Free Return from the Stars by Stanislaw Lem Page A

remembered—or, rather, my stomach reminded me—that I had not eaten breakfast, for I had completely forgotten that it was to be sent to my room at the hotel, and I had left without waiting for it. Perhaps the robot at reception had made a mistake.
    Back, then, to the infor; I no longer did anything without first checking out exactly what and how, and in any event the infor could also reserve a gleeder for me, although I was not about to ask for one yet, since I did not know how to get inside the thing, let alone what to do after that; but I had time.
    In the restaurant, one look at the menu and I saw that it was complete Greek to me. I firmly asked for breakfast, a normal breakfast.
    "Ozote, kress, or herma?"
    Had the waiter been human, I would have asked him to bring what he himself preferred, but it was a robot. It could not matter to a robot.
    "Is there coffee?" I asked uneasily.
    "There is. Kress, ozote, or herma?"
    "Coffee, and … well, whatever goes best with coffee, that, uh…"
    "Ozote" it said and went away.
    Success.
    It must have had everything prepared, for it returned immediately, and with such a heavily loaded tray that I suspected some trick or joke. But the sight of the tray made me realize, apart from the bons I had eaten the day before, and a cup of the notorious brit, I had eaten nothing since my return.
    The only familiar thing was the coffee, which was like boiled tar. The cream was in tiny blue specks and definitely came from no cow. I wished I could have observed someone, to see how to eat all this, but apparently the time for breakfast was over, because I was alone. Small plates, crescent-shaped, contained steaming masses from which protruded things like matchsticks, and in the middle was a baked apple; not an apple, of course, and not matchsticks, and what I took for oatmeal began to rise at the touch of a spoon. I ate everything; I was, it turned out, ravenous, so that the nostalgia for bread (of which there was not a trace) came to me only later, as an afterthought, when the robot appeared and waited at a distance.
    "What do I pay?" I asked it.
    "Nothing, thank you," it said. It was more a piece of furniture than a mannequin. It had one round eye of crystal. Something moved about inside, but I could not bring myself to peer into its stomach. There was not even anyone for me to tip. I doubted that it would understand me if I asked it for a paper; perhaps there were none now. So I went out shopping. But first I found the travel agency—a revelation. I went in.
    The large hall, silver with emerald consoles (I was getting tired of these colors), was practically empty. Frosted-glass windows, enormous color photographs of the Grand Canyon, the Crater of Archimedes, the cliffs of Deimos, Palm Beach, Florida—done in such a way that, looking at them, one had the impression of depth, and even the waves of the ocean moved, as if these were not photographs but windows opening onto actual scenes. I went to the counter with the sign EARTH .
    Sitting there, of course, was a robot. This time a gold one. Rather, gold-sprinkled.
    "What can we do for you?" it asked, It had a deep voice. If I closed my eyes, I could have sworn that the speaker was a muscular, dark-haired man.
    "I want something primitive," I said. "I've just returned from a long journey, a very long one. I don't want too much comfort. I want peace and quiet, water, trees, there could be mountains, too. Only it should be primitive and old-fashioned. Like a hundred years ago. Do you have anything like that?"
    "If you desire it, we must have it. The Rocky Mountains. Fort Plumm. Majorca. The Antilles."
    "Something closer," I said. "Yes … within a radius of a thousand kilometers. Is there anything?"
    "Clavestra."
    "Where is that?"
    I had noticed that I had no difficulty conversing with robots, because absolutely nothing surprised them. They were incapable of surprise. A very sensible quality.
    "An old mining settlement near the Pacific. The mines