding the water with colorful little bikes, there stood a white skyscraper, cut by palm-green bands and with a most peculiar caplike structure, shining like glass, on its summit. I regretted that there was no one I could ask about this curiosity; then suddenly I remembered — or, rather, my stomach reminded me — that I had not eaten breakfast, for I had completely forgotten that it was to be sent to my room at the hotel, and I had left without waiting for it. Perhaps the robot at reception had made a mistake.

Back, then, to the infor; I no longer did anything without first checking out exactly what and how, and in any event the infor could also reserve a gleeder for me, although I was not about to ask for one yet, since I did not know how to get inside the thing, let alone what to do after that; but I had time.

In the restaurant, one look at the menu and I saw that it was complete Greek to me. I firmly asked for breakfast, a normal breakfast.

“Ozote, kress, or herma?”

Had the waiter been human, I would have asked him to bring what he himself preferred, but it was a robot. It could not matter to a robot.

“Is there coffee?” I asked uneasily.

“There is. Kress, ozote, or herma?”

“Coffee, and… well, whatever goes best with coffee, that, uh…”

“Ozote” it said and went away.

Success.

It must have had everything prepared, for it returned immediately, and with such a heavily loaded tray that I supected some trick or joke. But the sight of the tray made me realize, apart from the bons I had eaten the day before, and a cup of the notorious brit, I had eaten nothing since my return.

The only familiar thing was the coffee, which was like boiled tar. The cream was in tiny blue specks and definitely came from no cow. I wished I could have observed someone, to see how to eat all this, but apparently the time for breakfast was over, because I was alone. Small plates, crescent-shaped, contained steaming masses from which protruded things like matchsticks, and in the middle was a baked apple; not an apple, of course, and not matchsticks, and what I took for oatmeal began to rise at the touch of a spoon. I ate everything; I was, it turned out, ravenous, so that the nostalgia for bread (of which there was not a trace) came to me only later, as an afterthought, when the robot appeared and waited at a distance.

“What do I pay?” I asked it.

“Nothing, thank you,” it said. It was more a piece of furniture than a mannequin. It had one round eye of crystal. Something moved about inside, but I could not bring myself to peer into its stomach. There was not even anyone for me to tip. I doubted that it would understand me if I asked it for a paper; perhaps there were none now. So I went out shopping. But first I found the travel agency — a revelation. I went in.

The large hall, silver with emerald consoles (I was getting tired of these colors), was practically empty. Frosted-glass windows, enormous color photographs of the Grand Canyon, the Crater of Archimedes, the cliffs of Deimos, Palm Beach, Florida — done in such a way that, looking at them, one had the impression of depth, and even the waves of the ocean moved, as if these were not photographs but windows opening onto actual scenes. I went to the counter with the sign EARTH.

Sitting there, of course, was a robot. This time a gold one. Rather, gold-sprinkled.

“What can we do for you?” it asked, It had a deep voice. If I closed my eyes, I could have sworn that the speaker was a muscular, dark-haired man.

“I want something primitive,” I said. “I’ve just returned from a long journey, a very long one. I don’t want too much comfort. I want peace and quiet, water, trees, there could be mountains, too. Only it should be primitive and old-fashioned. Like a hundred years ago. Do you have anything like that?”

“If you desire it, we must have it. The Rocky Mountains. Fort Plumm. Majorca. The Antilles.”

“Something closer,” I said. “Yes… within a radius of a thousand kilometers. Is there anything?”

“Clavestra.”

“Where is that?”

I had noticed that I had no difficulty conversing with robots, because absolutely nothing surprised them. They were incapable of surprise. A very sensible quality.

“An old mining settlement near the Pacific. The mines have not been in use for almost four hundred years. Interesting excursions on walkways underground. Convenient ulder and gleeder connections. Rest homes with medical care, villas to rent, with gardens, swimming pools, climate conditioning; our local office organizes all kinds of activities, excursions, games, social gatherings. Also available — real, moot, and stereon.”

“Yes, that might suit me,” I said. “A villa with a garden. And there has to be water. A swimming pool, you said?”

“Naturally, sir. A swimming pool with diving boards. There are also artificial lakes with underwater caves, a well-equipped facility for divers, underwater shows…”

“Never mind about the shows. What does it cost?”

“A hundred and twenty ets a month. But if you share with another party, only forty.”

