Fechner’s bio information, including his childhood.
Anything you know about his family and family matters; I gather he left behind a small child.
The topography of the region in which he grew up.
I’d also like to give you my own take on all this. As you know, a short time after Fechner and Carucci set out, in the center of the red sun a spot appeared whose corpuscular radiation shut down radio communication, especially, according to data from the Satelloid, in the southern hemisphere; in other words where our Base was. Of all the search parties, Fechner and Carucci went furthest from the Base.
The whole time we’d been on the planet, up until the day of the accident we had never seen such dense, stubbornly lingering fog, accompanied by complete silence.
I think that what Berton saw was part of an “Operation Human” being carried out by the viscous monster. The actual source of all the formations seen by Berton was Fechner — was his brain, in the course of some “mental autopsy” unimaginable to us. This was an experimental re-creation, a reconstruction of certain traces in his memory — probably those that were most enduring.
I know this sounds fantastical; I know I could be wrong. So I’m asking you for help. I’m presently on Alaric, where I’ll be waiting for your response.
It had gotten so dark I was barely able to read; the book turned gray in my hands, the print began to melt away before my eyes, but the blank space below the text showed I had come to the end of the story, which in light of my own experiences I regarded as highly plausible. I turned toward the window. Outside there was a deep purple, a few clouds smoldering above the horizon like dying embers. The ocean was invisible, swathed in darkness. I heard the subdued flutter of the paper strips over the vents. The heated air, with its faint taste of ozone, had grown lifeless. An absolute silence filled the entire Station. I thought to myself that in our decision to remain, there was nothing heroic. The time of valiant planetary struggles, fearless expeditions, terrible deaths, like that of Fechner, the ocean’s first victim — this era had come to an end long ago. I no longer really cared who had “visited” Snaut or Sartorius. After a time, I thought, we’ll stop feeling embarrassed and hiding ourselves away. If we won’t be able to get rid of our “guests,” we’ll grow used to them and we’ll live with them, and if their Creator changes the rules of the game we’ll adapt to the new ones, even if for a while we’ll kick against the pricks, raise a storm. One or another of us might even commit suicide, but in the end the new state of affairs will also reach equilibrium. The room was filling with a darkness ever more like that on Earth. The only lighter places now were the white shapes of the washbasin and the mirror. I stood up, felt for the wad of cotton wool on the shelf, moistened a ball of it and wiped my face. Then I lay down on my back on the bunk. Somewhere overhead the vent thrummed and fell silent in turn, sounding like a fluttering moth. I couldn’t even make out the window; everything was taken over by blackness. A glimmering streak from who knew where was hovering before me; I couldn’t tell whether it was on the wall or far away in the barrenness beyond the window. I recalled how horrified I’d been at the empty gaze of the Solarian space the previous evening, and I almost smiled. I wasn’t afraid of it. I wasn’t afraid of anything. I brought my wrist close to my eyes. The face of my watch lit up with its phosphorescent ring of figures. In an hour the blue sun would rise. I reveled in the pervasive darkness. I was breathing deeply, liberated from all thoughts.
At a certain moment, when I moved I felt the flat shape of the tape recorder against my hip. That’s right. Gibarian. His voice recorded on tape. It didn’t even occur to me to bring him back to life, to hear what he had to say. That was all I could have done for him. I took out the recorder to stow it under the bunk. I heard a rustle and the faint creak of the door opening.
“Kris?” came a soft voice, almost a whisper. “Are you there, Kris? It’s so dark.”
“Don’t mind that,” I said. “Don’t be afraid. Come here.”
Deliberations
I was lying on my back, without a thought, her head on my shoulder. The darkness filling the room was becoming populated. I could hear steps. The walls were disappearing. Something was towering over me, bigger and bigger, endless. I was penetrated through and through, embraced without being touched; I froze still in the darkness, feeling its acute transparency that was displacing the air. I could hear a heart very far away. I focused my whole attention, all the strength I had left, on expecting death throes. They didn’t come. I just kept shrinking, while the unseen sky, the unseen horizons, the emptiness, devoid of shapes, clouds, stars, drawing back and swelling, was making me its center; I strove to crawl into the thing I was lying on, but beneath me there was no longer anything and the darkness no longer concealed anything. I clenched my fists and hid my face in them. I no longer had one. My fingers passed all the way through. I felt like shouting, howling…
The room was blue-gray. The furniture, walls, corners seemed sketched in broad dull strokes, in outline only, with no color of their own. There was the brightest pearly white in the silence outside the window. My body was drenched in sweat. I glanced to the side; she was looking at me.
“Is your shoulder numb?”
“What?”
She raised her head. Her eyes were the same hue as the room — gray, luminous between her dark lashes. I felt the warmth of her whisper before I understood the words.
“No. Actually, yes.”
I placed my hand on her back. The touch teemed. I slowly pulled her to me with my other arm.
“You were having a bad dream,” she said.
“A dream? Oh, that’s right. Were you not asleep?”
“I don’t know. Maybe not. I’m not tired. But you should sleep. Why are you looking at me like that?”
I half-closed my eyes. I could feel the small regular thump of her heart where mine beat slower. A prop, I thought to myself. But I wasn’t surprised by anything, even my own indifference. I was beyond fear and despair. I was further on; no one had ever gone that far. I touched her neck with my lips, then went lower down, to the little hollow between the tendons, that was smooth as the inside of a seashell. The pulse was there too.
I lifted myself on an elbow. There were no dawns, no softness of light. The horizon was filled with an electric blue glow. The first ray crossed the room like a shot. There was a sudden play of rainbow-colored reflections refracted in the mirror, in the door handles, the nickel-plated pipes; the light appeared to be striking against every surface it encountered as if it were trying to break free, to burst the confined space open. By now it was impossible to look. I turned around. Harey’s pupils dilated. Her gray irises rose to my face.
“Is it time for day already?” she asked in a lusterless voice. She seemed half-asleep, half-awake.
“It’s always like that here, honey.”
“And us?”
“What about us?”
“Are we going to be here for a long time?”
I felt like laughing. But when an indistinct sound burst from my chest, it didn’t resemble a laugh.
“For quite a while, I think. Do you not want that?”