Return from the Stars

was barely held in place, the force that held them was unusually weak — which does not mean that if a boulder landed on a man, it would not kill him. The mass would act then, not the weight; there would be time to jump clear, of course, if you could see the thing falling… or at least hear it. But, then, there was no air, so it was only by the vibration under my feet that I could tell whether I had again sent some rock structure toppling, and I could do nothing but wait for a fragment to come out of the pitch-dark and begin to crush me… I wandered about for hours and no longer thought that my idea of using the detector was brilliant. I also had to be careful because now and then I would find myself in the air, that is, floating, as in some clownish dream. At last I caught a signal. I must have lost it eight times, I don’t remember exactly, but by the time I found the rocket, it was night on the Prometheus.

“The rocket stood at an angle, half-buried in that fiendish dust. The softest, most delicate stuff you can imagine. Almost insubstantial. The lightest fluff on Earth would offer more resistance. The particles were so incredibly small… I checked inside the rocket; he was not there. I’ve said that it stood at an angle, but I wasn’t at all sure; it was impossible to find the vertical without using special equipment, and that would’ve taken at least an hour, and a conventional plumb line, weighing practically nothing, was useless, since the bob wouldn’t have held the string tight… I wasn’t surprised, then, that he hadn’t tried to take off. I entered. I saw immediately that he had jury-rigged something to determine the vertical but that it hadn’t worked. There was plenty of food left, but no oxygen. He must have transferred it all to the tank on his suit and left.”

“Why?”

“Yes, why. He had been there three days. In that type of rocket you have only a seat, a screen, the control, levers, and a hatch at the rear. I sat there for a while. I realized that I would never be able to find him. For a second I thought that possibly he had gone out just as I landed, that he’d used his gas shooter to return to the Prometheus and was sitting on board now, while I wandered over these drunken stones… I jumped out of the rocket so energetically that I flew upward. No sense of direction, nothing. You know how it is when you see a spark in total darkness? The eyes fantasize, there are rays, visions. Well, with the sense of balance, something similar can happen. In zero gravity there’s no problem, a person accustoms himself. But when gravity is extremely weak, as on that planetoid, the inner ear reacts erratically, if not irrationally. You think you’re zooming up like a Roman candle, then plummeting, and so on, all the time. And then the sensations of spinning and shifting, of the arms, legs, torso — as if the parts of your body changed places and your head wasn’t where it belonged…

“That was how f flew, until I collided with a wall, bounced off it, caught on something, was sent rolling, but managed to grab hold of a projecting rock… Someone lay there. Thomas.”

She was silent. In the darkness the Pacific roared.

“No, not what you think. He was alive. He sat up at once. I switched on the radio. At that short distance we could communicate perfectly.

“‘Is that you?’ I heard him say.

“‘It’s me,’ I said. A scene from a ridiculous farce, it was so farfetched. Yet that’s how it was. We got to our feet.

“‘How do you feel?’ I asked.

“‘Fine. And you?’

“This surprised me a little, but I said:

“‘Very well, thank you. And everyone at home, too, is in good health.’

“Idiotic, but I thought that he was talking this way to show that he was holding up, you know?”

“I understand.”

“When he stood close to me, I saw him as a patch of denser darkness in the light of my shoulder lamp. I ran my hands over his suit — it was undamaged.

“‘Do you have enough oxygen?’ I asked. That was the most important thing.

“‘Who cares?’ he said.

“I wondered what to do next. Start up his rocket? That would be too risky. To tell the truth, I wasn’t even very pleased. I was afraid — or, rather, unsure — it is difficult to explain. The situation was unreal, I sensed something strange in it, what exactly I didn’t know, I was not even fully aware of how I felt. Only that I wasn’t pleased by this miraculous discovery. I tried to figure out how the rocket could be saved. But that, I thought, was not the most important thing. First I had to see what shape he was in. We stood there, in a night without stars.

“‘What have you been doing all this time?’ I asked. This was important. If he had tried to do anything at all, even to take a few mineral samples, that would be a good sign.

“‘Different things,’ he said. ‘And what have you been doing, Tom?’

“‘What Tom?’ I asked and went cold, because Arder had been dead a year, and he knew that very well.

“‘But you’re Tom. Aren’t you? I recognize your voice.’

“I said nothing; with his gloved hand he touched my suit and said:

“‘Nasty, isn’t it? Nothing to see, and nothing there. I had pictured it differently. What about you?’

“I thought that he was imagining things in connection with Arder… That had happened to more than one of us.

“‘Yes,’ I said, ‘it isn’t too interesting here. Let’s go, what do you say, Thomas?’

“‘Go?’ He was surprised. ‘What are you talking about, Tom?’

“I no longer paid attention to his ‘Tom.’

“‘You want to stay here?’ I said.

“‘And you don’t?’

“He is pulling my leg, I thought, but enough of these stupid jokes.

“‘No,’ I said. ‘We must get back. Where is your pistol?’

“‘I lost it when I died.’

“‘What?’

“‘But I didn’t mind,’ he said. ‘A dead man doesn’t need a pistol.’

“‘Well, well,’ I said. ‘Come, I’ll strap you to me and we’ll go.’

“‘Are you crazy, Tom? Go where?’

“‘Back to the Prometheus.’

“‘But it isn’t here…’

“‘It’s out there. Let me strap you up.’

“‘Wait.’

“He pushed me away.

“‘You speak strangely. You’re not Tom!’

“‘That’s right. I’m Hal.’

“‘You died, too? When?’

“I now saw what was up, and I decided to go along with his game.

“‘Oh,’ I said, ‘a few days ago. Now let me strap you…’

“He didn’t want to. We began to banter back and forth, first as if good-naturedly, but then it grew more serious; I tried to take hold of him, but couldn’t, in the suit. What was I to do? I couldn’t leave him, not even for a moment — I would never find him a second time. Miracles don’t happen twice. And he wanted to remain there, as a dead man. Then, when I thought I had convinced him, when he seemed ready to agree — and I gave him my gas shooter to hold — he put his face close to mine, so that I could almost see him through the double glass, and shouted, ‘You bastard! You tricked me! You’re alive!’ — and he shot me.”

For some time now I had felt Eri’s face pressed to my back. At these last words she jerked, as if a current had passed through her, and covered the scar with her hand. We lay in silence for a while.

“It was a very good suit,” I said. “It wasn’t pierced at all. It bent into me, broke a rib, tore some muscles, but wasn’t pierced. I didn’t even lose consciousness, but my right arm wouldn’t move for a while and a warm sensation told me I was bleeding. For a moment, however, I must have been in a muddle, because when I got up Thomas was gone. I searched for him, groping on all fours, but instead of him I found the shooter. He must have thrown it down immediately after firing. With the shooter I made it back to the ship. They saw me the moment I left the dust cloud. Olaf brought the ship up and they pulled me in. I said that I had not been able to find him. That I had found only the empty rocket, and that the shooter had fallen from my hand and gone off when I stumbled. The suit was double-layered. A piece of the metal lining came away. I have it here, under my rib.”