Return From The Stars Part 1

Return From The Stars.

by Stanislaw Lem.

ONE.

I took nothing with me, not even a coat. Unnecessary, they said. They let me keep my black sweater: it would pa.s.s. But the s.h.i.+rt 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 s.h.i.+p, 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 cus.h.i.+ons were engulfingly soft, as everywhere. The back of my seat was so high that I could barely see the other pa.s.sengers. 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 fas.h.i.+on. 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 h.e.l.l 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 coc.o.o.n. 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, h.e.l.l, to the opening of a door, seeing as doork.n.o.bs 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 s.p.a.ce, 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, a.s.signed 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 pa.s.sengers 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 pa.s.sengers 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 part.i.tion 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 s.p.a.ce, 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 forwardin 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. Rus.h.i.+ng upward, enormous fountains of a liquid denser than water, illuminated from inside by colored floodlights? No -- vertical tunnels of gla.s.s 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 s.p.a.ce, but there were no clear s.p.a.ces 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 s.h.i.+mmered. 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 s.h.i.+ps 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 pa.s.sed through an interior filled with people both standing and seated; a mult.i.tude 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, peac.o.c.k 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 gla.s.s 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 s.p.a.ce kept being pierced by streaks of vehicles unknown to me -- aircraft, probably, because now and then they veered up or down, spiraling into s.p.a.ce, 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, pa.s.sed 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 gla.s.s of the ceilings, of those mysterious columns, and was reflected by the silver surfaces; it bled into every corner, into the interiors of the pa.s.sageways that glided by, into the features of the people. The green of the incessantly jumping neons became dingy; the milkiness of the parabolic b.u.t.tresses 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 pa.s.s 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 gla.s.s, 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, pa.s.sed 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, a.s.suring 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 s.p.a.ce 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 tete-a-tete. 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 d.a.m.ned 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 pa.s.sers-by, so at random I followed a sloping sky-blue arrow upward; without any particular sensation, my body pa.s.sed 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 s.h.i.+ning 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 pa.s.sed; 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, cl.u.s.ters of spiral lights, glows s.h.i.+mmering above skysc.r.a.pers, 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 gla.s.ses, 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 pa.s.sages, 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 pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sively, squinting, abstracted. A steep green corridor, grotesque pavilions, paG.o.das reached by little bridges, everywhere small cafes, the sharp, persistent smell of fried food, rows of gas flames behind windows, the clinking of gla.s.s, 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 gla.s.s, even the seats were like gla.s.s, 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, diminis.h.i.+ng garlands of lights. RAMBRENT RAMBRENT. There was a fluttering from white and bluish fluorescent tubes, stairs of crystalline brilliance, black facades; 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: BACK TODAY GLENIANIA ROON WITH HER MIMORPHIC REAL RECORDING PAYS TRIBUTE IN THE ORATORIUM TO THE MEMORY OF RAPPER KERX POLITR. TERMINAL NEWS BULLETIN: TODAY IN AMMONLEE PETIFARGUE PRODUCED THE SYSTOLIZATION OF THE FIRST ENZOM. THE VOICE OF THE DISTINGUISHED GRAVISTICIAN WILL BE BROADCAST AT HOUR TWENTY-SEVEN. ARRAKER LEADS. ARRAKER REPEATED HIS SUCCESS AS THE FIRST OBLITERATOR OF THE SEASON AT THE TRANSVAAL STADIUM.

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 s.h.i.+ny 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 h.e.l.l 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 mult.i.tude 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 gla.s.ses, 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 pa.s.sed; the girl turned to the man; her arms and b.r.e.a.s.t.s 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 pa.s.sed through a curtain of light and found myself inside a rocky grotto. It was like ten, fifty Gothic naves formed out of stalact.i.tes; 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 sh.o.r.e, 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, gla.s.ses 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 gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s 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 s.p.a.ce 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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s 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 s.h.i.+ning, 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 gla.s.s, 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 rus.h.i.+ng out of the darkness, from behind the shrubbery, was the kind you would expect in an open s.p.a.ce. 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 pa.s.sage, 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.