Solaris

5 RHEYA

Desperation and a sort of dumb rage had sustained me while working with the computer. Now, overcome with exhaustion, I could not even remember how to let down a mechanical bed. Forgetting to push back the clamps, I hung on to the handle with all my weight and the mattress tumbled down on top of me.

I tore off my clothes and flung them away from me, then collapsed on to the pillow, without even taking the trouble to inflate it properly. I fell asleep with the lights on.

I reopened my eyes with the impression of having dozed off for only a few minutes. The room was bathed in a dim red light. It was cooler, and I felt refreshed.

I lay there, the bedclothes pushed back, completely naked. The curtains were half drawn, and there, opposite me, beside the window-pane lit by the red sun, someone was sitting. It was Rheya. She was wearing a white beach dress, the material stretched tightly over her breasts. She sat with her legs crossed; her feet were bare. Motionless, leaning on her sun-tanned arms, she gazed at me from beneath her black lashes: Rheya, with her dark hair brushed back. For a long time, I lay there peacefully gazing back at her. My first thought was reassuring: I was dreaming and I was aware that I was dreaming. Nevertheless, I would have preferred her not to be there. I closed my eyes and tried to shake off the dream. When I opened them again, Rheya was still sitting opposite me.

Her lips were pouting slightly — a habit of hers — as though she were about to whistle; but her expression was serious. I thought of my recent speculations on the subject of dreams.

She had not changed since the day I had seen her for the last time; she was then a girl of nineteen. Today, she would be twenty-nine. But, evidently, the dead do not change; they remain eternally young. She went on gazing at me, an expression of surprise on her face. I thought of throwing something at her, but, even in a dream, I could not bring myself to harm a dead person.

I murmured: “Poor little thing, have you come to visit me?”

The sound of my voice frightened me; the room, Rheya, everything seemed extraordinarily real. A three-dimensional dream, colored in half-tones…. I saw several objects on the floor which I had not noticed when I went to bed. When I wake up, I told myself, I shall check whether these things are still there or whether, like Rheya, I only saw them in a dream.

“Do you mean to stay for long?” I asked. I realized that I was speaking very softly, like someone afraid of being overheard. Why worry about eavesdroppers in a dream?

The sun was rising over the horizon. A good sign. I had gone to bed during a red day, which should have been succeeded by a blue day, followed by another red day. I had not slept for fifteen hours at a stretch. So it was a dream!

Reassured, I looked closely at Rheya. She was silhouetted against the sun. The scarlet rays cast a glow over the smooth skin of her left cheek and the shadows of her eyelashes fell across her face. How pretty she was! Even in my sleep my memory of her was uncannily precise. I watched the movements of the sun, waiting to see the dimple appear in that unusual place slightly below the corner of the lips. All the same, I would have preferred to wake up. It was time I did some work. I closed my eyelids tightly.

I heard a metallic noise, and opened my eyes again. Rheya was sitting beside me on the bed, still looking at me gravely. I smiled at her. She smiled back at me and leant forward. We kissed. First a timid, childish kiss, then more prolonged ones. I held her for a long time. Was it possible to feel so much in a dream, I wondered. I was not betraying her memory, for it was of her that I was dreaming, only her. It had never happened to me before….

Was it then that I began to have doubts? I went on telling myself that it was a dream, but my heart tightened.

I tensed my muscles, ready to leap out of bed. I was half-expecting to fail, for often, in dreams, your sluggish body refuses to respond. I hoped that the effort would drag me out of sleep. But I did not wake; I sat on the edge of the bed, my legs dangling. There was nothing for it, I should have to endure this dream right to the bitter end. My feeling of well-being had vanished. I was afraid.

“What…” I asked. I cleared my throat. “What do you want?”

I felt around the floor with my bare feet, searching for a pair of slippers. I stubbed my toe against a sharp edge, and stifled a cry of pain. That’ll wake me up, I thought with satisfaction, at the same time remembering that I had no slippers.

But still it went on. Rheya had drawn back and was leaning against the end of the bed. Her dress rose and fell lightly with her breathing. She watched me with quiet interest.

Quick, I thought, a shower! But then I realized that in a dream a shower would not interrupt my sleep.

“Where have you come from?”

She seized my hand and, with a gesture I knew well, threw it up and caught it again, then played with my fingers.

“I don’t know,” she replied. “Are you angry?”