“Share?”

“The villas are very spacious, sir. From twelve to eighteen rooms — automatic service, cooking done on the premises, local or exotic, whichever you prefer…”

“Yes. I just might ... all right. My name is Bregg. I’ll take it. What is the name of the place? Clavestra? Do I pay now?”

“As you wish.”

I handed it my calster.

It turned out that only I could operate the calster, but the robot was not in the least surprised by my ignorance. More and more I was beginning to like them. It showed me what I had to do so that only one disc, with the correct number stamped on it, came out. The numbers in the windows at the top were reduced by the same amount, showing the balance of the account.

“When can I go there?”

“Whenever you wish. At any moment.”

“But — with whom am I sharing the villa?”

“The Margers. He and she.”

“Can you tell me what sort of people they are?”

“Only that they are a young married couple.”

“Hm. And I won’t disturb them?”

“No. Half of the villa is up for rent, and you will have an entire floor to yourself.”

“Good. How do I get there?”

“By ulder would be best.”

“How do I do that?”

“I will have the ulder for you on the day and hour you designate.”

“I’ll phone from my hotel. Is that possible?”

“Certainly, sir. The payment will be reckoned from the moment you enter the villa.”

When I left, I already had the vague outline of a plan. I would buy books and some sports equipment. Most important were the books. I should also subscribe to some specialized journals. Sociology, physics. No doubt a mass of things had been done in the past hundred years. And yes, I had to buy myself some clothes.

But again I was sidetracked. Turning a corner, I saw — I didn’t believe my eyes — a car. A real car. Perhaps not exactly as I remembered it: the body was designed all in sharp angles. It was, however, a genuine automobile, with tires, doors, a steering wheel, and behind it stood others. Behind a large window; on it, in big letters: ANTIQUES. I went inside. The owner, or salesman, was a human. A pity, I thought.

“May I buy a car?”

“Of course. Which one would you like?”

“Do they cost much?”

“From four hundred to eight hundred ets.”

Stiff, I thought. Well, antiques weren’t cheap.

“And can one travel in it?” I asked.

“Naturally. Not everywhere, true — there are local restrictions — but in general it’s possible.”

“And what about fuel?” I asked cautiously, for I had no idea what lay beneath the hood.

“No problem there. One charge will last you for the life of the car. Including, of course, the parastats.”

“All right,” I said. “I would like something strong, durable. It doesn’t have to be big, just fast.”

“In that case I would suggest this giabile or that model there…”

He led me down a big hall, along a row of machines, which shone as if they were really new.

“Of course,” the salesman continued, “they can’t compare with gleeders, but, then, the automobile today is no longer a means of transportation…”

What is it, then? I wanted to ask, but said nothing.

“All right,” I said, “how much does this one cost?” I pointed to a pale blue limousine with silver recessed headlights.

“Four hundred and eighty ets.”

“But I want to have it at Clavestra,” I said. “I have rented a villa there. You can get the exact address from the travel office, here, on this street.”

“Excellent sir. It can be sent by ulder; that will not cost anything.”

“Really? I’ll be going there by ulder.”

“Give us the date, then, and we will put it in your ulder. That would be simplest. Unless you would prefer…”

“No, no. Let it be as you say.”

I paid for the car — the calster was not at all a bad thing to have — and left the antique store full of the smell of leather and rubber. Exquisite.

With the clothes I had no luck. Of what I knew, almost nothing existed. At any rate, I discovered the secret of those mysterious bottles at the hotel, in the compartment with the sign “Bathrobes.” Not only robes of that kind, but suits, socks, sweaters, underwear — everything was sprayed on. I could see how that might appeal to women, because by discharging from a few or a few dozen bottles a liquid that immediately set into fabrics with textures smooth or rough — velvet, fur, or pliable metal — they could have a new creation every time, each for one occasion only. Of course, not every woman did this for herself: there were special plasting salons (so that was what Nais did!), but the tight-fitting fashion that resulted from this process did not much appeal to me. And getting dressed by operating a siphon bottle seemed to me unnecessarily bothersome. There were a few ready-to-wear items, but they did not fit; even the largest were four sizes too small for my height and width. In the end I decided on clothes in bottles, because I saw that my shirt would not hold out much longer. Of course, I could have sent for the rest of my things from the Prometheus, but on board the ship I had had no suits or white shirts, there being little need for such in the vicinity of the Fomalhaut constellation. So I bought, in addition, a few pairs of denimlike trousers that resembled gardening overalls, only they had relatively wide legs and could be lengthened. For everything together I paid one et; that was what the trousers cost. For the rest, no charge. I asked to have the clothes sent to my hotel, and let myself be talked into going to a fashion salon, simply out of curiosity. There I was received by a fellow with the bearing of an artist, who first of all appraised me and agreed that I ought to wear loose-fitting clothes; I could see that he was not especially delighted with me. Nor was I with him. I ended up with a few sweaters, which he made for me while I waited. I stood with my arms raised and he set to work, spraying from four bottles at once. The liquid in the air, white like foam, set almost instantaneously. From it arose sweaters of various colors; one had a stripe across the chest, red on black; the most difficult part, I noticed, was finishing off the collar and sleeves. For that, skill was clearly needed.

