Solaris

Success


The following three weeks were like the same day repeating itself, never changing; the window shades rose and fell, in the night I crawled from one nightmare to another, in the morning we got up and the game began again; though was it in fact a game? I pretended to be calm and so did Harey; this silent pact, the knowledge of our mutual deception, became our ultimate recourse. Because we talked a lot about how we were going to live on Earth, how we’d settle somewhere on the outskirts of a big city and never again leave the blue sky and green trees, and together we dreamed up the interior of our future home, and what our yard would look like, we even argued about details. . . the hedge, the bench. . . did I believe in it all even for a second? No. I knew it was impossible. I knew that. Because even if she were able to leave the Station—alive—still, it’s only humans that can land on Earth, and humans are defined by their papers. The first control would put an end to that escape. They’d want to identify her, so first of all they’d separate us and that would give her away. The Station was the only place where we could live together. Did Harey know that? For sure. Had someone told her? In light of everything that happened, probably so.

One night, through my sleep I heard Harey quietly get up. I tried to pull her back. Only by being silent, only in the darkness could we still become free for a short while, only in brief periods of distraction that the despair besieging us on every side turned into merely a momentary suspension of the torment. I don’t think she’d noticed that I was awake. Before I stretched out my hand she’d slipped out of bed. Still only half-conscious, I heard the sound of bare feet. I was overcome by a vague anxiety.

“Harey?” I whispered. I wanted to call out, but I didn’t dare. I sat up in bed. The door to the corridor was ajar. A thin strip of light cut diagonally across the cabin. I thought I could hear muffled voices. She was talking with someone? Who?

I jumped out of bed, but I was overcome by such a terrible fear that my legs refused to obey me. I stood listening for a moment. Everything was quiet. I dragged myself back to the bunk. My head was pounding. I started counting. At one thousand I broke off; the door opened soundlessly, Harey crept into the cabin and paused, as if listening for my breathing. I tried to make it even. “Kris. . . ?” she whispered softly. I didn’t respond. She got quickly into bed. I could feel her lying there stretched out, while I lay next to her, immobile, for I don’t know how long. I tried to formulate questions, but the more time passed, the more I realized I wouldn’t be the first one to break the silence. After some time, an hour perhaps, I fell asleep.

The morning began the same as always. I cast suspicious glances at her only when she wasn’t looking. After lunch we sat side by side in front of the bay window, where low ruddy clouds could be seen drifting past. The Station moved amongst them like a sailing ship. Harey was reading a book, while I was gazing in a manner that of late had become my only respite. I noticed that if I leaned my head a certain way I could see both of us reflected in the pane, the image transparent but clear. I took my hand off the arm of my chair. In the window I saw Harey, glancing to check I was staring at the ocean, lean over the arm and press her lips to the place I’d been touching a moment before. I remained seated, unnaturally stiff, while she bowed her head over her book again.

“Harey,” I said softly, “where did you go in the night?”

“In the night?”

“Yes.”

“You. . . you probably dreamed it, Kris. I didn’t go anywhere.”

“You didn’t go anywhere?”

“No. You must have been dreaming it.”

“Maybe,” I said. “Yeah, it’s possible I dreamed it. . .”

That evening, when we were already getting ready for bed, I started talking again about our voyage together, about our return to Earth.

“I don’t want to listen to all that,” she said. “Stop it, Kris. I mean, you know. . .”

“What?”

“No. Nothing.”

When we were already in bed, she said she wanted a drink.

“There’s a glass of juice on the table over there. Can you pass me it?”

She drank half and gave it to me. I wasn’t thirsty.

“Drink to my health,” she said with a smile. I finished the juice, which tasted a little salty to me, though I didn’t give it a second thought.

“If you don’t want to talk about Earth, what do you want to talk about?” I asked after she turned the light out.

“Would you get married if I wasn’t in the picture?”

“No.”

“Never?”

“Never.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. I was on my own for ten years and I didn’t marry. Let’s not talk about that, darling. . .”

My head was buzzing as if I’d drunk a bottle of wine or more.

“No, let’s talk about it, let’s talk about that. What if I asked you to?”

“To get married? That’s nonsense, Harey. I don’t need anyone but you.”

She leaned over me. I felt her breath on my mouth; she took hold of me so firmly that for a brief second the overpowering drowsiness I was feeling was dispelled.

“Say it a different way.”

“I love you.”

Her forehead rested against my shoulder; I felt the tense flutter of her eyelashes and the wetness of tears.

“Harey, what is it?”

