“Hello there,” he said.
“I read your note. I’d like to talk. Can I come over?”
“Sure. Right now?”
“Yes.”
“Fine. Will you… have company?”
“No.”
His gaunt, sunburned face with thick wrinkles on the forehead, tilting in the convex glass screen like some bizarre fish peering from its aquarium, assumed an ambiguous expression.
“Well, well,” he said. “I’ll be expecting you.”
“We can go, darling,” I began with a not entirely natural animation as I entered the cabin through swathes of red light beyond which I could only make out Harey’s looming silhouette. My voice failed me; she was sitting clinging to the chair, her elbows locked under the armrests. Whether she hadn’t heard my footsteps in time, or hadn’t been able to release her terrified grip quickly enough to take on a normal pose — whatever the reason, suffice it to say that I saw her for a moment grappling with the incomprehensible power that lay concealed within her, and my heart was overcome with a blind fury mingled with pity. We walked in silence down the long corridor, passing its various sections that were painted in different-colored enamel, something the architects had intended to lend variety to life inside the armored shell. From far off I saw the open door of the radio station. It let out a long band of red light into the corridor, since the sun reached there as well. I glanced at Harey, who didn’t even try to smile; I could see how the whole way there she was intently preparing for the struggle with herself. The approaching effort has already changed her face, which was pale and seemed to have grown smaller. Ten or fifteen steps from the door she came to a halt. I turned towards her; with her fingertips she gave me a gentle push to tell me to keep walking. All at once my plans, Snaut, the experiment, the whole Station, it all seemed nothing to me compared to the torment she was now facing. I felt like a torturer, and I was about to turn back when a human shadow appeared in the broad strip of sunlight bending against the wall. I quickened my pace and entered the cabin. Snaut was just across the threshold, as if he’d been coming to meet me. The red sun was directly behind him and a crimson glare seemed to radiate from his gray hair. We looked at each other for a good while without saying anything. He seemed to be studying my face. I was blinded by the light from the window and couldn’t see his expression. I walked past him and stood by the high console bristling with the curving stems of microphones. He turned slowly around on the spot, following me calmly with that slight twist of the mouth of his that, almost without changing at all, became now a smile, now a grimace of exhaustion. Without taking his eyes off me, he went up to the metal cabinet that occupied the entire wall, in front of which on either side were heaps of spare radio parts, thermic batteries and tools that seemed to have been piled there hurriedly and chaotically. He pulled up a chair and sat down, leaning his head against the enameled door of the cabinet.
The silence we’d kept up till now was becoming strange to say the least. I listened intently to it, concentrating on the quiet that filled the corridor where Harey was waiting, from where there came not the slightest murmur.
“When will the two of you be ready?” I asked.
“We could even start today, but the recording’ll take some time.”
“Recording? You mean the encephalogram?”
“Right. I mean, you agreed. Is there a problem?” His voice trailed off.
“No, not at all.”
“Go on,” Snaut said when the silence again began to gather between us.
“She already knows… about herself.” I had dropped my voice almost to a whisper. He raised his eyebrows.
“Is that so?”
I had the impression he wasn’t really surprised. Then why was he pretending? All at once I no longer felt like talking, but I forced myself. Let it be loyalty, I thought to myself, if nothing more.
“It seems she got an inkling after our conversation in the library. She observed me, put two and two together, then she found Gibarian’s tape recorder and listened to the tape.. ”
He didn’t change position, leaning the whole time against the cabinet, but a tiny glint appeared in his eye. From where I stood at the console I had a clear view of the open door to the corridor. I lowered my voice even more:
“Last night, while I was asleep she tried to kill herself. Liquid oxygen…”
There was a sudden rustling sound like a draft of air blowing through loose sheets of paper. I froze and listened hard for what was happening in the corridor, but the source of the noise was closer. It scratched like a mouse… A mouse? How ridiculous! There were no mice here. I watched Snaut from the corner of my eye.
“Go on,” he said calmly.
“It goes without saying she didn’t succeed… In any case she knows who she is.”
“Why are you telling me this?” he suddenly asked. To begin with I didn’t know what to say.
“I want you to be informed… I want you to know how things are,” I mumbled.
“I warned you.”
“You mean to say that you knew,” I said, raising my voice despite myself.
“No. Of course not. But I told you how it is. Every ‘guest’ is almost a ghost when they arrive; aside from a hodgepodge of memories and images taken from their… Adam… they’re basically empty. The longer they’re with you here, the more human they become. And the more independent, within certain limits of course. That’s why the longer it goes on, the harder it is—”
He broke off. He looked askance at me and asked casually:
“She knows everything?”
“Yes, I already told you.”
“Everything? Including that she was already here once before and that you—”
“No!”
He smiled.
“Kelvin, listen, if things have gone that far… then what do you actually mean to do? Leave the Station?”
“Yes.”
“With her?”
“Yes.”
He was silent, as if weighing up his reply, but there was something more in his silence… What was it? Once again that imperceptible breeze rustled, as if right behind a thin wall. He shifted in his chair.
“Very good,” he said. “Why are you staring at me like that? Did you think I’d stand in your way? You can do whatever you want, my dear fellow. We’d be in fine shape if, on top of everything else, we started using force here! I’ve no intention of trying to dissuade you. I’ll only say one thing: in an inhuman situation you’re trying to behave like a human being. That may be admirable, but it’s also futile. Though in fact I’m not even sure it’s admirable — I’m not sure something foolish can also be admired. But that’s beside the point. You’re backing out of any further experiments, you want to go, and take her with you. Is that it?”
“Yes.”
“But that’s also… an experiment. Don’t you think?”
“How do you mean? Whether she’ll… be able to? If she’s with me, I don’t see why not…”
I was speaking ever more slowly, till I broke off. Snaut gave a soft sigh.
“We’re all sticking our heads in the sand here, Kelvin, but at least we’re aware of it and we’re not trying to act noble.”
“I’m not acting anything.”
“All right, I didn’t mean to insult you. I take back what I said about being noble, but the thing about hiding our heads in the sand is still true. You’re doing it in an especially dangerous way. You’re deceiving yourself and her, and yourself again. Do you know the stabilization conditions for systems built of neutrino matter?”
“No. And neither do you. No one does.”