More Tales of Pirx the Pilot by Stanislaw Lem Read Free Book Online Page B

meters wide, its bottom littered with tiny, sharp-edged ejecta, yawned between the shelf that supported him and the sheer wall opposite. Pirx probed the near side—silence. A riddle, as incomprehensible as it was inescapable: all indications were that Aniel had virtually melted into thin air. While the others conferred in subdued voices behind him, Pirx slowly craned his head and for the first time took stock of the steeply rising face at close range. The wall’s stony silence summoned him with uncanny force, but the summons was more like a beckoning, outstretched hand—and instantly the certitude of acceptance, the recognition that the challenge would have to be met, was born in him.
    Purely by instinct, his eyes sought out the first holds; they looked solid. One long, carefully executed step to cross the gap, first foothold on that tiny but sturdy-looking ledge, then a diagonal ascent along that perfectly even rift that opened a few meters higher into a shallow crevasse… For some reason, unknown even to himself, Pirx lifted the rod, arched his body as far as he could, and aimed it at the rock ledge on the far side of the cleft. His earphones responded. To be on the safe side, he repeated the maneuver, fighting to keep his balance—he was practically suspended in midair—and again heard a crackle. That cinched it. He rejoined the others.
    “He went up,” Pirx said matter-of-factly, pointing toward the wall. Krull did a double take, while Massena asked:
    “Went up? What for?”
    “Search me,” replied Pirx with seeming apathy. “Check for yourself.”
    Massena, rashly thinking that Pirx had made a mistake, conducted his own probe and was soon convinced. Aniel had most definitely spanned the gap and moved out along the partly fissured wall—buttress-bound.
    Consternation reigned. Krull postulated that the robot had malfunctioned after the survey, that he had become “deprogrammed.” Impossible, countered Massena; the positioning of the surveying gear and the backpack was too deliberate; it looked too suspiciously like a jettisoning prior to attempting a rugged ascent—no, something must have happened to make him go up there.
    Pirx held his peace. Secretly he had already made up his mind to scale the wall, with or without the others. Krull was out of the picture, anyway; this was a job for a professional, and a damned good one at that. Massena had done a fair bit of climbing—or so he had said once in Pirx’s presence—enough, at least, to know the ABC’s of belaying. When the other two were finished, Pirx made his intention known. Was Massena willing to team up?
    Krull immediately objected. It was against regs to take risks; they had to be mustered for that afternoon’s pick-up; the camp still had to be broken, their gear to be packed. They had their data now, didn’t they? The robot had simply malfunctioned, so why not chalk it up and explain all the circumstances in the final report…
    “Are you saying we should just cut out and leave him here?” inquired Pirx.
    His subdued tone obviously unnerved Krull, who, visibly restraining himself, answered that the report would give a complete rundown of the facts, along with individual comments by the crew, and a statement as to probable cause—short-circuiting of the memory mnestrones, directional-motivation circuit, or desynchronization.
    Massena pointed out that none of those was possible, since Aniel didn’t run on mnestrones but on a homogeneous, monocrystalline system, molecularly grown from supercold diamagnetic solutions vestigially doped with isotopic contaminants.
    It was plainly a put-down, Massena’s way of telling the cosmographer that he was talking through his hat. Pirx played deaf. Turning his back on them, he again surveyed the base, but with a difference: this time it was not a fantasy but the real thing. And although he somehow sensed the impropriety of it, he now exulted over the prospect of a climb.
    Massena, probably just to spite