“Nothing. Nothing. Nothing,” she repeated ever more quietly. I strove to keep my eyes open, but they were closing of their own accord. I don’t know when I fell asleep.

I was woken by the red dawn. My head was leaden and my neck stiff, as if all the vertebrae had fused into a single bone. My tongue felt rough, repulsive, and I couldn’t move it in my mouth. I must have eaten something bad, I thought to myself, lifting my head with an effort. I reached out my hand to Harey. It encountered cold bedding.

I jerked upright.

The bed was empty, and no one was in the cabin. The sun was reflected in multiple red disks in the windows. I jumped to the floor. I must have looked comical, I staggered like a drunk. I held onto the furniture, grabbed hold of the locker. There was no one in the bathroom. Or the corridor. Or in the workshop either.

“Harey!!” I shouted, standing in the middle of the corridor and flailing my arms wildly. “Harey,” I croaked one more time. I already knew.

I don’t remember exactly what happened next. I must have run half-naked around the entire Station; I remember I even burst into the cold room, then the last depository, where I hammered on the closed door with my fists. I may even have been there more than once. The stairs echoed, I fell over, jumped up, hurtled off somewhere else, till I came to the transparent bulkhead beyond which was the hatch to the outside—a double reinforced door. I pushed against it with all my strength and shouted, wanting all this to be a dream. And someone had been with me for some time and was tugging at me, pulling me somewhere. Then I was in the small workshop, my shirt wet with icy water, my hair bedraggled; my nostrils and tongue were stinging from surgical spirit, I was half-lying on something cold and metallic, and Snaut in his stained linen pants was bustling about by the medicine cabinet, tipping something over, the implements and glassware making a fearful clatter.

All at once I saw him in front of me; he was staring into my eyes, hunched over and intent.

“Where is she?”

“She’s gone.”

“But, but Harey. . .”

“Harey’s gone,” he said slowly and distinctly, bringing his face close to mine as if he’d delivered a blow and was now observing its effect on me.

“She’ll come back,” I whispered, closing my eyes. And for the first time I was truly not afraid of it. I’d lost my fear of her ghostly return. I couldn’t understand how I’d once been so frightened of it!

“Drink this.”

He handed me a glass of warm liquid. I looked at it, then all of a sudden flung the contents in his face. He took a step back, wiping his eyes. When he opened them again I was standing over him. He was tiny.

“It was you?!”

“What are you talking about?”

“Don’t lie, you know what I mean. It was you talking with her the other night? You made her give me a sleeping draft for the. . . ? What have you done with her? Tell me!!”

He felt in his breast pockets and took out a crumpled envelope. I snatched it from him. It was sealed. There was nothing written on the outside. I tore it open. A sheet of paper folded in four fell out. Large, rather childlike handwriting in uneven lines. I recognized whose it was.

Darling, it was me who asked him to do it. He’s a good man. It’s awful that I had to deceive you, but there was no other way. I ask one thing of you—listen to him and don’t hurt yourself. You were wonderful.

At the bottom there was one word that had been crossed out. I managed to make it out: she’d written “Harey,” then erased it; there was one other letter, that looked like an H or a K, which had been turned into a blot. I read it again, and one more time. Then yet again. By now my head had cleared too much for me to get hysterical; I couldn’t even manage a groan, I could barely speak.

“How?” I whispered.” “How?”

“Later, Kelvin. Keep it together.”

“I am. Tell me. How?”

“The annihilator.”

“What do you mean? What about the apparatus?” I asked with a start.

“The Roche machine was no use. Sartorius built another special destabilizer. A small one. It only operates over a range of a few yards.”

“What happened to her. . . ?”

“She disappeared. There was a flash and a puff of wind. A faint puff. Nothing more.”

“Over a short range, you say?”

“Right. We didn’t have the materials for anything bigger.”

Suddenly the walls began to lean in on me. I closed my eyes.

“Lord. . . she. . . but she’ll come back. . .”

“No.”

“What do you mean, no?”

“No, Kelvin. You remember the rising foam? Since that time they haven’t come back any more.”

“They haven’t?”

“No.”

“You killed her,” I said quietly.

“Yes. Would you not have done so? In my place?”

I jumped to my feet and set off walking faster and faster. From the wall to the corner and back again. Nine paces. Turn. Nine paces.

I came to a halt in front of him.

“Listen, we’ll submit a report. We’ll demand direct communication with the Board. It can be done. They’ll agree. They have to. The planet’ll be excluded from the Convention of the Four. All means will be permissible. We’ll bring in antimatter generators. You think anything can resist antimatter? Nothing can! Nothing! Nothing!” I was shouting exultantly, blinded by tears.

