Solaris (12 page)

A few moments previously, I had noticed that the screen was
flickering with light. Now a split appeared from top to bottom of
the left-hand side. I saw something pink move slowly out of view.
Then the lens-cover slipped again, disclosing the screen.

Sartorius gave an anguished cry:

"Go away! Go away!"

I saw his hands flapping and struggling, then his forearms,
covered by the wide sleeves of the laboratory gown. A bright golden
disc shone out for an instant, then everything went dark. Only then
did I realize that this golden disc was a straw hat…

I took a deep breath.

"Snow?"

An exhausted voice replied:

"Yes, Kelvin…" Hearing his voice, I realized that I had
become quite fond of him, and that I preferred not to know who or
what his companion was. "That's enough for now, don't you think?"
he said.

"I agree." Before he could cut off, I added quickly: "Listen, if
you can, come and see me, either in the operating room or in my
cabin."

"OK, but I don't know when."

The conference was over.

I woke up in the middle of the night to find the light on and
Rheya crouched at the end of the bed, wrapped in a sheet, her
shoulders shaking with silent tears. I called her name and asked
her what was wrong, but she only curled up tighter.

Still half asleep, and barely emerged from the nightmare which
had been tormenting me only a moment before, I pulled myself up to
a sitting position and shielded my eyes against the glare to look
at her. The trembling continued, and I stretched out my arms, but
Rheya pushed me away and hid her face.

"Rheya…"

"Don't talk to me!"

"Rheya, what's the matter?"

I caught a glimpse of her tear-stained face, contorted with
emotion. The big childish tears streamed down her face, glistened
in the dimple above her chin and fell onto the sheets.

"You don't want me."

"What are you talking about?"

"I heard…"

My jaw tightened: "Heard what? You don't understand."

"Yes I do. You said I wasn't Rheya. You wanted me to go, and I
would, I really would…but I can't. I don't know why. I've
tried to go, but I couldn't do it. I'm such a coward."

"Come on now…." I put my arms round her and held her with
all my strength. Nothing mattered to me except her: everything else
was meaningless. I kissed her hands, talked, begged, excused myself
and made promise after promise, saying that she had been having
some silly, terrible dream. Gradually she grew calmer, and at last
she stopped crying and her eyes glazed, like a woman walking in her
sleep. She turned her face away from me.

"No," she said at last, "be quiet, don't talk like that. It's no
good, you're not the same person any more." I started to protest,
but she went on: "No, you don't want me. I knew it before, but I
pretended not to notice. I thought perhaps I was imagining
everything, but it was true…you've changed. You're not being
honest with me. You talk about dreams, but it was you who were
dreaming, and it was to do with me. You spoke my name as if it
repelled you. Why? Just tell me why."

"Rheya, my little…."

"I won't have you talking to me like that, do you hear? I won't
let you. I'm not your little anything, I'm not a child.
I'm…."

She burst into tears and buried her face in the pillow. I got
up. The ventilation hummed quietly. It was cold, and I pulled a
dressing-gown over my shoulders before sitting next to her and
taking her arm: "Listen to me, I'm going to tell you something. I'm
going to tell you the truth."

She pushed herself upright again. I could see the veins
throbbing beneath the delicate skin of her neck. My jaw tightened
once more. The air seemed to be colder still, and my head was
completely empty.

"The truth?" she said. "Word of honor?" I opened my mouth to
speak, but no sound came. 'Word of honor'…it was our special
catch-phrase, our old way of making an unconditional promise. Once
these words had been spoken, neither of us was permitted to lie, or
even to take refuge behind a half-truth. I remembered the period
when we used to torture each other in an exaggerated striving for
sincerity, convinced that this ingenuous honesty was the
precondition of our relationship.

"Word of honor, Rheya," I answered gravely, and she waited for
me to continue. "You have changed too—we all change. But that
is not what I wanted to say. For some reason that neither of us
understands, it seems that…you are forced to stay near me.
And that's fine with me, because I can't leave you
either…"

"No, Kris. The change is not in you," Rheya whispered. "It's me.
Something is wrong. Perhaps it has to do with the accident?"

She looked at the dark, empty rectangle of the door. The
previous evening, I had removed the shattered remains—a new
one would have to be fitted. Another thought struck me:

"Have you been managing to sleep?"

"I don't know."

"What do you mean?"