It was her voice, that familiar, low-pitched, slightly faraway voice, and that air of not caring much about what she was saying, of already being preoccupied with something else. People used to think her off-hand, even rude, because the expression on her face rarely changed from one of vague astonishment.

“Did… did anyone see you?”

“I don’t know. I got here without any trouble. Why, Kris, is it important?”

She was still playing with my fingers, but her face now wore a slight frown.

“Rheya.”

“What, my darling?”

“How did you know where I was?”

She pondered. A broad smile revealed her teeth.

“I haven’t the faintest idea. Isn’t it funny? When I came in you were asleep. I didn’t wake you up because you get cross so easily. You have a very bad temper.”

She squeezed my hand.

“Did you go down below?”

“Yes. It was all frozen. I ran away.”

She let go of my hand and lay back. With her hair falling to one side, she looked at me with the half-smile that had irritated me before it had captivated me.

“But, Rheya…” I stammered.

I leaned over her and turned back the short sleeve of her dress. There, just above her vaccination scar, was a red dot, the mark of a hypodermic needle. I was not really surprised, but my heart gave a lurch.

I touched the red spot with my finger. For years now I had dreamt of it, over and over again, always waking with a shudder to find myself in the same position, doubled up between the crumpled sheets — just as I had found her, already growing cold. It was as though, in my sleep, I tried to relive what she had gone through; as though I hoped to turn back the clock and ask her forgiveness, or keep her company during those final minutes when she was feeling the effects of the injection and was overcome by terror. She, who dreaded the least scratch, who hated pain or the sight of blood, had deliberately done this horrible thing, leaving nothing but a few scribbled words addressed to me. I had kept her note in my wallet. By now it was soiled and creased, but I had never had the heart to throw it away.

Time and time again I had imagined her tracing those words and making her final preparations. I persuaded myself that she had only been play-acting, that she had wanted to frighten me and had taken an overdose by mistake. Everyone told me that it must have happened like that, or else it had been a spontaneous decision, the result of a sudden depression. But people knew nothing of what I had said to her five days earlier; they did not know that, in order to twist the knife more cruelly, I had taken away my belongings and that she, as I was closing my suitcases, had said, very calmly: “I suppose you know what this means?” And I had pretended not to understand, even though I knew quite well what she meant; I thought her too much of a coward, and had even told her as much…. And now she was lying across the bed, looking at me attentively, as though she did not know that it was I who had killed her.

“Well?” she asked. Her eyes reflected the red sun. The entire room was red. Rheya looked at her arm with interest, because I had been examining it for so long, and when I drew back she laid her smooth, cool cheek in the palm of my hand.

“Rheya,” I stammered, “it’s not possible…”

“Hush!”

I could sense the movement of her eyes beneath their closed lids.

“Where are we, Rheya?”

“At home.”

“Where’s that?”

One eye opened and shut again instantly. The long lashes tickled my palm.

“Kris.”

“What?”

“I’m happy.”

Raising my head, I could see part of the bed in the washbasin mirror: a cascade of soft hair — Rheya’s hair — and my bare knees. I pulled towards me with my foot one of the misshapen objects I had found in the box and picked it up with my free hand. It was a spindle, one end of which had melted to a needle-point. I held the point to my skin and dug it in, just beside a small pink scar. The pain shot through my whole body. I watched the blood run down the inside of my thigh and drip noiselessly on to the floor.

What was the use? Terrifying thoughts assailed me, thoughts which were taking a definite shape. I no longer told myself: “It’s a dream.” I had ceased to believe that. Now I was thinking: “I must be ready to defend myself.”

I examined her shoulders, her hip under the close-fitting white dress, and her dangling naked feet. Leaning forward, I took hold of one of her ankles and ran my fingers over the sole of her foot.

The skin was soft, like that of a newborn child.

I knew then that it was not Rheya, and I was almost certain that she herself did not know it.

The bare foot wriggled and Rheya’s lips parted in silent laughter.

“Stop it,” she murmured.

Cautiously I withdrew my hand from under the cheek and stood up. Then I dressed quickly. She sat up and watched me.

“Where are your things?” I asked her. Immediately, I regretted my question.

“My things?”

“Don’t you have anything except that dress?”

From now on, I would pursue the game with my eyes open. I tried to appear unconcerned, indifferent, as though we had parted only yesterday, as though we had never parted.

She stood up. With a familiar gesture, she tugged at her skirt to smooth out the creases. My words had worried her, but she said nothing. For the first time, she examined the room with an enquiring, scrutinizing gaze. Then, puzzled, she replied:

“I don’t know.” She opened the locker door. “In here, perhaps?”

