Return from the Stars (9 page)

"I'll phone from my hotel. Is that possible?"

"Certainly, sir. The payment will be reckoned from the moment you enter the villa."

When I left, I already had the vague outline of a plan. I would buy books and some sports equipment. Most important were the books. I should also subscribe to some specialized journals. Sociology, physics. No doubt a mass of things had been done in the past hundred years. And yes, I had to buy myself some clothes.

But again I was sidetracked. Turning a corner, I saw—I didn't believe my eyes—a car. A real car. Perhaps not exactly as I remembered it: the body was designed all in sharp angles. It was, however, a genuine automobile, with tires, doors, a steering wheel, and behind it stood others. Behind a large window; on it, in big letters:
ANTIQUES
. I went inside. The owner, or salesman, was a human. A pity, I thought.

"May I buy a car?"

"Of course. Which one would you like?"

"Do they cost much?"

"From four hundred to eight hundred ets."

Stiff, I thought. Well, antiques weren't cheap.

"And can one travel in it?" I asked.

"Naturally. Not everywhere, true—there are local restrictions—but in general it's possible."

"And what about fuel?" I asked cautiously, for I had no idea what lay beneath the hood.

"No problem there. One charge will last you for the life of the car. Including, of course, the parastats."

"All right," I said. "I would like something strong, durable. It doesn't have to be big, just fast."

"In that case I would suggest this giabile or that model there…"

He led me down a big hall, along a row of machines, which shone as if they were really new.

"Of course," the salesman continued, "they can't compare with gleeders, but, then, the automobile today is no longer a means of transportation…"

What is it, then? I wanted to ask, but said nothing.

"All right," I said, "how much does this one cost?" I pointed to a pale blue limousine with silver recessed headlights.

"Four hundred and eighty ets."

"But I want to have it at Clavestra," I said. "I have rented a villa there. You can get the exact address from the travel office, here, on this street."

"Excellent sir. It can be sent by ulder; that will not cost anything."

"Really? I'll be going there by ulder."

"Give us the date, then, and we will put it in your ulder. That would be simplest. Unless you would prefer…"

"No, no. Let it be as you say."

I paid for the car—the calster was not at all a bad thing to have—and left the antique store full of the smell of leather and rubber. Exquisite.

With the clothes I had no luck. Of what I knew, almost nothing existed. At any rate, I discovered the secret of those mysterious bottles at the hotel, in the compartment with the sign "Bathrobes." Not only robes of that kind, but suits, socks, sweaters, underwear—everything was sprayed on. I could see how that might appeal to women, because by discharging from a few or a few dozen bottles a liquid that immediately set into fabrics with textures smooth or rough—velvet, fur, or pliable metal—they could have a new creation every time, each for one occasion only. Of course, not every woman did this for herself: there were special plasting salons (so that was what Nais did!), but the tight-fitting fashion that resulted from this process did not much appeal to me. And getting dressed by operating a siphon bottle seemed to me unnecessarily bothersome. There were a few ready-to-wear items, but they did not fit; even the largest were four sizes too small for my height and width. In the end I decided on clothes in bottles, because I saw that my shirt would not hold out much longer. Of course, I could have sent for the rest of my things from the
Prometheus
, but on board the ship I had had no suits or white shirts, there being little need for such in the vicinity of the Fomalhaut constellation. So I bought, in addition, a few pairs of denimlike trousers that resembled gardening overalls, only they had relatively wide legs and could be lengthened. For everything together I paid one et; that was what the trousers cost. For the rest, no charge. I asked to have the clothes sent to my hotel, and let myself be talked into going to a fashion salon, simply out of curiosity. There I was received by a fellow with the bearing of an artist, who first of all appraised me and agreed that I ought to wear loose-fitting clothes; I could see that he was not especially delighted with me. Nor was I with him. I ended up with a few sweaters, which he made for me while I waited. I stood with my arms raised and he set to work, spraying from four bottles at once. The liquid in the air, white like foam, set almost instantaneously. From it arose sweaters of various colors; one had a stripe across the chest, red on black; the most difficult part, I noticed, was finishing off the collar and sleeves. For that, skill was clearly needed.

