Unfortunately, no matter how this demonstration may be expanded and unproved (there have been attempts to visualize it with the aid of models and films), the comparison remains superficial. It is evasive and illusory, and side-steps the central fact that the symmetriad is quite unlike anything Earth has ever produced.

The human mind is only capable of absorbing a few things at a time. We see what is taking place in front of us in the here and now, and cannot envisage simultaneously a succession of processes, no matter how integrated and complementary. Our faculties of perception are consequently limited even as regards fairly simple phenomena. The fate of a single man can be rich with significance, that of a few hundred less so, but the history of thousands and millions of men does not mean anything at all, in any adequate sense of the word. The symmetriad is a million — a billion, rather — raised to the power of N: it is incomprehensible. We pass through vast halls, each with a capacity of ten Kronecker units, and creep like so many ants clinging to the folds of breathing vaults and craning to watch the flight of soaring girders, opalescent in the glare of searchlights, and elastic domes which criss-cross and balance each other unerringly, the perfection of a moment, since everything here passes and fades, The essence of this architecture is movement synchronized towards a precise objective. We observe a fraction of the process, like hearing the vibration of a single string in an orchestra of supergiants. We know, but cannot grasp, that above and below, beyond the limits of perception or imagination, thousands and millions of simultaneous transformations are at work, interlinked like a musical score by mathematical counterpoint. It has been described as a symphony in geometry, but we lack the ears to hear it.

Only a long-distance view would reveal the entire process, but the outer covering of the symmetriad conceals the colossal inner matrix where creation is unceasing, the created becomes the creator, and absolutely identical ‘twins’ are born at opposite poles, separated by towering structures and miles of distance. The symphony creates itself, and writes its own conclusion, which is terrible to watch. Every observer feels like a spectator at a tragedy or a public massacre, when after two or three hours — never longer — the living ocean stages its assault. The polished surface of the ocean swirls and crumples, the desiccated foam liquefies again, begins to seethe, and legions of waves pour inwards from every point of the horizon, their gaping mouths far more massive than the greedy lips that surround the embryonic mimoid. The submerged base of the symmetriad is compressed, and the colossus rises as if on the point of being shot out of the planet’s gravitational pull. The upper layers of the ocean redouble their activity, and the waves surge higher and higher to lick against the sides of the symmetriad. They envelop it, harden and plug the orifices, but their attack is nothing compared to the scene in the interior. First the process of creation freezes momentarily; then there is ‘panic.’ The smooth interpenetration of moving forms and the harmonious play of planes and lines accelerates, and the impression is inescapable that the symmetriad is hurrying to complete some task in the face of danger. The awe inspired by the metamorphosis and dynamics of the symmetriad intensifies as the proud sweep of the domes falters, vaults sag and droop, and ‘wrong notes’ — incomplete, mangled forms — make their appearance. A powerful moaning roar issues from the invisible depths like a sigh of agony, reverberates through the narrow funnels and booms through the collapsing domes. In spite of the growing destructive violence of these convulsions, the spectator is rooted to the spot. Only the force of the hurricane streaing out of the depths and howling through the thousands of galleries keeps the great structure erect. Soon it subsides and starts to disintegrate. There are final flutterings, contortions, and blind, random spasms. Gnawed and undermined, the giant sinks slowly and disappears, and the space where it stood is covered with whirlpools of foam.

So what does all this mean?

I remembered an incident dating from my spell as assistant to Gibarian. A group of schoolchildren visiting the Solarist Institute in Aden were making their way through the main hall of the library and looking at the racks of microfilm that occupied the entire left-hand side of the hall. The guide explained that among other phenomena immortalized by the image, these contained fragmentary glimpses of symmetriads long since vanished — not single shots, but whole reels, more than ninety thousand of them!

One plump schoolgirl (she looked about fifteen, peering inquisitively over her spectacles) abruptly asked: “And what is it for?”

In the ensuing embarrassed silence, the school mistress was content to dart a reproving look at her wayward pupil. Among the Solarists whose job was to act as guides (I was one of them), no one would produce an answer. Each symmetriad is unique, and the developments in its heart are, generally speaking, unpredictable. Sometimes there is no sound. Sometimes the index of refraction increases or diminishes. Sometimes, rhythmic pulsations are accompanied by local changes in gravitation, as if the heart of the symmetriad were beating by gravitating. Sometimes the compasses of the observers spin wildly, and ionized layers spring up and disappear. The catalogue could go on indefinitely. In any case, even if we did ever succeed in solving the riddle of the symmetriads, we would still have to contend with the asymmetriads!

The asymmetriads are born in the same manner as the symmetriads but finish differently, and nothing can be seen of their internal processes except tremors, vibrations and flickering. We do know, however, that the interior houses bewildering operations performed at a speed that defies the laws of physics and which are dubbed ‘giant quantic phenomena.’ The mathematical analogy with certain three-dimensional models of the atom is so unstable and transitory that some commentators dismiss the resemblance as of secondary importance, if not purely accidental. The asymmetriads have a very short life-span of fifteen to twenty minutes, and their death is even more appalling than that of the symmetriads: with the howling gale that screams through its fabric, a thick fluid gushes out, gurgles hideously, and submerges everything beneath a foul, bubbling foam. Then an explosion, coinciding with a muddy eruption, hurls up a spout of debris which rains slowly down into the seething ocean. This debris is sometimes found scores of miles from the focus of the explosion, dried up, yellow and flattened, like flakes of cartilage.

Some other creations of the ocean, which are much more rare and of very variable duration, part company with the parent body entirely. The first traces of these ‘independents’ were identified — wrongly, it was later proved — as the remains of creatures inhabiting the ocean deeps. The free-ranging forms are often reminiscent of many-winged birds, darting away from the moving trunks of the agilus, but the preconceptions of Earth offer no assistance in unravelling the mysteries of Solaris. Strange, seal-like bodies appear now and then on the rocky outcrop of an island, sprawling in the sun or dragging themselves lazily back to merge with the ocean.

There was no escaping the impressions that grew out of man’s experience on Earth. The prospects of Contact receded.

Explorers travelled hundreds of miles in the depths of symmetriads, and installed measuring instruments and remote-control cameras. Artificial satellites captured the birth of mimoids and extensors, and faithfully reproduced their images of growth and destruction. The libraries overflowed, the archives grew, and the price paid for all this documentation was often very heavy. One notorious disaster cost one hundred and six people their lives, among them Giese himself: while studying what was undoubtedly a symmetriad, the expedition was suddenly destroyed by a process peculiar to the asymmetriads. In two seconds, an eruption of glutinous mud swallowed up seventy-nine men and all their equipment. Another twenty-seven observers surveying the area from aircraft and helicopters were also caught in the eruption.