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

platform and I was on the "rast" -- there was not even anyone to ask, for the area around me was
deserted. I must have taken a wrong turn. One part of my "platform" held flattened buildings
without front walls. Approaching them, I found low, dimly lit cubicles, in which stood rows of
black machines. I took these for cars. But when the two nearest me emerged and, before I had
time to step back, passed me at tremendous speed, I saw, before they disappeared into the
background of parabolic inclines, that they had no wheels, windows, or doors. Streamlined, like
huge black drops of liquid. Cars or not -- I thought -- in any case this appears to be some kind of
parking lot. For the "rasts"? I decided that it would be better for me to wait for someone to come
along, and go with him: at least I would learn something. My platform lifted lightly, like the wing
of an impossible airplane, but remained empty; there were only the black machines, emerging
singly or several at a time from their metal lairs and speeding away, always in the same direction.
I went down to the very edge of the platform, until once more that invisible, springy force made
itself felt, assuring complete safety. The platform truly hung in the air, not supported by anything.
Lifting my head, I saw many others like it, hovering motionless in space in the same way, with
their great lights out; at some, where craft were arriving, the lights were on. But those rockets or
projectiles were not like the one that had brought me in from Luna.
I stood there awhile, until I noticed, against the background of some further hallways --
though I did not know whether they were mirrored reflections of this one or reality -- letters of
fire steadily moving through the air: SOAMO SOAMO SOAMO, a pause, a bluish flash, and then
NEONAX NEONAX NEONAX. These might have been the names of stations, or possibly of
advertised products. They told me nothing.
It's high time I found that fellow, I thought. I tumed on my heel and, seeing a walkway
moving in the opposite direction, took it back down. This turned out to be the wrong level, it was
not even the hall that I had left: I knew this by the absence of those enormous columns. But, then,
they might have gone away somewhere; by now I considered anything possible.
I found myself in a forest of fountains; farther along I came upon a white-pink room filled
with women. As I walked by I put my hand, without thinking, into the jet of an illuminated
fountain, perhaps because it was pleasant to come across something even a little familiar. But I
felt nothing, the fountain was without water. After a moment it seemed to me that I smelled
flowers. I put my hand to my nostrils. It smelled like a thousand scented soaps at once.
Instinctively I rubbed my hand on my trousers. Now I was standing in front of that room filled
with women, only women. It did not appear to me to be a powder room, but I had no way of
knowing. I preferred not to ask, so I turned away. A young man, wearing something that looked
as though mercury had flowed over him and solidified, puffed-out (or perhaps foamy) on the
arms and snug about the hips, was talking with a blonde girl who had her back against the bowl
of a fountain. The girl, wearing a bright dress that was quite ordinary, which encouraged me, held
a bouquet of pale pink flowers; nestling her face in them, she smiled at the boy with her eyes. At
the moment I stood before them and was opening my mouth to speak, I saw that she was eating
the flowers -- and my voice failed me. She was calmly chewing the delicate petals. She looked up
at me. Her eyes froze. But to that I had grown accustomed. I asked where the Inner Circle was.
The boy, it seemed to me, was unpleasantly surprised, even angry, that someone dared to
interrupt their t├кte-├а-t├кte. I must have committed some impropriety. He looked me up and down,
as if expecting to find stilts that would account for my height. He did not say a word.
"Oh, there," cried the girl, "the rast on the vuk, your rast, you can make it, hurry!"
I started running in the direction indicated, without knowing to what -- I still hadn't the
faintest idea what that damned rast looked like -- and after about ten steps I saw a silvery funnel
descending from high above, the base of one of those enormous columns that had astonished me
so much before. Could they be flying columns? People were hurrying toward it from all
directions; then suddenly I collided with someone. I did not lose my balance, I merely stood
rooted to the spot, but the other person, a stout individual in orange, fell down, and something