“Kelvin, it’s not… I… I really can’t,” he stammered. I waited to see if he’d say any more, but he just moved his lips as if he was trying to spit something out.
I turned and left without a word.
Sartorius
The corridor was empty. It first led straight, then curved to the right. I’d never been on the Station before but, as part of my preparatory training, for six weeks I’d lived in an exact copy of it on Earth, at the Institute. I knew where the aluminum steps led. The library was in darkness. I felt for the light switch. When I found the first volume of the Yearbook of Solaristics along with its Appendix in the index, a small red light came on as I pressed the key. I checked in the register. The volume had been checked out by Gibarian, along with another book: the aforementioned Minor Apocrypha. I turned the light off and went back downstairs. I was afraid to go into his cabin, despite the footsteps I’d heard before. She could have gone back there. For some time I stood outside the door, till eventually I gritted my teeth, got a grip on myself and entered.
The illuminated room was empty. I started rifling through the books scattered on the floor by the window; at a certain moment I went up to the locker and closed it. I couldn’t look at that empty place among the overalls. The Appendix was not to be found by the window. I went through each book in turn, till I got to the last pile that lay between the locker and the bed. There I found the volume I was looking for.
I’d hoped to find some clue in it, and in fact, there was a bookmark inserted at the index of names. Underlined in red pencil was a name that meant nothing to me: André Berton. It appeared on two different pages. I found the first of these and learned that Berton had been the co-pilot on Shannahan’s ship. The next mention of his name was over a hundred pages later. Immediately after landing, the expedition had proceeded with extreme caution, but when after sixteen days it transpired that the plasmic ocean not only showed no signs of aggression, but retreated from any object moved close to its surface and, whenever it could, avoided direct contact with instruments or people, Shannahan and his second-in-command Timolis lifted some of the restrictions on activities that had been imposed as precautions, since these restrictions seriously impeded the work that was to be done.
At that time the expedition was divided into small two- or three-person teams, each carrying out flights over the ocean that were often several hundred miles in duration. The sweepers that had previously been used to close off the research area were left at the Base. The first four days after this change of method went without any incident, aside from occasional damage to the oxygen apparatus on the space suits, since the exhaust valves proved susceptible to the corrosive effect of the toxic atmosphere. Because of this they had to be replaced almost daily.
On the fifth day, or the twenty-first counting from the moment of landing, two scientists, Carucci and Fechner (the first was a radiologist, the second a physicist), conducted an exploratory flight over the ocean in a small two-person airmobile. It wasn’t a flying craft but a boat that moves on a cushion of condensed air.
When they failed to return after six hours, Timolis, who was in charge at the Base during Shannahan’s absence, ordered the alarm to be sounded and sent all available personnel out to search for the missing men.
By a disastrous coincidence radio contact was lost that day about an hour after the search parties set out; this was caused by a large sunspot on the red sun releasing a powerful burst of corpuscular radiation into the upper reaches of the atmosphere. Only ultra-short-wave equipment worked, allowing communication at a distance of no more than twelve or fifteen miles. To make matters worse, before the sun set the mist thickened and the search had to be interrupted.
When the search parties were already on their way back to the Base one of them found the airmobile no more than 80 miles from the shore. Its engine was working and the craft was drifting undamaged on the waves. Only one man, Carucci, was found in the cockpit, barely conscious.
The airmobile was brought back to the Base and Carucci was given medical treatment. That same evening he recovered. He was unable to say anything about what had happened to Fechner. He only remembered that when they’d already decided to head back he had started to have difficulty breathing. The exhaust valve of his apparatus had been jamming, and at each inbreath a small amount of toxic gas had gotten into his space suit.
Fechner must have unfastened his seatbelt and stood up as he attempted to fix the other man’s equipment. That was the last thing Carucci remembered. According to the experts, the probable subsequent course of events had been as follows: as he worked on Carucci’s oxygen pack, Fechner had opened the roof of the cockpit, probably because it was low and cramped his movements. This was permissible, since on such craft the cabin is not hermetic anyway and merely provides protection against wind and atmospheric conditions. During these operations Fechner’s own apparatus must have developed a fault; growing light-headed, he had climbed up through the roof, gotten onto the top of the airmobile, and fallen into the ocean.
Such is the story of the ocean’s first victim. A search for the body, which ought to have floated on the waves in its space suit, was unsuccessful. Though it might have drifted: it was beyond the expedition’s capabilities to comb thousands of square miles of undulating emptiness almost permanently covered with stretches of mist.
To return to the previous events, by nightfall all the search teams had returned, with the exception of a large freight helicopter that Berton had taken.
He appeared over the Base almost an hour after darkness had fallen, when there were already serious fears for his safety. He was in a state of nervous shock; he climbed out of the helicopter unaided, only to try to run away. Restrained, he shouted and wept; in a man with seventeen years’ experience of space flight, often in the most punishing conditions, this was quite extraordinary.
The doctors suspected that Berton too was suffering from poisoning. Though he ostensibly regained his senses, he refused even for a moment to leave the expedition’s main rocket ship; nor would he go up to the window, from which the ocean could be seen. After two days Berton declared he wished to submit a report concerning his flight. He insisted, claiming it was a matter of the utmost importance. When this report was examined by the expedition’s advisory board it was determined to be the morbid product of a mind poisoned by the toxic gases of the atmosphere. As such it was included not in the records of the expedition but in Berton’s medical case history, upon which the whole matter was closed.
So much was said in the Appendix. I surmised that the heart of the matter lay in Berton’s actual report — what it was that had led a long-distance pilot to suffer a nervous breakdown. I looked once again through the piles of books, but I couldn’t find the Minor Apocrypha. I was feeling more and more tired, so I put off further searching till the next day, and left the cabin. As I passed the aluminum stairs I saw patches of light from above. So Sartorius was still working at this hour! I decided I ought to pay him a visit.
Upstairs it was a little warmer. There was a faint draft in the wide, low-ceilinged corridor. The strips of paper across the air vents were fluttering furiously. The door of the main lab consisted of a thick plate of textured glass in a metal frame. The glass had been covered with something dark from inside; light issued only from a narrow window beneath the ceiling. I pressed on the bar. As I had expected, the door did not yield. Inside there was silence, broken from time to time by what sounded like the low hiss of a Bunsen burner. I knocked. There was no response.