"I have dreams…I don't know whether they really are
dreams. Perhaps I'm ill. I lie there and think, and…"

"What?"

"I have strange thoughts. I don't know where they come
from."

It took all my self-control to steady my voice and tell her to
go on, and I found myself tensing for her answer as if for a blow
in the face.

"They are thoughts…" She shook her head helplessly.
"…all around me."

"I don't understand."

"I get a feeling as if they were not from inside myself, but
somewhere further away. I can't explain it, can't put words to
it…"

I broke in almost involuntarily: "It must be some kind of
dream." Then, back in control again: "And now, we put the light out
and we forget our problems until morning. Tomorrow we can invent
some new ones if you like. OK?"

She pressed the switch, and darkness fell between us. Stretched
out on the bed, I felt her warm breathing beside me, and put my
arms round her.

"Harder!" she whispered, and then, after a long pause:

"Kris!"

"What?"

"I love you."

I almost screamed.

In the red morning, the sun's swollen disc was rising over the
horizon.

An envelope lay in the doorway, and I tore it open. I could hear
Rheya humming to herself in the bath, and from time to time she
looked into the room and I would see her face, half hidden by her
wet hair.

I went to the window, and read:

"Kelvin, things are looking up. Sartorius has decided that it
may be possible to use some form of energy to destabilize the
neutrino structure. He wants to examine some Phi plasma in orbit.
He suggests that you make a reconnaissance flight and take a
certain quantity of plasma in the capsule. It's up to you, but let
me know what you decide. I have no opinion. I feel as if I no
longer have anything. If I am more in favor of your going, it's
because we would at least be making some show of progress.
Otherwise, we can only envy G.

Snow

P.S. All I ask is for you to stay outside the cabin. You can
call me on the videophone."

I felt a stir of apprehension as I read the letter, and went
over it again carefully before tearing it up and throwing the
pieces into the disposal unit.

I went through the same terrible charade that I had begun the
previous day, and made up a story for Rheya's benefit. She did not
notice the deception, and when I told her that I had to make an
inspection and suggested that she come with me she was delighted.
We stopped at the kitchen for breakfast—Rheya ate very
little—and then made for the library.

Before venturing on the mission suggested by Sartorius, I wanted
to glance through the literature dealing with magnetic fields and
neutrino structures. I did not yet have any clear idea of how I
would set about it, but I had made up my mind to make an
independent check on Sartorius's activities. Not that I would
prevent Snow and Sartorius from 'liberating' themselves when the
annihilator was completed: I meant to take Rheya out of the Station
and wait for the conclusion of the operation in the cabin of an
aircraft. I set to work with the automatic librarian. Sometimes it
answered my queries by ejecting a card with the laconic inscription
"Not on file," sometimes it practically submerged me under such a
spate of specialist physics textbooks that I hesitated to use its
advice. Yet I had no desire to leave the big circular chamber. I
felt at ease in my egg, among the rows of cabinets crammed with
tape and microfilm. Situated right at the center of the Station,
the library had no windows: It was the most isolated area in the
great steel shell, and made me feel relaxed in spite of finding my
researches held up.

Wandering across the vast room, I stopped at a set of shelves as
high as the ceiling, and holding about six hundred
volumes—all classics on the history of Solaris, starting with
the nine volumes of Giese's monumental and already relatively
obsolescent monograph. Display for its own sake was improbable in
these surroundings. The collection was a respectful tribute to the
memory of the pioneers. I took down the massive volumes of Giese
and sat leafing through them. Rheya had also located some reading
matter. Looking over her shoulder, I saw that she had picked one of
the many books brought out by the first expedition, the
Interplanetary Cookery Book
. which could have been the
personal property of Giese himself. She was poring over the recipes
adapted to the arduous conditions of interstellar flight. I said
nothing, and returned to the book resting on my knees.
Solaris—Ten Years of Exploration
had appeared as
volumes 4-12 of the Solariana collection whose most recent
additions were numbered in the thousands.

Giese was an unemotional man, but then in the study of Solaris
emotion is a hindrance to the explorer. Imagination and premature
theorizing are positive disadvantages in approaching a planet
where—as has become clear—anything is possible. It is
almost certain that the unlikely descriptions of the 'plasmatic'
metamorphoses of the ocean are faithful accounts of the phenomena
observed, although these descriptions are unverifiable, since the
ocean seldom repeats itself. The freakish character and gigantic
scale of these phenomena go too far outside the experience of man
to be grasped by anybody observing them for the first time, and who
would consider analogous occurrences as 'sports of nature,'
accidental manifestations of blind forces, if he saw them on a
reduced scale, say in a mud-volcano on Earth.

