A cold stream barred his way and Erg Noor turned on to a foot-path. The ripples caused by the wind on the sunlit surface of the transparent water gave it the appearance of an undulating network of wavy golden lines thrown on the pebbles of the river-bed. Unnoticeable strands of moss and water-weeds floated on the water casting shadows that ran like blue patches along the bottom. On the far bank big pale-blue harebells swayed in the wind. The aroma of damp meadows and red autumn leaves promised the joy of labour to man, for tucked away in a far corner of his heart everyone had hidden something of the experience of the first ploughman.
A bright yellow oriole alighted on a branch and emitted its mocking self-confident whistle.
The clear sky over the cedar forest was turned to silver by the far-spreading wing of a cirrus cloud. Erg Noor dived into the gloom of the forest with its odours of cedar needles and resin, came out on the other side, climbed a hill and wiped his bare head that the dew had wetted. The forest reservation that surrounded the Nerve Clinic was not a big one and Erg Noor soon came to a road. The stream had been diverted into a series of basins of milk-coloured glass, keeping them filled with water. Several men and women in bathing costumes ran round a bend in the road and raced on between rows of brightly coloured flowers. The autumn water could hardly have been warm but the runners, encouraging one another with laughter and jokes, sprang into the basins and in a jolly crowd swam down the cascade from basin to basin. Erg Noor smiled in spite of himself. It was rest time at some local factory or farm.
Never before had our planet seemed so beautiful to him who had spent the greater part of his life in the close quarters of a spaceship. He was filled with profound gratitude to all people, to Earth’s nature, to everything that had helped to save Nisa, his astronavigator with the auburn curls. Today she had come to meet him in the clinic gardens. After a consultation with the doctors they had arranged to go away together to a polar sanatorium for nervous disorders. As soon as the scientists had managed to break the chain of paralysis and put an end to the persistent inhibition of the cerebral cortex caused by the discharge of the “cross” beast’s charge through its tentacles, Nisa had become quite healthy. She had only to regain her former energy after such a long cataleptic sleep. Nisa was alive and well! It seemed to Erg Noor that he would never be able to think of that without an impulse of joy somewhere inside him.
He saw the solitary figure of a woman coming rapidly towards him from a side path. He would have recognized her among thousands — Veda Kong, the Veda who had been so much in his thoughts before it had become clear that their paths in life were different. Erg Noor was accustomed to the diagrams of the computing machines and his thinking followed the same lines — he saw a steep arc sweeping upwards into the heavens — his own urge — while Veda’s path of life and work left her hovering over the planet to delve into the depths of centuries passed and gone. The lines diverged until they were far apart.
Erg Noor knew every tiny detail of Veda’s face but he was suddenly surprised to notice the resemblance she bore to Nisa Greet. The same narrow face with eyes placed wide apart, the same high forehead with the long upward sweep of the eyebrows, the same expression of gentle irony in her big mouth. Even their noses were both slightly snub, softly rounded and a bit long, just as though they were sisters. The only difference was that Veda always had a direct and pensive look while Nisa Greet would throw her head back in youthful exuberance or would lower her forehead and knitted brows to meet an obstacle.
‘‘Are you examining me?” asked Veda, surprised.
She held out both hands to Erg Noor who took them and pressed them to his cheeks. Veda shivered and pulled herself away. The astronaut gave a weak smile.
“I wanted to thank those hands for having nursed Nisa. She… I know about everything! Somebody had to be in constant attendance and you gave up an interesting expedition. Two months….”
“I didn’t give it up, I was late for it, waiting for Tantra. The expedition had left by then, and well… she’s charming, your Nisa! We look alike but she’s the real companion for the conqueror of the Cosmos and the iron stars, with her urge to get back into space and her loyalty.”
“Veda!”
“I’m not joking, Erg, I mean it. Don’t you feel that this is no time for jokes? We must make everything clear!”
“I find everything clear enough as it is! And I’m thanking you for Nisa, not for myself.”
“Don’t thank me. It would have been difficult for me if you’d lost Nisa, that’s why….”
“I understand but still I don’t believe you because I know that Veda Kong could never be so calculating. And so my gratitude remains.”
Erg Noor patted the young woman’s shoulder and placed his fingers in the crook of her arm. They walked side by side along the deserted road in silence until Erg Noor spoke again.
“Who is he, the real one?”
“Darr Veter.”
“The former Director of the Outer Stations? So that’s it!”
“Erg, you are saying words that mean nothing. I don’t recognize you.”
“I suppose I must have changed. I can’t imagine Darr Veter apart from his work and I thought that he was a Cosmic dreamer.”
“He is. He dreams of the world of stars but he has proved able to combine the stars with an ancient farmer’s love of Earth. He is a man of knowledge with the big hands of the simple mechanic.”
Erg Noor involuntarily looked at his narrow hand with the long fingers of a mathematician and musician.
‘“If you only knew, Veda, how much I love our Earth at this moment!”
“After the world of darkness and a long journey with paralysed Nisa? Of course, you do!”
“You don’t believe that love for Earth can provide the basis of my life?”
“I don’t. You’re a real hero and will always be thirsting for deeds. You will carry that love like a full bowl from which you are afraid to spill a drop, carry it on Earth in order to give it to the Cosmos for the sake of that same Earth!”
“Veda, you’d have been burnt at the stake in the Dark Ages!”
“I’ve been told that before. Here’s the fork…. Where are your shoes. Erg?”
“I left them in the garden when I came to meet you. I’ll have to go back.”
“Well, good-bye, Erg. My job here’s finished and yours is just about to begin. Where shall we meet again? Perhaps it will be only before you leave on the new ship?”
“Oh, no, Veda. Nisa and I are going to a polar sanatorium for three months. Come and see us and bring Darr Veter with you.”
“Which sanatorium? The ‘Stone Heart’ on the north coast of Siberia or ‘Autumn Leaves’ in Iceland?”
“It’s too late for the northern polar regions. We’re being sent to the southern hemisphere where the summer will soon begin. The ‘White Dawn’ in Grahamland.”
“All right. Erg, we’ll come if Darr Veter does not start out immediately to rebuild Satellite 57. There’ll probably be a long time spent on getting materials together.”
“That’s a fine terrestrial man for you — almost a year in the sky!”
“Don’t try to be smart. That’s quite near compared with your tremendous spaces, the spaces that divided us.”
“Do you regret it, Veda?”
“Why do you ask, Erg? There are two halves in each of us, one half is anxious to get at the new, the other half cherishes the old and would be glad to return to it. You know that and you also know that return never achieves its aim.”
“But regret remains like a wreath on a beloved grave. Give me a kiss, Veda, my dear!”
The young woman obediently complied with the request, pushed the astronaut lightly aside and strode swiftly away to the main road where there was an electrobus service. Erg Noor watched her until the robot driver of the first bus to arrive stopped the vehicle and her red dress disappeared inside.