He suddenly came to himself again and looked at Kondratev with a completely sober glance. “To put it briefly, the job has everything. Wide-open spaces, and depths, and being useful to people, and having good comrades-and adventures, if you especially want that.”
“Yes,” Kondratev said with feeling.
Zvantsev smiled.
“He’s ready,” said Gorbovsky. “Well, that’s a spacer for you. Like you, I want to be on the turret… and with the jellyfish
“That’s how it is,” Zvantsev said in a businesslike manner. “I’ll take you to Vladivostok. The course in the training school there begins in two days. Have you finished eating?”
“Yes,” said Kondratev. Work, he thought. Here it is—real work!
“Then let’s be on our way,” said Zvantsev, rising.
“Where?”
“To the airport.”
“Right now?”
“Well, of course right now. What is there to wait for?”
“Nothing,” Kondratev said confusedly. “Only…” He recollected himself and quickly began clearing away the dishes.
Gorbovsky helped him while finishing a banana. “You go on,” he said, “and I’ll stay here. I’ll lie down and read a bit. I have a flight at twenty-one thirty.”
They went out into the living room, and the navigator looked around. The thought came distinctly that wherever he would go on this planet, he would find at his disposal the same sort of quiet little house, and kind neighbors, and books, and a garden out the window. “Let’s go,” he said. “Goodbye, Leonid. Thank you for everything.”
Gorbovsky had already oozed onto the couch. “Goodbye, Sergei,” he said. “We’ll be seeing a good deal of each other.”
Part Three: The Planet with All the Conveniences
10. Languor of the Spirit
When Pol Gnedykh appeared on the streets of the Volga-Unicorn Farm early one morning, people stared after him. Pol was deliberately unshaven and barefoot. On his shoulder he carried a many-branched stick, with a dusty pair of shoes tied with twine dangling from the end. Starting near the latticed tower of the microweather installation, a litter robot began dogging his footsteps. From behind the openwork fence of one of the cottages came the laughter of many voices, and a pretty girl standing on a porch with a towel in her hand inquired of the whole street, “Hail pilgrim! Returning from some holy shrine?” Immediately, from the other side of the street came a question, “Don’t we have any opium for the masses?” The venture was working out gloriously well. Pol assumed a dignified air and began to sing loudly:
Into the astounded silence came a frightened voice: “What is he?” Then Pol stopped, shoved the robot with his foot, and asked into space, “Does anyone know where I can find Aleksandr Kostylin?”
Several voices vied with each other to explain that Kostylin must be in the laboratory now, right over in that building.
“On thy left,” a single voice added after a short pause.
Pol politely thanked them and continued on. The lab building was low, round, light blue. A towheaded, freckled youth in a white lab coat stood in the doorway, leaning against the doorpost, with his arms folded across his chest. Pol went up the steps and stopped. The towhead looked at him placidly.
“Can I see Kostylin?” Pol asked.
The youth ran his eyes over Pol, looked over Pol’s shoulder at the shoes, looked at the litter robot, which was rocking on the step below Pol, its manipulators gaping greedily, and then turning his head slightly, he called softly, “Sasha, hey Sasha! Come out here a minute. Some castaway is here to see you.”
“Have him come in,” a familiar bass rumbled from the depths of the laboratory.
The towheaded youth looked Pol over again. “He can’t,” he said, “he’s highly septic.”
“So disinfect him,” came the voice from the laboratory. “I’ll be happy to wait.”
“You’ll have a long wait—” the youth began.
And here Pol appealed plaintively, “Zow, Lin! It’s me, Polly!”
Something in the laboratory fell with a crash; out from the doorway, as if from a subway tunnel, came a whiff of cold air, the towheaded youth stepped aside, and on the threshold appeared Aleksandr Kostylin, enormous, broad, in a gigantic white coat. His hands, with fingers spread wide, were thickly smeared with something, and he carried them off to the side, like a surgeon during an operation. “Zow, Polly!” he yelled, and the litter robot, driven out of its cybernetic mind, rolled down off the porch and rushed headlong through the street.
Poi threw down his stick and, forgetful of self, darted into the embrace of the white coat. His bones crunched. What a way to go, he thought, and croaked, “Mercy… Lin… friend…”
“Polly—Little Polly!” Kostylin cooed in his bass, squeezing Pol with his elbows. “It’s really great to see you here!”
Pol fought like a lion, and at last managed to free himself. The towheaded youth, who had been following the reunion with fright, sighed with relief, picked up the stick with the shoes, and gave it to Pol.
“So how are you?” asked Kostylin, smiling the whole width of his face.
“All right, thanks,” said Pol. “I’m alive.”
“As you can see, we till the soil here,” Kostylin said. “Feeding all you parasites.”
“You look very impressive,” said Pol.
Kostylin glanced at his hands. “Yes,” he said, “I forgot.” He turned to the towhead. “Fedor, finish up by yourself. You can see that Polly has come for a visit. Little Lieber Polly.”
“Maybe we should just chuck it?” said Fedor. “I mean, it’s clear it’s not going to work.”
“No, we’ve got to finish,” said Kostylin. “You finish up, will you please?”
“Okay,” Fedor said reluctantly, and went off into the laboratory.
Kostylin grabbed Pol by the shoulder and held him off at arm’s length to look him over. “Haven’t grown a bit,” he said tenderly. “Have you been getting bad feed? Hold it…” He frowned worriedly. “What happened, your pterocar crack up? What kind of a getup is that?”
Pol grinned with pleasure. “No,” he said. “I’m playing pilgrim. I’ve walked all the way from the Big Road.”
“Wow!” Kostylin’s face showed the customary respect. “Almost three hundred kilometers. How was it?”
“Wonderful,” said Pol. “If only there’d been someplace to take a bath. And change clothes.”
Kostylin smiled happily and dragged Pol from the porch. “Let’s go,” he said. “Now you can have everything. A bath, and milk…”
He walked in the middle of the street, dragging the stumbling Pol after him, and passed sentence while waving the stick with the shoes: “… and a clean shirt… and some decent pants… and a massage… and an ion shower… and two or three lashes for not writing… and hello from Athos… and two letters from Teacher.”