QUESTION: Did you then try and get back?
BERTON: No. In the end, having gamed height, I thought to myself that Fechner was probably in the bottom of one of the wells. I know it sounds crazy, but that’s what I thought. I told myself that everything was possible, and that it would also be possible for me to find Fechner. I decided to investigate every clearing I came across along my route. At the third attempt I gave up. When I had regained height, I knew it was useless to persist after what I had just seen on this, the third, occasion. I couldn’t go on any longer. I should add, as you already know, that I was suffering from bouts of nausea and that I vomited in the cockpit. I couldn’t understand it; I have never been sick in my life.
COMMENT: It was a symptom of poisoning.
BERTON: Perhaps. I don’t know. But what I saw on this third occasion I did not imagine. That was not the effect of poisoning.
QUESTION: How can you possibly know?
BERTON: It wasn’t an hallucination. An hallucination is created by one’s own brain, wouldn’t you say?
COMMENT: Yes.
BERTON: Well, my brain couldn’t have created what I saw. I’ll never believe that. My brain wouldn’t have been capable of it.
COMMENT: Get on with describing what it was!
BERTON: Before I do so, I should like to know how the statements I’ve already made will be interpreted.
QUESTION: What does that matter?
BERTON: For me, it matters very much indeed. I have said that I saw things which I shall never forget. If the Commission recognizes, even with certain reservations, that my testimony is credible, and that a study of the ocean must be undertaken – I mean a study orientated in the light of my statements – then I’ll tell everything. But if the Commission considers that it is all delusions, then I refuse to say anything more.
QUESTION: Why?
BERTON: Because the contents of my hallucinations belong to me and I don’t have to give an account of them, whereas I am obliged to give an account of what I saw on Solaris.
QUESTION: Does that mean that you refuse to answer any more questions until the expedition authorities have announced their findings? You realize, of course, that the Commission isn’t empowered to take an immediate decision?
BERTON: Yes.
The first minute ended here. There followed a fragment of the second minute drawn up eleven days later.
PRESIDENT: . . . after due consideration, the Commission, composed of three doctors, three biologists, a physicist, a mechanical engineer and the deputy head of the expedition, has reached the conclusion that Berton’s report is symptomatic of hallucinations caused by atmospheric poisoning, consequent upon inflammation of the associative zone of the cerebral cortex, and that Berton’s account bears no, or at any rate no appreciable, relation to reality.
BERTON: Excuse me, what does “no appreciable relation” mean? In what proportion is reality appreciable or not?
PRESIDENT: I haven’t finished. Independently of these conclusions, the Commission has duly registered a dissenting vote from Dr. Archibald Messenger, who considers the phenomena described by Berton to be objectively possible and declares himself in favor of a scrupulous investigation.
BERTON: I repeat my question.
PRESIDENT: The answer is simple. “No appreciable relation to reality” means that phenomena actually observed may have formed the basis of your hallucinations. In the course of a nocturnal stroll, a perfectly sane man can imagine he sees a living creature in a bush stirred by the wind. Such illusions are all the more likely to affect an explorer lost on a strange planet and breathing a poisonous atmosphere. This verdict is in no way prejudicial to you, Berton. Will you now be good enough to let us know your decision?
BERTON: First of all, I should like to know the possible consequences of this dissenting vote of Dr. Messenger’s.
PRESIDENT: Virtually none. We shall carry on our work along the lines originally laid down.
BERTON: Is our interview on record?
PRESIDENT: Yes.
BERTON: In that case, I should like to say that although the Commission’s decision may not be prejudicial to me personally, it is prejudicial to the spirit of the expedition itself. Consequently, as I have already stated, I refuse to answer any further questions.
PRESIDENT: Is that all?
BERTON: Yes. Except that I should like to meet Dr. Messenger. Is that possible?
PRESIDENT: Of course.
That was the end of the second minute. At the bottom of the page there was a note in minuscule handwriting to the effect that, the following day, Dr. Messenger had talked to Berton for nearly three hours. As a result of this conversation, Messenger had once more begged the expedition Council to undertake further investigations in order to check the pilot’s statements. Berton had produced some new and extremely convincing revelations, which Messenger could not divulge unless the Council reversed its negative decision. The Council – Shannahan, Timolis and Trahier – rejected the motion and the affair was closed.
The book also reproduced a photocopy of the last page of a letter, or rather, the draft of a letter, found by Messenger’s executors after his death. Ravintzer, in spite of his researches, had been unable to discover if this letter had ever been sent.
“. . . obtuse minds, a pyramid of stupidity,” – the text began. “Anxious to preserve its authority, the Council – more precisely Shannahan and Timolis (Trahier’s vote doesn’t count) – has rejected my recommendations. Now I am taking the matter up directly with the Institute; but, as you can well imagine, my protestations won’t convince anybody. Bound as I am by oath, I can’t, alas, reveal to you what Berton told me. If the Council disregarded Berton’s testimony, it was basically because Berton has no scientific training, although any scientist would envy the presence of mind and the gift of observation shown by this pilot. I should be grateful if you could send me the following information by return post:
i) Fechner’s biography, in particular details about his childhood.
ii) Everything you know about his family, facts and dates – he probably lost his parents while still a child.
iii)The topography of the place where he was brought up.
I should like once more to tell you what I think about all this. As you know, some time after the departure of Fechner and Carucci, a spot appeared in the centre of the red sun. This chromospheric eruption caused a magnetic storm chiefly over the southern hemisphere, where our base was situated, according to the information provided by the satellite, and the radio links were cut. The other parties were scouring the planet’s surface over a relatively restricted area, whereas Fechner and Carucci had travelled a considerable distance from the base.
Never, since our arrival on the planet, had we observed such a persistent fog or such an unremitting silence.
I imagine that what Berton saw was one of the phases of a kind of ‘Operation Man’ which this viscous monster was engaged in. The source of all the various forms observed by Berton is Fechner – or rather, Fechner’s brain, subjected to an unimaginable ‘psychic dissection’ for the purposes of a sort of re-creation, an experimental reconstruction, based on impressions (undoubtedly the most durable ones) engraved on his memory.
I know this sounds fantastic; I know that I may be mistaken. But do please help me. At the moment, I am on the _Alaric_, where I look forward to receiving your reply.
Yours, A.”
It was growing dark, and I could scarcely make out the blurred print at the top of the grey page – the last page describing Berton’s adventure. For my part, my own experience led me to regard Berton as a trustworthy witness.
I turned towards the window. A few clouds still glowed like dying embers above the horizon. The ocean was invisible, blanketed by the purple darkness.
The strips of paper fluttered idly beneath the air-vents. There was a whiff of ozone in the still, warm air.
There was nothing heroic in our decision to remain on the Station. The time for heroism was over, vanished with the era of the great interplanetary triumphs, of daring expeditions and sacrifices. Fechner, the ocean’s first victim, belonged to a distant past. I had almost stopped caring about the identity of Snow’s and Sartorius’s visitors. Soon, I told myself, we would cease to be ashamed, to keep ourselves apart. If we could not get rid of our visitors, we would accustom ourselves to their presence, learn to live with them. If their Creator altered the rules of the game, we would adapt ourselves to the new rules, even if at first we jibbed or rebelled, even if one of us despaired and killed himself. Eventually, a certain equilibrium would be reestablished.
Night had come; no different from many nights on Earth. Now I could make out only the white contours of the basin and the smooth surface of the mirror.