Richer for the experience, which in any case had not cost a thing, I found myself on the street in the full noonday sun. There were fewer gleeders; above the roofs, however, were many of the cigar-shaped machines. People streamed down the escalators to the lower levels; everyone was in a hurry, only I had time. For about an hour I warmed myself in the sun, under a rhododendron with woody husks left by dead leaves, and then I returned to the hotel. In the hall downstairs I obtained an apparatus for shaving; when I began to shave in the bathroom, I noticed that i I had to bend over slightly to use the mirror, although I remembered that previously I had been able to see myself in it standing upright. The difference was minimal, but a moment before, when taking off my shirt, I had observed something strange: the shirt was shorter. As if it had shrunk. I now examined it carefully. Neither the sleeves nor the collar showed any change. I laid it on the table. It was the same shirt, and yet, when I put it en, it barely came below my waist. It was I who had changed, not the shirt. I had grown.

An absurd thought; nevertheless, it worried me. I phoned the hotel infor, requesting the address of a doctor, a specialist in cosmic medicine. I preferred not to go running to Adapt, if at all possible. After a brief silence, almost as if the automaton at the other end were hesitating, I heard the address. A doctor lived on the very same street, a few blocks down. I went to see him. A robot led me into a large, darkened room. Besides me, no one was there.

Soon the doctor entered. He looked as though he had stepped out of a family portrait in my father’s study. He was short but not slight, gray-haired; he wore a tiny white beard and gold-rimmed glasses — the first glasses I had seen on a human face since I landed. His name was Dr. Juffon.

“Hal Bregg?” he said. “Is that you?”

“It is.”

Silent, he studied me. “What’s bothering you?”

“Nothing really, doctor, it’s just that…” I told him of my strange observations.

Without a word he opened a door in front of me. I entered a small examination room. “Undress, please.”

“Everything?” I asked when only my trousers were left.

“Yes.”

He examined me naked.

“Such men as you no longer exist,” he muttered, as if to himself. He listened to my heart, putting a cold stethoscope to my chest. And in a thousand years that will not change, I thought, and the thought gave me a small pleasure. He measured my height, then told me to lie down. He inspected the scar under my right collarbone, but said nothing. He examined me for nearly an hour.

Reflexes, lung capacity, electrocardiogram — everything. When I was dressed, he sat down behind a small black desk. The drawer squeaked as he pulled it open to look for something. After all the furniture that followed a person around as if possessed, this old desk appealed to me.

“How old are you?”

I explained the situation.

“You have the body of a man in his thirties,” he said. “You hibernated?”

“Yes.”

“For long?”

“A year.”

“Why?”

“We returned on increased thrust. It was necessary to lie in water. Shock absorption, you understand, doctor, and therefore, because it would be hard to lie conscious in water for a year…”

“Of course. I thought that you had hibernated longer. We can easily subtract that year. Not forty, only thirty-nine.”

“And… the other thing?”

“That’s nothing, Bregg. How much did you have?”

“Acceleration? Two g’s.”

“So there you are. You thought that you were growing? No. You aren’t growing. It’s simply the intervertebral disks. Do you know what they are?”

“Yes, bits of cartilage in the spine…”

“Exactly. They are expanding now that you are out from under all that weight. What is your height?”

“When I took off, one hundred and ninety-seven centimeters.”

“And after that?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t measure myself; there were other things to think about, you know.”

“Now you are two meters two.”