Richer for the experience, which in any case had not cost a thing, I found myself on the street in the full noonday sun. There were fewer gleeders; above the roofs, however, were many of the cigar-shaped machines. People streamed down the escalators to the lower levels; everyone was in a hurry, only I had time. For about an hour I warmed myself in the sun, under a rhododendron with woody husks left by dead leaves, and then I returned to the hotel. In the hall downstairs I obtained an apparatus for shaving; when I began to shave in the bathroom, I noticed that i I had to bend over slightly to use the mirror, although I remembered that previously I had been able to see myself in it standing upright. The difference was minimal, but a moment before, when taking off my shirt, I had observed something strange: the shirt was shorter. As if it had shrunk. I now examined it carefully. Neither the sleeves nor the collar showed any change. I laid it on the table. It was the same shirt, and yet, when I put it en, it barely came below my waist. It was I who had changed, not the shirt. I had grown.

An absurd thought; nevertheless, it worried me. I phoned the hotel infor, requesting the address of a doctor, a specialist in cosmic medicine. I preferred not to go running to Adapt, if at all possible. After a brief silence, almost as if the automaton at the other end were hesitating, I heard the address. A doctor lived on the very same street, a few blocks down. I went to see him. A robot led me into a large, darkened room. Besides me, no one was there.

Soon the doctor entered. He looked as though he had stepped out of a family portrait in my father's study. He was short but not slight, gray-haired; he wore a tiny white beard and gold-rimmed glasses—the first glasses I had seen on a human face since I landed. His name was Dr. Juffon.

"Hal Bregg?" he said. "Is that you?"

"It is."

Silent, he studied me.

"What's bothering you?"

"Nothing really, doctor, it's just that…" I told him of my strange observations.

Without a word he opened a door in front of me. I entered a small examination room.

"Undress, please."

"Everything?" I asked when only my trousers were left.

"Yes."

He examined me naked.

"Such men as you no longer exist," he muttered, as if to himself. He listened to my heart, putting a cold stethoscope to my chest. And in a thousand years that will not change, I thought, and the thought gave me a small pleasure. He measured my height, then told me to lie down. He inspected the scar under my right collarbone, but said nothing. He examined me for nearly an hour.

Reflexes, lung capacity, electrocardiogram—everything. When I was dressed, he sat down behind a small black desk. The drawer squeaked as he pulled it open to look for something. After all the furniture that followed a person around as if possessed, this old desk appealed to me.

"How old are you?"

I explained the situation.

"You have the body of a man in his thirties," he said. "You hibernated?"

"Yes."

"For long?"

"A year."

"Why?"

"We returned on increased thrust. It was necessary to lie in water. Shock absorption, you understand, doctor, and therefore, because it would be hard to lie conscious in water for a year…"

"Of course. I thought that you had hibernated longer. We can easily subtract that year. Not forty, only thirty-nine."

"And … the other thing?"

"That's nothing, Bregg. How much did you have?"

"Acceleration? Two g's."

"So there you are. You thought that you were growing? No. You aren't growing. It's simply the intervertebral disks. Do you know what they are?"

"Yes, bits of cartilage in the spine…"

"Exactly. They are expanding now that you are out from under all that weight. What is your height?"

"When I took off, one hundred and ninety-seven centimeters."

"And after that?"

"I don't know. I didn't measure myself; there were other things to think about, you know."

"Now you are two meters two."

"Marvelous," I said, "and will this go on for long?"

"No. Probably it is all over now… How do you feel?"

"Fine."

"Everything seems too light, doesn't it?"

"Less and less so, now. At Adapt on Luna, they gave me pills to reduce muscle tension."

"They degravitized you?"

"Yes. For the first three days. They said that it was not enough after so many years; on the other hand, they didn't want to keep us shut up any more, after everything…"

"And your state of mind?"

