Return From The Stars Part 14

"How so?"

"Well, you know engineers! They reached such a level of perfection in their simulations that certain models could not be distinguished from live human beings. Some people could not tolerate that. . ."

Suddenly I remembered the stewardess on the s.h.i.+p that I had taken from Luna.

"Could not tolerate that. . . ?" I repeated his words. "Was it, then, something like a. . . phobia?"

"I am no psychologist, but I suppose you could call it that. Anyway, this is ancient history."

"And are there still such robots?"

"Oh yes, they are found on short-range rockets. Did you meet one of them?"

I gave an evasive answer.

"Will you have time now to take care of your business?" He was concerned.

"My business. . . ?"

Then I remembered that I was supposed to have something to attend to in the city. We parted at the entrance to the station, where he had led me, all the while thanking me for extricating him from a difficult situation.

I wandered about the streets; I went to a realon but left before sitting through half of the ridiculous show, and I rode to Clavestra in the lowest spirits. I sent back the gleeder a kilometer from the villa and went the rest of the way on foot. Everything was in order. They were mechanisms of metal, wire, gla.s.s, one could a.s.semble them and disa.s.semble them, I told myself; but I could not shake off the memory of that hall, of the darkness and the distorted voices, that cacophony of despair which held too much meaning, too much of the most ordinary fear. I could tell myself that I was a specialist on that subject, I had tasted it enough, horror at the prospect of sudden annihilation has ceased to be fiction for me, as it was for them, those sensible designers who had organized the whole thing so well: robots took care of their own kind, did so to the very end, and man did not interfere. It was a closed cycle of precision instruments that created, reproduced, and destroyed themselves, and I had needlessly overheard the agony of mechanical death.

I stopped at the top of a hill. The view, in the slanting rays of the sun, was indescribably beautiful. Every now and then a gleeder, gleaming like a black bullet, sped along the ribbon highway, aimed at the horizon, where mountains rose in a bluish outline, softened by the distance. And suddenly I felt that I could not look -- as if I did not have the right to look, as if there lay a horrible deception in this, squeezing at my throat. I sat down among the trees, buried my face in my hands; I regretted having returned. When I entered the house a white robot approached me.

"You have a telephone call," it said confidingly. "Long distance: Eurasia."

I walked after it quickly. The telephone was in the hall, so that while speaking I could see the garden through the gla.s.s door.

"Hal?" came a faraway but clear voice. "It's Olaf."

"Olaf . . . Olaf!" I repeated in a triumphant tone. "Where are you, friend?"

"Narvik."

"What are you doing? How is it going? You got my letter?"

"Of course. That's how I knew where to find you."

A moment of silence.

"What are you doing. . . ?" I repeated, less certain.

"What is there to do? I'm doing nothing. And you?"

"Did you go to Adapt?"

"I did. But only for a day. I stopped. I couldn't, you know. . ."

"I know. Listen, Olaf. . . I've rented a villa here. It might not be. . . but -- listen! Come and stay here!"

He did not answer at once. When he did, there was hesitation in his voice.

"I'd like to come. And I might, Hal, but you know what they told us. . ."

"I know. But what can they do to us? Anyway, to h.e.l.l with them. Come on."

"What would be the point? Think, Hal. It could be. . ."

"What?"

"Worse."

"And how do you know that I'm not having a ball here?"

I heard his short laugh, really more a sigh: he laughed so quietly.

"Then what do you want with me there?"

Suddenly an idea hit me.

"Olaf. Listen. It's a kind of summer resort here. A villa, a pool, gardens. The only problem. . . but you must know what things are like now, the way they live, right?"

"I have a rough idea."

The tone said more than the words.

"There you are, then. Now pay attention! Come here. But first get hold of some. . . boxing gloves. Two pairs. We'll do some sparring. You'll see, it'll be great!"

"Christ! Hal, Where am I going to find you boxing gloves? There probably haven't been any made for years."

