Stanislaw Lem - The Invincible

Fifteen minutes later they were all assembled in the large square room with the brightly decorated walls and endless rows of books and microfilms. The fact that this room was decorated exactly like the library of the Condor was unsettling. No matter which wall or corner he looked at, he could not banish the images of insanity that had been etched in his brain.

They had all taken their usual seats. The biologist, the physician, the planetologist, the electronic engineer, the communication officer, the cyberneticist and the physicists were all seated, their armchairs arranged in a semicircle. These nineteen men formed the strategic brain of the spaceship.

The astrogator stood by himself at the half-lowered screen.

“Is every man here familiar with the situation on board the Condor?”

A murmur of affirmative voices could be heard.

“So far twenty-nine dead bodies have been located by the search troops in the vicinity of the Condor. Another thirty-four on board ship itself, including one person who was excellently preserved inside the hibernator. Dr. Nygren has just returned from there and will give us his report now.”

“I’m afraid there isn’t too much to report,” said Dr. Nygren as he rose to his feet. Slowly he walked over to the astrogator. Nygren was almost one foot shorter than Horpach.

“Among the corpses we found nine that were mummified, that is in addition to the one the Commander has just told you about; that one is undergoing special examinations. Outside in the sand, mostly skeletons or remains of skeletons were dug up. The mummified bodies were found inside the ship where especially favorable dry conditions are present such as low humidity, almost no putrefying bacteria and fairly low temperatures. Those bodies that remained on the outside have all decayed. This process has accelerated here in the rainy season due to the high iron oxide and iron sulfide content in the soil. These chemicals react with weak acids — but I believe these details are insignificant. In case a more thorough explanation of these reactions should be desirable, our colleagues from the chemical department would certainly oblige. In any event, mummification was impossible outside the spaceship, considering that rain water and dissolved substances from soil and sand have been working on everything in the area for several years. This accounts for the polished surface of the bones.”

“Pardon me, Nygren,” interrupted the astrogator. “The most important aspect for us is the cause of death, not what happened afterwards.”

“There are no indications of violent death, at least none we could detect in the well-preserved bodies we saw,” replied Nygren quickly. He did not look at anybody in the room, but stared at something invisible in his raised hand. “Apparently they must all have died from natural causes.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“No external causes could be detected. Several fractures of legs and arms might have come about at a later date, but it will take additional experiments to determine that. Those bodies that had been dressed show no damage either to the epidermis or the skeleton. No injuries — apart from some scratches, and they assuredly did not bring about death.”

“How then did they perish?”

“I don’t know. It almost looks as though they starved or died of dehydration.”

“There was plenty of food and water left aboard the Condor,” interjected Gaarb.

“I am aware of that.”

For a moment no one spoke a word.

“Mummification means first of all complete dehydration of the body,” explained Nygren. He was still not looking at anyone present. “The adipose tissues undergo changes, but they do not disappear. But these people had practically no fats left. As if they had starved to death.”

“But this was definitely not the case of the man from the hibernator,” remarked Rohan, who was standing behind the last row of seats.”

“Correct. He probably froze to death. It is a mystery to me how he could have ventured inside the hibernator. Maybe he simply fell asleep there while the temperature kept falling.”

“Is there any likelihood of mass poisoning?” inquired Horpach.

“No.”

“But Doctor, how can you so categorically…”

“I can very well dismiss this so easily,” replied the physician. “Under planetary conditions, poisoning is conceivable only by way of the lungs, when breathing in poisonous gases via the esophagus or the skin. However, one of the well-preserved bodies was wearing an oxygen mask. The oxygen tank was still half full and would have lasted for several more hours.”

That’s right, thought Rohan. He remembered the man, the tight skin around his skull, the brownish spots on his cheekbones, the eye sockets filled with sand.

“These people could not have eaten anything poisonous, simply because there is nothing edible to be found. At least not on land. And they never got as far as the ocean. The catastrophe occurred shortly after landing. They had sent out only one scouting troop into the interior of the ruins. That was all. But here comes McQuinn. Are you through, McQuinn?”

“Yes, I am through,” answered the biochemist from the door.

All heads turned around. He made his way through the rows of chairs and remained standing next to Nygren. He was still wearing his lab coat and a rubber apron.

“Do you have the results of the analysis?”

“Yes.”

“Dr. McQuinn has examined the corpse we found in the hibernator,” explained Nygren. “Will you tell us what you have found out?”

“Nothing,” replied McQuinn. His hair was so light that it was difficult to know whether it was blond or gray. His eyes were just as pale. Even his eyelids were covered with freckles. But right now his big horsey face did not strike anyone as funny.

“No organic or inorganic poisons. All enzyme values normal. Nothing abnormal detected in the blood. The stomach contents were some half-digested zwieback and food concentrate.”

“But how did he die?”

“He just froze to death,” answered McQuinn. He noticed that he still had on his rubber apron. He untied the strings and threw the apron over the back of a chair before him. The slippery material slid off the chair onto the floor.

“What is your opinion, gentlemen?” the astrogator asked. He would not let go so easily.

“No opinion,” countered McQuinn. “All I can say for sure is that these people were not the victims of some poisoning.”

“How about radioactivity, some substance with a very brief half-life? Or hot radiation?”

“Hot radiation in fatal doses leaves traces such as damaged capillary walls, petecchiae, changes in the blood. There are no such changes. No radioactive substance in a fatal dose would completely vanish within eight years. There is less radioactivity here than we have on Earth. These men were not exposed to any type of radiation. I could swear to that.”

“But something must have killed them,” insisted Ballmin, the planetologist, raising his voice.

McQuinn did not speak. Nygren whispered into his ear. The biochemist nodded his head in affirmation, walked out of the room. Nygren stepped from the podium and sat down in his usual seat among his colleagues.

“That’s not too encouraging,” remarked the astrogator. “Apparently we can’t expect much help from the biologists. Would someone else express an opinion?”

“Allow me.” Sarner, the nuclear physicist, rose from his chair. “We might find a clue to what brought about this catastrophe in the very condition of the ship itself,” he began, letting his eyes run slowly along the row of his seated colleagues. He had big far-sighted bird’s eyes whose iris looked almost pale next to his pitch-black hair. “That means there is an explanation somewhere that we can’t perceive at this moment. The chaos in the cabins, the untouched provisions, the condition and location of the dead bodies, the damaged installations — all this must mean something.”