Following the Eruption of the Hundred and Six, and for the first time in Solarist studies, there were petitions demanding a thermo-nuclear attack on the ocean. Such a response would have been more cruelty than revenge, since it would have meant destroying what we did not understand. Tsanken’s ultimatum, which was never offically acknowledged, probably influenced the negative outcome of the vote. He was in command of Giese’s reserve team, and had survived owing to a transmission error that took him off his course, to arrive in the disaster area a few minutes after the explosion, when the black mushroom cloud was still visible. Informed of the proposal for a nuclear strike, he threatened to blow up the Station, together with the nineteen survivors sheltering inside it

Today, there are only three of us on the Station. Its construction was controlled by satellites, and was a technical feat on which the human race has a right to pride itself, even if the ocean builds far more impressive structures in the space of a few seconds. The Station is a disc of one hundred yards radius, and contains four decks at the center and two at the circumference. It is maintained at a height of from five to fifteen hundred yards above the ocean by gravitors programmed to compensate for the ocean’s own field of attraction. In addition to all the machines available to ordinary Stations and the large artificial satellites that orbit other planets, the Solaris Station is equipped with specialized radar apparatus sensitive to the smallest fluctuations of the ocean surface, which trips auxiliary power-circuits capable of thrusting the steel disc into the stratosphere at the first indication of new plasmatic upheavals.

But today, in spite of the presence of our faithful ‘visitors,’ the Station was strangely deserted. Ever since the robots had been locked away in the lower-deck store-rooms — for a reason I had still not discovered — it had been possible to walk around without meeting a single member of the crew of our ghost ship.

As I replaced the ninth volume of Giese on the shelf, the plastic-coated steel floor seemed to shudder under my feet. I stood still, but the vibration had stopped. The library was completely isolated from the other rooms, and the only possible source of vibration must be a shuttle leaving the Station. This thought jerked me back to reality. I had not yet decided to accept Sartorius’s suggestion and leave the Station. By feigning approval of his plan, I had been more or less postponing the outbreak of hostilities, for I was determined to save Rheya. All the same, Sartorius might have some chance of success. He certainly had the advantage of being a qualified physicist, while I was in the ironic position of having to count on the superiority of the ocean. I pored over microfilm texts for an hour, and made myself wrestle with the unfamiliar language of neutrino physics. The undertaking seemed hopeless at first: there were no less than five current theories dealing with neutrino fields, an obvious indication that none was definitive. Eventually I struck promising ground, and was busily copying down equations when there was a knock at the door. I got up quickly and opened it a few inches, to see Snow’s perspiring face, and behind him an empty corridor.

“Yes, it’s me.” His voice was hoarse, and there were dark pouches under the bloodshot eyes. He wore an antiradiation apron of shiny rubber, and the same worn old trousers held up by elastic braces.

Snow’s gaze flickered round the circular chamber and alighted on Rheya where she stood by an armchair at the other end. Then it returned to me, and I lowered my eyelids imperceptibly. He nodded, and I spoke casually:

“Rheya, come and meet Dr. Snow… Snow — my wife.”

“I… I’m just a minor member of the crew. Don’t get about much…” He faltered, but managed to blurt out: “That’s why I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting you before…”

Rheya smiled and held out her hand, which he shook in some surprise. He blinked several times and stood looking at her, tongue-tied, until I took him by the arm.

“Excuse me,” he said to Rheya. “I wanted a word with you, Kelvin…”

“Of course.” (My composure was an ugly charade, but what else could I do?) “Take no notice of us, Rheya. We’ll be talking shop…”

I guided Snow over to the chairs on the far side of the room, and Rheya sat in the armchair I had occupied earlier, swivelling it so that she could glance up at us from her book. I lowered my voice:

“Any news?”

“I’m divorced,” he whispered. If anybody had quoted this to me as the opening of a conversation a few days before, I would have burst out laughing, but the Station had blunted my sense of humor. “It feels like years since yesterday morning,” he went on. “And you?”

“Nothing.” I was at a loss for words. I liked Snow, but I distrusted him, or rather I distrusted the purpose of his visit.

“Nothing? Surely…”

“What?” I pretended not to understand.

Eyes half shut, he leaned so close to me that I could feel his breath on my face:

“This business has all of us confused, Kelvin. I can’t make contact with Sartorius. All I know is what I wrote to you, which is what he told me after our little conference…

“Has he disconnected his videophone?”

“No, there’s been a short-circuit at his end. He could have done it on purpose, but there’s also…” He clenched his fist and mimed somebody aiming a punch, curling his lips in an unpleasant grin. “Kelvin, I came here to… What do you intend doing?”

“You want my answer to your letter. All right, I’ll go on the trip, there’s no reason for me to refuse. I’ve only been getting ready…”

“No,” he interrupted. “It isn’t that.”

“What then? Go on.”

“Sartorius thinks he may be on the right track,” Snow muttered. His eyes never left me, and I had to stay still and try to look casual. “It all started with that X-ray experiment that he and Gibarian arranged, you remember. That could have produced some alteration…”

“What kind of alteration?”

“They beamed the rays directly into the ocean. The intensity was only modulated according to a pre-set program.”

“I know. It’s already been done by Nilin and a lot of others.”

“Yes, but the others worked on low power. This time they used everything we had.”

“That could lead to trouble… violating the four-power convention, and the United Nations…”

“Come on, Kelvin, you know as well as I do that it doesn’t matter now. Gibarian is dead.”

“So Sartorius makes him the scapegoat?”

“I don’t know. We haven’t talked about that. Sartorius is intrigued by the visiting hours. They only come as we wake up, which suggests that the ocean is especially interested in our sleeping hours, and that that is when it locates its patterns. Sartorius wants to send our waking selves — our conscious thoughts. You see?”

“By mail?”

“Keep the jokes to yourself. The idea is to modulate the X-rays by hooking in an electro-encephalograph taken from one of us.”

“Ah!” Light was beginning to dawn. “And that one of us is me?”

“Yes, Sartorius had you in mind.”

“Tell him I’m flattered.”

“Will you do it?”

I hesitated. Snow darted a look at Rheya, who seemed absorbed in her book. I felt my face turn pale.

“Well?”

“The idea of using X-rays to preach sermons on the greatness of mankind seems absolutely ridiculous to me. Don’t you think so?”

“You mean it?”

“Yes.”

“Right,” he said, smiling as if I had fallen in with some idea of his own, “then you’re opposed to the plan?”

His expression told me that he had somehow been a step ahead of me all the time.

“Okay,” he went on. “There is a second plan — to construct a Roche apparatus.”

“An annihilator?”

“Yes. Sartorius has already made the preliminary calculations. It is feasible, and it won’t even require any great expenditure of energy. The apparatus will generate a negative field twenty-four hours a day, and for an unlimited period.”