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

ONE
 I took nothing with me, not even a coat. Unnecessary, they said. They let me keep my
black sweater: it would pass. But the shirt I had to fight for. I said that I would leam to do without
things gradually. At the very ramp, beneath the belly of the ship, where we stood, jostled by the
crowd, Abs offered me his hand with an understanding smile: "Easy, now. . ."
That, too, I remembered. I didn't crush his fingers. I was quite calm. He wanted to say
something more. I spared him that, turning away as if I had not noticed anything, and went up the
stairs and inside. The stewardess led me between the rows of seats to the very front. I hadn't
wanted a private compartment. I wondered if they had told her. My seat unfolded without a
sound. She adjusted the back of it, gave me a smile, and left. I sat down. The cushions were
engulfingly soft, as everywhere. The back of my seat was so high that I could barely see the other
passengers. The bright colors of the women's clothes I had by now learned to accept, but the men
I still suspected, irrationally, of affectation, and I had the secret hope that I would come across
some dressed normally -- a pitiful reflex. People were seated quickly, no one had luggage. Not
even a briefcase or a package. The women, too. There seemed to be more of them. In front of me:
two mulatto women in parrot-green furs, ruffled like feathers -- apparently, that sort of bird style
was in fashion. Farther away, a couple with a child. After the garish selenium lights of the
platforms and tunnels, after the unbearably shrill incandescent vegetation of the streets, the light
from the concave ceiling seemed practically a glow. I did not know what to do with my hands, so
I put them on my knees. Everyone was seated now.
Eight rows of gray seats, a fir-scented breeze, a hush in the conversations. I expected an
announcement about takeoff, signals of some sort, the warning to fasten seat belts, but nothing
happened. Across the dull ceiling faint shadows began to move from front to rear, like paper
cutouts of birds. What the hell is it with these birds? I wondered, perplexed. Does it mean
something? I was numb from the strain of trying not to do anything wrong. This, for four days
now. From the very first moment I was invariably behind in everything that went on, and the
constant effort to understand the simplest conversation or situation turned that tension into a
feeling horribly like despair. I was certain that the others were experiencing the same things, but
we did not talk about it, not even when we were alone together. We only joked about our brawn,
about that excessive strength that had remained in us, and indeed we had to be on our guard -- in
the beginning, intending to get up, I would go shooting toward the ceiling, and any object that I
held in my hand seemed to be made of paper, empty. But I quickly learned to control my body. In
greeting people, I no longer crushed their hands. That was easy. But, unfortunately, the least
important.
My neighbor to the left -- corpulent, tan, with eyes that shone too much (from contact
lenses?) -- suddenly disappeared; his seat expanded at the sides, which rose and joined to form a
kind of egg-shaped cocoon. A few other people disappeared into such cubicles. Swollen
sarcophagi. What did they do in them? But such things I encountered all the time, and tried not to
stare, as long as they did not concern me directly. Curiously, the people who gaped at us on
learning what we were I treated with indifference. Their dumbfoundedness did not concern me
much, although I realized immediately that there was not an iota of admiration in it. What did
arouse my antipathy were the ones who looked after us -- the staff of Adapt. Dr. Abs most of all,
because he treated me the way a doctor would an abnormal patient, pretending, and very well,
too, that he was dealing with someone quite ordinary. When that became impossible, he would
joke. I had had enough of his direct approach and joviality. If asked about it (or so, at least, I
thought), the man on the sheet would say that Olaf or I was similar to himself -- we were not so
outlandish to him, it was just our past existence that was unusual. Dr. Abs, on the other hand, and
all the workers at Adapt, knew better -- that we were decidedly different. This differentness was