Stanislaw Lem: Return from the Stars

I got up.

“Thank Gimma for taking our side…”

Thurber stood, too. For perhaps a second we looked each other in the eye. He was shorter, but you didn’t notice it. His height didn’t matter. The calmness of his gaze was beyond words.

“Am I allowed to speak, or has sentence been passed?” he asked.

I mumbled something unintelligible.

“Then sit,” he said and, without waiting, lowered himself heavily into his chair.

I sat down.

“But you have done something,” he said in a tone that suggested we had been talking about the weather. “You read Starck, believed him, felt cheated, and now you are looking for someone to blame. If it means such a great deal to you, I can take the blame. But that is not the issue. Starck convinced you — after those ten years? Bregg, I knew you were a hothead, but I never thought you stupid.” He paused for a moment, and, strangely, I experienced something like relief — and a hope for liberation. I didn’t have time to analyze it, because he continued.

“Contact with galactic civilizations? Whoever said anything about that? None of us, not one of the scholars, not Merquier, not Simonadi, not Rag Ngamieli — no one; no expedition counted on any such contact, and therefore all that talk about fossils flying through space and the perpetually delayed galactic mail, it’s a refutation of an argument that no one ever made. What can one get from the stars? And of what use was Amundsen’s expedition? Or Andree’s? None. The only clear benefit lay in the fact that they had proved a possibility. That it could be done. Or, more precisely, that it was, for a given time, the most difficult attainable thing. I don’t know if we even did that much, Bregg. I really don’t. But we were there.”

I was silent. Thurber did not look at me now. He rested his fists on the edge of the desk.

“What did Starck prove to you — the futility of cosmodromia? As if we did not know that ourselves! And the poles! What was at the poles? Those who conquered them knew that there was nothing there. And the Moon? What did Ross’s group seek in the crater Eratosthenes? Diamonds? And why did Bant and Jegorin cross the face of Mercury — to get a tan? And Kellen and Offshagg — the only thing they knew for certain, when they flew to the cold cloud of Cerber, was that they could die there. Don’t you know what Starck is really saying? That a human being must eat, drink, and clothe himself; and the rest is madness. Every man has his Starck, Bregg. Every period in history has had one. Why did Gimma send you and Arder? To collect samples from the corona. Who sent Gimma? Science. Cut and dried, isn’t it? The study of the stars. Bregg, do you think we wouldn’t have gone if there had been no stars? I say we would have. We would have wanted to examine that emptiness, to provide an explanation for it, Geonides or someone else would have told us what valuable measurements and experiments we could carry out on the way. Do not misunderstand me. I am not saying that the stars are only an excuse. Neither was the pole; Nansen and Andree needed it… Everest meant more to Mallory and Irving than the air itself. You say that I ordered you ‘in the name of science’? You know that isn’t true. You were testing my memory. Shall I test yours? Do you remember Thomas’s planetoid?”

I started.

“You lied to us then. You flew down a second time, knowing that he was dead. True?”

I was silent.

“I guessed immediately. I never discussed it with Gimma, but I think he also guessed. Why did you do it, Bregg? That was not Arcturus or Kereneia, and there was no one to save. What purpose did you have, man?”

I was silent. Thurber gave a faint smile.

“You know what our problem is, Bregg? The fact that we made it and are sitting here. Man always comes back empty-handed…”

He stopped. His smile became an almost meaningless scowl. For a moment he breathed more loudly, gripping the desk with both hands. I looked at him, as if seeing him for the first time; it struck me that he was old, and the realization was a shock. I had never thought of him that way, as if he were ageless…

“Thurber,” I said quietly, “listen… this is, well… only a eulogy over the graves of — the insatiable. There are none like them now. And will not be again. So — after all — Starck wins…”

He showed his flat yellow teeth, but it was not a smile.

“Bregg, give me your word that you will repeat to no one what I am about to tell you.”

I hesitated.

“To no one,” he repeated, with emphasis.

“All right.”

He stood, went over to the corner, picked up a tube of paper, and returned with it to the desk.

The paper rustled as it unrolled in his hands. I saw what looked like a gutted fish, red lines, like blood.

“Thurber!”

“Yes,” he replied quietly, rolling the paper back up with both hands.

“A new expedition?”

“Yes,” he repeated. And went back to the corner and leaned the tube against the wall, like a rifle.

“When? Where?”

“Not soon. To the Center.”

“Sagittarius…” I whispered.

“Yes. The preparations will take a long time. But thanks to anabiosis…”

He continued, but only single words and expressions came through to me — “loop flight,” “nongravitational acceleration” — and the excitement I felt when I saw the drawing of the giant rocket gave way to an unexpected languor, from which, as through a descending gloom, I examined the hands resting on my knees. Thurber stopped, glanced at me, went to his desk, and began to gather papers, as if giving me time to digest the news. I should have been firing questions at him — which of us, of the old guard, would be flying; how many years the expedition would last; its objectives — but I asked nothing. Not even why the whole thing was being kept a secret. I looked at his huge, thick hands, which showed his age more distinctly than did his face, and I felt a small measure of satisfaction, as unexpected as it was base — that he, in any case, would not be flying. I would not live to see their return, not even if I broke Methuselah’s record. It didn’t matter. Was unimportant. I got up. Thurber rustled his papers.

“Bregg,” he said, without looking up, “I still have work to do. If you like, we can have dinner together. You can spend the night in the dormitory; it’s empty now.”

I mumbled, “All right,” and walked to the door. He had started to work as if I were no longer there. I stood awhile in the doorway, then left. I was not aware of exactly where I was, until the steady clap of my own footsteps reached me. I halted. I was in the middle of the long corridor, between two rows of identical doors. The echo of my steps could still be heard. An illusion? Someone following me? I turned and saw a tall figure disappear through a door at the far end. It happened so quickly that I did not get a good look at him, saw just a movement, a back, and the closing door. There was nothing for me to do here. No sense in walking farther — the corridor came to a dead end. I turned back, walked past an enormous window through which I could see the glow of the city, silver on the vast black park, and again stopped in front of the door marked “In here, Bregg,” where Thurber was working. I no longer wanted to see him. I had nothing to say to him, nor he to me. Why had I come in the first place? Suddenly, with surprise, I remembered why. I would go back inside and ask about Olaf — but not now. Not just yet. I wasn’t tired, I felt perfectly fine, but something was happening to me, something I didn’t understand. I went to the stairs. Opposite them stood the last of the doors, the one into which the unknown person had disappeared a moment ago. I recalled that I had looked into that same room at the beginning, when I entered the building; I recognized the patch of peeling paint. There had been nothing at all in that room. What could the person have been looking for?