What did that word mean to me? Earth? I thought of the great bustling cities where I would wander and lose myself, and I thought of them as I had thought of the ocean on the second or third night, when I had wanted to throw myself upon the dark waves. I shall immerse myself among men. I shall be silent and attentive, an appreciative companion. There will be many acquaintances, friends, women — and perhaps even a wife. For a while, I shall have to make a conscious effort to smile, nod, stand and perform the thousands of little gestures which constitute life on Earth, and then those gestures will become reflexes again. I shall find new interests and occupations; and I shall not give myself completely to them, as I shall never again give myself completely to anything or anybody. Perhaps at night I shall stare up at the dark nebula that cuts off the light of the twin suns, and remember everything, even what I am thinking now. With a condescending, slightly rueful smile I shall remember my follies and my hopes. And this future Kelvin will be no less worthy a man than the Kelvin of the past, who was prepared for anything in the name of an ambitious enterprise called Contact. Nor will any man have the right to judge me.

Snow came into the cabin, glanced around, then looked at me again. I went over to the table:

“You wanted me?”

“Haven’t you got anything to do? I could give you some work… calculations. Not a particularly urgent job…”

“Thanks,” I smiled, “you needn’t have bothered.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I was thinking a few things over, and…”

“I wish you’d think a little less.”

“But you don’t know what I was thinking about! Tell me something. Do you believe in God?”

Snow darted an apprehensive glance in my direction:

“What? Who still believes nowadays…”

“It isn’t that simple. I don’t mean the traditional God of Earth religion. I’m no expert in the history of religions, and perhaps this is nothing new — do you happen to know if there was ever a belief in an… imperfect god?”

“What do you mean by imperfect?” Snow frowned. “In a way all the gods of the old religions were imperfect, considering that their attributes were amplified human ones. The God of the Old Testament, for instance, required humble submission and sacrifices, and was jealous of other gods. The Greek gods had fits of sulks and family quarrels, and they were just as imperfect as mortals…”

“No,” I interrupted. “I’m not thinking of a god whose imperfection arises out of the candor of his human creators, but one whose imperfection represents his essential characteristic: a god limited in his omniscience and power, fallible, incapable of foreseeing the consequences of his acts, and creating things that lead to horror. He is a… sick god, whose ambitions exceed his powers and who does not realize it at first. A god who has created clocks, but not the time they measure. He has created systems or mechanisms that served specific ends but have now overstepped and betrayed them. And he has created eternity, which was to have measured his power, and which measures his unending defeat.”

Snow hesitated, but his attitude no longer showed any of the wary reserve of recent weeks:

“There was Manicheanism…”

“Nothing at all to do with the principle of Good and Evil,” I broke in immediately. “This god has no existence outside of matter. He would like to free himself from matter, but he cannot…”

Snow pondered for a while:

“I don’t know of any religion that answers your description. That kind of religion has never been… necessary. If I understand you, and I’m afraid I do, what you have in mind is an evolving god, who develops in the course of time, grows, and keeps increasing in power while remaining aware of his powerlessness. For your god, the divine condition is a situation without a goal. And understanding that, he despairs. But isn’t this despairing god of yours mankind, Kelvin? It is man you are talking about, and that is a fallacy, not just philosophically but also mystically speaking.”

I kept on:

“No, it’s nothing to do with man. Man may correspond to my provisional definition from some points of view, but that is because the definition has a lot of gaps. Man does not create gods, in spite of appearances. The times, the age, impose them on him. Man can serve his age or rebel against it, but the target of his cooperation or rebellion comes to him from outside. If there was only a single human being in existence, he would apparently be able to attempt the experiment of creating his own goals in complete freedom — apparently, because a man not brought up among other human beings cannot become a man. And the being — the being I have in mind — cannot exist in the plural, you see?”

“Oh, then in that case…” He pointed out of the window.

“No, not the ocean either. Somewhere in its development it has probably come close to the divine state, but it turned back into itself too soon. It is more like an anchorite, a hermit of the cosmos, not a god. It repeats itself, Snow, and the being I’m thinking of would never do that. Perhaps he has already been born somewhere, in some corner of the galaxy, and soon he will have some childish enthusiasm that will set him putting out one star and lighting another. We will notice him after a while…”

“We already have,” Snow said sarcastically. “Novas and supernovas. According to you they are the candles on his altar.”

“If you’re going to take what I say literally…”

“And perhaps Solaris is the cradle of your divine child,” Snow went on, with a widening grin that increased the number of lines round his eyes. “Solaris could be the first phase of the despairing God. Perhaps its intelligence will grow enormously. All the contents of our Solarist libraries could be just a record of his teething troubles…”

“… and we will have been the baby’s toys for a while. It is possible. And do you know what you have just done? You’ve produced a completely new hypothesis about Solaris — congratulations! Everything suddenly falls into place: the failure to achieve contact, the absence of responses, various… let’s say various peculiarities in its behavior towards ourselves. Everything is explicable in terms of the behaviour of a small child.”

“I renounce paternity of the theory,” Snow grunted, standing at the window.

For a long instant, we stood staring out at the dark waves. A long pale patch was coming into view to the east, in the mist obscuring the horizon.

Without talcing his eyes off the shimmering waste, Snow asked abruptly:

“What gave you this idea of an imperfect god?”

“I don’t know. It seems quite feasible to me. That is the only god I could imagine believing in, a god whose passion is not a redemption, who saves nothing, fulfils no purpose — a god who simply is.”

“A mimoid,” Snow breathed.

“What’s that? Oh yes, I’d noticed it. A very old mimoid.”

We both looked towards the misty horizon.

“I’m going outside,” I said abruptly. “I’ve never yet been off the Station, and this is a good opportunity. I’ll be back in half an hour.”

Snow raised his eyebrows:

“What? You’re going out? Where are you going?”

I pointed towards the flesh-colored patch half-hidden by the mist:

“Over there. What is there to stop me? I’ll take a small helicopter. When I get back to Earth I don’t want to have to confess that I’m a Solarist who has never set foot on Solaris!”

I opened a locker and started rummaging through the atmosphere-suits, while Snow looked on silently. Finally he said:

“I don’t like it.”

I had selected a suit. Now I turned towards him:

“What?” I had not felt so excited for a long time. “What are you worrying about? Out with it! You’re afraid that I… I promise you I have no intention… it never entered my mind, honestly.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“Thanks, but I’d rather go alone.” I pulled on the suit. “Do you realize this will be my first flight over the ocean?”