Return From the Stars

by Stanisław Lem

  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 phosphorescent surface led to the hills, wound among them like a shining 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 bastard, an unmitigated bastard 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 cassette. 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 pushing 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 windshield, 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. Pushing 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 grass — the tall, damp grass — 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?”

  “Rest assured.” It was my turn to smile. “Its a proper wall.”

  I phoned down for breakfast. I wanted us to eat alone. The white robot brought in coffee. And a full tray, an ample breakfast. I watched with pleasure how he chewed, he chewed so that a tuft of hair above one ear moved. Finished, Olaf said:

  “You still smoke?”

  “I do. I brought two packs with me. What happens after that, I don’t know. At present, I smoke. You want one?”

  “One.”

  We smoked.

  “How is it to be? Cards on the table?” he asked after a long pause.

  “Yes. I’ll tell you everything. And you me?”

  “Always. But, Hal, I don’t know if it’s worth it.”

  “Tell me one thing: do you know what the worst of it is?”

  “Women.”

  “Yes.”

  Again we were silent.

  “It’s on account of that?” he asked.

  “Yes. You’ll see at dinner. Downstairs. They are renting half of the villa.”

  “They?”

  “A young couple.”

  The muscles of his jaw again moved under the freckled skin.

  “That’s worse,” he said.

  “Yes. I’ve been here two days. I don’t know how it could be, but… at the first conversation. Without any reason, without any… nothing, nothing. Nothing at all.”

  “Curious,” he said.

  “What is?”

  “I did the same.”

  “Then why did you come here?”

  “Hal, you’ve done a good deed. Do you understand?”

  “For you?”

  “No. For someone else. Because it would have ended badly.”

  “Why?”

  “Either you know, or you won’t understand.”

  “I do know. Olaf, what is this? Are we actually savages?”

  “I don’t know. We’ve been without women for ten years. Don’t forget that.”

  “That doesn’t explain everything. There is a kind of ruthlessness in me, I consider no one, you understand?”

  “You still do, my friend,” he said. “You still do.”

  “Well, yes; but you know what I mean.”

  “I know.”

  Again we were silent.

  “Do you want to talk some more, or box?” he asked.

  I laughed.

  “Where did you get the gloves?”

  “Hal, you would never guess.”

  “You had them made?”

  “I stole them.”

  “No!”

  “So help me. From a museum. I had to fly to Stockholm especially for them.”

  “Let’s go, then.”

  He unpacked his modest belongings and changed. We both put on bathrobes and went downstairs. It was still early. Normally breakfast would not have been served for half an hour.

  “We’d better go out to the back of the house,” I said. “No one will see us there.”

  We stopped in a circle of tall bushes. First we stamped down the grass, which was fairly short anyway.

  “It’ll be slippery,” said Olaf, sliding his foot around the improvised ring.

  “That’s all right. It’ll be harder.”

  We put on the gloves. We had a little trouble, because there was no one to tie them for us and I did not to want to call a robot.

  He faced me. His body was completely white.

  “You haven’t got a tan yet,” I said.

  “Later I’ll tell you what’s been happening to me. I’ve had no time for the beach. Gong.”

  “Gong.”

  We began easily. A feint. Duck. Duck. I warmed up. I tapped, rather than punched. I did not really want to hit him. I was a good fifteen kilograms heavier, and his slightly longer reach did not offset my advantage, especially since I was also the better boxer. For that reason I gave him an opening several times, although I didn’t have to. Suddenly he lowered his gloves. His face hardened. He was angry.

  “Not this way,” he said.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “No games, Hal. Either we box or we don’t.”

  “OK,” I said, clenching my teeth, “we box!”

