Return from the Stars by Stanislaw Lem

Author:Stanislaw Lem [Lem, Stanislaw]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

FIVE

I knocked on Olaf’s door.

“If I know you, come on in,” I heard him call.

He stood naked in the middle of the room and was spraying himself, from the flask that he held, with a pale yellow fluid that immediately set to form a fluffy mass.

“Liquid underwear?” I said. “How can you?”

“I didn’t bring a spare shirt,” he muttered. “You don’t care for it?”

“No. You do?”

“My shirt got torn.”

At my look of surprise, he added with a grimace:

“The guy who grinned.”

I did not say another word. He put on his old trousers—I remembered them from the Prometheus—and we went downstairs. Only three places were set, and no one was in the dining room.

“There will be four of us,” I addressed the white robot

“No, sir. Mr. Marger has gone. The lady, yourself, and Mr. Staave make three. Shall I serve, or wait for the lady?”

“We’ll wait,” Olaf replied carelessly.

A terrific fellow. Just then, the girl entered. She had on the same skirt as the day before; her hair was a little damp, as if she had come from the water. I introduced Olaf to her; he was calm and dignified. I had never managed to be that dignified.

We talked a little. She said that every week her husband had to go away for three days in connection with his work, and that the water in the pool was not so warm as it could have been, despite the sun. But the conversation quickly died, and, try as I might, I could think of nothing to say. I ate in silence, with their sharply contrasting profiles before me. I noticed that Olaf was studying her, but only when I spoke to her and she looked in my direction. His face was without expression. As if he was thinking the whole time of something else.

Toward the end of the meal, the white robot approached and said that the water in the pool would be heated for the evening, in accordance with Mrs. Marger’s wishes. Mrs. Marger thanked it and went to her room. The two of us were alone. Olaf looked at me, and again I reddened terribly.

“How is it,” he said, putting to his lips the cigarette I had given him, “that a customer who could crawl into that stinking hole on Kereneia, an old space dog—an old rhinoceros, rather, a hundred and fifty—now starts to...?”

“Please,” I muttered, “if you really want to know, I’d crawl in there again...”

I didn’t finish.

“All right I’ll stop. Word of honor. But, Hal, I have to say this: I understand you. And I’ll bet you don’t even know why....”

I pointed my head in the direction in which she had gone.

“Why her?”

“Yes. Do you know?”

“No. And neither do you.”

“But I do. Shall I tell you?”

“Yes. But without your jokes.”

“You really have gone crazy!” exclaimed Olaf. “It is very simple. But you always did have that fault—you didn’t see what was under your nose, only what was far removed, those Cantors, Corbasileuses....”

“Don’t preen.”

“The style is sophomoric, I know, but our development was halted when they put those six hundred and eighty screws on us.

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