"So have them made. Don't tell me it's impossible to make four stupid gloves. We'll set up a little ring -- we'll pound each other. We two can, Olaf! You've heard about betrizating, I take it?"

"H'm. I'd tell you what I think of it. But not over the phone. Somebody might have delicate ears."

"Look, come. You'll do what I said?"

He was silent for a while.

"I don't know if there's any sense to it, Hal."

"All right. Then tell me, while you're at it, what plans you have. If you have any, then naturally I wouldn't think of bothering you with my whims."

"I have none," he said. "And you?"

"I came here to rest, educate myself, read, but these aren't plans, just. . . I simply couldn't see anything else ahead for me."

Silence.

"Olaf?"

"It appears that we have got off to an even start," he muttered. "What the h.e.l.l. After all, I can leave at any time, if it turns out that. . ."

"Oh, stop it!" I said impatiently. "There is nothing to discuss. Pack a bag and come. When can you be here?"

"Tomorrow morning. You really want to box?"

"And you don't?"

He laughed.

"h.e.l.l, yes. And for the same reason you do."

"It's a deal, then," I said quickly. "I'll be expecting you. Take care."

I went upstairs. I looked through some things I had put in a separate suitcase and found the rope. A large coil. Ropes for a ring. Four posts, some rubber or springs, and we would be set. No referee. We wouldn't need one.

Then I sat down to the books. But it was as if my head were full of cement. When I had had that feeling in the past, I had chewed my way through the text like a bark beetle through iron-wood. But I had never had this much trouble. In two hours I skimmed through twenty books and could not keep my attention on anything for longer than five minutes. I threw aside even the fairy tales. I decided not to indulge myself. I took what seemed to me the most difficult thing, a monograph on the a.n.a.lysis of metagens, and threw myself at the first equations as if, head lowered, I were charging a stone wall.

Mathematics, however, had certain beneficial properties, particularly for me, because after an hour I understood suddenly, my jaw dropped, I was struck with awe -- this Ferret, how had he been able to do it? Even now, going back over the trail that he had blazed, I had moments when I lost my way; step by step I could still manage, but that man must have accomplished it in one leap.

I would have given all the stars to have in my head, for a month, something resembling the contents of his.

The signal sang out dinner, and at the same time something prodded me in the gut, reminding me that I was not alone here. For a second I considered eating upstairs. But shame overcame me. I threw under the bed the awful tight s.h.i.+rt that made me look like an inflated monkey, put on my priceless old loose-fitting sweater, and went down to the dining room. Apart from the exchange of a few trite civilities, there was silence. No conversation. They did not require words. They communicated in glances; she spoke to him with her head, her lashes, with her faint smile. And slowly a cold weight began to grow inside me, I felt my arms hungering, how they longed to seize something, and squeeze, and crush. Why was I so savage? I wondered with despair. Why, instead of thinking about Ferret's book, about the questions raised by Starck, instead of looking to my own affairs, why did I have to wrestle myself to keep from leering at that girl like a wolf?

But I did not become frightened until I closed behind me the door of my room upstairs. At Adapt they had told me, after the tests, that I was completely normal. Dr. Juffon had said the same thing. But could a normal person feel what I was feeling at that moment? Where did it come from? I was not a partic.i.p.ant in it -- I was a witness. Something was taking place, something irreversible, like the motion of a planet, an almost imperceptible, gradual emergence, still without form. I went to the window, looked out into the dark garden, and realized that this must have been in me ever since lunch, from the very first moment; it had just required a certain period of time. That was why I had gone to the city, why I had forgotten about the voices in the dark.

I was capable of doing anything. For that girl. I did not understand the how of it or the why. I did not know if it was love or madness. That did not matter. I only knew that everything had lost its importance for me. And I fought this -- standing by the open window -- as I had never fought anything before; I pressed my forehead to the cold window and feared myself.

I must do something, I mouthed. I must do something. It's because something's wrong with me. It will pa.s.s. She can't mean anything to me. I don't know her. She isn't even especially pretty. But at least I won't do anything. I won't -- I pleaded with myself -- at least I won't commit any. . . ye G.o.ds and little fishes!

