“Is he a serious case too?” the navigator asked with interest.
“It’s possible. Though it doesn’t look like it. So. He’s not going to manage his getaway, because a certain barefoot woman has caught him. I am already acquainted with the woman because she works here. A very charming individual. She’s around twenty. Recently she asked me whether I had happened to know Norbert Wiener and Anton Makarenko. Now she’s dragging the serious case off, and, I think, edifying him en route. And here another pterocar is landing. Or no, it’s not a pterocar. You should ask the doctor for a stereovision, Sergei.”
“I did,” the navigator said gloomily. “He won’t let me have one.”
“Why not?”
“How should I know?”
Evgeny turned toward the bed. “All this is sound and fury, signifying nothing,” he said. “You’ll see everything, learn everything, and stop feeling strange. Don’t be so impressionable. Do you remember Koenig?”
“Yes?”
“Remember when I told him about your broken leg, and he shouted out loud in his magnificent accent, ‘Ach, how impressionable I am! Ach!’”
Kondratev smiled.
“And the next morning I came to see you,” Evgeny continued, “and asked how things were, and you answered with a touch of spite that you had spent ‘a variegated night’.”
“I remember,” said Kondratev. “And I’ve spent many variegated nights right here. And there are a lot of them coming up.”
“Ach, how impressionable I am!” Evgeny quickly shouted.
Kondratev closed his eyes again and lay silent for some time. “Listen, Evgeny,” he said without opening his eyes. “What did they say to you on the subject of your skill in piloting spaceships?”
Evgeny laughed merrily. “It was a great big scolding, although very polite. It seems I smashed through some enormous telescope, but I didn’t even notice at the time. The head of the observatory almost slugged me, but his upbringing wouldn’t permit it.”
Kondratev opened his eyes. “Well?” he said.
“But later, when they learned I wasn’t a pilot, it all cleared up. They even congratulated me. The observatory head, in an access of good feeling, even invited me to help with the rebuilding of the telescope.”
“Well?” said Kondratev.
Evgeny sighed. “Nothing came of it. The doctors wouldn’t let me.
The door opened a bit, and a dark girl wearing a white coat tightly belted at the waist looked into the room. She looked sternly at the patient, then at the visitor, and said, “It’s time, Comrade Slavin.”
“I’m just leaving,” said Evgeny.
The girl nodded and closed the door. Kondratev said sadly, “Well, here you are leaving me.”
“But not for long!” exclaimed Evgeny. “And don’t go sour, I beg you. You’ll be flying again, you’ll make a first-class D-spacer.”
“D-spacer—” The navigator smiled crookedly. “Okay, be on your way. They are now going to feed the D-spacer his porridge. With a baby spoon.”
Evgeny got up. “I’ll be seeing you, Sergei,” he said, carefully shaking Kondratev’s hand, which lay on top of the sheet. “Get well. And remember that the new world is a very good world.”
“Be seeing you, classicist,” said Kondratev. “Come again. And bring your intelligent young lady. What’s her name?”
“Sheila,” said Evgeny. “Sheila Kadar.”
He went out. He went out into an unknown and alien world, under a limitless sky, into the green of endless gardens. Into a world where, probably, glass superhighways ran arrow-straight to the horizon, where slender buildings threw delicate shadows across the plazas. Where cars darted without drivers or passengers, or with people dressed in strange clothing-calm, intelligent, benevolent, always very busy and very pleased to be so. Evgeny had gone out to wander over a planet both like and unlike the Earth they had abandoned so long ago and so recently. He would wander with his Sheila Kadar and soon would write his book, and the book would, of course, be very good, because Evgeny was quite capable of writing a good, intelligent book.
Kondratev opened his eyes. Next to the bed sat fat, ruddy Doctor Protos, watching him silently. Doctor Protos smiled, nodded, and said quietly, “Everything will be all right, Sergei.”
7. The Moving Roads
“Perhaps you’ll spend the evening with us after all?” Evgeny said indecisively.
“Yes,” said Sheila. “Let’s stay together. Where will you go by yourself with such a sad expression on your face?”
Kondratev shook his head. “No, thank you,” he said. “I’d rather be alone.” Sheila smiled at him warmly and a little sadly, and Evgeny bit his lip and looked past Kondratev.
“Don’t worry about me,” Kondratev said. “It bothers me when people worry about me. See you.” He stepped away from the pterocar and waved.
“Let him go,” said Evgeny. “It’ll be all right. Let him walk by himself. Have a good walk, Sergei-and you know where to find us.”
He offhandedly touched the keyboard on the control panel with his fingertips. He did not even look at the controls. His left arm lay behind Sheila’s back. He was magnificent. He didn’t even slam the door shut. He winked to Kondratev and jackrabbitted the pterocar from the spot in such a manner that the door slammed itself shut. The pterocar shot up into the sky and sailed off on its wings. Kondratev made his way toward the escalator.
Okay, he thought, let’s plunge into life. Old Evgeny says it’s impossible to get lost in this city. Let’s find out.
The escalator moved noiselessly. It was empty. Kondratev looked up. Overhead was a translucent roof. On it lay the shadows of pterocars and helicopters, belonging, no doubt, to the building’s inhabitants. Every roof in the city was a landing pad, it seemed. Kondratev looked down. Below was a wide, bright lobby. Its floor was smooth and sparkling, like ice.
Two young girls ran past Kondratev, clicking their heels in a staccato on the steps. One of them, small, wearing a white blouse and a vivid blue skirt, glanced at his face as she ran past. She had a freckled nose and a lock of hair across her forehead. Something about Kondratev struck her. She stopped a moment, grabbing the railing so as not to fall. Then she caught up to her friend, and they ran farther, but below, already in the lobby, both of them looked back. So, thought Kondratev, it begins. Here comes the elephant parading through the streets.
He descended to the lobby (the girls were already gone) and tested the floor with his foot to see whether it was slippery. It wasn’t. Alongside the lobby doors were enormous windows, and through one of them he could see that there was a great deal of greenery outside. Kondratev had already noticed this when flying over in the pterocar. The city was buried in greenery. Verdure filled up all the spaces between roofs. Kondratev walked around the lobby, and stood for a moment in front of a coat rack on which a solitary violet raincoat hung. After looking around cautiously, he felt the material, and then headed toward the doorway. On the steps of the porch he stopped. There was no street.
A trampled-down path stretched directly from the porch into thick, high grass. In ten paces it disappeared amid thickets of bushes. After the bushes came a forest-tall straight pines alternating with squat oaks, obviously very old. The clean light-blue walls of buildings extended to the right and to the left. “Not bad!” Kondratev said, and sniffed the air.
The air was very good. Kondratev put his hands behind his back and set off resolutely down the path. It led him to a fairly wide sandy walk. Kondratev hesitated, then turned right. There were many people on the walk. He even tensed up, expecting that at the sight of him the great-great-grandchildren would break off conversation, turn away from urgent problems, stop short, and start staring at him. Maybe even start asking him questions. But nothing of the sort occurred. Some elderly great-great-grandchild, overtaking him from behind, bumped into him clumsily and said, “Excuse me, please. No, I wasn’t talking to you, dear.” Kondratev smiled to be on the safe side.