When six days passed with no reaction from the ocean, we decided to repeat the experiment.
Until now, the Station had been located at the intersection of the forty-third parallel and the116th meridian. We moved south, maintaining a constant altitude of 1200 feet above the ocean—our radar confirmed automatic observations relayed by the artificial satellite which indicateda build-up of activity in the plasma of the southern hemisphere.
Forty-eight hours later, a beam of X-rays modulated by my own brain-patterns wasbombarding the almost motionless surface of the ocean at regular intervals.
At the end of this two-day journey we had reached the outskirts of the polar region. The disc ofthe blue sun was setting to one side of the horizon, while on the opposite side billowing purpleclouds announced the dawn of the red sun. In the sky, blinding flames and showers of greensparks clashed with the dull purple glow. Even the ocean participated in the battle between thetwo stars, here glittering with mercurial flashes, there with crimson reflections. The smallestcloud passing overhead brightened the shining foam on the wave-crests with iridescence. Theblue sun had barely set when, at the meeting of ocean and sky, indistinct and drowned inblood-red mist (but signalled immediately by the detectors), a symmetriad blossomed like agigantic crystal flower. The Station held its course, and after fifteen minutes the colossal rubythrobbing with dying gleams was once again hidden beneath the horizon. Some minutes later, athin column spouted thousands of yards upwards into the atmosphere, its base obscured fromview by the curvature of the planet. This fantastic tree, which went on growing and gushingblood and quicksilver, marked the end of the symmetriad: the tangled branches at the top of thecolumn melted into a huge mushroom shape, illuminated by both suns simultaneously, andcarried on the wind, while the lower part bulged, broke up into heavy clusters, and slowly sank.
The death-throes lasted well over an hour.
Another two days passed. Our X-rays had irradiated a vast stretch of the ocean, and we made afinal repetition of the experiment. From our observation post we spotted a chain of islets twohundred and fifty miles to the south—six rocky promontories encrusted with a snowysubstance which was in fact a deposit of organic origin, proving that the mountainousformation had once been part of the ocean bed.
We then moved south-west, and skirted a chain of mountains capped by clouds which gatheredduring the red day, and then disappeared. Ten days had elapsed since the first experiment.
On the surface, not much was happening in the Station. Sartorius had programmed theexperiment for automatic repetition at set intervals. I did not even know whether anybody waschecking the apparatus for correct function. In fact, the calm was not as complete as it seemed,but not because of any human activity.
I was afraid that Sartorius had no real intention of abandoning the construction of the disruptor.
And how would Snow react when he found out that I had kept information from him andexaggerated the dangers we might run in the attempt to annihilate neutrino structures? Yetneither of the two said anything further about the project, and I kept wondering why they wereso silent. I vaguely suspected them of keeping something from me—perhaps they had beenworking in secret—and every day I inspected the room which housed the disruptor, awindowless cell situated directly underneath the main laboratory. I never found anybody in theroom, and the layer of dust over the armatures and cables of the apparatus proved that it hadnot been touched for weeks.
As a matter of fact, I did not meet anybody anywhere, and could not get through to Snow anymore: nobody answered when I tried to call the radio-cabin. Somebody had to be controllingthe Station's movements, but who? I had no idea, and oddly enough I considered the questionwas out of my province. The absence of response from the ocean left me equally indifferent, somuch so that after two or three days I had stopped being either hopeful or apprehensive, andhad completely written off the experiment and its possible results.
For days on end, I remained sitting in the library or in my cabin, accompanied by the silentshadow of Rheya. I was aware that there was an unease between us, and that my state ofmindless suspension could not go on forever. Obviously it was up to me to break the stalemate,but I resisted the very idea of any kind of change: I was incapable of making the most trivialdecision. Everything inside the Station, and my relationship with Rheya in particular, feltfragile and insubstantial, as if the slightest alteration could shatter the perilous equilibrium andbring down ruin. I could not tell where this feeling originated, and the strangest thing of all isthat Rheya too had a similar experience. When I look back on those moments today, I have astrong conviction that this atmosphere of uncertainty and suspense, and my presentiment ofimpending disaster, was provoked by an invisible presence which had taken possession of theStation. I believe too that I can claim that this presence manifested itself just as powerfully indreams. I have never had visions of that kind before or since, so I decided to note them downand to transcribe them approximately, in so far as my vocabulary permits, given that I canconvey only fragmentary glimpses almost entirely denuded of an incommunicable horror.
