The Invincible by Stanislaw Lem Read Free Book Online

a convoy was formed. An energy dome arched over the convoy that consisted of five cross-country jeeps and a mobile antimatter mortar. It was about twice the size of the vehicles and resembled an apocalyptic bug with bluish glittering wing cases.
    Rohan was the commander of this operational troop. He stood upright in the turret hatch of the first vehicle awaiting the signal that would allow them free passage through the force field. Two info-robots had been positioned on nearby hillocks; there they began shooting off a series of long-burning green flares. This clearly marked the path; the small column started to roll. Rohan’s car was at the head of the troop.
    The engines hummed with their deep bass voices; the heavy balloon tires spewed up fountains of sand. Two hundred yards ahead flew a scouter robot, skimming close to the ground. The robot looked like a flat saucer with rapidly vibrating antennae. These vibrations created an air current which shot hissing into the ridges of the dunes. One could almost believe the flying robot had set the dunes aflame with an invisible fire. The swirling dust cloud lingered in the still air, marking with a puffy reddish line the direction taken by the expedition.
    The shadows of the machines grew longer; it was shortly before sunset. The column was forced to make a detour around a small crater that was almost filled with sand. Twenty minutes later the troop reached the edge of the ruins.
    They broke formation. Three unmanned vehicles left the train and placed blue lights as a sign that a localized force field had been erected. The two manned cars rolled forward under the protection of the mobile energy dome. Fifty yards behind them the giant antimatter mortar followed, stalking along on its curved telescopic legs.
    On one occasion they had to stop. Just as they crossed a thicket resembling torn metal ropes and wires, one of the robots’ legs got stuck in the sand and it was in danger of sinking down into an invisible crevice. But two Arctanes simultaneously jumped off Rohan’s vehicle and helped the colossus out of the tight spot. Then the column continued on its way.
    What they had called the “city” in reality bore no resemblance to any terrestrial settlement. Dark massifs, anchored in unknown depths, jutted out from the sand of the wandering dunes. With their spiny, brush-like surfaces, these structures looked unlike anything ever before seen by man. The undefinable formations reached a height of several storeys. They had neither windows nor doors, nor even any walls. Some looked like closely woven nets, folded into many layers, penetrating each other in countless places. Wherever they joined there occurred a thickening of the matter. Others reminded the men of complicated spatial arabesques such as might be formed by multilayered honeycombs or sieves with three- or five-cornered openings. Each larger structural unit and every visible facet revealed a certain regularity, not as uniform as that in a crystal, but nevertheless arranged in a certain rhythm. Yet the rhythm was frequently broken by traces of destructive forces. Still others consisted of tightly intergrown branches with curiously angular shapes. These twigs, however, did not branch out as they did on trees and bushes back home on Earth, but rather formed part of an arch; elsewhere two spiraling twigs wound in opposite directions.
    In other places the men saw constructions that leaned at an angle as if they were the supporting girders of a drawbridge. The prevailing winds from the north had deposited sand on all horizontal structural surfaces and wherever the ground fell away with a gentle slope. From a distance, several ruins produced the effect of stocky pyramids whose tops had been lopped off. But up close it became evident that the apparently smooth surface really consisted of a system of many-forked bars and poles, ending in sharp points, forming such an impenetrable tangle in certain places that even the sand got