“You want to destroy it?” he said. “What for?”

“Go away. Leave me alone!”

“I’m not going.”

“Snaut!”

He looked into my eyes. “No,” he said with a shake of the head.

“What do you want? What do you want from me?”

He retreated to the table.

“All right. We’ll submit a report.”

I turned around and began pacing again.

“Sit down.”

“Get off my back.”

“There are two matters. The first are the facts. The second are our demands.”

“You want to talk about that now?”

“Yes, now.”

“I won’t. Understand? I don’t care about any of that.”

“The last communique we sent was before Gibarian died. That was over two months ago. We need to establish the exact sequence of events surrounding the appearance of—”

“Will you not stop?” I grabbed his arm.

“You can beat me if you want,” he said, “I’m still going to talk.”

I let go of him.

“Do whatever you want.”

“The point is, Sartorius will try and conceal certain facts. I’m almost certain of it.”

“And you won’t?”

“No. Not any more. This isn’t just about us. It’s about—you know what it’s about. It demonstrated rational activity. A capacity for organic synthesis of the highest order, something quite unknown to us. It knows the composition, the microstructure, the metabolism of our bodies. . .”

“Fine,” I said. “Why stop there? It performed a series of. . . experiments on us. A mental vivisection. Based on knowledge stolen from our heads, and paying no attention to our own purposes.”

“Those aren’t facts, they’re not even inferences, Kelvin. They’re hypotheses. In a certain sense it did pay attention to what was desired by a closed, hidden part of our minds. These could have been—gifts. . .”

“Gifts! Dear God!”

I burst out laughing.

“Stop it!” he exclaimed, gripping my hand. I squeezed his fingers, pressing harder and harder till his knuckles crunched. He was looking at me through narrowed eyes, without wavering. I let go of him and moved off into the corner. Standing with my face to the wall, I said:

“I’ll try not to be too hysterical.”

“Never mind all that. What are we going to ask for?”

“You decide. I can’t, not right now. Did she say anything before. . . ?”

“No. Nothing. As for me, I believe an opportunity has arisen.”

“An opportunity? What opportunity? For what? Oh,” I said more quietly, looking him in the eye, because I’d suddenly gotten it. “Contact? We’re back with Contact? Haven’t we had too much already. . . you also, you yourself, and this whole madhouse. . . Contact? No no no. Count me out.”

“Why?” he asked, completely calm. “Kelvin, you keep insisting on treating it as a person, now more than ever. You hate it.”

“And you don’t?” I snapped.

“No. Kelvin, come on, it’s blind. . .”

“Blind?” I repeated, unsure whether I’d heard right.

“Of course, in our understanding of the word. We don’t exist for it the way we do for each other. The surface of the face, of the body, which we see, means we encounter one another as individuals. For it, this is only a transparent screen. After all, it penetrated the inside of our brains.”

“All right. But what of it? What are you getting at? If it was able to create a person who didn’t exist outside of my memory, bring her to life, and in such a way that her eyes, her movements, her voice. . . her voice. . .”

“Keep talking! Keep talking, man!!”

“I am talking. . . I am. . . Yes. So then. . . her voice. . . This means it can read us like a book. You know what I’m saying?”

“Yes. That if it wanted to, it could communicate with us?”

“Of course. Is that not obvious?”

“No. Not in the slightest. It could simply have taken a procedure that didn’t consist of words. As a fixed memory trace it’s a protein structure. Like the head of a spermatozoon, or an ovum. After all, in the brain there aren’t any words, feelings, the recollection of a person is an image written in the language of nucleic acids on megamolecular asynchronous crystals. So it took what was most clearly etched in us, most locked away, fullest, most deeply imprinted, you know? But it had no need whatsoever to know what the thing was to us, what meaning it held. Just as if we were able to create a symmetriad and toss it into the ocean, knowing the architecture and the technology and structural materials, but with no understanding of what it’s for, what it means to the ocean. . .”

“Quite possibly,” I said. “Yes, that’s possible. In such a case it had no. . . perhaps it had no intention of trampling on us and crushing us the way it did. Perhaps. And it only unintentionally. . .”

My lips began to tremble.

“Kelvin!”

“I know, I know. It’s fine. It’s nothing. You’re a good man. It’s good too. Everyone’s good. But what for? Explain it to me. What for? Why did it do it? What did you tell her?”

“The truth.”

“The truth, the truth! But what?”

“You know. Come to my room now. We can write the report. Come on.”

“Wait a moment. What are you really after? Surely you’re not planning to remain on the Station. . . ?”

“I want to stay here. Yes.”