“No, there’s nothing but work-suits in there.”

I found an electric point by the basin and began to shave, careful not to take my eyes off her.

She went to and fro, rummaging everywhere. Eventually, she came up to me and said:

“Kris, I have the feeling that something’s happened… “

She broke off. I unplugged the razor, and waited. “I have the feeling that I’ve forgotten something,” she went on, “that I’ve forgotten a lot of things. I can only remember you. I… I can’t remember anything else.”

I listened to her, forcing myself to look unconcerned.

“Have I… Have I been ill?” she asked.

“Yes… in a way. Yes, you’ve been slightly ill.”

“There you are then. That explains my lapses of memory.”

She had brightened up again. Never shall I be able to describe how I felt then. As I watched her moving about the room, now smiling, now serious, talkative one moment, silent the next, sitting down and then getting up again, my terror was gradually overcome by the conviction that it was the real Rheya there in the room with me, even though my reason told me that she seemed somehow stylized, reduced to certain characteristic expressions, gestures and movements.

Suddenly, she clung to me.

“What’s happening to us, Kris?” She pressed her fists against my chest. “Is everything all right? Is there something wrong?”

“Things couldn’t be better.”

She smiled wanly.

“When you answer me like that, it means things could hardly be worse.”

“What nonsense!” I said hurriedly. “Rheya, my darling, I must leave you. Wait here for me.” And, because I was becoming extremely hungry, I added: “Would you like something to eat?”

“To eat?” She shook her head. “No. Will I have to wait long for you?”

“Only an hour.”

“I’m coming with you.”

“You can’t come with me. I’ve got work to do.”

“I’m coming with you.”

She had changed. This was not Rheya at all; the real Rheya never imposed herself, would never have forced her presence on me.

“It’s impossible, my sweet.”

She looked me up and down. Then suddenly she seized my hand. And my hand lingered, moved up her warm, rounded arm. In spite of myself I was caressing her. My body recognized her body; my body desired her, my body was attracted towards hers beyond reason, beyond thought, beyond fear.

Desperately trying to remain calm, I repeated:

“Rheya, it’s out of the question. You must stay here.”

A single word echoed round the room:

“No.”

“Why?”

“I… I don’t know.” She looked around her, then, once more, raised her eyes to mine. “I can’t,” she whispered.

“But why?”

“I don’t know. I can’t. It’s as though… as though…”

She searched for the answer which, as she uttered it, seemed to come to her like a revelation. “It’s as though I mustn’t let you out of my sight.”

The resolute tone of her voice scarcely suggested an avowal of affection; it implied something quite different. With this realization, the manner in which I was embracing Rheya underwent an abrupt, though not immediately noticeable, change.

I was holding her in my arms and gazing into her eyes.

Imperceptibly, almost instinctively, I began to pull her hands together behind her back at the same time searching the room with my eyes: I needed something with which to tie her hands.

Suddenly she jerked her elbows together, and there followed a powerful recoil. I resisted for barely a second. Thrown backwards and almost lifted off my feet, even had I been an athlete I could not have freed myself. Rheya straightened up and dropped her arms to her sides. Her face, lit by an uncertain smile, had played no part in the struggle.

She was gazing at me with the same calm interest as when I had first awakened — as though she was utterly unmoved by my desperate ploy, as though she was quite unaware that anything had happened, and had not noticed my sudden panic. She stood before me, waiting — grave, passive, mildly surprised.

Leaving Rheya in the middle of the room, I went over to the washbasin. I was a prisoner, caught in an absurd trap from which at all costs I was determined to escape. I would have been incapable of putting into words the meaning of what had happened or what was going through my mind; but now I realized that my situation was identical with that of the other inhabitants of the Station, that everything I had experienced, discovered or guessed at was part of a single whole, terrifying and incomprehensible. Meanwhile, I was racking my brain to think up some ruse, to work out some means of escape. Without turning round, I could feel Rheya’s eyes following me. There was a medicine chest above the basin. Quickly I went through its contents, and found a bottle of sleeping pills. I shook out four tablets — the maximum dose — into a glass, and filled it with hot water. I made little effort to conceal my actions from Rheya. Why? I did not even bother to ask myself.

When the tablets had dissolved, I returned to Rheya, who was still standing in the same place.

“Are you angry with me?” she asked, in a low voice.

“No. Drink this.”

