Return from the Stars by Stanislaw Lem Read Free Book Online Page A

what was I supposed to feel?"
    "Imagine that you are doing what I said to you."
    "That I am killing? I'm supposed to picture that?"
    She shuddered.
    "Yes."
    "And now?"
    "And you feel nothing?"
    "Nothing. But, then, it's only a thought, and I don't have the slightest intention…"
    "But you can? Right? You really can? No," she whispered, as if to herself, "you are not betrizated."
    Only now did the meaning of it all hit me, and I understood how it could be a shock to her.
    "This is a great thing," I muttered. After a moment, I added, "But it would have been better, perhaps, had people ceased to do it … without artificial means."
    "I don't know. Perhaps," she answered. She drew a deep breath. "You know, now, why I was frightened?"
    "Yes, but not completely. Maybe a little. But surely you didn't think that I…"
    "How strange you are! It's altogether as though you weren't…" She broke off.
    "Weren't human?"
    Her eyelids fluttered.
    "I didn't mean to offend you. It's just that, you see, if it is known that no one can—you know—even think about it, ever, and suddenly someone appears, like you, then the very possibility … the fact that there is one who…"
    "I can't believe that everyone would be—what was it?—ah, betrizated!"
    "Why? Everyone, I tell you!"
    "No, it's impossible," I insisted. "What about people with dangerous jobs? After all, they must…"
    "There are no dangerous jobs."
    "What are you saying, Nais? What about pilots? And various rescue workers? And those who fight fire, floods…?"
    "There are no such people," she said. It seemed to me that I had not heard her right.
    "What?"
    "No such people," she repeated. "All that is done by robots."
    There was silence. It would not be easy for me, I thought, to stomach this new world. And suddenly came a reflection, surprising in that I myself would never have expected it if someone had presented me with this situation purely as a theoretical possibility: it occurred to me that this destruction of the killer in man was a disfigurement.
    "Nais," I said, "it's already very late. I think I'll go."
    "Where?"
    "I don't know. Hold on! A person from Adapt was supposed to meet me at the station. I completely forgot! I couldn't find him, you understand. So I'll look for a hotel. There are hotels?"
    "There are. Where are you from?"
    "Here. I was born here."
    With these words the feeling of the unreality of everything returned, and I was no longer certain either of that city, which existed only within me, or of this spectral one with rooms into which the heads of giants peered, so that for a second I wondered if I might not be on board and dreaming yet another particularly vivid nightmare of my return.
    "Bregg." I heard her voice as if from a distance. I started. I had completely forgotten about her.
    "Yes?"
    "Stay."
    "What?"
    She did not speak.
    "You want me to stay?"
    She did not speak. I went up to her, bent over the chair, took hold of her by her cold arms, and lifted her up. She stood submissively. Her head fell back, I saw her teeth glistening; I did not want her, I wanted only to say, "But you're afraid," and for her to say that she was not. Nothing more. Her eyes were closed, but suddenly the whites shone from underneath her lashes; I bent over her face, looked closely into her glassy eyes, as though I wished to know her fear, to share it. Panting, she struggled to break loose, but I did not feel it, it was only when she began to groan "No! No!" that I slackened my grip. She practically fell. She stood against the wall, blocking out part of a huge, chubby face that reached the ceiling, that there, behind the glass, spoke endlessly, with exaggeration, moving its huge lips and meaty tongue.
    "Nais…" I said quietly. I dropped my hands.
    "Don't come near me!"
    "But it was you who said…"
    Her eyes were wild.
    I paced the room. She followed me with her eyes, as if I were … as if she stood in a cage…
    "I'm going now," I announced. She did not speak. I wanted to add