Stanislaw Lem: Return from the Stars

“Nothing. I thought you were a hundred.”

I had to smile.

“I can be that, if you insist.” The funny thing is, it’s the truth, I thought.

“What can I give you?” she asked.

“To drink? Nothing, thank you.”

“All right.”

She went to the wall, and it opened like a small bar. She stood in front of the opening. When she returned, she was carrying a tray with cups and two bottles. Squeezing one bottle lightly, she filled me a cup to the brim with a liquid that looked exactly like milk.

“Thank you,” I said, “not for me…”

“But I’m not giving you anything.” She was surprised.

Seeing I had made a mistake, although I did not know what kind of mistake, I muttered under my breath and took the cup. She poured herself a drink from the second bottle. This liquid was oily, colorless, and slightly effervescent under the surface; at the same time it darkened, apparently on contact with air. She sat down and, touching the glass with her lips, casually asked:

“Who are you?”

“A col,” I answered. I lifted my cup, as if to examine it. This milk had no smell. I did not touch it.

“No, seriously,” she said. “You thought I was sending in the dark, eh? Since when! That was only a cals. I was with a six, you see, but it got awfully bottom. The orka was no good and altogether… I was just going when you sat down.”

Some of this I could figure out: I must have sat at her table by chance, when she was not there; could she have been dancing? I maintained a tactful silence.

“From a distance, you seemed so…” She was unable to find the word.

“Decent?” I suggested. Her eyelids fluttered. Did she have a metallic film on them as well? No, it must have been eye shadow. She lifted her head.

“What does that mean?”

“Well… um… someone you could trust…”

“You talk in a strange way. Where are you from?”

“From far away.”

“Mars?”

“Farther.”

“You fly?”

“I did fly.”

“And now?”

“Nothing. I returned.”

“But you’ll fly again?”

“I don’t know. Probably not.”

The conversation had trailed off somehow. It seemed to me that the girl was beginning to regret her rash invitation, and I wanted to make things easy for her.

“Maybe I ought to go now?” I asked. I still held my untouched drink.

“Why?” She was surprised.

“I thought that that would… suit you.”

“No,” she said. “You’re thinking — no, what for? Why don’t you drink?”

“I am.”

It was milk after all. At this time of day, in such circumstances! My surprise was such that she must have noticed it.

“What, it’s bad?”

“It’s milk,” I said. I must have looked like a complete idiot.

“What? What milk? That’s brit…”

I sighed.

“Listen, Nais… I think I’ll go now. Really. It will be better that way.”

“Then why did you drink?” she asked.

I looked at her, silent. The language had not changed so very much, and yet I didn’t understand a thing. Not a thing. It was they who had changed.

“All right,” she said finally. “I’m not keeping you. But now this…” She was confused. She drank her lemonade — that’s what I called the sparkling liquid, in my thoughts — and again I did not know what to say. How difficult all this was.

“Tell me about yourself,” I suggested. “Do you want to?”

“OK. And then you’ll tell me… ?”

“Yes.”

“I’m at the Cavuta, my second year. I’ve been neglecting things a bit lately, I wasn’t plasting regularly and… that’s how it’s been. My six isn’t too interesting. So really, it’s… I don’t have anyone. It’s strange…”

“What is?”

“That I don’t have…”

Again, these obscurities. Who was she talking about? Who didn’t she have? Parents? Lovers? Acquaintances? Abs was right after all when he said that I wouldn’t be able to manage without the eight months at Adapt. But now, perhaps even more than before, I did not want to go back, penitent, to school.

“What else?” I asked, and since I was still holding the cup, I took another swallow of that milk. Her eyes grew wide in surprise. Something like a mocking smile touched her lips. She drained her cup, reached out a hand to the fluffy covering on her arms, and tore it — she did not unbutton it, did not slip it off, just tore it, and let the shreds fall from her fingers, like trash.

“But, then, we hardly know each other,” she said. She was freer, it seemed. She smiled. There were moments when she became quite lovely, particularly when she narrowed her eyes, and her lower lip, contracting, revealed glistening teeth. In her face was something Egyptian. An Egyptian cat. Hair blacker than black, and when she pulled the furry fluff from her arms and breasts, I saw that she was not nearly so thin as I had thought. But why had she ripped it off? Was that supposed to mean something?

“Your turn to talk,” she said, looking at me over her cup.

“Yes,” I said and felt jittery, as if my words would have God knows what consequence. “I am… I was a pilot. The last time I was here… don’t be frightened!”

“No. Go on!”

Her eyes were shining and attentive.

“It was a hundred and twenty-seven years ago. I was thirty then. The expedition… I was a pilot on the expedition to Fomalhaut. That’s twenty-three light years away. We flew there and back in a hundred and twenty-seven years Earth time and ten years ship time. Four days ago we returned… The Prometheus — my ship — remained on Luna. I came from there today. That’s all.”

She stared at me. She did not speak. Her lips moved, opened, closed. What was that in her eyes? Surprise? Admiration? Fear?

“Why do you say nothing?” I asked. I had to clear my throat.

“So… how old are you, really?”

I had to smile; it was not a pleasant smile.

“What does that mean, ‘really’? Biologically I’m forty, but by Earth clocks, one hundred and fifty-seven…”

A long silence, then suddenly:

“Were there any women there?”

“Wait,” I said. “Do you have anything to drink?”

“What do you mean?”

“Something toxic, you understand. Strong. Alcohol… or don’t they drink it any more?”

“Very rarely,” she replied softly, as if thinking of something else. Her hands fell slowly, touched the metallic blue of her dress.

“I’ll give you some… angehen, is that all right? But you don’t know what it is, do you?”

“No, I don’t,” I replied, unexpectedly stubborn. She went to the bar and brought back a small, bulging bottle. She poured me a drink. It had alcohol in it — not much — but there was something else, a peculiar, bitter taste.

“Don’t be angry,” I said, emptying the cup, and poured myself another one.

“I’m not angry. You didn’t answer, but perhaps you don’t want to?”

“Why not? I can tell you. There were twenty-three of us altogether, on two ships. The second was the Ulysses. Five pilots to a ship, and the rest scientists. There were no women.”

“Why?”

“Because of children,” I explained. “You can’t raise children on such ships, and even if you could, no one would want to. You can’t fly before you’re thirty. You have to have two diplomas under your belt, plus four years of training, twelve years in all. In other words — women of thirty usually have children. And there were… other considerations.”

“And you?” she asked.

“I was single. They picked unmarried ones. That is — volunteers.”

“You wanted to…”

“Yes. Of course.”

“And you didn’t…”

She broke off. I knew what she wanted to say. I remained silent.