Stanislaw Lem - The Invincible

“Is that all you have to say about it?” interjected Gaarb angrily.

“Take it easy. We’re still completely in the dark, and the first thing we have to do is find the right approach to this problem. I believe we lack the courage to call some of the things we observed on board the Condor by their right name. This is why we cling so desperately to the hypothesis of some mysterious poisoning which resulted in mass insanity. Just remember, it is necessary, for our own sake as well as for that of the dead crew of the Condor, to face the facts with an open mind. I’d like to urge you — in fact, I insist — that we all speak out freely: what was it that shocked you most when you were at the Condor? Something that you have not been able to confide to anybody yet, something so horrible you’d rather forget than even mention it — ”

Sarner sat down. Rohan overcame his inner resistance and told about the soap bars he had noticed in the bathroom.

Then Gralew got up. Underneath the stacks of torn maps and books the whole deck had been strewn with dried human excrement.

Another spoke of a can of food that showed impressions of teeth, as if someone had tried to bite through the metal. Gaarb had been deeply shaken by the scrawls in the log book and the entry about the flies. But he did not stop there.

“Let’s assume a cloud of poisonous gas escaped from the tectonic vault inside the city. Couldn’t the wind have carried this poisonous air to the rocket? If they’d been careless, hadn’t closed the air hatch properly — ”

“Only the outer hatch was not properly closed, Gaarb. We know that from the sand accumulated inside the airlock. The inner hatch was tightly shut, remember?”

“They might have closed it later on, when they were already feeling the effects of the poison gas.”

“That is impossible, Gaarb. If the outside hatch isn’t locked, you can’t open the inside hatch. The two never open at the same time. The possibility of carelessness or accident is totally ruled out.”

“In any event, one thing is clear: it must have happened suddenly. Mass insanity — look, I won’t pretend we never see cases of psychosis during space flights, but never on a planet, especially not a few hours after touchdown. Mass insanity that gripped the entire crew could only be the result of some kind of poisoning.”

“Or infantilism,” remarked Sarner.

“What? What did you say?” Gaarb was dumbfounded. “Is that supposed to be a joke?”

“I’d hardly be joking in a situation like this. I said infantilism. No one else seems to have thought of it, despite the childish scribbles in the log book, despite the star almanacs that were ripped to pieces, despite the painstakingly drawn letters. You’ve all seen them, haven’t you?”

“But so what?” said Nygren. “Are you trying to say that’s a disease?”

“No. Not a disease. You are right there, doctor.” Once again they all fell silent. The astrogator hesitated.

“We might be on the wrong track. The result of necroscopy are always uncertain. But for the moment I can’t see what harm it would do. Doctor Sax — ”

The neurophysiologist described the image they had found in the brain of the frozen man in the hibernator; he also mentioned the syllables in the acoustics memory bank of the dead man. A veritable flood of questions followed. Even Rohan was cross-examined by his colleagues, since he had been present during the experiment. Still, no conclusion could be drawn.

“When you speak of tiny black spots, doesn’t that remind you somehow of the word ‘flies’?” said Gaarb. “Wait a minute. Maybe the cause of death was something else. Maybe the whole crew was attacked by poisonous insects. You can’t recognize insect bites on mummified skin. And the fellow in the hibernator was simply trying to escape from the insects that got his friends — and then froze to death.”

“But how would you account for his total loss of memory before death?”

“Total amnesia? Are you sure that diagnosis is correct?”

“Yes, as far as we can generally rely on the results of the necroscopic examination.”

“What do you think about this poisonous insect theory?”

“Let’s hear what Lauda has to say about that.”

Lauda was the chief paleobiologist on board. He stood up and waited until they had calmed down.

“It isn’t simply by accident that we haven’t brought up the matter of these ‘flies.’ Anyone who understands anything about biology knows that outside a certain biotope — in other words, a higher unit composed of environment and all species occurring in it — no organism can exist. This holds true for every corner of the universe we have explored thus far. Life either creates a large variety of forms or none at all. Thus no insects could develop without simultaneous development of plants on the dry land, or other symmetrical nonvertebrates. I don’t intend to give you a lecture on evolution; I trust it will suffice if I assure you that there cannot possibly be any flies here. Or any other arthropods, for that matter — no hymenoptera or spiders. There aren’t any related forms, either.”

“How can you be so sure about that?” demanded Ballmin.

“If you were one of my students, you would’t be here with us now,” said the paleobiologist drily. “You would never have passed the exam.” The others smiled involuntarily. “Naturally I can’t judge your knowledge in the field of planetology, but I’d give you an F in the biology of evolution.”

“Typical shop talk. What a waste of time,” someone whispered behind Rohan. Rohan turned around and looked into Jarg’s tanned, broad face winking at him.

“Maybe the insects didn’t evolve here,” insisted Ballmin. “Maybe they were brought in from the outside.”

“From where?”

“From the planets of the Nova.”

Now the whole group began to talk at once; it took a long time before order was restored.”

“Colleagues,” said Sarner. “I know where Ballmin got his idea. From Dr. Gralew.”

“Well, I won’t deny it,” admitted the physicist.

“Excellent. Let us assume we can no longer afford the luxury of plausible hypotheses and need some really wild ones. That’s all right with me. My dear colleagues and fellow biologists, suppose a spaceship had imported insects from a planet of the Nova into Regis III. Could these insects have adapted to local conditions?”

“Of course, if we want to get into wild hypotheses,” admitted Lauda. “But even wild hypotheses have to be able to supply explanations for everything.”

“Such as what?”

“Such as an explanation as to what corroded the outer armor plate hull of the Condor to such an extent that the ship can no longer take off unless it’s completely overhauled. Do you really believe some insects could adapt to a diet of molybdenum alloy? That’s one of the hardest substances in the whole universe. Engineer Petersen, tell us, what could destroy this type of armored plate?”

“If it’s been properly tempered, nothing I know of,” answered the deputy chief engineer. “You could drill into it with diamonds, but you would need a ton of diamonds and a thousand hours at your disposal. Another possibility would be acids. Anorganic acids, of course, and only at temperatures of at least two thousand degress and with the proper catalysts.”

“Then how do you explain what corroded the armored plate of the Condor?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea. If the ship had been immersed in an acid solution, and at the proper temperature, it would look like that, all right. But how anyone could get the same results without arc-light plasma burners and catalysts is beyond me.”

“Well, so much for your flies, my dear Ballmin,” said Lauda and sat down.