I went down a small stairway. The metal floor below had been coated with a heavy-duty plastic. In places, the wheels of trolleys carrying rockets had worn through this plastic covering to expose the bare steel beneath.
The throbbing of the ventilators ceased abruptly and there was total silence. I looked around me, a little uncertain, waiting for someone to appear; but there was no sign of life. Only a neon arrow glowed, pointing towards a moving walkway which was silently unreeling. I allowed myself to be carried forward.
The ceiling of the hall descended in a fine parabolic arc until it reached the entrance to a gallery, in whose recesses gas cylinders, gauges, parachutes, crates and a quantity of other objects were scattered about in untidy heaps.
The moving walkway set me down at the far end of the gallery, on the threshold of a dome. Here there was an even greater disorder. A pool of oily liquid spread out from beneath a pile of oil-drams; a nauseating smell hung in the air; footprints, in a series of glutinous smears, went off in all directions. The oil-drums were covered with a tangle of tickertape, torn paper and other waste.
Another green arrow directed me to the central door. Behind this stretched a narrow corridor, hardly wide enough for two men to walk side by side, lit by slabs of glass let into the ceiling. Then another door, painted in green and white squares, which was ajar; I went in.
The cabin had concave walls and a big panoramic window, which a glowing mist had tinged with purple. Outside the murky waves slid silently past. Open cupboards lined the walls, filled with instruments, books, dirty glasses, vacuum flasks – all covered with dust. Five or six small trolleys and some collapsible chairs cluttered up the stained floor. One chair alone was inflated, its back raised. In this armchair there was a little thin man, his face burnt by the sun, the skin on his nose and cheeks coming away in large flakes. I recognized him as Snow, a cybernetics expert and Gibarian’s deputy. In his time he had published articles of great originality in the Solarist Annual. It so happened that I had never had the opportunity of meeting him. He was wearing a mesh shirt which allowed the grey hairs of his sunken chest to poke through here and there, and canvas trousers with a great many pockets, mechanic’s trousers, which had once been white but now were stained at the knees and covered with holes from chemical burns. He was holding one of those pear-shaped plastic flasks which are used in spaceships not equipped with internal gravitational systems. Snow’s eyes widened in amazement as he looked up and saw me. The flask dropped from his fingers and bounced several times, spilling a few drops of transparent liquid. Blood drained from his face. I was too astonished to speak, and this dumbshow continued for so long that Snow’s terror gradually communicated itself to me. I took a step forward. He cringed in his chair.
“Snow?”
He quivered as though I had struck him. Gazing at me in indescribable horror, he gasped out:
“I don’t know . . .” His voice croaked. “I don’t know you . . . What do you want?”
The spilt liquid was quickly evaporating; I caught a whiff of alcohol. Had he been drinking? Was he drunk? What was he so terrified of? I stood in the middle of the room; my legs were trembling; my ears roared, as though they were stuffed with cotton wool. I had the impression that the ground was giving way beneath my feet. Beyond the curved window, the ocean rose and fell with regularity. Snow’s blood-shot eyes never left me. His terror seemed to have abated, but his expression of invincible disgust remained.
“What’s the matter? Are you ill?” I whispered.
“You seem worried,” he said, his voice hollow. “You actually seem worried . . . So it’s like that now, is it? But why concern yourself about me? I don’t know you.”
“Where’s Gibarian?” I asked.
He gave a gasp and his glassy eyes lit up for an instant.
“Gi . . . Giba . . . No! No!”
His whole frame shook with stifled, hysterical laughter; then he seemed to calm down a little.
“So it’s Gibarian you’ve come for, is it? Poor old Gibarian. What do you want with him?” His words, or rather his tone of voice, expressed hatred and defiance; it was as though I had suddenly ceased to represent a threat to him.
Bewildered, I mumbled: “What . . . Where is he?”
“Don’t you know?”
Obviously he was drunk and raving. My anger rose. I should have controlled myself and left the room, but I had lost patience. I shouted:
“That’s enough! How could I know where he is since I’ve only just arrived? Snow! What’s going on here?” His jaw dropped. Once again he caught his breath and his eyes gleamed with a different light. He seized the arms of his chair with both hands and stood up with difficulty. His knees were trembling.
“What? You’ve just arrived . . . Where have you come from?” he asked, almost sober.
“From Earth!” I retorted angrily. “Maybe you’ve heard of it? Not that anyone would ever guess it.”
“From Earth? Good God! Then you must be Kelvin.”
“Of course. Why are you looking at me like that? What’s so startling about me?”
He blinked rapidly.
“Nothing,” he said, wiping his forehead, “nothing, Forgive me, Kelvin, it’s nothing, I assure you. I was simply surprised, I didn’t expect to see you.”
“What do you mean, you didn’t expect to see me? You were notified months ago, and Moddard radioed only today from the _Prometheus_.”
“Yes; yes, indeed. Only, you see, we’re a bit disorganized at the moment.”
“So I see,” I answered dryly.
Snow walked around me, inspecting my atmosphere suit, which was standard issue with the usual harness of wires and cables attached to the chest. He coughed, and rubbed his bony nose:
“Perhaps you would like a bath? It would do you good. It’s the blue door, on the other side.”
“Thanks – I know the Station lay-out.”
“You must be hungry.”
“No. Where’s Gibarian?”
Without answering, he went over to the window. From behind he looked considerably older. His close-cropped hair was grey, and deep wrinkles creased his sunburnt neck.
The wave-crests glinted through the window, the colossal rollers rising and falling in slow-motion. Watching the ocean like this one had the illusion – it was surely an illusion – that the Station was moving imperceptibly, as though teetering on an invisible base; then it would seem to recover its equilibrium, only to lean the opposite way with the same lazy movement. Thick foam, the color of blood, gathered in the troughs of the waves. For a fraction of a second, my throat tightened and I thought longingly of the _Prometheus_ and its strict discipline; the memory of an existence which suddenly seemed a happy one, now gone forever.
Snow turned around, nervously rubbing his hands together.
“Listen,” he said abruptly, “except for me there’s no one around for the moment. You’ll have to make do with my company for today. Call me Ratface; don’t argue. You know me by my photograph, just imagine we’re old friends. Everyone calls me Ratface, there’s nothing I can do about it.”
Obstinately, I repeated my question:
“Where is Gibarian?”
He blinked again.
“I’m sorry to have received you like that. It’s . . . it’s not exactly my fault. I had completely forgotten . . . A lot has been happening here, you see . . .”
“It’s all right. But what about Gibarian? Isn’t he on the Station? Is he on an observation flight?”
Snow was gazing at a tangled mass of cables.
“No, he hasn’t left the Station. And he won’t be flying. The fact is . . . .”
My ears were still blocked, and I was finding it more and more difficult to hear.
“What? What do you mean? Where is he then?”
“I should think you might guess,” he answered in a changed voice, looking me coldly in the eyes. I shivered. He was drunk, but he knew what he was saying.
“There’s been an accident?”
He nodded vigorously, watching my reactions closely.
“When?”
“This morning, at dawn.”
By now, my sensations were less violent; this succinct exchange of questions and answers had calmed me. I was beginning to understand Snow’s strange behavior.
“What kind of accident?”
“Why not go to your cabin and take off your spacesuit? Come back in, say, an hour’s time.”
I hesitated.
“All right,” I said finally.
As I made to leave, he called me back.
“Wait!” He had an uneasy look, as if he wanted to add something but was finding it difficult to bring out the words. After a pause, he said: