Ivan Yefremov - Andromeda (A Space-Age Tale)

He saw the solitary figure of a woman coming rapidly towards him from a side path. He would have recognized her among thousands — Veda Kong, the Veda who had been so much in his thoughts before it had become clear that their paths in life were different. Erg Noor was accustomed to the diagrams of the computing machines and his thinking followed the same lines — he saw a steep arc sweeping upwards into the heavens — his own urge — while Veda’s path of life and work left her hovering over the planet to delve into the depths of centuries passed and gone. The lines diverged until they were far apart.

Erg Noor knew every tiny detail of Veda’s face but he was suddenly surprised to notice the resemblance she bore to Nisa Greet. The same narrow face with eyes placed wide apart, the same high forehead with the long upward sweep of the eyebrows, the same expression of gentle irony in her big mouth. Even their noses were both slightly snub, softly rounded and a bit long, just as though they were sisters. The only difference was that Veda always had a direct and pensive look while Nisa Greet would throw her head back in youthful exuberance or would lower her forehead and knitted brows to meet an obstacle.

"Are you examining me?” asked Veda, surprised.

She held out both hands to Erg Noor who took them and pressed them to his cheeks. Veda shivered and pulled herself away. The astronaut gave a weak smile.

“I wanted to thank those hands for having nursed Nisa. She… I know about everything! Somebody had to be in constant attendance and you gave up an interesting expedition. Two months….”

“I didn’t give it up, I was late for it, waiting for Tantra. The expedition had left by then, and well… she’s charming, your Nisa! We look alike but she’s the real companion for the conqueror of the Cosmos and the iron stars, with her urge to get back into space and her loyalty.”

“Veda!”

“I’m not joking, Erg, I mean it. Don’t you feel that this is no time for jokes? We must make everything clear!”

“I find everything clear enough as it is! And I’m thanking you for Nisa, not for myself.”

“Don’t thank me. It would have been difficult for me if you’d lost Nisa, that’s why….”

“I understand but still I don’t believe you because I know that Veda Kong could never be so calculating. And so my gratitude remains.”

Erg Noor patted the young woman’s shoulder and placed his fingers in the crook of her arm. They walked side by side along the deserted road in silence until Erg Noor spoke again.

“Who is he, the real one?”

“Darr Veter.”

“The former Director of the Outer Stations? So that’s it!”

“Erg, you are saying words that mean nothing. I don’t recognize you.”

“I suppose I must have changed. I can’t imagine Darr Veter apart from his work and I thought that he was a Cosmic dreamer.”

“He is. He dreams of the world of stars but he has proved able to combine the stars with an ancient farmer’s love of Earth. He is a man of knowledge with the big hands of the simple mechanic.”

Erg Noor involuntarily looked at his narrow hand with the long fingers of a mathematician and musician.

‘“If you only knew, Veda, how much I love our Earth at this moment!”

“After the world of darkness and a long journey with paralysed Nisa? Of course, you do!”

“You don’t believe that love for Earth can provide the basis of my life?”

“I don’t. You’re a real hero and will always be thirsting for deeds. You will carry that love like a full bowl from which you are afraid to spill a drop, carry it on Earth in order to give it to the Cosmos for the sake of that same Earth!”

“Veda, you’d have been burnt at the stake in the Dark Ages!”

“I’ve been told that before. Here’s the fork…. Where are your shoes, Erg?”

“I left them in the garden when I came to meet you. I’ll have to go back.”

“Well, good-bye, Erg. My job here’s finished and yours is just about to begin. Where shall we meet again? Perhaps it will be only before you leave on the new ship?”

“Oh, no, Veda. Nisa and I are going to a polar sanatorium for three months. Come and see us and bring Darr Veter with you.”

“Which sanatorium? The ‘Stone Heart’ on the north coast of Siberia or ‘Autumn Leaves’ in Iceland?”

“It’s too late for the northern polar regions. We’re being sent to the southern hemisphere where the summer will soon begin. The ‘White Dawn’ in Grahamland.”

“All right. Erg, we’ll come if Darr Veter does not start out immediately to rebuild Satellite 57. There’ll probably be a long time spent on getting materials together.”

“That’s a fine terrestrial man for you — almost a year in the sky!”

“Don’t try to be smart. That’s quite near compared with your tremendous spaces, the spaces that divided us.”

“Do you regret it, Veda?”

“Why do you ask, Erg? There are two halves in each of us, one half is anxious to get at the new, the other half cherishes the old and would be glad to return to it. You know that and you also know that return never achieves its aim.”

“But regret remains like a wreath on a beloved grave. Give me a kiss, Veda, my dear!”

The young woman obediently complied with the request, pushed the astronaut lightly aside and strode swiftly away to the main road where there was an electrobus service. Erg Noor watched her until the robot driver of the first bus to arrive stopped the vehicle and her red dress disappeared inside.

Veda also looked through the glass at Erg Noor as he stood there immobile. Her head was filled with the refrain of a song dating back to the Era of Disunity that had recently been reset to music by Arck Geer. Darr Veter had once repeated it to her in response to a gentle reproach from her.

This was the challenge of a man of ancient days to the menacing forces of nature that had taken his beloved from him… the challenge of a man who was not reconciled to his loss and did not want to make any concessions to fate!

The electrobus drew near the branch of the Spiral Way but Veda Kong was still standing by the window holding on to the polished hand-rails and humming the beautiful romance filled with such sweet sorrow.

“Angels — that’s what religious Europeans in the old days called the imaginary spirits of heaven, the heralds who made known the will of the gods. Angelas meant ‘herald’ or ‘messenger’ in the ancient Greek language. It’s a word that has been forgotten for centuries….” Veda shook off these thoughts while she was at the station but they returned to her in the coach of the Spiral Way train.

“The Heralds of Heaven, of the Cosmos — why, that’s what we might call Erg Noor and Mven Mass and Darr Veter. Especially Darr Veter when he will be in the nearby, terrestrial heaven, building a satellite….” Veda smiled mischievously. “Then the demons down under the sea that’s us, the historians,” she said aloud, listening to the sound of her own voice, and laughed merrily. “Yes, that’s right, the angels of heaven and the spirits of the under world! Only Darr Veter may not like it.”

Low cedars with black needles, a variety impervious to frosts that had been developed for the subantarctic regions, sang solemnly and monotonously in the never-slackening wind. The cold, dense air flowed like a swift river, carrying that extraordinary purity and freshness with it that one associates with the open ocean and high mountain ranges. When the wind comes in contact with the eternal snows of the mountains, however, it is dry, it tends to burn, like sparkling wine. Here the breath of the ocean made its heavy touch felt as the wind wrapped the body in a humid mantle.