"Well…" I hesitated. "There are moments… I have the feeling that I'm a Neanderthal that has been brought to the city…"

"What do you intend to do?"

I told him about the villa.

"You could do worse, perhaps," he said, "but…"

"Adapt would be better?"

"I am not saying that. You… I remember you, do you know?"

"How can that be? Surely you couldn't be…"

"No. But I heard about you from my father. When I was twelve."

"That must have been years after we started out," I said. "And they still remembered us? That's strange."

"I don't think so. On the contrary, it's strange that they should have forgotten. But you knew, didn't you, how the return would look, even though you obviously could not picture it?"

"I knew."

"Who referred you to me?"

"No one. That is … the infor at the hotel. Why?"

"It's amusing," he said. "I am not actually a doctor."

"How is that?"

"I have not practiced for forty years. I am working on the history of cosmic medicine, because it is history now, Bregg, and outside of Adapt there is no longer any work for us specialists."

"I'm sorry; I didn't know…"

"Nonsense. I am the one who should be grateful to you. You are living proof against the Millman school's thesis concerning the harmful effects of increased acceleration on the human body. You do not even exhibit hypertrophy of the left ventricle, nor is there a trace of emphysema … and the heart is excellent. But you know this?"

"Yes."

"As a doctor, I really have nothing more to tell you, Bregg; however…"

He hesitated.

"Yes?"

"You are coping in our … present way of life?"

"Muddling along."

"Your hair is gray, Bregg."

"That means something?"

"Yes. Gray hair signifies age. No one turns gray now before eighty, and even then, rarely."

It was the truth, I realized: I had seen no old people.

"Why?" I asked.

"There are preparations, medicines that halt graying. One can also restore the original color of the hair, although that is a little more trouble."

"Fine," I said, "but why are you telling me this?"

I saw that he was undecided.

"Women, Bregg," he said abruptly.

I winced.

"Is that supposed to mean that I look like … an old man?"

"Like an old man—no, more like an athlete … but, then, you don't walk about naked. It is mainly when you sit that you look … that an average person would take you for an old man who has had a rejuvenation operation, hormone treatments, etcetera."

"I don't mind," I said. I do not know why his calm gaze made me feel so awful. He took off his glasses and put them on his desk. He had blue, slightly watery eyes.

'There is a great deal you do not understand, Bregg. If you intended to live like a monk for the remainder of your days, your 'I don't mind' might be in order, but … the society to which you have returned is not enthusiastic about what you gave more than your life for."

"Don't say that, doctor."

"I am saying what I think. To give one's life, what is that? People have been doing it for centuries. But to give up all one's friends, parents, kin, acquaintances, women—you did sacrifice them, Bregg!"

"Doctor…"

The word hardly left my throat. I rested an elbow on the old desk.

"Apart from a handful of specialists, no one cares about it, Bregg. You know that?"

"Yes. They told me on Luna, at Adapt, only they put it … more delicately."

We were silent for a while.

"The society to which you have returned is stabilized. Life is tranquil. Do you understand? The romance of the early days of astronautics is gone. It is like the achievements of Columbus. His expedition was something extraordinary, but who took any interest in the captains of galleons two hundred years after him? There was a two-line note about your return in the real."

"But, doctor, that is not important," I said. His sympathy was beginning to irritate me more than the indifference of others, though I could not tell him that.

"It is, Bregg, although you do not want to face it. If you were someone else, I would be silent, but you deserve the truth. You are alone. A man cannot live alone. Your interests, the ones you have returned with, are an island in a sea of ignorance. I doubt if many people would want to hear what you could tell them. I happen to be one of the interested ones, but I am eighty-nine years old…"

"I have nothing to tell," I said, angry. "Nothing sensational. We did not discover any galactic civilization, and anyway, I was only a pilot. I flew the ship. Someone had to do it."

"Yes?" he said quietly, raising his white eyebrows.