“Marvelous,” I said, “and will this go on for long?”

“No. Probably it is all over now… How do you feel?”

“Fine.”

“Everything seems too light, doesn’t it?”

“Less and less so, now. At Adapt on Luna, they gave me pills to reduce muscle.tension.”

“They degravitized you?”

“Yes. For the first three days. They said that it was not enough after so many years; on the other hand, they didn’t want to keep us shut up any more, after everything…”

“And your state of mind?”

“Well…” I hesitated. “There are moments… I have the feeling that I’m a Neanderthal that has been brought to the city…”

“What do you intend to do?”

I told him about the villa.

“You could do worse, perhaps,” he said, “but…”

“Adapt would be better?”

“I am not saying that. You… I remember you, do you know?”

“How can that be? Surely you couldn’t be…”

“No. But I heard about you from my father. When I was twelve.”

“That must have been years after we started out,” I said. “And they still remembered us? That’s strange.”

“I don’t think so. On the contrary, it’s strange that they should have forgotten. But you knew, didn’t you, how the return would look, even though you obviously could not picture it?”

“I knew.”

“Who referred you to me?”

“No one. That is… the infor at the hotel. Why?”

“It’s amusing,” he said. “I am not actually a doctor.”

“How is that?”

“I have not practiced for forty years. I am working on the history of cosmic medicine, because it is history now, Bregg, and outside of Adapt there is no longer any work for us specialists.”

“I’m sorry; I didn’t know…”

“Nonsense. I am the one who should be grateful to you. You are living proof against the Millman school’s thesis concerning the harmful effects of increased acceleration on the human body. You do not even exhibit hypertrophy of the left ventricle, nor is there a trace of emphysema… and the heart is excellent. But you know this?”

“Yes.”

“As a doctor, I really have nothing more to tell you, Bregg; however…”

He hesitated.

“Yes?”

“You are coping in our… present way of life?”

“Muddling along.”

“Your hair is gray, Bregg.”

“That means something?”

“Yes. Gray hair signifies age. No one turns gray now before eighty, and even then, rarely.”

It was the truth, I realized: I had seen no old people.

“Why?” I asked.

“There are preparations, medicines that halt graying. One can also restore the original color of the hair, although that is a little more trouble.”

“Fine,” I said, “but why are you telling me this?”

I saw that he was undecided.

“Women, Bregg,” he said abruptly.

I winced.

“Is that supposed to mean that I look like… an old man?”

“Like an old man — no, more like an athlete… but, then, you don’t walk about naked. It is mainly when you sit that you look… that an average person would take you for an old man who has had a rejuvenation operation, hormone treatments, etcetera.”

“I don’t mind,” I said. I do not know why his calm gaze made me feel so awful. He took off his glasses and put them on his desk. He had blue, slightly watery eyes.

’There is a great deal you do not understand, Bregg. If you intended to live like a monk for the remainder of your days, your ‘I don’t mind’ might be in order, but… the society to which you have returned is not enthusiastic about what you gave more than your life for.”

“Don’t say that, doctor.”

“I am saying what I think. To give one’s life, what is that? People have been doing it for centuries. But to give up all one’s friends, parents, kin, acquaintances, women — you did sacrifice them, Bregg!”

“Doctor…”

The word hardly left my throat. I rested an elbow on the old desk.

“Apart from a handful of specialists, no one cares about it, Bregg. You know that?”

“Yes. They told me on Luna, at Adapt, only they put it… more delicately.”

We were silent for a while.

“The society to which you have returned is stabilized. Life is tranquil. Do you understand? The romance of the early days of astronautics is gone. It is like the achievements of Columbus. His expedition was something extraordinary, but who took any interest in the captains of galleons two hundred years after him? There was a two-line note about your return in the real.”

“But, doctor, that is not important,” I said. His sympathy was beginning to irritate me more than the indifference of others, though I could not tell him that.

“It is, Bregg, although you do not want to face it. If you were someone else, I would be silent, but you deserve the truth. You are alone. A man cannot live alone. Your interests, the ones you have returned with, are an island in a sea of ignorance. I doubt if many people would want to hear what you could tell them. I happen to be one of the interested ones, but I am eighty-nine years old…”

“I have nothing to tell,” I said, angry. “Nothing sensational. We did not discover any galactic civilization, and anyway, I was only a pilot. I flew the ship. Someone had to do it.”

