Stanisław Lem - Solaris

The silence we’d kept up till now was becoming strange to say the least. I listened intently to it, concentrating on the quiet that filled the corridor where Harey was waiting, from where there came not the slightest murmur.

“When will the two of you be ready?” I asked.

“We could even start today, but the recording’ll take some time.”

“Recording? You mean the encephalogram?”

“Right. I mean, you agreed. Is there a problem?” His voice trailed off.

“No, not at all.”

“Go on,” Snaut said when the silence again began to gather between us.

“She already knows… about herself.” I had dropped my voice almost to a whisper. He raised his eyebrows.

“Is that so?”

I had the impression he wasn’t really surprised. Then why was he pretending? All at once I no longer felt like talking, but I forced myself. Let it be loyalty, I thought to myself, if nothing more.

“It seems she got an inkling after our conversation in the library. She observed me, put two and two together, then she found Gibarian’s tape recorder and listened to the tape.. ”

He didn’t change position, leaning the whole time against the cabinet, but a tiny glint appeared in his eye. From where I stood at the console I had a clear view of the open door to the corridor. I lowered my voice even more:

“Last night, while I was asleep she tried to kill herself. Liquid oxygen…”

There was a sudden rustling sound like a draft of air blowing through loose sheets of paper. I froze and listened hard for what was happening in the corridor, but the source of the noise was closer. It scratched like a mouse… A mouse? How ridiculous! There were no mice here. I watched Snaut from the corner of my eye.

“Go on,” he said calmly.

“It goes without saying she didn’t succeed… In any case she knows who she is.”

“Why are you telling me this?” he suddenly asked. To begin with I didn’t know what to say.

“I want you to be informed… I want you to know how things are,” I mumbled.

“I warned you.”

“You mean to say that you knew,” I said, raising my voice despite myself.

“No. Of course not. But I told you how it is. Every ‘guest’ is almost a ghost when they arrive; aside from a hodgepodge of memories and images taken from their… Adam… they’re basically empty. The longer they’re with you here, the more human they become. And the more independent, within certain limits of course. That’s why the longer it goes on, the harder it is—”

He broke off. He looked askance at me and asked casually:

“She knows everything?”

“Yes, I already told you.”

“Everything? Including that she was already here once before and that you—”

“No!”

He smiled.

“Kelvin, listen, if things have gone that far… then what do you actually mean to do? Leave the Station?”

“Yes.”

“With her?”

“Yes.”

He was silent, as if weighing up his reply, but there was something more in his silence… What was it? Once again that imperceptible breeze rustled, as if right behind a thin wall. He shifted in his chair.

“Very good,” he said. “Why are you staring at me like that? Did you think I’d stand in your way? You can do whatever you want, my dear fellow. We’d be in fine shape if, on top of everything else, we started using force here! I’ve no intention of trying to dissuade you. I’ll only say one thing: in an inhuman situation you’re trying to behave like a human being. That may be admirable, but it’s also futile. Though in fact I’m not even sure it’s admirable — I’m not sure something foolish can also be admired. But that’s beside the point. You’re backing out of any further experiments, you want to go, and take her with you. Is that it?”

“Yes.”

“But that’s also… an experiment. Don’t you think?”

“How do you mean? Whether she’ll… be able to? If she’s with me, I don’t see why not…”

I was speaking ever more slowly, till I broke off. Snaut gave a soft sigh.

“We’re all sticking our heads in the sand here, Kelvin, but at least we’re aware of it and we’re not trying to act noble.”

“I’m not acting anything.”

“All right, I didn’t mean to insult you. I take back what I said about being noble, but the thing about hiding our heads in the sand is still true. You’re doing it in an especially dangerous way. You’re deceiving yourself and her, and yourself again. Do you know the stabilization conditions for systems built of neutrino matter?”

“No. And neither do you. No one does.”

“Of course. But we do know one thing, that such a system is unstable and can only exist if it has a constant supply of energy. I know that from Sartorius. The energy creates a warped stabilizing field. The question is, is that field external or is its source located inside the guest’s body? You get the difference?”

“Yes,” I said slowly. “If it’s external, then she… then such a…”

“Then when the system becomes separated from Solaris it will fall apart,” he finished for me. “We can’t predict it, though you already conducted an experiment. The rocket you sent up… it’s still orbiting, you know. In a spare moment I even calculated its path. You could fly up into orbit and check what happened with the… passenger…”

“Are you mad!” I hissed.

“You think so? Well… what if… we brought it back down here, the rocket? That can be done. It’s controlled remotely. We’ll guide it out of its orbit and…”

“Enough!”

“Not that either? Then there’s one other way, a very simple one. It wouldn’t have to land at the Station. It could stay in orbit. We could simply make radio contact… if she’s alive she’ll say something and…”

“The oxygen will’ve run out there long ago!” I stammered.

“Maybe she doesn’t need oxygen. Shall we try?”

“Snaut… Snaut…”

“Kelvin… Kelvin…” he mimicked, angry. “Think about what kind of person you are. Who are you trying to make happy here? Or save? Yourself? Her? Which one? This one or the other one? Do you lack the courage to save both of them? You see yourself where this leads! I’m telling you for the last time: this, here, this is a situation beyond morality.”

All at once I heard the same scratching sound as before, as if someone were scraping their fingernails down the wall. I don’t know why I was overcome by a kind of passive, miry calm. It was as if I were looking at the whole situation, the two of us, everything, from a great distance, through the wrong end of a telescope. It was all tiny, rather funny, of little consequence.

“All right then,” I said. “So according to you what should I do? Get rid of her? Then tomorrow another one just like her will appear, right? And again? And like that day after day? For how long? What for? What will that give me? Or you? Or Sartorius? Or the Station?”

“No, you answer me first. You’ll take off with her and, let’s say, you’ll witness the following transformation. In a few minutes you’ll see before you—”

“What?” I said sneeringly. “A monster? A demon? Hm?”

“No. Ordinary, the most ordinary, death throes. Have you already come to believe they’re immortal? Let me assure you, they die… What will you do then? Will you come back for… a copy?”

“Stop it!!” I roared, clenching my fists. He gazed at me with an expression of indulgent mockery in his narrowed eyes.

“Oh, I’m the one who should stop? You know something, if I were you I’d give this conversation a rest. Find something else to do instead. You could go and give the ocean a good whipping, for example, to teach it a lesson. What is your problem? If you—” he made a playful gesture of farewell with his hand, at the same time raising his eyes slowly towards the ceiling as if following a receding figure—“then you’ll be the bad guy? And otherwise you won’t? Smile when you feel like howling, act happy and composed when you want to gnaw your knuckles — then you won’t be a bad guy? What if it’s impossible not to be, in this place? What then? You’ll rage in front of Snaut, who’s responsible for everything, huh? Then on top of everything else you’re an idiot, my friend…”