“Yes. What of it?”
“You think of yourself as a servant of science?”
“Yes, of course. What has that to do with . . .”
“You are not an officer of the law. At this hour of the day, you should be at work, but instead of doing the job you were sent here for, you not only threaten to force the door of my laboratory, you question me as though I were a criminal suspect.”
His forehead was dripping with sweat. I controlled myself with an effort. I was determined to get through to him. I gritted my teeth and said:
“You _are_ suspect, Dr. Sartorius. What is more, you’re well aware of it!”
“Kelvin, unless you either retract or apologize, I shall lodge a complaint against you.”
“Why should I apologize? You’re the one who barricaded himself in this laboratory instead of coming out to meet me, instead of telling me the truth about what is going on here. Have you gone completely mad? What are you – a scientist, or a miserable coward?”
I don’t know what other insults I hurled at him. He did not even flinch. Globules of sweat trickled down over the enlarged pores of his cheeks. Suddenly I realized that he had not heard a word I was saying. Both hands behind his back, he was holding the door in position with all his strength; it was rattling as though someone inside were firing bursts from a machine-gun at the panel.
In a strange, high-pitched voice, he moaned:
“Go away. For God’s sake, leave me. Go downstairs, I’ll join you later. I’ll do whatever you want, only please go away now.”
His voice betrayed such exhaustion that instinctively I put out my arms to help him control the door. At this, he uttered a cry of horror, as though I had pointed a knife at him. As I retreated, he was shouting in his falsetto voice: “Go away! Go away! I’m coming, I’m coming, I’m coming! No! No!” He opened the door and shot inside. I thought I saw a shining yellow disc flash across his chest.
Now a muffled clamor rose from the laboratory; a huge shadow appeared, as the curtain was brushed momentarily aside; then it fell back into place and I could see nothing more. What was happening inside that room? I heard running footsteps, as though a mad chase were in progress, followed by a terrifying crash of broken glass and the sound of a child’s laugh.
My legs were trembling, and I stared at the door, appalled. The din had subsided, giving way to an uneasy silence. I sat down on a window ledge, too stunned to move; my head was splitting.
From where I was, I could see only a part of the corridor encircling the laboratory. I was at the summit of the Station, beneath the actual shell of the superstructure; the walls were concave and sloping, with oblong windows a few yards apart. The blue day was ending, and, as the shutters grated upwards, a blinding light shone through the thick glass. Every metal fitting, every latch and joint, blazed, and the great glass panel of the laboratory door glittered with pale coruscations. My hands looked grey in the spectral light. I noticed that I was holding the gas pistol; I had not realized that I had taken it out of its holster, and replaced it. What use could I have made of it – or even of a gamma pistol, had I had one? I could hardly have taken the laboratory by force.
I got up. The disc of the sun, reminiscent of a hydrogen explosion, was sinking into the ocean, and as I descended the stairway I was pierced by a jet of horizontal rays which was almost tangible. Halfway downstairs I paused to think, then went back up the steps and followed the corridor round the laboratory. Soon, I came across a second glass door, exactly like the first; I made no attempt to open it, knowing that it would be locked.
I was looking for an opening or vent of some sort. The idea of spying on Sartorius had come to me quite naturally, without the least sense of shame. I was determined to have done with conjecture and discover the truth, even if, as I imagined it would, the truth proved incomprehensible. It struck me that the laboratory must be lit from above by windows let into the dome. It should be possible, therefore, to spy on Sartorius from the outside. But first I should have to equip myself with an atmosphere-suit and oxygen gear.
When I reached the deck below, I found the door of the radio-cabin ajar. Snow, sunk in his armchair, was asleep. At the sound of my footsteps, he opened his eyes with a start.
“Hello, Kelvin!” he croaked. “Well, did you discover anything?”
“Yes . . . he’s not alone.” Snow grinned sourly.
“Oh, really? Well, that’s something. Has he got visitors?”
“I can’t understand why you won’t tell me what’s going on,” I retorted impulsively. “Since I have to remain here, I’m bound to find out the truth sooner or later. Why the mystery?”
“When you’ve received some visitors yourself, you’ll understand.”
I had the impression that my presence annoyed him and he had no desire to prolong the conversation. I turned to go. “Where are you off to?” I did not answer.
The hangar-deck was just as I had left it. My burnt-out capsule still stood there, gaping open, on its platform. On my way to select an atmosphere-suit, I suddenly realized that the skylights through which I hoped to observe Sartorius would probably be made of slabs of opaque glass, and I lost interest in my venture on to the outer hull.
Instead, I descended the spiral stairway which led to the lower-deck store rooms. The cramped passage at the bottom contained the usual litter of crates and cylinders.
The walls were sheeted in bare metal which had a bluish glint. A little further on, the frosted pipes of the refrigeration plant appeared beneath a vault and I followed them to the far end of the corridor where they vanished into a cooling-jacket with a wide, plastic collar. The door to the cold store was two inches thick and lagged with an insulating compound. When I opened it, the icy cold gripped me. I stood, shivering, on the threshold of a cave carved out of an iceberg; the huge coils, like sculptured reliefs, were hung with stalactites. Here, too, buried beneath a covering of snow, there were crates and cylinders, and shelves laden with boxes and transparent bags containing a yellow, oily substance. The vault sloped downwards to where a curtain of ice hid the back of the cave. I broke through it. An elongated figure, covered with a sheet of canvas, lay stretched out on an aluminum rack.
I lifted a corner of the canvas and recognised the stiff features of Gibarian. His glossy black hair clung tightly to his skull. The sinews of his throat stood out like bones. His glazed eyes stared up at the vault, a tear of opaque ice hanging from the corner of each lid. The cold was so intense that I had to clench my teeth to prevent them from chattering. I touched Gibarian’s cheek; it was like touching a block of petrified wood, bristling with black prickly hairs. The curve of the lips seemed to express an infinite, disdainful patience.
As I let the canvas fall, I noticed, peeping out from beneath the folds at the foot, five round, shiny objects, like black pearls, ranged in order of size. I stiffened with horror.
What I had seen were the round pads of five bare toes. Under the shroud, flattened against Gibarian’s body, lay the Negress. Slowly, I pulled back the canvas. Her head, covered in frizzy hair twisted up into little tufts, was resting in the hollow of one massive arm. Her back glistened, the skin stretched taut over the spinal column. The huge body gave no sign of life. I looked again at the soles of her naked feet; they had not been flattened or deformed in any way by the weight which they had had to carry. Walking had not calloused the skin, which was as unblemished as that of her shoulders.
With a far greater effort than it had taken to touch Gibarian’s corpse, I forced myself to touch one of the bare feet. Then I made a second bewildering discovery: this body, abandoned in a deep freeze, this apparent corpse, lived and moved. The woman had withdrawn her foot, like a sleeping dog when you try to take its paw.
“She’ll freeze,” I thought confusedly, but her flesh had been warm to the touch, and I even imagined I had felt the regular beating of her pulse. I backed out and fled.
As I emerged from the white cave, the heat seemed suffocating. I climbed the spiral stairway back to the hangar-deck.