“Yes?” he said quietly, raising his white eyebrows.

On the surface I was calm, but inside furious.

“Yes! A thousand times, yes! And that indifference, now — if you must know — affects me only on account of the ones who were left behind…”

“Who was left behind?” he asked quietly.

I cooled down.

“There were many. Arder, Venturi, Ennesson. Doctor, what point… ?”

“I don’t ask out of mere curiosity. This was — and believe me, I do not like grand words, either — a part of my own youth. It was because of you people that I took up these studies. We are equal in our uselessness. You may not, of course, accept this. I won’t belabor the point. But I would like to know. What happened to Arder?”

“No one knows exactly,” I answered. Suddenly it didn’t matter. And why shouldn’t I speak about it? I looked at the cracked black polish of the desk. I had never imagined that it would be like this.

“We were flying two probes over Arcturus. I lost contact with him. I couldn’t find him. It was his radio that had gone dead, not mine. When my oxygen ran out, I returned.”

“You waited?”

“Yes. That is, I circled Arcturus. Six days. A hundred and fifty-six hours, to be exact.”

“By yourself?”

“Yes. I had bad luck, because Arcturus developed new spots and I completely lost contact with the Prometheus. With my ship. Static. He could not return alone, without a radio. Arder, I mean. Because in the probes the directional teleran is connected to the radio. He could not return without me, and he didn’t return. Gimma ordered me back. He was quite right: to kill time, I later calculated the chances of my finding Arder by visual means, on the radar — I don’t remember exactly now, but it was something like one in a trillion. I hope he did the same as Arne Ennesson.”

“What did Arne Ennesson do?”

“He lost beam focalization. His thrust began to go on him. He could have stayed in orbit, I don’t know, another twenty-four hours; he would have spiraled, then finally fallen into Arcturus, so he chose to enter the protuberance at once. Burned up before my eyes.”

“How many pilots were there besides you?”

“On the Prometheus, five.”

“How many came back?”

“Olaf Staave and myself. I know what you’re thinking, doctor — that this was heroism. I, too, thought that way once, reading books about such people. But it isn’t so. Do you hear? If I could have, I would have left Arder and returned at once, but I couldn’t. He would not have returned, either. None of us would have. Including Gimma…”

“Why do you protest so much?” he asked softly.

“Because there is a difference between heroism and necessity. I did what anyone would have done. Doctor, to understand it you would have had to be there. A man is a bubble of fluid. All it takes is a defocalized drive or a demagnetized field, vibrations are set up, and in an instant the blood coagulates. Bear in mind that I’m not talking about outside causes, such as meteors, but only about malfunctions, defects. The least damned thing, a burned-out filament in the transmitter — and that’s it. If people were to let one another down under such conditions, the expeditions would amount to suicide. You understand?” I closed my eyes for a second. “Doctor — they don’t fly now? How can that be?”

“You want to fly?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I’ll tell you. None of us would have flown had he known. What it is like, no one knows. No one who wasn’t there. We were a group of mortally frightened, desperate animals.”

“How do you reconcile this with what you said a moment ago?”

“I don’t. That is how it was. We were afraid. Doctor, while I was orbiting that sun, waiting for Arder, I conjured up various people and spoke with them. I spoke for myself and for them, and toward the end I believed that they were there with me. Each saved himself the best way he knew how. Think about it, doctor. Here I sit before you. I’ve rented myself a villa, I’ve bought an old car; I want to leam, read, swim; but I have all that inside me. That space, that silence, and how Venturi cried for help, and I, instead of saving him, went into full reverse!”

“Why?”

“I was piloting the Prometheus; his pile broke down. He could have blown us all up. It did not blow up; it would not have blown up. Perhaps we would have had time to pull him out, but I did not have the right to risk it. Then, with Arder, it was the other way around. I wanted to save him, but Gimma ordered me in, because he was afraid that we would both die.”

“Bregg… tell me, what did you all expect of us? Of Earth?”

“I have no idea. I never thought about it. It was like someone talking about the hereafter or heaven: it would come, but none of us could picture it. Doctor — enough. Let’s not talk about it. I did want to ask you one thing. This betrization… what exactly is it?”

“What do you know about it?”

I told him, but said nothing of how or from whom I had acquired my knowledge.

“Yes,” he said, “that is more or less so, in the popular conception.”