  I began to move in. Glove hit glove with a sharp slap. He sensed that I meant business and put up his guard. The pace quickened. I feinted to the left and to the right, in succession, the last blow almost always landed on his chest — he was not fast enough. Unexpectedly he took the offensive, got in a nice right, I was knocked back a couple of steps. I recovered immediately. We circled, he swung, I ducked beneath the glove, backed off, and at half-distance landed a straight right. I put my weight behind it. Olaf went soft, for a moment loosened his guard, but then came back carefully, crouching. For the next minute he bombarded me with blows. The gloves struck my forearms with an appalling sound, but harmlessly. Once I barely dodged in time, his glove grazed my ear, and it was a roundhouse that would have decked me. Again we circled. He took a blow on the chest, a hard one, and his guard fell, I could have nailed him, but I did nothing, I stood as if paralyzed — she was at one of the windows, her face as white as the material covering her shoulders. A fraction of a second passed. The next instant, I was stunned by a powerful impact; I fell to my knees.

  “Sorry!” I heard Olaf shout.

  “Nothing to be sorry about… That was a good one,” I mumbled, getting up.

  The window was closed now. We fought for perhaps half a minute; suddenly Olaf drew back.

  “What’s the matter with you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Not true.”

  “All right. I’ve had enough. You aren’t angry?”

  “Of course not. It made no sense, anyway, to start right off… let’s go.”

  We went to the pool. Olaf was a better diver than I. He could do fantastic things. I tried a full gainer with a twist, the way he did it, but succeeded only in smacking the water with my thighs. Sitting at the edge of the pool, I splashed water on my burning skin. Olaf laughed.

  “You’re out of practice.”

  “What do you mean? I never could do a twist right. You’re great!”

  “It never leaves you, you know. Today is the first time.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. This is terrific.”

  The sun was high now. We lay on the sand and closed our eyes.

  “Where are… they?” he asked after a long silence.

  “I don’t know. Probably in their room. Their windows look out on the back of the house. I hadn’t known that.”

  I felt him move. The sand was very hot.

  “Yes, it was on account of that,” I said.

  “They saw us?”

  “She did.”

  “She must have been frightened,” he muttered, “don’t you think?”

  I did not answer. Again, a pause.

  “Hal?”

  “What?”

  “They hardly fly now, do you know that?”

  “I know.”

  “Do you know why?”

  “They claim that there is no point in it…”

  I began to outline for him what I had read in Starck’s book. He lay motionless, without a word, but I knew that he was listening intently.

  When I finished, he did not speak right away.

  “Have you read Shapley?”

  “No. Wh
at Shapley?”

  “No? I thought that you had read everything… A twentieth-century astronomer. One of his things fell into my hands once, on precisely that subject. Quite similar to your Starck.”

  “What? That’s impossible. Shapley could not have known… But read Starck for yourself.”

  “I don’t mean to. You know what this is? A smoke screen.”

  “A smoke screen?”

  “Yes. I believe I know what happened.”

  “Well?”

  “Betrization.”

  I sat up.

  “You think so?”

  He opened his eyes.

  “It’s obvious. They don’t fly — and they never will. It will get worse. Pap. One great mess of pap. They can’t stand the sight of blood. They can’t think of what might happen when…”

  “Hold on,” I said. “That’s impossible. There are doctors, after all. There must be surgeons…”

  “Then you don’t know?”

  “Know what?”

  “The doctors only plan the operations. It’s the robots that do them.”

  “That can’t be!”

  “I’m telling you. I saw it myself. In Stockholm.”

  “And if a doctor must intervene suddenly?”

  “I’m not sure. There may be a drug that partly nullifies the effects of betrization, for a very short time, but they keep it under wraps like you can’t imagine. The person who told me wouldn’t say anything specific. He was afraid.”

  “Of what?”

  “I don’t know, Hal. I think that they have done a terrible thing. They have killed the man in man.”

  “You exaggerate,” I said weakly. “Anyway…”

  “It’s really very simple. He who kills is prepared to be killed himself, right?”

  I was silent.

  “And therefore you could say that it is essential for a person to be able to risk — everything. We are able. They are not. That is why they are so afraid of us.”

  “The women?”

  “Not only the women. All of them. Hal?”

  He sat up suddenly.