Stanislaw Lem - The Invincible

Once more Rohan felt amazement, this time at Horpach’s appearance. The astrogator had thrown over his shoulders the snow-white dress overcoat which he had last worn during the farewell festivities in the space station. Evidently he had grabbed the nearest article of clothing at hand as he had hurriedly rushed out of his cabin. There he stood, hands in pockets, with gray disheveled hair, letting his gaze wander around the circle of men assembled in the command center.

“Rohan,” he said in an unexpectedly soft voice. “Will you come with me, please.”

Rohan stepped closer, automatically pulling himself up as he did so. The astrogator turned around and walked over to the door. They strode down the corridor, one after the other, and through the ventilation shaft they could hear above the soft hiss of compressed air a dull murmur, the irritated voices of the men on the lower levels.

Rohan had not felt any surprise at the astrogator’s invitation. He entered the commander’s cabin. Rohan was not a frequent visitor to the cabin, but Horpach had summoned him aboard the Invincible and received him here after his lonely return to the crater. Such an invitation usually meant something unpleasant. At that time, though, Rohan was still suffering too much from the after-effects of the catastrophe to fear his commander’s anger. Moreover, Horpach had not blamed him at all, but had interrogated him quite thoroughly as to the circumstances surrounding the cloud’s attack. Dr. Sax had taken part in the conversation. He had surmised that Rohan had been spared only because he had fallen into a state of stupor which limited the brain’s activity, so that the cloud had assumed him to be wounded and thus rendered harmless. And the driver Jarg, in the neuro-physiologist’s opinion, had been spared merely by accident, since his flight had taken him beyond the area where the attack had occurred. Terner, however, who had tried almost to the very end to defend himself as well as the others by shooting with the laser guns, had acted dutifully according to the rules. This very behavior had been his undoing, paradoxically enough, for his brain had continued to function normally and so drew the cloud’s attention to him. To judge by human standards, the black cloud was blind, of course, and man represented nothing to it but a mobile object like any other, which indicated its presence by the electrical potential of its cerebral cortex. Horpach and the physician had even considered protecting the men by placing them in artificial paralysis with the help of chemical preparations. But Sax thought that the effect would occur too late in case an “electrical camouflage” should be needed, and to send the men out on a mission already in a state of stupor would not be advisable at all. In the end, the entire interrogation showed no positive results. Rohan had the impression that Horpach intended to return to the problem at some future date.

Rohan stopped in the middle of the cabin, which was twice as large as his own. On the wall he saw the microphones for the intercom and the direct hook-up to the command center. Besides that there was no other indication that the spaceship’s commander had been living here for years. Horpach took off his coat. Underneath he was wearing trousers and a net undershirt. The thick, gray hairs of his broad chest poked through the netting. Horpach sat down near the spot where Rohan was still standing. The commander leaned heavily on the table, which was empty except for a small, well-thumbed, leather-bound book. Rohan’s glance wandered from the little unknown book over to the commander, and it seemed to him that he saw Horpach for the first time. Here was an utterly exhausted man who did not even attempt to hide the trembling of his hand as he touched it to his forehead. And suddenly Rohan realized that he did not know this man at all, under whom he had been serving for the past four years. It had never occurred to him to wonder why there were no personal effects in the commander’s cabin, the kind of silly trinkets that men would drag along with them on their trips through the universe, souvenirs of their childhood or their homes. At this moment, Rohan seemed to understand why Horpach owned nothing of the kind, why there were no old photos hanging on the walls, showing the faces of those close to him who had remained behind on Earth. Horpach did not need this sort of thing, for Earth was not what he called home. Perhaps he regretted this fact now for the first time in his life? The powerful shoulders, his strong arms, his solid neck did not reveal his age. Only the skin of his hands was old; it was thick and lay in chapped wrinkles around the joints. The skin there turned white as he spread out his fingers, observing the slight trembling with apparently tranquil, tired interest, as if he were noticing something that previously had been unknown to him. Rohan could not continue to watch. But Horpach bent his head, looked in his eyes and murmured with an embarrassed smile: “Seems I overdid things a bit.”

It was not so much the words that startled Rohan as the tone the astrogator used and his general behavior. Rohan did not reply. He stood there as Horpach rubbed his hairy chest with his big hand and added: “It’s probably better this way.” And a few seconds later he spoke with surprising frankness. “I didn’t know what to do.”

This was shocking. Rohan thought he had known for days that Horpach was just as helpless as the rest. However, now he came to realize that he had known nothing, and had in fact believed that the astrogator was always several steps ahead of the others, because that was the way things were supposed to be. And now the commander’s true nature was demonstrated to him doubly: on the one hand he saw Horpach’s half-naked body, this tired body with the trembling hands that he had never seen before, and at the same time he heard the words that confirmed his discovery.

“Have a seat, son,” said the commander. Rohan sat down. Horpach got up, stepped over to the wash basin, splashed water over his head and neck, dried himself quickly and with vigor. Then he put on a jacket, buttoned it and pulled up a chair at the table across from Rohan. He regarded Rohan with his colorless eyes that perpetually watered as if in a strong wind, and asked casually: “How about your… immunity? Have you been examined?”

So that’s what he’s after, Rohan realized in a flash. He cleared his throat. “Naturally I’ve been examined, but the physicians couldn’t find anything. Sax was probably right. He thought it was probably due to stupor.”

“Well, well. Didn’t they have anything else to say?”

“Not to me directly. But I heard them talking among themselves about why the cloud would attack a man only once and then leave him to his fate.”

“Interesting. And?”

“Lauda suspects that the cloud can distinguish the normal from the injured on the basis of the electrical activity of the brain. The brain of an injured person, according to Lauda, shows the same activity as that of a newborn baby. Approximately, at least. Apparently I presented a very similar picture while I was in a state of shock. Sax thinks you could make a fine metal net that could be hidden under the hair, and have it emit weak impulses, like those in a brain injury case. That way it would be possible to elude the cloud. But that’s just a theory. No one knows whether it could really be done. They would like to conduct some experiments but they don’t have enough crystals for it. The Cyclops let us down too…”

“All right, then.” The astrogator sighed. “I really wanted to discuss something else with you. But this is strictly between the two of us. Is that clear?”

“Yes,” Rohan answered slowly, and the tension returned.