“And I… ?”

“The law makes an exception in your case, because the betrization of adults can affect the health and even be dangerous. Besides which, it is considered — rightly, in my opinion — that you have passed a test… of moral attitude. And, in any event, there are so few of you.”

“Doctor, one more thing. You mentioned women. Why did you say that to me? But perhaps I am taking up too much of your time.”

“No, you’re not. Why did I say that? Who can a man be close to, Bregg? To his parents. His children. Friends. A woman. You have neither parents nor children. You cannot have friends.”

“Why?”

“I was not thinking of your comrades, although I don’t know if you would want to be constantly in their company, to remember…”

“God, no! Never!”

“And so? You know two eras. In the first you spent your youth, and the second you will get to know soon enough. If we include those ten years, your experience cannot be compared with that of people your age. You cannot be on an equal footing with them. What then? Are you to live among old people? That leaves women, Bregg. Only women.”

“Perhaps just one,” I muttered.

“Ah, just one is difficult nowadays.”

“How so?”

“Ours is a period of prosperity. Translated into the language of sexual matters this means: arbitrariness. Because you cannot acquire love or women for… money. Material factors have ceased to exist here.”

“And this you call arbitrariness? Doctor!”

“Yes. No doubt you think — since I spoke of buying love — that I meant prostitution, whether concealed or in the open. No. That now belongs to the distant past. Once, success used to attract a woman. A man could impress her with his salary, his professional qualifications, his social position. In an egalitarian society that is not possible. With one or two exceptions. If, for example, you were a realist…”

“I am a realist.”

The doctor smiled.

“The word has another meaning now. A realist is an actor appearing in the real. Have you been to the real?”

“No.”

“Take in a couple of melodramas and you will understand what the criteria for sexual selection are today. The most important thing is youth. That is why everyone struggles for it so much. Wrinkles and gray hair, especially when premature, evoke the same kind of feelings as leprosy did, centuries ago…”

“But why?”

“It is hard for you to understand. But arguments based on reason are powerless against prevailing customs. You fail to appreciate how many factors, once decisive in the erotic sphere, have vanished. Nature abhors a vacuum; other factors had to take their place. Consider, for example, something you have become accustomed to, so accustomed that you no longer see the exceptional nature of the phenomenon: risk. It does not exist any more, Bregg. A man cannot impress a woman with heroics, with reckless deeds, and yet literature, art, our whole culture for centuries was nourished by this current: love in the face of adversity. Orpheus went to Hades for Eurydice. Othello killed for love. The tragedy of Romeo and Juliet… Today there is no tragedy. Not even the possibility of it. We eliminated the hell of passion, and then it turned out that in the same sweep, heaven, too, had ceased to be. Everything is now lukewarm, Bregg.”

“Lukewarm?”

“Yes. Do you know what even the unhappiest lovers do? They behave sensibly. No impetuosity, no rivalry…”

“You mean to say all that has disappeared?” I asked. For the first time I felt a kind of superstitious dread of this world. The old doctor was silent.

“Doctor, it’s not possible. Really?”

“Yes, really. And you must accept it, Bregg, like air, like water. I said that it is difficult to have just one woman. For a lifetime it is practically impossible. The average length of a marriage is roughly seven years. And that represents progress. Half a century ago, it was less than four…”

“Doctor, I don’t want to take up your time. What do you advise me to do?”

“What I mentioned before: restore the original color of your hair. It sounds trivial, I know. But it is important. I am embarrassed to be giving you such advice. Embarrassed not for myself. But what can I… ?”

“Thank you. Really. One last thing. Tell me, how do I look out on the street? To the people on the street? What is there about me… ?”

“Bregg, you are Different. First, there is your size. Something out of the Iliad. Antediluvian proportions. It could even be an opportunity, although you know, don’t you, the fate of those who are too different?”

“I know.”

“You are a little too big. I do not remember such people even in my youth. You look now like a very tall man dressed terribly, but it is not that the clothes hang badly on you, it is just because you are so incredibly well muscled. Before the voyage, too?”

“No, doctor. It was the two g’s, you understand.”

“That is possible…”

“Seven years. Seven years of doubled weight. My muscles had to become enlarged, the respiratory, the abdominal, and I know the size of my neck. But otherwise I would have suffocated like a rat. They were working even while I slept. Even in hibernation. Everything weighed twice as much. That was the reason.”