A blurred region, in the heart of vastness, far from earth and heaven, with no ground underfoot,no vault of sky overhead, nothing. I am the prisoner of an alien matter and my body is clothedin a dead, formless substance—or rather I have no body, I am that alien matter. Nebulous palepink globules surround me, suspended in a medium more opaque than air, for objects onlybecome clear at very close range, although when they do approach they are abnormallydistinct, and their presence comes home to me with a preternatural vividness. The conviction ofits substantial, tangible reality is now so overwhelming that later, when I wake up, I have theimpression that I have just left a state of true perception, and everything I see after opening myeyes seems hazy and unreal.
That is how the dream begins. All around me, something is awaiting my consent, my inneracquiescence, and I know, or rather the knowledge exists, that I must not give way to anunknown temptation, for the more the silence seems to promise, the more terrible the outcomewill be. Yet I essentially know no such thing, because I would be afraid if I knew, and I neverfeel the slightest fear.
I wait. Out of the enveloping pink mist, an invisible object emerges, and touches me. Inert,locked in the alien matter that encloses me, I can neither retreat nor turn away, and still I ambeing touched, my prison is being probed, and I feel this contact like a hand, and the handrecreates me. Until now, I thought I saw, but had no eyes: now I have eyes! Under the caress ofthe hesitant fingers, my lips and cheeks emerge from the void, and as the caress goes further Ihave a face, breath stirs in my chest—I exist. And recreated, I in my turn create: a face appearsbefore me that I have never seen until now, at once mysterious and known. I strain to meet itsgaze, but I cannot impose any direction on my own, and we discover one another mutually,beyond any effort of will, in an absorbed silence. I have become alive again, and I feel as ifthere is no limitation on my powers. This creature—a woman?—stays near me, and we aremotionless. The beat of our hearts combines, and all at once, out of the surrounding void wherenothing exists or can exist, steals a presence of indefinable, unimaginable cruelty. The caressthat created us and which wrapped us in a golden cloak becomes the crawling of innumerablefingers. Our white, naked bodies dissolve into a swarm of black creeping things, and I am—weare—a mass of glutinous coiling worms, endless, and in that infinity, no, I am infinite, and Ihowl soundlessly, begging for death and for an end. But simultaneously I am dispersed in alldirections, and my grief expands in a suffering more acute than any waking state, a pervasive,scattered pain piercing the distant blacks and reds, hard as rock and ever-increasing, amountain of grief visible in the dazzling light of another world.
That dream was one of the simplest. I cannot describe the others, for lack of a language toconvey their dread. In those dreams, I was unaware of the existence of Rheya, nor was thereany echo of past or recent events.
There were also visionless dreams, where in an unmoving, clotted silence I felt myself beingslowly and minutely explored, although no instrument or hand touched me. Yet I felt myselfbeing invaded through and through, I crumbled, disintegrated, and only emptiness remained.
Total annihilation was succeeded by such terror that its memory alone makes my heart beatfaster today.
So the days passed, each one like the next. I was indifferent to everything, fearing only thenight and unable to find a means of escape from the dreams. Rheya never slept. I lay besideher, fighting against sleep, and the tenderness with which I clung to her was only a pretext, away of avoiding the moment when I would be compelled to close my eyes. I had notmentioned these nightmares to her, but she must have guessed, for her attitude involuntarilybetrayed a sense of deep humiliation.
As I say, I had not seen Snow or Sartorius for some time, yet Snow gave occasional signs oflife. He would leave a note at my door, or call me on the videophone, asking whether I hadnoticed any new event or change, or anything at all which could be interpreted as a response tothe repeated X-ray bombardments. I told him No, and asked him the same question, but therein the little screen S............