Solaris (3 page)

This was an original point of view. Nevertheless, the means
whereby this collodial envelope was able to stabilize the planet's
orbit remained unknown. For almost a century, devices had existed
capable of creating artificial magnetic and gravitational fields;
they were called gravitors. But no one could even guess how this
formless glue could produce an effect which the gravitors achieved
by the use of complicated nuclear reactions and enormously high
temperatures. The newspapers of the day, exciting the curiosity of
the layman and the anger of the scientist, were full of the most
improbable embroideries on the theme of the 'Solaris Mystery,' one
reporter going so far as to suggest that the ocean was, no less, a
distant relation to our electric eels!

Just when a measure of success had been achieved in unravelling
this problem, it turned out, as often happened subsequently in the
field of Solarist studies, that the explanation replaced one enigma
by another, perhaps even more baffling.

Observations showed, at least, that the ocean did not react
according to the same principles as our gravitors (which, in any
case, would have been impossible), but succeeded in controlling the
orbital periodicity directly. One result, among others, was the
discovery of discrepancies in the measurement of time along one and
the same meridian on Solaris. Thus the ocean was not only in a
sense "aware" of the Einstein-Boëvia theory; it was also
capable of exploiting the implications of the latter (which was
more than we could say of ourselves).

With the publication of this hypothesis, the scientific world
was torn by one of the most violent controversies of the century.
Revered and universally accepted theories foundered; the specialist
literature was swamped by outrageous and heretical treatises;
'sentient ocean' or 'gravity-controlling colloid'—the debate
became a burning issue.

All this happened several years before I was born. When I was a
student—new data having accumulated in the meantime—it
was already generally agreed that there was life on Solaris, even
if it was limited to a single inhabitant.

The second volume of Hughes and Eugel, which I was still leafing
through mechanically, began with a systematization that was as
ingenious as it was amusing. The table of classification comprised
three definitions: Type: Polythera; Class: Syncytialia; Category:
Metamorph.

It might have been thought that we knew of an infinite number of
examples of the species, whereas in reality there was only the
one—weighing, it is true, some seven hundred billion
tons.

Multicolored illustrations, picturesque graphs, analytical
summaries and spectral diagrams flickered through my fingers,
explaining the type and rhythm of the fundamental transformations
as well as chemical reactions. Rapidly, infallibly, the thick tome
led the reader on to the solid ground of mathematical certitude.
One might have assumed that we knew everything there was to be
known about this representative of the category Metamorph, which
lay some hundreds of metres below the metal hull of the Station,
obscured at the moment by the shadows of the four-hour night.

In fact, by no means everybody was yet convinced that the ocean
was actually a living 'creature,' and still less, it goes without
saying, a rational one. I put the heavy volume back on the shelf
and took up the one next to it, which was in two parts. The first
part was devoted to a resumé of the countless attempts to
establish contact with the ocean. I could well remember how, when I
was a student, these attempts were the subject of endless
anecdotes, jokes and witticisms. Compared with the proliferation of
speculative ideas which were triggered off by this problem,
medieval scholasticism seemed a model of scientific enlightenment.
The second part, nearly 1500 pages long, was devoted exclusively to
the bibliography of the subject. There would not have been enough
room for the books themselves in the cabin in which I was
sitting.

The first attempts at contact were by means of specially
designed electronic apparatus. The ocean itself took an active part
in these operations by remodelling the instruments. All this,
however, remained somewhat obscure. What exactly did the ocean's
'participation' consist of? It modified certain elements in the
submerged instruments, as a result of which the normal discharge
frequency was completely disrupted and the recording instruments
registered a profusion of signals—fragmentary indications of
some outlandish activity, which in fact defeated all attempts at
analysis. Did these data point to a momentary condition of
stimulation, or to regular impulses correlated with the gigantic
structures which the ocean was in the process of creating
elsewhere, at the antipodes of the region under investigation? Had
the electronic apparatus recorded the cryptic manifestation of the
ocean's ancient secrets? Had it revealed its innermost workings to
us? Who could tell? No two reactions to the stimuli were the same.
Sometimes the instruments almost exploded under the violence of the
impulses, sometimes there was total silence; it was impossible to
obtain a repetition of any previously observed phenomenon.
Constantly, it seemed, the experts were on the brink of deciphering
the ever-growing mass of information. Was it not, after all, with
this object in mind that computers had been built of virtually
limitless capacity, such as no previous problem had ever
demanded?

And, indeed, some results
were
obtained. The ocean as a
source of electric and magnetic impulses and of gravitation
expressed itself in a more or less mathematical language. Also, by
calling on the most abstruse branches of statistical analysis, it
was possible to classify certain frequencies in the discharges of
current. Structural homologues were discovered, not unlike those
already observed by physicists in that sector of science which
deals with the reciprocal interaction of energy and matter,
elements and compounds, the finite and the infinite. This
correspondence convinced the scientists that they were confronted
with a monstrous entity endowed with reason, a protoplasmic
ocean-brain enveloping the entire planet and idling its time away
in extravagant theoretical cognitation about the nature of the
universe. Our instruments had intercepted minute random fragments
of a prodigious and everlasting monologue unfolding in the depths
of this colossal brain, which was inevitably beyond our
understanding.

So much for the mathematicians. These hypotheses, according to
some people, underestimated the resources of the human mind; they
bowed to the unknown, proclaiming the ancient doctrine, arrogantly
resurrected, of
ignoramus et ignorabimus
. Others
regarded the mathematicians' hypotheses as sterile and dangerous
nonsense, contributing towards the creation of a modern mythology
based on the notion of this giant brain—whether plasmic or
electronic was immaterial—as the ultimate objective of
existence, the very synthesis of life.

