“Do you mean to say you don’t know why Liakhov is going to Interstellar?” Malyshev asked.
“A freak!” said Gurgenidze. “A victim of mutation.”
“Listen,” Panin continued. “I’ve been thinking about it for a long time. Here we are, interstellar spacers, and we go off to UV Ceti. Two and a half parsecs.”
“Two point four,” said Sergei, looking into his glass.
“We travel,” Panin continued. “We travel a long time. Let’s even say there are planets there. We land, we do research, see the seven sails, as my grandfather says.”
“My grandfather has better taste,” Gurgenidze put in.
“Then we start back. We’re old and stiff, and arguing all the time. Or at least Sergei isn’t talking to anyone. And we’re already pushing sixty. Meanwhile on Earth, thanks to Einstein, a hundred and fifty years have gone by. Some bunch of very young-looking citizens meets us, and at first everything is very nice: Music, flowers, and shish kebab. But then I want to go see my home town, Vologda. And it turns out nobody lives there any more. You see, it’s a museum.”
“The Boris Panin Memorial Museum-City,” said Malyshev. “Chock full of memorial plaques.”
“Right,” Panin continued. “Chock full. Anyhow, you can’t live in Vologda, but on the other hand—and will you like that ‘other hand’?—there’s a monument there. A monument to me. I look at myself and inquire why there are horns growing out of my head. I don’t understand the answer. It’s clear only that they aren’t horns. They explain to me that a hundred and fifty years ago I wore a helmet like that. ‘No,’ I say, ‘I never had any such helmet.’ ‘Oh, how interesting!’ says the curator of the museum-city, and he starts making notes. ‘We must inform the Central Bureau for Eternal Memory of this immediately,’ he says. And the words ‘Eternal Memory’ have unpleasant connotations for me. But how can I explain this to the curator?”
“You’re getting carried away,” said Malyshev. “Get back to the point.”
“Anyhow, I begin to understand that I’ve ended up in another alien world. We deliver a report on the results of our expedition, but it gets a curious reception. You see, the results have only a narrow historical interest. Everything has already been known for fifty years, because human beings have been to UV Ceti—that’s where we went, isn’t it?—twenty times by now. And anyhow, they’ve built three artificial planets the size of Earth there. They can make trips like that in two months. You see, they have discovered some new property of space-time which we don’t yet understand and which they call, say, trimpazation. Finally they show us the News of the Day film clip covering the installation of our ship in the Archaeological Museum. We look, we listen…”
“How you do get carried away!” said Malyshev.
“I’m a simple man,” Panin said threateningly. “Now and again my imagination runs free.”
“I don’t like the way you’re talking,” Sergei said quietly.
Panin immediately became serious. “All right,” he said, also quietly. “Then tell me where I’m wrong. Tell me what we need the stars for.”
“Wait,” said Malyshev. “There are two questions here. The first is, what use are the stars?”
“Right, what?” asked Panin.
“The second question is, granting that they do have some use, can we exploit it in the present generation? Right?”
“Right,” said Panin. He was not smiling any longer, and he looked steadily at Sergei. Sergei remained silent.
“I’ll answer the first question,” said Malyshev. “Do you want to know what’s going on in the system of UV Ceti?”
“All right, I want to,” said Panin. “What of it?”
“Well, I myself want to very much. And if I go on wanting for my whole life, and if I go on trying to find out, then before my death—untimely, I hope—I will thank the nonexistent God for creating the stars and filling up my life.”
“Ah!” said Gurgenidze. “How beautiful!”
“You see,” said Malyshev, “we’re talking about human beings.”
“So?” asked Panin, turning red.
“That’s all,” said Malyshev. “First a creature said, ‘I want to eat.’ He wasn’t yet human at that point. But then he said ‘I want to know.’ Then he was a human being.”
“This human being of yours,” Panin said angrily, “still has no clear idea of what’s under his feet, and he’s already snatching at the stars.”
“That’s why he’s a human being,” Malyshev answered. “That’s the way he is. Look, don’t go against the laws of nature. It doesn’t depend on you. There’s a law: the aspiration to find out in order to live inevitably turns into the aspiration to live in order to find out. You, you’re just afraid of acceleration.”
“All right,” said Panin. “So I’ll become a teacher. I’ll plumb the depths of children’s souls for the sake of everyone. But for whose sake are you going to find out about the stars?”
“That’s the second question,” Malyshev began, but here Gurgenidze jumped up and started yelling, with eyes flashing, “You want to wait until they invent your trimpazation? So wait! I don’t want to wait! I’m going to the stars!”
“Bah,” said Panin. “Quiet down.”
“Don’t worry,” Sergei said without raising his eyes. “They won’t send you on a starship.”
“And why not?” inquired Panin,
“Who needs you?” shouted Gurgenidze. “Go sit on the Moon run!”
“They’ll pity your youth,” said Sergei. “As for whose sake will we find out about the stars… for our own, for everyone’s. Even for yours. But you won’t take part in it. You’ll make your discoveries in the newspapers. You’re afraid of acceleration.”
“Hold on, guys,” Malyshev said anxiously. “This is a purely theoretical discussion.”
But Sergei knew that another moment and he would start swearing and would try to prove that he wasn’t a jock. He got up and quickly left the dining hall.
“Had enough?” Gurgenidze said to Panin.
“Well,” said Panin, “in a situation like this, in order to remain a human being, you’ve got to act like an animal.”
He grabbed Gurgenidze by the neck and bent him in two. There no longer was anyone in the dining hall, except for the three aces from the Command Division, who were clinking glasses of tomato juice by the counter. They were drinking to Liakhov, to Interstellar One.
Sergei Kondratev went straight to the videophone. First I’ve got to straighten things out, he thought. Katya first. Oh, what a mess it’s all turned out to be! Poor Katya. Poor me, for that matter.
He took the receiver off the cradle and stopped, trying to remember the number for Katya’s room. And suddenly he dialed the number for Valentin Petrov. Until the last moment he was thinking about how he had to talk with Katya right away, so he was silent for a second or two, looking at the lean face of Petrov which had appeared on the screen. Petrov too was silent, arching his sparse eyebrows. Sergei said, “Are you busy?”
“Not particularly,” said Petrov.
“I have something to talk about. I’ll come over right away.”
“Do you need Volume Seven?” Petrov said, squinting. “Come on over. I’ll call someone else. Maybe we should invite Kan?”
“No,” said Sergei. “It’s too early. Just ourselves for now.”
Part Two: Homecoming
3. Old-timer