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

no mark of distinction but only a barrier to communication, to the simplest exchange of words,
hell, to the opening of a door, seeing as doorknobs had ceased to exist -- what was it? -- some
fifty or sixty years earlier.
The takeoff came unexpectedly. There was no change at all in gravity, no sound reached
the hermetically sealed interior, the shadows swam evenly across the ceiling -- it might have been
habit established over many years, an old instinct, that told me that at a certain moment we were
in space, because it was certainty, not a guess.
But something else was occupying me. I sat half supine, my legs stretched out,
motionless. They had let me have my way too easily. Even Oswamm did not oppose my decision
too much. The counterarguments that I heard from him and from Abs were unconvincing -- I
myself could have come up with better. They insisted on one thing only, that each of us fly
separately. They did not even hold it against me that I got Olaf to rebel (because if it had not been
for me, he definitely would have agreed to stay there longer). That had been odd. I had expected
complications, something that would spoil my plan at the last minute, but nothing happened, and
now here I was flying. This final journey was to end in fifteen minutes.
Clearly, what I had devised, and the way, too, that I went before them to argue for an
earlier departure, did not surprise them. They must have had a reaction of this type catalogued, it
was a behavior pattern characteristic of a stalwart such as myself, assigned an appropriate serial
number in their psycho-technical tables. They permitted me to fly -- why? Because experience
had told them that I would not be able to manage on my own? But how could that be, when this
whole "independence" escapade involved flying from one terminal to another, where someone
from the Earth branch of Adapt would be waiting and all I had to do was to find him at a
prearranged location?
Something happened. I heard raised voices. I leaned out of my seat. Several rows in front
of me a woman pushed away the stewardess, who, with a slow, automatic motion, as if from the
push -- though the push had not been all that hard -- went backward down the aisle, and the
woman repeated, "I won't have it! Don't let that touch me." I did not see the face of the speaker.
Her companion pulled at her arm, was saying something to calm her. What was the meaning of
this little scene? The other passengers paid no attention to her. For the hundredth time I was
possessed by a feeling of incredible alienation. I looked up at the stewardess, who had stopped by
my side and was smiling as before. It was not merely an external smile of official politeness, a
smile to cover an upsetting incident. She was not pretending to be calm, she truly was calm.
"Something to drink? Prum, extran, morr, cider?"
A melodious voice. I shook my head. I wanted to say something nice to her, but all I
could come up with was the stereotyped question:
"When do we land?"
"In six minutes. Would you care for something to eat? There is no need to hurry. You can
stay on after we land."
"No, thank you."
She left. In the air, right before my face, against the background of the seat in front of me,
a sign that read STRATO lit up, as though written with the glowing end of a cigarette. I bent
forward to see where the sign came from, and flinched. The back of my seat moved with my
shoulders and clung to them elastically. I knew already that furniture accommodated every
change in position, but I kept forgetting. It was not pleasant -- as if someone were following my
every move. I wanted to return to my former position but apparently overdid it. The seat
misunderstood and nearly flattened itself out like a bed. I jumped up. This was idiotic! More
control. I sat, finally. The pink letters of STRATO flickered and flowed into others: TERMINAL. No
jolt, no warning, no whistle. Nothing. A distant voice resounded like the horn of a postilion, four
oval doors opened at the end of the aisle, and a hollow, all-embracing roar, like that of the sea,
rushed in. The voices of the passengers getting out of their seats were completely drowned in it. I