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

remained seated while they exited, a file of silhouettes floating by before the outside lights,
green, lilac, purple -- a veritable masked ball. Then they were gone. I stood up. Mechanically
straightened my sweater. Feeling stupid, somehow, with my hands empty. Through the open door
came cooler air. I turned. The stewardess was standing by the partition wall, not touching it with
her back. On her face was the same tranquil smile, directed at the empty rows of seats, which
now on their own began to roll up, to furl, like fleshy flowers, some faster, some a little more
slowly -- this was the only movement in the all-embracing, drawn-out roar that flowed in through
the oval openings and brought to mind the open sea. "Don't let that touch me!" Suddenly I found
something not right in her smile. From the exit I said:
"Good-bye. . ."
"Acknowledged."
The significance of that reply, so peculiar coming from the lips of a beautiful young
woman, I did not immediately grasp, for it reached me when my back was turned, as I was
halfway out the door. I went to put my foot on a step, but there was no step. Between the metal
hull and the edge of the platform yawned a meter-wide crevice. Caught off balance, unprepared
for such a trap, I made a clumsy leap and, in midair, felt an invisible flow of force take hold of
me as if from below, so that I floated across the void and was set down softly on a white surface,
which yielded elastically. In flight, I must have had a none-too-intelligent expression on my face
-- I felt a number of amused stares, or so it seemed to me. I quickly turned away and walked
along the platform. The rocket on which I had arrived was resting in a deep bay, separated from
the edge of the platforms by an unprotected abyss. I drew close to this empty space, as if
unintentionally, and for the second time felt an invisible resilience that kept me from crossing the
white border. I wanted to locate the source of this peculiar force, but suddenly, as if I were
waking up, it occurred to me: I was on Earth.
A wave of pedestrians caught me up; jostled, I moved forward in the crowd. It took a
moment for me really to see the size of the hall. But was it all one hall? No walls: a glittering
white high-held explosion of unbelievable wings; between them, columns, made not of any
substance but of dizzying motion. Rushing upward, enormous fountains of a liquid denser than
water, illuminated from inside by colored floodlights? No -- vertical tunnels of glass through
which a succession of blurred vehicles raced upward? Now I was completely at a loss. Constantly
pushed and shoved in the swarming crowds, I attempted to work my way to some clear space, but
there were no clear spaces here. Being a head taller than those around me, I was able to see that
the empty rocket was moving off -- no, it was we who were gliding forward with the entire
platform. From above, lights flared, and in them the people sparkled and shimmered. Now the flat
surface on which we stood close together began to move upward and I saw below, in the distance,
double white belts packed with people, and gaping black crevices along inert hulls -- for there
were dozens of ships like ours. The moving platform made a turn, accelerated, continued to
higher levels. Thundering, fluttering the hair of those who were standing with strong gusts of
wind, there hurtled past on them, as on impossible (for completely unsupported) viaducts, oval
shadows, trembling with speed and trailing long streaks of flame, their signal lights; then the
surface carrying us began to branch, dividing along imperceptible seams; my strip passed through
an interior filled with people both standing and seated; a multitude of tiny flashes surrounded
them, as though they were engaged in setting off colored fireworks.
I did not know where to look. In front of me stood a man in something fluffy like fur,
which, when touched by light, opalesced like metal. He supported by the arm a woman in scarlet.
What she had on was all in large eyes, peacock eyes, and the eyes blinked. It was no illusion --
the eyes on her dress actually opened and closed. The walkway, on which I stood behind the two
of them and among a dozen other people, picked up speed. Between surfaces of smoke-white
glass there opened colored, lighted malls with transparent ceilings, ceilings trod upon
continuously by hundreds of feet on the floor above; the all-embracing roar now swelled, now