The main motif on which Stanisław Lem built the action of his novel was the consequences of time dilatation. Albert Einstein promulgated this phenomenon in his theory of relativity in 1905. The author presented its probable effects in a picturesque way using the protagonist of Return from the Stars.
Hal Bregg was an astronaut, one of the crewmembers of the ‘Prometheus’ spacecraft, on which he made a research expedition around the star Fomalhaut. After a decade of flight he returned to Earth, aging 10 years. Meanwhile, 127 years had passed on his native soil.
Right after his arrival, Hal became lost in the shockingly modern, technologically unrecognised reality. He wandered between the moving pavements of the station's platforms hanging in the air, trying to find the liaison waiting for him. However, he failed to do so, thus avoiding the adaptation procedure.
The technological progress of the widely available electronic devices, including, in particular, robots fulfilling all human desires, helped him acclimate to the new conditions and to adapt to the circumstances.
The first, accidental contact of Hal Bregg with the new world, turned out to be a popular realist (formerly: actress) Nais, a TV star. The astronaut fascinated her with his impressive height and unprecedented musculature, obtained as a result of many years of subjecting his body to cosmic G-force.
It was a hundred and twenty-seven years ago. I was thirty then. The expedition... I was a pilot on the expedition to Fomalhaut. That's twenty-three light years away. We flew there and back in a hundred and twenty-seven years Earth time and ten years ship time. Four days ago we returned. . . The Prometheus – my ship – remained on Luna. I came from there today. That's all.
After Nais asked how old he really is, he impatiently replied: ‘What does that mean, “really”? Biologically I'm forty, but by Earth clocks, one hundred and fifty-seven…’ The beautiful Nais is just a foretaste of the adventures awaiting Hal Bregg in his native land.
The amazingly alien land. More so than reasonably recognised outer space. The earthly celebrity whom he met became his first guide to the ‘brave new world’ in which he had to start the rest of his life.
In Return from the Stars, Stanisław Lem primarily argues with utopian myths about the possibility of creating a society of eternal happiness. In order to maintain lasting peace on Earth, each of its inhabitants, just after birth, was subjected to a chemical ‘betrization' procedure – a name derived from the names of three inventors of this remedy – eliminating the gene responsible for aggression. For people pacified in this handy way, the gentleness that was instilled in them caused the disappearance of all feelings, which after all cannot exist without emotion.
It would not be easy for me, I thought, to stomach this new world. And suddenly came a reflection, surprising in that I myself would never have expected it if someone had presented me with this situation purely as a theoretical possibility: it occurred to me that this destruction of the killer in man was a disfigurement.
Incidentally, Hal Bregg broke out of universal unification, so he was not only physically but mentally different from the rest of the citizens. He quickly understood that no one expects him to tell the thrilling stories of the adventures of the space conqueror. (‘Your interests, the ones you have returned with, are an island in a sea of ignorance. I doubt if many people would want to hear what you could tell them.’) The representatives of the well-established community, cleverly relieved by robots from the hardest jobs, had completely different aspirations – they mainly indulged in carefree consumption, or in trivial entertainment.
Despite his comprehensive education and personal refinement, Hal was widely regarded as a savage. He did not live up to a new reality, technologically developed to such an extent that astronaut expeditions were treated as an echo of a barbaric past – as archaic as the mythical vagabondage of Odysseus. The programme of the conquest of the cosmos was not aligned with the pacifist attitude of the betrized population, deprived of the tendency to take any risks – and to the extent that even extreme sports were eliminated (‘Progress never comes free. We've rid ourselves of a thousand dangers, conflicts, but for that we had to pay. Society has softened...’).
In turn, the ability to neutralise G-force and inertia has eliminated transport disasters. The absence of any threats made Hal perceive such a unified life as insipid because it was predictable. Without the thrills of an exciting adventure, it was altogether deprived of taste.
It was a civilisation that had rid itself of fear. Everything that existed served the people. Nothing had weight but their well-being, the satisfaction of their basic as well as their most sophisticated needs.
Intelligent machines suggested that the hero, primal in his instincts, undergo treatments he was opposed to, such as removing premature grey hair. (‘I have already noticed that I get along perfectly with robots because they weren’t fazed by anything. They couldn’t be.’). For there was a widespread cult of youth, with life-long rejuvenation operations being normal. Changes of morality also included marriages, which were concluded for a trial period, whilst the desire to have children was conditional on passing a state exam.
The most difficult test for the former astronaut was the arrangement of his emotional and family life. Paradoxically, reclaiming delightful Eri from the hands of her former admirer, in a non-competitive world, was no longer difficult. (‘A man cannot impress a woman with heroics, with reckless deeds, and yet literature, art, our whole culture for centuries was nourished by this current: love in the face of adversity.’) However, Breg finally managed to put down roots, unlike Olaf, a friend from ‘Prometheus’, who found his place only amongst the crew of the next interstellar expedition.
Return from the Stars is the author's ironic polemic about planning utopian societies, whose illusory visions are still the domain of more or less witted satrapies. The people of the future, free from the scourge of war, violence and bloodshed, have been shown as incapacitated individuals, deprived of initiative and the ability to decide their own fate. Stanisław Lem's novel is also a warning – less and less futurological, more and more real – against the manipulation to which the once democratic nations can condemn themselves of their own free will.
Originally written in Polish by Janusz Kowalczyk, translated into English by P. Grabowski, December 2020