“It was a hundred and twenty-seven years ago. I was thirty then. The expedition… I was a pilot on the expedition to Fomalhaut. That’s twenty-three light years away. We flew there and back in a hundred and twenty- seven years Earth time and ten years ship time. Four days ago we returned… The
She stared at me. She did not speak. Her lips moved, opened, closed. What was that in her eyes? Surprise? Admiration? Fear?
“Why do you say nothing?” I asked. I had to clear my throat.
“So… how old are you, really?”
I had to smile; it was not a pleasant smile.
“What does that mean, ‘really’? Biologically I’m forty, but by Earth clocks, one hundred and fifty- seven…”
A long silence, then suddenly:
“Were there any women there?”
“Wait,” I said. “Do you have anything to drink?”
“What do you mean?”
“Something toxic, you understand. Strong. Alcohol… or don’t they drink it any more?”
“Very rarely,” she replied softly, as if thinking of something else. Her hands fell slowly, touched the metallic blue of her dress.
“I’ll give you some… angehen, is that all right? But you don’t know what it is, do you?”
“No, I don’t,” I replied, unexpectedly stubborn. She went to the bar and brought back a small, bulging bottle. She poured me a drink. It had alcohol in it — not much — but there was something else, a peculiar, bitter taste.
“Don’t be angry,” I said, emptying the cup, and poured myself another one.
“I’m not angry. You didn’t answer, but perhaps you don’t want to?”
“Why not? I can tell you. There were twenty-three of us altogether, on two ships. The second was the Ulysses. Five pilots to a ship, and the rest scientists. There were no women.”
“Why?”
“Because of children,” I explained. “You can’t raise children on such ships, and even if you could, no one would want to. You can’t fly before you’re thirty. You have to have two diplomas under your belt, plus four years of training, twelve years in all. In other words — women of thirty usually have children. And there were… other considerations.”
“And you?” she asked.
“I was single. They picked unmarried ones. That is — volunteers.”
“You wanted to…”
“Yes. Of course.”
“And you didn’t…”
She broke off. I knew what she wanted to say. I remained silent.
“It must be weird, coming back like this,” she said almost in a whisper. She shuddered. Suddenly she looked at me, her cheeks darkened, it was a blush.
“Listen, what I said before, that was just a joke, really…”
“About the hundred years?”
“I was just talking, just to talk, it had no…”
“Stop,” I grumbled. “Any more apologizing and I’ll really feel all that time.”
She was silent. I forced myself to look away from her. Inside that other room, the nonexistent room behind glass, an enormous male head sang without sound; I saw the dark read of the throat quiver at the effort, cheeks glistening, the whole face moving to an inaudible rhythm.
“What will you do?” she asked quietly.
“I don’t know. I don’t know yet.”
“You have no plans?”
“No. I have a little — it’s a… bonus, you understand. For all that time. When we left, it was put into the bank in my name — I don’t even know how much there is. I don’t know a thing. Listen, what is this Cavut?”
“The Cavuta?” she corrected me. “It’s… a sort of school, plasting; nothing great in itself, but sometimes one can get into the reals…”
“Wait… then what exactly do you do?”
“Plast. You don’t know what that is?”
“No.”
“How can I explain? To put it simply, one makes dresses, clothing in general — everything…”
“Tailoring?”
“What does that mean?”
“Do you sew things?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Ye gods and little fishes! Do you design dresses?”
“Well… yes, in a sense, yes. I don’t design, I only make…”
I gave up.
“And what is a real?”
That truly floored her. For the first time she looked at me as if I were a creature from another world.
“A real is… a real…” she repeated helplessly. “They are… stories. It’s for watching.”
“That?” I pointed at the glass wall.
“Oh no, that’s vision…”
“What, then? Movies? Theater?”
“No. Theater, I know what that was — that was long ago. I know: they had actual people there. A real is artificial, but one can’t tell the difference. Unless, I suppose, one got in there, inside…”
“Got in?”
The head of the giant rolled its eyes, reeled, looked at me as if it were having great fun, observing this scene.
“Listen, Nais,” I said suddenly, “either I’ll go now, because it’s very late, or…”
“I’d prefer the ‘or.’ “
“But you don’t know what I want to say.”
“Say it, then.”
“All right. I wanted to ask you more about various things. About the big things, the most important, I already know something; I spent four days at Adapt, on Luna. But that was a drop in the bucket. What do you do when you aren’t working?”
“One can do a heap of things,” she said. “One can travel, actually or by moot. One can have a good time, go to the real, dance, play tereo, do sports, swim, fly — whatever one wants.”
“What is a moot?”
“It’s a little like the real, except you can touch everything. You can walk on mountains there, on anything — you’ll see for yourself, it’s not the sort of thing you can describe. But I had the impression you wanted to ask about something else… ?”
“Your impression is right. How is it between men and women?”
Her eyelids fluttered.
“I suppose the way it has always been. What can have changed?”
“Everything. When I left — don’t take this in bad part — a girl like you would not have brought me to her place at this hour.”
“Really? Why not?”
“Because it would have meant only one thing.”
She was silent for a moment.
“And how do you know it didn’t?”
My expression amused her. I looked at her; she stopped smiling.
“Nais… how is it… ?” I stammered. “You take a complete stranger and…”
