"Lem, Stanislaw - Solaris" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lem Stanislaw)

Solaris

by Stanislaw Lem(1961)
translated from the French by Joanna Kilmartin and Steve Cox(1970)

Version 1.0


CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1 The Arrival
CHAPTER 2 The Solarists
CHAPTER 3 The Visitors
CHAPTER 4 Sartorius
CHAPTER 5 Rheya
CHAPTER 6 "The Little Apocrypha"
CHAPTER 7 The Conference
CHAPTER 8 The Monsters
CHAPTER 9 The Liquid Oxygen
CHAPTER 10 Conversation
CHAPTER 11 The Thinkers
CHAPTER 12 The Dreams
CHAPTER 13 Victory
CHAPTER 14 The Old Mimoid






1 THE ARRIVAL

At 19.00 hours, ship's time, I made my way to the launching bay. The men around the shaft stood aside to let me pass, and I climbed down into the capsule.
Inside the narrow cockpit, there was scarcely room to move. I attached the hose to the valve on my spacesuit and it inflated rapidly. From then on, I was incapable of making the smallest movement. There I stood, or rather hung suspended, enveloped in my pneumatic suit and yoke to the metal hull.
I looked up; through the transparent canopy I could see a smooth, polished wall and, far above, Moddard's head leaning over the top of the shaft. He vanished, and suddenly I was plunged in darkness: the heavy protective cone had been lowered into place. Eight times I heard the hum of the electric motors which turned the screws, followed by the hiss of the shock-absorbers. As my eyes grew accustomed to the dark, I could see the luminous circle of the solitary dial.
A voice echoed in my headphones:
"Ready Kelvin?"
"Ready, Moddard," I answered.
"Don't worry about a thing. The Station will pick you up in flight. Have a good trip!"
There was a grinding noise and the capsule swayed. My muscles tensed in spite of myself, but there was no further noise or movement.
"When is lift-off?" As I asked, I noticed a rustling outside, like a shower of fine sand.
"You're on your way, Kelvin. Good luck!" Moddard's voice sounded as close as before.
A wide slit opened at eye-level, and I could see the stars. The _Prometheus_ was orbiting in the region of Alpha in Aquarius and I tried in vain to orient myself; a glittering dust filled my porthole. I could not recognize a single constellation; in this region of the galaxy the sky was unfamiliar to me. I waited for the moment when I would pass near the first distinct star, but I was unable to isolate any one of them. Their brightness was fading; they receded, merging into a vague, purplish glimmer, the sole indication of the distance I had already travelled. My body rigid, sealed in its pneumatic envelope, I was knifing through space with the impression of standing still in the void, my only distraction the steadily mounting heat.
Suddenly, there was a shrill, grating sound, like a steel blade being drawn across a sheet of wet glass. This was it, the descent. If I had not seen the figures racing across the dial, I would not have noticed the change in direction. The stars having vanished long since, my gaze was swallowed up on the pale reddish glow of infinity. I could hear my heart thudding heavily. I could feel the coolness from the air-conditioning on my neck, although my face seemed to be on fire. I regretted not having caught a glimpse of the _Prometheus_, but the ship must have been out of sight by the time the automatic controls had raised the shutter of my porthole.
The capsule was shaken by a sudden jolt, then another. The whole vehicle began to vibrate. Filtered through the insulating layers of the outer skins, penetrating my pneumatic cocoon, the vibration reached me, and ran through my entire body. The image of the dial shivered and multiplied, and its phosphorescence spread out in all directions. I felt no fear. I had not undertaken this long voyage only to overshoot my target!
I called into the microphone:
"Station Solaris! Station Solaris! Station Solaris! I think I am leaving the flight-path, correct my course! Station Solaris, this is the _Prometheus_ capsule. Over."
I had missed the precious moment when the planet first came into view. Now it was spread out before my eyes; flat, and already immense. Nevertheless, from the appearance of its surface, I judged that I was still at a great height above it, since I had passed that imperceptible frontier after which we measure the distance that separates us from a celestial body in terms of altitude. I was falling. Now I had the sensation of falling, even with my eyes closed. (I quickly reopened them: I did not want to miss anything there was to be seen.)