"Stanislaw Lem - Return from the Stars" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lem Stanislaw)

still dance, I thought to myself. That's good. The pair took a few steps, a pale, mercurylike ring
lifted them up along with the other couples, their dark red shadows moved beneath its huge plate,
which rotated slowly, like a record. It was not supported by anything, did not even have an axis,
but, hanging in the air, it turned to the music. I walked among the tables. The soft plastic
underfoot ended, gave way to porous rock. I passed through a curtain of light and found myself
inside a rocky grotto. It was like ten, fifty Gothic naves formed out of stalactites; veined deposits
of pearly minerals surrounded the mouths of the caves; in these people sat, legs dangling; small
flames flickered between their knees, and at the bottom lay the unbroken black surface of an
underground lake, which reflected the vaults of the rocks. There, too, on flimsy little rafts, people
were reclining, all facing the same way. I went down to the water's edge and saw, on the other
side, on the sand, a female dancer. She appeared to be naked, but the whiteness of her body was
not natural. With short, unsteady steps she ran to the water; when her body was reflected in it, she
stretched out her arms suddenly and bowed -- the end -- but no one applauded; the dancer
remained motionless for a few seconds, then slowly went along the shore, following its uneven
line. She was perhaps thirty paces from me when something happened to her. One moment I saw
her smiling, exhausted face, then, suddenly, as if something had got in the way, her outline
trembled and disappeared.
"A raft for you, sir?" came a courteous voice behind me. I turned around; no one, only a
streamlined table strutting on comically bowed legs; it moved forward, glasses of sparkling
liquid, arranged in rows on side trays, shook, one arm politely offering me this drink, the other
reaching for a plate with a fingerhole, something like a small, concave palette -- it was a robot. I
could see, behind a small glass pane in the center, the glow of its transistorized heart.
I avoided those insect arms stretched out to serve me, loaded with delicacies, which I
refused, and I quickly left the artificial cave, gritting my teeth, as if I had somehow been insulted.
I crossed the full width of the terrace, among S-shaped tables, under avenues of lanterns,
showered with a fine powder of disintegrating, dying fireflies, black, gold. At the very edge, a
border of stone, old, covered with a yellowish lichen, and there I felt, at last, a real wind, clean,
cool. Nearby stood a vacant table. I sat awkwardly, my back to the people, looking out into the
night. Below lay the darkness, vast, formless, and unexpected; only far, very far away, at its
perimeter, glowed thin, flickering lights, curiously uncertain, as though not electric, and even
farther off, swords of light rose up cold and thin into the sky, whether homes or pillars, I did not
know; I would have taken them for the beams of floodlights had they not been traced by a
delicate network -- a glass cylinder might have looked thus, its base in the earth, its tip in the
clouds, filled with alternating concave and convex lenses. They must have been incredibly high;
around them, a few lights glimmering, pulsing, so that they were encircled now by an orange
haze, now by a nearly white one. That was all, that was how the city looked; I tried to find streets,
to guess where they would be, but the dark and seemingly lifeless space below spread out in all
directions, not illuminated by a single spark.
"Col. . . ?" I heard; the word had probably been said more than once, but I did not
immediately realize that it was addressed to me. I started to turn around, but the chair, quicker
than I, did this for me. Standing in front of me was a girl, perhaps twenty years old, in something
blue that clung to her like a liquid congealed; her arms and breasts were hidden in a navy-blue
fluff that became more and more transparent as it descended. Her slim, lovely belly was like a
sculpture in breathing metal. At her ears she had something shining, so large that it covered them
completely. A small mouth in an uncertain smile, the lips painted, the nostrils also red inside -- I
had noticed that this was how most of the women were made up. She held the back of the chair
opposite me with both hands and said:
"How goes it, col?"
She sat down.
She was a little drunk, I thought.