Lost in contemplation of this bewildering map, my mind in a daze, I temporarily forgot the mystery surrounding Gibarian’s death and the uncertainty of my own future.
The different sections of the ocean were named after the scientists who had explored them. I was examining Thexall’s swell, which surrounded the equatorial archipelagos, when I had a sudden sensation of being watched.
I was still leaning over the map, but I no longer saw it; my limbs were in the grip of a sort of paralysis. The crates and a small locker still barricaded the door, which was in front of me. It’s only a robot, I told myself — yet I had not discovered any in the room and none could have entered without my knowledge. My back and my neck seemed to be on fire; the sensation of this relentless, fixed stare was becoming unbearable. With my head shrinking between my hunched shoulders, I leant harder and harder against the table, until it began slowly to slide away. The movement released me; I spun round.
The room was empty. There was nothing in front of me except the wide convex window and, beyond it, the night. But the same sensation persisted. The night stared me in the face, amorphous, blind, infinite, without frontiers. Not a single star relieved the darkness behind the glass. I pulled the thick curtains. I had been in the Station less than an hour, yet already I was showing signs of morbidity. Was it the effect of Gibarian’s death? In so far as I knew him, I had imagined that nothing could shake his nerve: now, I was no longer so sure.
I stood in the middle of the room, beside the table. My breathing became more regular, I felt the sweat chill on my forehead. What was it I had been thinking about a moment ago? Ah, yes, robots! It was surprising that I had not come across one anywhere on the Station. What could have become of them all? The only one with which I had been in contact — at a distance — belonged to the vehicle reception services. But what about the others?
I looked at my watch. It was time to rejoin Snow.
I left the room. The dome was feebly lit by luminous filaments running the length of the ceiling. I went up to Gibarian’s door and stood there, motionless. There was total silence. I gripped the handle. I had in fact no intention of going in, but the handle went down and the door opened, disclosing a chink of darkness. The lights went on. In one quick movement, I entered and silently closed the door behind me. Then I turned round.
My shoulders brushed against the door panels. The room was larger than mine. A curtain decorated with little pink and blue flowers (not regulation Station equipment, but no doubt brought from Earth with his personal belongings) covered three-quarters of the panoramic window. Around the walls were bookshelves and cupboards, painted pale green with silvery highlights. Both shelves and cupboards had been emptied of their contents, which were piled into heaps, amongst the furniture. At my feet, blocking the way, were two overturned trolleys buried beneath a heap of periodicals spilling out of bulging brief cases which had burst open. Books with their pages splayed out fanwise were stained with colored liquids which had spilt from broken retorts and bottles with corroded stoppers, receptacles made of such thick glass that a single fall, even from a considerable height, could not have shattered them in such a way. Beneath the window lay an overturned desk, an anglepoise lamp crumpled underneath it; two legs of an upturned stool were stuck in the half-open drawers. A flood of papers of every conceivable size swamped the floor. My interest quickened as I recognized Gibarian’s hand-writing. As I stooped to gather together the loose sheets, I noticed that my hand was casting a double shadow.
I straightened up. The pink curtain glowed brightly, traversed by a streak of incandescent, steely-blue light which was gradually widening. I pulled the curtain aside. An unbearable glare extended along the horizon, chasing before it an army of spectral shadows, which rose up from among the waves and dispersed in the direction of the Station. It was the dawn. After an hour of darkness the planet’s second sun — the blue sun — was rising in the sky.
The automatic switch cut off the lights as I returned to the heap of papers. The first thing I came across was a detailed description of an experiment, evidently decided upon three weeks before. Gibarian had planned to expose the plasma to an intensive bombardment of X-rays. I gathered from the context that the paper was addressed to Sartorius, whose job it was to organize operations. What 1 was holding in my hand was a copy of the plan.
The whiteness of the paper hurt my eyes. This new day was different from the previous one. In the warm glow of the red sun, mists overhung a black ocean with blood-red reflections, and waves, clouds and sky were almost constantly veiled in a crimson haze. Now, the blue sun pierced the flower-printed curtain with a crystalline light. My suntanned hands looked grey. The room had changed; all the red-reflecting objects had lost their luster and had turned a greyish-brown, whereas those which were white, green and yellow had acquired a vivid brilliance and seemed to give off their own light. Screwing up my eyes, I risked another glance through a chink in the curtain: an expanse of molten metal trembled and shimmered under a white-hot sky, I shut my eyes and drew back. On the shelf above the wash-basin (which had recently been badly chipped) I found a pair of dark glasses, so big that when I put them on they covered half my face. The curtain appeared to glow with a sodium light. I went on reading, picking up the sheets of paper and arranging them on the only usable table. There were gaps in the text, and I searched in vain for the missing pages.
I came across a report of experiments already carried out, and learned that, for four days running, Gibarian and Sartorius had submitted the ocean to radiation at a point 1400 miles from the present position of the Station. The use of X-rays was banned by a UN convention, because of their harmful effects, and I was certain that no one had sent a request to Earth for authorization to proceed with such experiments.
Looking up, I caught sight of my face in the mirror of a half-open locker door: masked by the dark glasses, it was deathly pale. The room, too, glinting with blue and white reflections, looked equally bizarre; but soon there came a prolonged screech of metal as the air-tight outer shutters slid across the window. There was an instant of darkness, and then the lights came on; they seemed to me to be curiously dim. It grew hotter and hotter. The regular drone of the air-conditioning was now a high-pitched whine: the Station’s refrigeration plant was running at full capacity. Nevertheless, the overpowering heat grew more and more intense.
I heard footsteps. Someone was walking through the dome. In two silent strides, I reached the door. The footsteps slowed down; whoever it was was behind it. The handle moved. Automatically, without thinking, I gripped it. The pressure did not increase, but nor did it relax. Neither of us, on either side of the door, said a word. We remained there, motionless, each of us holding the handle. Suddenly it straightened up again, freeing itself from my grasp. The muffled footsteps receded. With my ear glued to the panel, I went on listening. I heard nothing more.
3 THE VISITORS
I hastily pocketed Gibarian’s notes and went over to the locker. Work-suits and clothes had been pushed to one side as though someone had hidden himself at the back. On the floor I saw the corner of an envelope sticking out from a heap of papers and picked it up. It was addressed to me. Dry-mouthed with apprehension, I tore it open; I had to force myself to unfold the note inside.
In his even handwriting, small but perfectly legible, Gibarian had written two lines:
Supplement Dir. Solar. Vol 1.: Vot. Separat.
Messenger ds aff. F.; Ravintzer: The Little Apocrypha.