Solaris by Stanislaw Lem Read Free Book Online Page A

watched Snow. Behind the drooping
lids, his eyes showed no fear. Was he not afraid of her, then?
    "Where does she come from?" I asked.
    "I don't know."
    The sound of the footsteps faded, then died away.
    "Don't you believe me?" he said. "I swear to you that I don't
know."
    In the silence that followed, I opened a locker, pushed the
clumsy atmosphere suits aside and found, as I expected, hanging at
the back, the gas pistols used for manoeuvering in space. I took
one out, checked the charge, and slung the harness over my
shoulder. It was not strictly speaking, a weapon, but it was better
than nothing.
    As I was adjusting a strap, Snow showed his yellow teeth in a
mocking grin.
    "Good hunting!" he said.
    I turned towards the door.
    "Thanks."
    He dragged himself out of his chair.
    "Kelvin!"
    I looked at him. He was no longer smiling. I have never seen
such an expression of weariness on anyone's face.
    He mumbled:
    "Kelvin, it isn't that…Really, I…I
can't…"
    I waited; his lips moved, but uttered no sound. I turned on my
heel and went out.

4 SARTORIUS
    I followed a long, empty corridor, then forked right. I had
never lived on the Station, but during my training on Earth I had
spent six weeks in an exact replica of it; when I reached a short
aluminum stairway, I knew where it led.
    The library was in darkness, and I had to fumble for the light
switch. I first consulted the index, then dialled the coordinates
for the first volume of the Solarist Annual and its supplement. A
red light came on. I turned to the register: the two books were
marked out to Gibarian, together with The Little
Apocrypha . I switched the lights off and returned to the lower
deck.
    In spite of having heard the footsteps receding, I was afraid to
re-enter Gibarian's room.
She
might return. I hesitated
for some time outside the door; finally, pressing down the handle,
I forced myself to go in.
    There was no one in the room. I began rummaging through the
books scattered beneath the window, interrupting my search only to
close the locker door: I could not bear the sight of the empty
space among the work-suits.
    The supplement was not in the first pile, so, one by one, I
started methodically picking up the rest of the books around the
room. When I reached the final pile, between the bed and the
wardrobe, I found the volume I was looking for.
    I was hoping to find some sort of clue and, sure enough, a
book-marker had been slipped between the pages of the index. A
name, unfamiliar to me, had been underlined in red: André
Berton. The corresponding page numbers indicated two different
chapters; glancing at the first, I learnt that Berton was a reserve
pilot on Shannahan's ship. The second reference appeared about a
hundred pages further on.
    At first, it seemed, Shannahan's expedition had proceeded with
extreme caution. When, however, after sixteen days, the plasmatic
ocean had not only shown no signs of aggression, but appeared to
shun any direct contact with men and machines, recoiling whenever
anything approached its surface, Shannahan and his deputy, Timolis,
discontinued some of the precautions which were hindering the
progress of their work. The force fences which had been used to
demarcate and protect the working areas were taken back to base,
and the expedition split up into groups of two or three men, some
groups making reconnaissance flights over a radius of some several
hundred miles.
    Apart from some unexpected damage to the oxygen-supply
systems—the atmosphere had an unusually corrosive effect on
the valves, which had to be replaced almost daily—four days
passed without mishap. On the morning of the fifth day—21
days after the arrival of the expedition—two scientists,
Carucci and Fechner (the first a radiobiologist, the second a
physicist), left on a mission aboard a hovercraft. Six hours later,
the explorers were overdue. Timolis, who was in charge of the base
in Shannahan's absence, raised the alarm and diverted every
available man into