Yet others…but the would-be experts were legion and each
had his own theory. A comparison of the 'contact' school of thought
with other branches of Solarist studies, in which specialization
had rapidly developed, especially during the last quarter of a
century, made it clear that a Solarist-cybernetician had difficulty
in making himself understood to a Solarist-symmetriadologist.
Veubeke, director of the Institute when I was studying there, had
asked jokingly one day: "How do you expect to communicate with the
ocean, when you can't even understand one another?" The jest
contained more than a grain of truth.

The decision to categorize the ocean as a metamorph was not an
arbitrary one. Its undulating surface was capable of generating
extremely diverse formations which resembled nothing ever seen on
Earth, and the function of these sudden eruptions of plasmic
'creativity,' whether adaptive, explorative or what, remained an
enigma.

Lifting the heavy volume with both hands, I replaced it on the
shelf, and thought to myself that our scholarship, all the
information accumulated in the libraries, amounted to a useless
jumble of words, a sludge of statements and suppositions, and that
we had not progressed an inch in the 78 years since researches had
begun. The situation seemed much worse now than in the time of the
pioneers, since the assiduous efforts of so many years had not
resulted in a single indisputable conclusion.

The sum total of known facts was strictly negative. The ocean
did not use machines, even though in certain circumstances it
seemed capable of creating them. During the first two years of
exploratory work, it had reproduced elements of some of the
submerged instruments. Thereafter, it simply ignored the
experiments we went on pursuing, as though it had lost all interest
in our instruments and our activities—as though, indeed, it
was no longer interested in us. It did not possess a nervous system
(to go on with the inventory of 'negative knowledge') or cells, and
its structure was not proteiform. It did not always react even to
the most powerful stimuli (it ignored completely, for example, the
catastrophic accident which occurred during the second Giese
expedition: an auxiliary rocket, falling from a height of 300,000
metres, crashed on the planet's surface and the radioactive
explosion of its nuclear reserves destroyed the plasma within a
radius of 2500 metres).

Gradually, in scientific circles, the 'Solaris Affair' came to
be regarded as a lost cause, notably among the administrators of
the Institute, where voices had recently been raised suggesting
that financial support should be withdrawn and research suspended.
No one, until then, had dared to suggest the final liquidation of
the Station; such a decision would have smacked too obviously of
defeat. But in the course of semi-official discussions a number of
scientists recommended an 'honorable' withdrawal from Solaris.

Many people in the world of science, however, especially among
the young, had unconsciously come to regard the 'affair' as a
touchstone of individual values. All things considered, they
claimed, it was not simply a question of penetrating Solarist
civilization; it was essentially a test of ourselves, of the
limitations of human knowledge. For some time, there was a widely
held notion (zealously fostered by the daily press) to the effect
that the 'thinking ocean' of Solaris was a gigantic brain,
prodigiously well-developed and several million years in advance of
our own civilization, a sort of 'cosmic yogi,' a sage, a symbol of
omniscience, which had long ago understood the vanity of all action
and for this reason had retreated into an unbreakable silence. The
notion was incorrect, for the living ocean was active. Not, it is
true, according to human ideas—it did not build cities or
bridges, nor did it manufacture flying machines. It did not try to
reduce distances, nor was it concerned with the conquest of Space
(the ultimate criterion, some people thought, of man's
superiority). But it was engaged in a never-ending process of
transformation, an 'ontological autometamorphosis.' (There were any
amount of scientific neologisms in accounts of Solarist
activities.) Moreover, any scientist who devotes himself to the
study of Solariana has the indelible impression that he can discern
fragments of an intelligent structure, perhaps endowed with genius,
haphazardly mingled with outlandish phenomena, apparently the
product of an unhinged mind. Thus was born the conception of the
'autistic ocean' as opposed to the 'ocean-yogi.'

These hypotheses resurrected one of the most ancient of
philosophical problems: the relation between matter and mind, and
between mind and consciousness. Du Haart was the first to have the
audacity to maintain that the ocean possessed a consciousness. The
problem, which the methodologists hastened to dub metaphysical,
provoked all kinds of arguments and discussions. Was it possible
for thought to exist without consciousness? Could one, in any case,
apply the word thought to the processes observed in the ocean? Is a
mountain only a huge stone? Is a planet an enormous mountain?
Whatever the terminology, the new scale of size introduced new
norms and new phenomena.

The question appeared as a contemporary version of the problem
of squaring the circle. Every independent thinker endeavored to
register his personal contribution to the hoard of Solarist
studies. New theories proliferated: the ocean was evidence of a
state of degeneration, of regression, following a phase of
'intellectual repletion'; it was a deviant neoplasm, the product of
the bodies of former inhabitants of the planet, whom it had
devoured, swallowed up, dissolving and blending the residue into
this unchanging, self-propagating form, supracellular in
structure.

By the white light of the fluorescent tubes—a pale
imitation of terrestrial daylight—I cleared the table of its
clutter of apparatus and books. Arms outstretched and my hands
gripping the chromium edging, I unrolled a map of Solaris on the
plastic surface and studied it at length. The living ocean had its
peaks and its canyons. Its islands, which were covered with a
decomposing mineral deposit, were certainly related to the nature
of the ocean bed. But did it control the eruption and subsidence of
the rocky formations buried in its depths? No one knew. Gazing at
the big flat projection of the two hemispheres, colored in various
tones of blue and purple, I experienced once again that thrill of
wonder which had so often gripped me, and which I had felt as a
schoolboy on learning of the existence of Solaris for the first
time.

Lost in contemplation of this bewildering map, my mind in a
daze, I temporarily forgot the mystery surrounding Gibarian's death
and the uncertainty of my own future.

The different sections of the ocean were named after the
scientists who had explored them. I was examining Thexall's swell,
which surrounded the equatorial archipelagos, when I had a sudden
sensation of being watched.