Unconsciously, I had known all along that she would obey me. She took the glass without a word and drank the scalding mixture in one gulp. Putting down the empty glass on a stool, I went and sat in a chair in the corner of the room.

Rheya joined me, squatting on the floor in her accustomed manner with her legs folded under her, and tossing back her hair. I was no longer under any illusion: this was not Rheya — and yet I recognized her every habitual gesture. Horror gripped me by the throat; and what was most horrible was that I must go on tricking her, pretending to take her for Rheya, while she herself sincerely believed that she was Rheya — of that I was certain, if one could be certain of anything any longer.

She was leaning against my knees, her hair brushing my hand. We remained thus for some while. From time to time, I glanced at my watch. Half-an-hour went by; the sleeping tablets should have started to work. Rheya murmured something:

“What did you say?”

There was no reply.

Although I attributed her silence to the onset of sleep, secretly I doubted the effectiveness of the pills. Once again, I did not ask myself why. Perhaps it was because my subterfuge seemed too simple.

Slowly her head slid across my knees, her dark hair falling over her face. Her breathing grew deeper and more regular; she was asleep. I stooped in order to lift her on to the bed. As I did so, her eyes opened; she put her arms round my neck and burst into shrill laughter.

I was dumbfounded. Rheya could hardly contain her mirth. With an expression that was at once ingenuous and sly, she observed me through half-closed eyelids. I sat down again, tense, stupefied, at a loss. With a final burst of laughter, she snuggled against my legs.

In an expressionless voice, I asked:

“Why are your laughing?”

Once again, a look of anxiety and surprise came over her face. It was clear that she wanted to give me an honest explanation. She sighed, and rubbed her nose like a child.

“I don’t know,” she said at last, with genuine puzzlement. “I’m behaving like an idiot, aren’t I? But so are you… you look idiotic, all stiff and pompous like… like Pelvis.”

I could hardly believe my ears.

“Like who?”

“Like Pelvis. You know who I mean, that fat man….”

Rheya could not possibly have known Pelvis, or even heard me mention him, for the simple reason that he had returned from an expedition three years after her death. I had not known him previously and was therefore unaware of his inveterate habit, when presiding over meetings at the Institute, of letting sessions drag on indefinitely. Moreover, his name was Pelle Villis and until his return I did not know that he had been nicknamed Pelvis.

Rheya leaned her elbows on my knees and looked me in the eyes. I put out my hand and stroked her arms, her shoulders and the base of her bare neck, which pulsed beneath my fingers. While it looked as though I was caressing her (and indeed, judging by her expression, that was how she interpreted the touch of my hands) in reality I was verifying once again that her body was warm to the touch, an ordinary human body, with muscles, bones, joints. Gazing calmly into her eyes, I felt a hideous desire to tighten my grip.

Suddenly I remembered Snow’s bloodstained hands, and let go.

“How you stare at me,” Rheya said, placidly.

My heart was beating so furiously that I was incapable of speech. I closed my eyes. In that very instant, complete in every detail, a plan of action sprang to my mind. There was not a second to lose. I stood up.

“I must go out, Rheya. If you absolutely insist on coming with me, I’ll take you.”

“Good.”

She jumped to her feet.

I opened the locker and selected a suit for each of us. Then I asked:

“Why are you bare-foot?”

She answered hesitantly:

“I don’t know… I must have left my shoes somewhere.”

I did not pursue the matter.

“You’ll have to take your dress off to put this on.”

“Flying-overalls? What for?”

As she tried to take off her dress, an extraordinary fact became apparent: there were no zips, or fastenings of any sort; the red buttons down the front were merely decorative. Rheya smiled, embarrassed.

As though it were the most normal way of going about it, I picked up some kind of scalpel from the floor and slit the dress down the back from neck to waist, so that she could pull it over her head.

When she had put on the flying-overalls (which were slightly too large for her) and we were about to leave, she asked:

“Are we going on a flight?”

I merely nodded. I was afraid of running into Snow. But the dome was empty and the door leading to the radio-cabin was shut.

A deathly silence still hung over the hangar-deck. Rheya followed my movements attentively. I opened a stall and examined the shuttle vehicle inside. I checked, one after another, the micro-reactor, the controls, and the diffusers. Then, having removed the empty capsule from its stand, I aimed the electric trolley towards the sloping runway.

