Stanislaw Lem - The Invincible

“What are we sitting around here for, then?” grumbled another man. Not the voice, but the seat the man occupied — he was sitting at the gravimetrical control panel — told Rohan that Blank had spoken.

“Why? The old man doesn’t want to turn back, that’s why.”

“How about you? Would you do it?”

“What else can we do?”

It was warm in the room. The air was filled with the peculiar artificial pine scent used in the air conditioning units to alleviate the odor given off by the plastic parts and the tin casing when the reactor was on. The result was a blend which could be found only here on the eighth level.

The men could not see Rohan as he leaned with his back against the foam-rubber padding of the partition wall. Not that he was hiding there on purpose; he simply did not wish to participate in this conversation.

“It’ll be right on our heels,” another man said after a brief silence, and bent forward. For a fleeting instant his face became visible, half pink, half yellow from the glow of the little control lamps on the reactor wall, whose lights seemed to glare at the men huddled in front of the instrument panel. Rohan, like the rest of the men, knew at once what he was talking about.

“We have the field, and there’s our radar,” muttered Blank, annoyed.

“A fat lot of good that’ll do us if it shoots at one billierg.”

“The radar won’t let it get close enough.”

“Who are you trying to kid? I know it like the inside of my own pocket.”

“So what?”

“It’s equipped with an antiradar system. Interference systems — ”

“But it’s gone off its rocker — an electronic looney.”

“Looney, you say? Were you in the command center?”

“No. I was here the whole time.”

“Well, I was there. Too bad you didn’t see how that monster smashed our teleprobes.”

“Do you mean they reprogramed it? The Cyclops is already under their control?”

They’re talking about “them,” thought Rohan, as if it were really something rational.

“Who knows? Supposedly the only thing that’s off is the communication system.”

“Then why is it shooting at us?”

Again there was a moment of silence.

“Don’t we even know where it is?” asked the man who had not been in the command center.

“No. The last report arrived at eleven. Kralik told me so. The Cyclops was sighted toddling along through the desert.”

“Was it far from here?”

“Are you crazy? Ninety miles. That’s just under an hour’s drive for it. Maybe less.”

“Why don’t you two shut up? Just speculating won’t help any of us,” Blank snapped at them. His sharp profile was silhouetted against the colorful flickering of the little lights.

The men fell silent. Slowly, Rohan turned around and left as quietly as he had come. His way led past the two laboratories. The light was out in the big lab but in the small one all was lit up brightly. Rohan glanced inside. Only cyberneticists and physicists sat around the table — Jazon, Kronotos, Sarner, Liwin, Saurahan and someone else who had his back turned to the rest and, half hidden in the shadow of the slanting partition wall, was busy programing a big electronic brain.

“There are two potential solutions to this problem: annihilation or self-destruction. Anything else would amount merely to changing the cloud’s conditions for existence,” Saurahan said. Rohan did not budge. Once again he was just standing there and listening.

“The first solution is based on triggering a snowballing process. For that you need an antimatter projector that will drive into the ravine and stay there.”

“We already tried that once,” somebody remarked. “If it doesn’t have an electronic brain, it will still be able to function at temperatures of more than one million degrees. We’d need a plasma missile too. Plasma is insensitive to star temperatures. The cloud will react the same way as before — it will try to strangle it, to find resonance in its steering circuits. Nothing will happen except for a low-yield nuclear reaction. The more matter is drawn into this reaction, the more violent it will become. That way we can gather up the entire necrosphere of this planet in one place and then annihilate it…”

Necrosphere, thought Rohan. Oh, sure — inorganic crystals. Just leave it to the scientists to come up with a fancy new name.

“I’d prefer the self-destruction alternative,” Jazon said. “How would that work?”

“First you’d need to bring about two separate consolidations of two giant cloud brains. Then cause the two to collide with each other. Get each cloud to consider the other a threat to its own survival in the struggle for existence.”

“Sounds good. How do you plan to accomplish this?”

“It won’t be easy, but it is feasible — provided that the cloud is only a pseudo-brain, incapable of drawing logical conclusions.”

“The safest method is nevertheless changing the cloud’s conditions for existence by lowering the average intensity of radiation,” said Sarner. “Four hydrogen bombs, fifty to one hundred megatons each, over each hemisphere, that means altogether about 800 megatons, would be sufficient. The water in the oceans would evaporate. As a result the planet’s cloud cover would become denser, the albedo would increase and the symbiotic partners on the ground could no longer give off the required minimum of energy needed for their multiplication.”

“The equation won’t balance out,” objected Jazon. Seeing that the discussion threatened to turn into a technical dispute, Rohan stepped away from the door and went on.

Instead of taking the elevator again, he returned by a metal spiral staircase which was rarely used. As he passed one level after the other he saw the repair shops, where De Vries’ mechanics were working on the dark, motionless Arctanes as sparks showered from their welding torches. Far away he noticed the tiny windows of the sick bay, spreading a soft lilac-colored glow. A physician in a white coat noiselessly hurried along one of the corridors, followed by a small automaton carrying a tray with glittering instruments. Rohan walked past the dark and deserted mess halls, the club rooms, the library, and finally reached his own level. He slowed down near the astrogator’s cabin, as if he wanted to stop and listen here too. But no sound came through the smooth door, not even a light ray, and the portholes were bolted down with copper nuts. Not until he was back in his cabin did he feel how tired he was. His arms hung numbly at his sides. Heavily he plunked himself down on his bunk, kicked off his shoes and folded his hands behind his neck, staring up at the low, poorly lit ceiling, whose blue paint showed a long crack right in the middle.

Neither a sense of duty nor curiosity about other people’s private affairs and conversations had driven him to roam through the spaceship. He was simply afraid of the lonely night, for that was the time when he was troubled by images he would have liked to forget. Worst was the memory of the man he had shot at close range to prevent him from killing the others. He had been forced to shoot him, but that didn’t make things any easier. He knew the moment he turned off the light he would have to relive the scene, see the man in front of him again who with a dull smile obeyed the Weyr gun in his hand, while he stepped across the dead man lying on the rocks, his arm torn off.

The dead man was Jarg, who had returned, and who — after having been saved by some miracle — now had to die such a senseless death. Seconds later the other man, his protective suit smoldering and shred to pieces across his chest, would collapse over Jarg’s body. In vain Rohan tried to chase away these images that, against his will, kept appearing before his eyes — he could smell again the sharp odor of ozone, the hot recoil of the butt tightly grasped by his sweating fingers — he could hear again the men’s whimpers as he chased them, panting and wheezing, and then dragged them one by one, tying them up in bundles like sheaves of corn. And each time he shuddered to the core of his innermost being when he peered into the desperate helplessness of the familiar faces, into their blind, unseeing eyes.