by Stanislaw Lem
Olaf narrowed his eyes. We stood face to face - two angry giants (by local standards). We had lived under 2.5G-s for 20 years. Our bodies became tough as nails and our hearts were much larger and stronger than normal human hearts.
We had flown into the infinite darkness of space...and returned to an Earth that had declared such endeavours pointless. Nothing entailing risk to life was accepted on Earth any more.
'You think we flew for 20 years at relativistic speeds, left behind everybody we ever knew, lost our friends on these empty asteroids because the red shit of Arcturus Beta is worth ANYTHING? You are moron, the best pilot I have ever seen, but a total moron!'
I felt that he was ready to hit me (though I always knocked him out in boxing).
'We flew because we are humans! We did it because it is our spirit, it is about discovery! Don't you see, they have abandoned it! Given up on that spirit!'