“The others, too? Excuse me for asking, it is my medical curiosity… Yours was the longest expedition there ever was, you know.”

“I know. The others? Olaf is pretty much like me. No doubt it depends on the skeleton; I was always broad. Arder was larger. Over two meters. Yes, Arder… What was I saying? The others — well, I was the youngest and therefore able to adapt better. That at least is what Venturi said… Are you familiar with the work of Janssen?”

“Am I? It is a classic for us, Bregg.”

“Really? That’s funny. He was one lively little doctor… I took seventy-nine g’s for a second and a half for him, did you know that?”

“Are you serious?”

I smiled.

“I have it in writing. But that was a hundred and thirty years ago. Now forty would be too much for me.”

“Bregg, today no one could take twenty!”

“Why? Because of the betrization?”

He was silent. It seemed to me that he knew something but did not want to tell me. I got up.

“Bregg,” he said, “since we are on the subject: be careful.”

“Of what?”

“Of yourself and of others. Progress never comes free. We’ve rid ourselves of a thousand dangers, conflicts, but for that we had to pay. Society has softened, while you are… you can be hard. Do you understand me?”

“I do,” I said, thinking of the man in the restaurant the night before who had laughed but fell silent when I walked up to him.

“Doctor,” I said suddenly, “I just remembered… I met a lion last night. Two lions, in fact. Why did they do nothing to me?”

“There are no predators now, Bregg… Betrization… You met them last night? And what did you do?”

“I scratched their necks,” I said and showed him how. “But that Iliad business, doctor, is an exaggeration. I was badly frightened. What do I owe you?”

“I wouldn’t think of it. And if you ever need…”

“Thank you.”

“But don’t put if off too long,” he added, almost to himself, as I was leaving. Only on the stairs did I realize what that meant: he was nearly ninety.

I went back to the hotel. In the hall was a barber. A robot, of course. I had it cut my hair. I was pretty shaggy, with a lot of hair over the ears. The temples were the grayest. When it was done, it seemed to me that I looked a little less savage. In a melodious voice the robot asked if it should darken the hair.

“No,” I said.

“Aprex?”

“What is that?”

“For wrinkles.”

I hesitated. I felt stupid, but perhaps the doctor had been right.

“Go ahead,” I agreed. It covered my face with a layer of sharp-smelling jelly that hardened into a mask. Afterward I lay under compresses, glad that my face was covered.

I went upstairs; the packages with the liquid clothing were already lying in my room. I stripped and went into the bathroom, where there was a mirror.

Yes. I could strike terror. I had not known that I looked like a circus strongman. Indented pectorals, torso, I was knotted all over. When I lifted my arm and flexed the chest, a scar as wide as the palm of my hand appeared on it. I tried to see the other, near the shoulder blade, for which I had been called a lucky bastard, because if the splinter had gone three centimeters more to the left it would have shattered my spine. I punched the plank of my stomach.

“Animal,” I said to the mirror. I wanted a bath, a real one, not in the ozone wind, and looked forward to the swimming pool at the villa. I decided to dress in one of my new things, but somehow could not part with my trousers. So I put on only the white sweater, although I much preferred my old black one tattered at the elbows, and went to the restaurant.

Half the tables were occupied. I passed through three rooms to reach the terrace; from there I could see the great boulevards, the endless streams of gleeders; under the clouds, like a mountain peak, blue in the distant air, stood the Terminal.

I ordered lunch.

“What will you have?” asked the robot. It wanted to give me a menu.

“It doesn’t matter,” I replied. “A regular lunch.”

It was only when I began to eat that I noticed that the tables around me were vacant. I had automatically sought seclusion. I had not even realized it. I did not know what I was eating. I was no longer certain that what I had decided on was good. A vacation, as if I wanted to reward myself, seeing as no one else had thought of it. The waiter approached noiselessly.

“Mr.Bregg?”

“Yes.”

“You have a visitor — in your room.”

“A visitor?”

I thought at once of Nais. I drank the rest of the dark, bubbling liquid and got up, feeling stares at my back as I left. It would have been nice to saw off about ten centimeters. In my room sat a young woman I had never seen before. A fluffy gray dress, a red whimsy around her arms.

“I am from Adapt,” she said. “I spoke with you today.”

“Ah, so that was you?”

