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

onto a moving walkway. Quite close to me, a pair of startled eyes flashed by -- a lovely dark girl
in something that shone like phosphorized metal. The fabric clung to her: she was as if naked.
White faces, yellow, a few tall blacks, but I was still the tallest. People made way for me. High
above, behind convex windows, scattered shadows sped by, unseen orchestras played, but here a
curious promenade went on; in the dark passages, the headless silhouettes of women: the fluff
covering their arms gave off a light, so that only their raised necks showed in it like strange white
stems, and the scattered glow in their hair -- a luminescent powder? A narrow passage led me to a
series of rooms with grotesque -- because moving, even active -- statues; a kind of wide street
with raised sides boomed with laughter. People were being amused, but what was amusing them -
- the statues?
Huge figures in cones of floodlights; pouring from them was ruby light, honey light, as
thick as syrup, an unusual concentration of colors. I walked on passively, squinting, abstracted. A
steep green corridor, grotesque pavilions, pagodas reached by little bridges, everywhere small
caf├йs, the sharp, persistent smell of fried food, rows of gas flames behind windows, the clinking
of glass, metallic sounds, repeated, incomprehensible. The crowd that had carried me here
collided with another, then thinned out; everyone was getting into an open carriage; no, it was
only transparent, as if molded in glass, even the seats were like glass, though soft. Without
knowing how, I found myself inside -- we were moving. The carriage tore along, the people
shouted over the sound of a loudspeaker that repeated, "Meridional level, Meridional, change for
Spiro, Atale, Blekk, Frosom"; the entire carriage seemed to melt, pierced by shafts of light; walls
flew by in strips of flame and color; parabolic arches, white platforms. "Forteran, Forteran,
change for Galee, change for outer rasts, Makra," babbled the speaker; the carriage stopped, then
sped on. I discovered a remarkable thing: there was no sensation of braking or acceleration, as if
inertia had been annulled. How was this possible? I checked, bending my knees slightly, at three
consecutive stops. Nothing on the turns, either. People got off, got on. At the front stood a
woman with a dog; I had never seen such a dog, it was huge, its head like a ball, very ugly; in its
placid hazel eyes were reflected retreating, diminishing garlands of lights. RAMBRENT
RAMBRENT. There was a fluttering from white and bluish fluorescent tubes, stairs of crystalline
brilliance, black fa├зades; the brilliance gave way slowly to stone; the carriage stopped. I got off
and was dumbstruck. Above the amphitheater-like sunken dial of the stop rose a multistory
structure that I recognized; I was still in the station, in another place within the same gigantic hall
magnified in white sweeping surfaces. I made for the edge of the geometrically perfect
depression -- the carriage had already left -- and received another surprise. I was not at the
bottom, as I had thought; I was actually high up, about forty floors above the bands of the
walkways visible in the abyss, above the silver decks of the ever-steadily gliding platforms;
between them moved long, silent bodies, and people emerged from these through rows of
hatches; it was as if monsters, chrome-plated fish, were depositing, at regular intervals, their
black and colored eggs. Above all this, through the mist of the distance, I saw words of gold
moving in a line:
BACK TODAY GLENIANIA ROON WITH HER MIMORPHIC REAL RECORDING PAYS TRIBUTE
IN THE ORATORIUM TO THE MEMORY OF RAPPER KERX POLITR. TERMINAL NEWS BULLETIN:
TODAY IN AMMONLEE PETIFARGUE PRODUCED THE SYSTOLIZATION OF THE FIRST ENZOM. THE
VOICE OF THE DISTINGUISHED GRAVISTICIAN WILL BE BROADCAST AT HOUR TWENTY-SEVEN.
ARRAKER LEADS. ARRAKER REPEATED HIS SUCCESS AS THE FIRST OBLITERATOR OF THE
SEASON AT THE TRANSVAAL STADIUM.
I turned away. So even the way of telling time had changed. Hit by the light of the
gigantic letters that flew above the sea of heads like rows of burning tightrope-walkers, the
metallic fabrics of the women's dresses flared up in sudden flames. I walked, oblivious, and
something inside me kept repeating: So even time has changed. That somehow did me in. I saw
nothing, though my eyes were open. I wanted one thing only, to get away, to find a way out of