I had chosen a small shuttle used for ferrying stores between the Station and the satellite, one that did not normally carry personnel since it did not open from the inside. The choice was carefully calculated in accordance with my plan. Of course, I had no intention of launching it, but I simulated the preparations for an actual departure. Rheya, who had so often accompanied me on my space-flights, was familiar with the preliminary routine. Inside the cockpit, I checked that the climatization and oxygen-supply systems were functioning. I switched in the main circuit and the indicators on the instrument panel lit up. I climbed out and said to Rheya, who was waiting at the foot of the ladder:

“Get in.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll follow you. I have to close the hatch behind us.”

She gave no sign that she suspected any trickery. When she had disappeared inside, I stuck my head into the opening and asked:

“Are you comfortable?”

I heard a muffled “yes” from inside the confined cockpit. I withdrew my head and slammed the hatch to with all my strength. I slid home the two bolts and tightened the five safety screws with the special spanner I had brought with me. The slender metal cigar stood there, pointing upwards, as though it were really about to take off into space.

Its captive was in no danger: the oxygen-tanks were full and there were food supplies in the cockpit. In any case, I did not intend to keep her prisoner indefinitely. I desperately needed two hours of freedom in order to concentrate on the decisions which had to be taken and to work out a joint plan of action with Snow.

As I was tightening the last screw but one, I felt a vibration in the three-pronged clamp which held the base of the shuttle. I thought I must have loosened the support in my over-eager handling of the heavy spanner, but when I stepped back to take a look, I was greeted by a spectacle which I hope I shall never have to see again.

The whole vehicle trembled, shaken from the inside as though by some superhuman force. Not even a steel robot could have imparted such a convulsive tremor to an 8-ton mass, and yet the cabin contained only a frail, dark-haired girl.

The reflections from the lights quivered on the shuttle’s gleaming sides. I could not hear the blows; there was no sound whatever from inside the vehicle. But the outspread struts vibrated like taut wires. The violence of the shock-waves was such that I was afraid the entire scaffolding would collapse.

I tightened the final screw with a trembling hand, threw down the spanner and jumped off the ladder. As I slowly retreated, I noticed that the shock-absorbers, designed to resist a continuous pressure, were vibrating furiously. It looked to me as though the shuttle’s outer skin was wrinkling.

Frenziedly, I rushed to the control panel and with both hands lifted the starting lever. As I did so the intercom connected to the shuttle’s interior gave out a piercing sound — not a cry, but a sound which bore not the slightest resemblance to the human voice, in which I could nevertheless just make out my name, repeated over and over again: “Kris! Kris! Kris!”

I had attacked the controls so violently, fumbling in my haste, that my fingers were torn and bleeding.

A bluish glimmer, like that of a ghostly dawn, lit up the walls. Swirling clouds of vaporous dust eddied round the launching pad; the dust turned into a column of fierce sparks and the echoes of a thunderous roar drowned all other noise. Three flames, merging instantly into a single pillar of fire, lifted the craft, which rose up through the open hatch in the dome, leaving behind a glowing trail which rippled as it gradually subsided. Shutters slid over the hatch, and the automatic ventilators began to suck in the acrid smoke which billowed round the room.

It was only later that I remembered all these details; at the time, I hardly knew what I was seeing. Clinging to the control-panel, the fierce heat burning my face and singeing my hair, I gulped the acrid air which smelt of a mixture of burning fuel and the ozone given off by ionization. I had instinctively closed my eyes at the moment of lift-off, but the glare had penetrated my eyelids. For some time, I saw nothing but black, red and gold spirals which slowly died away. The ventilators continued to hum; the smoke and the dust were gradually clearing.

The green glow of the radar-screen caught my eye. My hands flew across its controls as I began to search for the shuttle. By the time I had located it, it was already flying above the atmosphere. I had never launched a vehicle in such a blind and unthinking way, with no pre-set speed or direction. I did not even know its range and was afraid of causing some unpredictable disaster. I judged that the easiest thing to do would be to place it in a stationary orbit around Solaris and then cut the engines. I verified from the tables that the required altitude was 725 miles. It was no guarantee, of course, but I could see no other way out.

I did not have the heart to switch on the intercom, which had been disconnected at lift-off. I could not bear to expose myself again to the sound of that horrifying voice, which was no longer even remotely human.

I felt I was justified in thinking that I had defeated the ‘simulacra,’ and that behind the illusion, contrary to all expectation, I had found the real Rheya again — the Rheya of my memories, whom the hypothesis of madness would have destroyed.

At one o’clock, I left the hangar-deck.