Genius and mediocrity alike are dumbfounded by the teeming
diversity of the oceanic formations of Solaris; no man has ever
become genuinely conversant with them. Giese was by no means a
mediocrity, nor was he a genius. He was a scholarly classifier, the
type whose compulsive application to their work utterly divorces
them from the pressures of everyday life. Giese devised a plain
descriptive terminology, supplemented by terms of his own
invention, and although these were inadequate, and sometimes
clumsy, it has to be admitted that no semantic system is as yet
available to illustrate the behavior of the ocean. The
'tree-mountains,' 'extensors,' 'fungoids,' 'mimoids,' 'symmetriads'
and 'asymmetriads,' 'vertebrids' and 'agilus' are artificial,
linguistically awkward terms, but they do give some impression of
Solaris to anyone who has only seen the planet in blurred
photographs and incomplete films. The fact is that in spite of his
cautious nature the scrupulous Giese more than once jumped to
premature conclusions. Even when on their guard, human beings
inevitably theorize. Giese, who thought himself immune to
temptation, decided that the 'extensors' came into the category of
basic forms. He compared them to accumulations of gigantic waves,
similar to the tidal movements of our Terran oceans. In the first
edition of his work, we find them originally named as 'tides.' This
geocentrism might be considered amusing if it did not underline the
dilemma in which he found himself.

As soon as the question of comparisons with Earth arises, it
must be understood that the 'extensors' are formations that dwarf
the Grand Canyon, that they are produced in a substance which
externally resembles a yeasty colloid (during this fantastic
'fermentation,' the yeast sets into festoons of starched open-work
lace; some experts refer to 'ossified tumors'), and that deeper
down the substance becomes increasingly resistant, like a tensed
muscle which fifty feet below the surface is as hard as rock but
retains its flexibility. The 'extensor' appears to be an
independent creation, stretching for miles between membranous walls
swollen with 'ossified growths,' like some colossal python which
after swallowing a mountain is sluggishly digesting the meal, while
a slow shudder occasionally ripples along its creeping body. The
'extensor' only looks like a lethargic reptile from overhead. At
close quarters, when the two 'canyon walls' loom hundreds of yards
above the exploring aircraft, it can be seen that this inflated
cylinder, reaching from one side of the horizon to the other, is
bewilderingly alive with movement. First you notice the continual
rotating motion of a greyish-green, oily sludge which reflects
blinding sunlight, but skimming just above the 'back of the python'
(the 'ravine' sheltering the 'extensor' now resembles the sides of
a geological fault), you realize that the motion is in fact far
more complex, and consists of concentric fluctuations traversed by
darker currents. Occasionally this mantle turns into a shining
crust that reflects sky and clouds and then is riddled by explosive
eruptions of the internal gases and fluids. The observer slowly
realizes that he is looking at the guiding forces that are
thrusting outward and upward the two gradually crystallizing
gelatinous walls. Science does not accept the obvious without
further proof, however, and virulent controversies have
reverberated down the years on the key question of the exact
sequence of events in the interior of the 'extensors that furrow
the vast living ocean in their millions.

Various organic functions have been ascribed to the 'extensors.'
Some experts have argued that their purpose is the transformation
of matter; others suggested respiratory processes; still others
claimed that they conveyed alimentary materials. An infinite
variety of hypotheses now moulder in library basements, eliminated
by ingenious, sometimes dangerous experiments. Today, the
scientists will go no further than to refer to the 'extensors' as
relatively simple, stable formations whose duration is measurable
in weeks—an exceptional characteristic among the recorded
phenomena of the planet.

The 'mimoid' formations are considerably more complex and
bizarre, and elicit a more vehement response from the observer, an
instinctive response, I mean. It can be stated without exaggeration
that Giese fell in love with the 'mimoids' and was soon devoting
all his time to them. For the rest of his life, he studied and
described them and brought all his ingenuity to bear on defining
their nature. The name he gave them indicates their most
astonishing characteristic, the imitation of objects, near or far,
external to the ocean itself.