I turned on the light. Olaf. Olaf would save me. I would tell him everything. He would take charge of me. We would go off somewhere. I would do what he told me, everything. He alone would understand. He would be arriving tomorrow. Good.

I paced the room. I could feel each one of my muscles, it was like being full of animals, they tensed, grappled with one another; suddenly I knelt at the bed, bit into the blanket, and made a strange sound, not like a sob, but dry, hideous; I did not want, I did not want to harm anyone, but I knew that it was useless to lie to myself, that Olaf couldn't help, no one could.

I got up. For ten years I had learned to make decisions at a moment's notice, decisions on which lives depended, my own and others', and I had always gone about it in the same way. I would go cold, my brain would turn into a machine made to calculate the for and the against, to separate and solve, irrevocably. Even Gimma, who did not like me, acknowledged my impartiality. And now, even if I had wanted to, I could not have acted differently, but only as then, in extremity, because this, too, was an extremity. I found my face in the mirror, the pale, almost white irises, narrowed pupils; I looked with hatred, I turned away, I could not think of going to bed. As I was, I swung my legs out over the window ledge. It was four meters to the ground. I jumped, landing almost without a sound. I ran silently in the direction of the pool. Past it, and onto the road. The phosph.o.r.escent surface led to the hills, wound among them like a s.h.i.+ning snake, a viper, until it disappeared, a scar of light in the shadows. I tore along, faster and faster, to tire my heart, which pounded so steadily, so strongly; I ran for about an hour, until I saw the lights of some houses ahead. I had returned to my starting point. I was weary now, but for that reason I kept up the pace, telling myself silently: There! There! There! I kept running and finally came to a double row of hedges. I was back in front of the garden of the villa.

Breathing heavily, I stopped by the pool and sat down on the concrete edge; I lowered my head and saw the stars reflected. I did not want the stars. I had no use for them. I had been crazy, deranged, when I had fought for a place in the expedition, when I had let myself be turned into a bleeding sack in the gravirotors; what reason had I had, and why, why had I not realized that a man must be ordinary, completely ordinary, that otherwise it is impossible, and pointless, to live.

I heard a rustle. They went by me. He had his arm around her, they walked in step. He leaned over. The shadows of their heads merged.

I rose. He was kissing her. She, embracing his head. I saw the pale lines of her arms. Then a feeling of shame, of shame such as I had never known, horrible, sickening, cut through me like a knife. I, interstellar traveler, companion of Arder, having returned, stood in a garden and thought only of how to take a girl from some man, knowing neither him nor her, a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, an unmitigated b.a.s.t.a.r.d from the stars, worse, worse. . .

I could not look. And I looked. At last they slowly went back, clinging to each other, and I, skirting the pool, set off again, then saw a large black shape and at the same time hit something with my hands. It was a car. Groping, I found the door. When I opened it, a light came on.

Everything that I did now was with a deliberate, concentrated haste, as if I was supposed to drive somewhere, as if I had to. . .