I stiffened a little. What did they want of me now?

She sat down. And I sat down slowly.

“How are you feeling?”

“Fine. I went to a doctor today, and he examined me. Everything is in working order. I have rented myself a villa. I want to do a little reading.”

“Very wise. Clavestra is ideal for that. You will have mountains, quiet…”

She knew that it was Clavestra. Were they spying on me, or what? I sat motionless, waiting.

“I brought you… something from us.” She pointed to a small package on the table. “It is our latest thing.” She spoke with an animation that seemed artificial. “Before going to sleep you set this machine, and in the course of a dozen nights or so you learn, in the easiest possible way, without any effort, a great many useful things.”

“Really? That’s good,” I said. She smiled at me. And I smiled, the well-behaved pupil.

“You are a psychologist?”

“Yes. You guessed.”

She hesitated. I saw that she wanted to say something.

“Go ahead.”

“You won’t be angry with me?”

“Why should I be angry?”

“Because… you see… the way you are dressed is a bit…”

“I know. But I like these trousers. Maybe in time…”

“Ah, no, not the trousers. The sweater.”

“The sweater?” I was surprised. “They made it for me today. It’s the latest word in fashion, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Except that you shouldn’t have inflated it. May I?”

“Please,” I said quite softly. She leaned forward in her chair, poked me lightly in the chest with straightened fingers, and let out a faint cry.

“What do you have there?”

“Other than myself, nothing,” I answered with a crooked smile.

She clutched the fingers of her right hand with her left and stood up. Suddenly my calm, invested with a malicious satisfaction, became like ice.

“Why don’t you sit down?”

“But… I’m terribly sorry, I…”

“Forget it. Have you been with Adapt long?”

“It’s my second year.”

“Aha — and your first patient?” I pointed a finger at myself. She blushed a little.

“May I ask you something?”

Her eyelids fluttered. Did she think that I would ask her out?

“Certainly.”

“How do they work it so that the sky is visible at every level of the city?”

She perked up.

“Very simple. Television — that is what they called it, long ago. On the ceilings are screens. They transmit what is above the Earth — the sky, the clouds…”

“But surely the levels are not that high,” I said. “Forty-story buildings stand there…”

“It is an illusion,” she said, smiling. “The buildings are only partly real; their continuation is an image. Do you understand?”

“I understand how it’s done, but not the reason.”

“So that the people living on each level do not feel deprived. Not in any way.”

“Aha,” I said. “Yes, that’s clever. One more thing. I’ll be shopping for books. Could you suggest a few works in your field? An overview… ?”

“You want to study psychology?” She was surprised.

“No, but I’d like to know what has been accomplished in all this time.”

“I’d recommend Mayssen,” she said.

“What is that?”

“A school textbook.”

“I would prefer something larger. Abstracts, monographs — it’s always better to go to the source.”

“That might be too… difficult.”

I smiled politely.

“Perhaps not. What would the difficulty be?”

“Psychology has become very mathematical…”

“So have I. At least, up to the point where I left off, a hundred or so years ago. Do I need to know more?”

“But you are not a mathematician.”

“Not by profession, but I studied the subject. On the Prometheus. There was a lot of spare time, you know.”

Surprised, disconcerted, she said no more. She gave me a piece of paper with a list of titles. When she had gone, I returned to the desk and sat down heavily. Even she, an employee of Adapt… Mathematics? How was it possible? A wild man. I hate them, I thought. I hate them. I hate them. Whom did I hate? I did not know. Everyone. Yes, everyone. I had been tricked. They sent me out, not knowing themselves what they were doing. I should not have returned, like Venturi, Arder, Thomas, but I did return, to frighten them, to walk about like a guilty conscience that no one wants. I am useless, I thought. If only I could cry. Arder knew how. He said you should not be ashamed of tears. Maybe I had lied to the doctor. I had never told anyone about that, but I was not sure whether I would have done it for anyone else. Perhaps I would have. For Olaf, later. But I was not completely sure of that. Arder! They destroyed us and we believed in them, feeling the entire time that Earth was by us, present, had faith in us, was mindful of us. No one spoke of it. Why speak of what is obvious?

I got up. I couldn’t sit still. I walked from corner to corner.

Enough. I opened the bathroom door, but there was no water, of course, to splash on my face. Stupid. Hysterics.

I went back to the room and started to pack.