The motor responded. I turned the wheel and, headlights on, drove out onto the road. My hands shook a little, so I tightened my grip on the wheel. Suddenly I remembered the little black box; I braked sharply and nearly skidded off the road, I jumped out, lifted the hood, and began feverishly to look for it. The engine was completely different, I couldn't find it. Perhaps at the very front. Wires. A cast-iron block. A ca.s.sette. Something unfamiliar, square -- yes, that was it. Tools. I worked furiously, but with care; I hardly bloodied my hands. Finally I lifted out the black cube, heavy as if it were solid metal, and flung it into the bushes along the side of the road. I was free. I slammed the door and took off. The air began to whistle. More speed. The engine roared, the tires made a piercing hiss. A curve. I took it without slowing down, cut to the left, pulled out of the turn. Another curve, sharper. I felt an enormous force pus.h.i.+ng me, along with the machine, to the outside of the bend. Still not enough. The next curve. At Apprenous they had special cars for pilots. We did stunts in them, to improve reflexes. Very good training. Developed a sense of balance, too. For example, on a turn you throw the car onto the two outside wheels and drive like that for a while. I could do that, at one time. And I did it now, on the empty highway, careening through the darkness shattered by my headlights. Not that I wanted to kill myself. It was simply that nothing mattered. If I showed no mercy to others, then I could show none to myself. I took the car into the turn and lifted it, so that for a moment it went on its side, tires howling, and again I flung it, in the opposite direction, fishtailed with a crash into something dark -- a tree? Then there was nothing but the roar of the engine picking up speed, and the dials' pale reflections on the winds.h.i.+eld, and the wind whistling viciously. And then I saw, up ahead, a gleeder, it tried to avoid me by taking the very edge of the road, a small movement of the wheel carried me by it, the heavy machine spun like a top, a dull thud, the clatter of torn metal, and darkness. The headlights were smashed, the engine died.

I took a deep breath. Nothing had happened to me, I was not even bruised. I tried the headlights: nothing. The small front lights: the left worked. In its weak glow, I started the engine. The car, grinding, wobbled back onto the highway. A fine machine, though: after all that I had put it through, it still obeyed me. I headed back, slower now. But my foot pressed the pedal, again something came over me when I saw a curve coming up. And again I forced the maximum from the engine, until, with squealing tires, thrown forward by the momentum, I pulled up just before the hedge. I drove the machine into the brush. Pus.h.i.+ng aside the shrubbery, it came to rest against a stump. I did not want anyone to know what I had done to it, so I pulled down some branches and threw them over the hood and the broken headlights. Only the front had been smashed; there was just a small dent in the back, from the first collision with the pole or whatever it had been there in the darkness.

Then I listened. The house was dark. Everything was still. The great silence of the night reached up to the stars. I did not want to return to the house. I walked away from the battered car, and when the gra.s.s -- the tall, damp gra.s.s -- touched my knees, I fell into it and lay thus until my eyes closed and I slept.

I was wakened by a laugh. I recognized it. I knew who it was before I opened my eyes, instantly awake. I was soaked, everything dripped with dew -- the sun was still low. The sky, tufts of white clouds. And opposite me, on a small suitcase, sat Olaf, laughing. We leapt to our feet at the same time. His hand was like mine -- as large and as hard.

"When did you get here?"

"A moment ago."

"By ulder?"

"Yes. I slept like that, too, the first two nights."

"Yes?"

He stopped smiling. So did I. As though something stood between us. We studied each other.

He was my height, perhaps even a bit taller, but more slender. In the strong light his hair, though dark, betrayed his Scandinavian origin, and his stubble was completely blond. A bent nose, full of character, and a short upper lip that revealed his teeth; his eyes smiled easily, pale blue, darkening with merriment; thin lips, with a perpetual, slight curl to them, as if he received everything with skepticism -- perhaps it was that expression of his that made us keep our distance from each other. Olaf was two years older than I; his best friend had been Arder. Only when Arder died did we become close. For good, now.

"Olaf," I said, "you must be hungry. Let's get something to eat."

"Wait," he said. "What is that?"

I followed his gaze.

"Ah, that. . . nothing. A car. I bought it -- to remind myself."

"You had an accident?"

"Yes. I was driving at night, you see. . ."

"You, an accident?" he repeated.

"Well, yes. But it's not important. Anyway, nothing happened. Come on, you're not going to. . . with that suitcase. . ."

He picked it up. Said nothing. He did not look at me. The muscles of his jaw worked.

He senses something, I thought. He doesn't know what caused the accident, but he guesses.

Upstairs, I told him to choose one of the four vacant rooms. He took the one with the view of the mountains.

"Why didn't you want it? Ah, I know," he smiled. "The gold, right?"

"Yes."

He touched the wall with his hand.

"Ordinary, I hope? No pictures, television?"