"Stanislaw Lem - Solaris2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lem Stanislaw)

was too astonished to speak, and this dumbshow continued for so long that
Snow's terror gradually communicated itself to me. I took a step forward. He
cringed in his chair.
"Snow?"
He quivered as though I had struck him. Gazing at me in indescribable
horror, he gasped out:
"I don't know . . ." His voice croaked. "I don't know you . . . What do
you want?"
The spilt liquid was quickly evaporating; I caught a whiff of alcohol.
Had he been drinking? Was he drunk? What was he so terrified of? I stood in
the middle of the room; my legs were trembling; my ears roared, as though they
were stuffed with cotton wool. I had the impression that the ground was
giving way beneath my feet. Beyond the curved window, the ocean rose and fell
with regularity. Snow's blood-shot eyes never left me. His terror seemed to
have abated, but his expression of invincible disgust remained.
"What's the matter? Are you ill?" I whispered.
"You seem worried," he said, his voice hollow. "You actually seem
worried . . . So it's like that now, is it? But why concern yourself about
me? I don't know you."
"Where's Gibarian?" I asked.
He gave a gasp and his glassy eyes lit up for an instant.
"Gi . . . Giba . . . No! No!"
His whole frame shook with stifled, hysterical laughter; then he seemed
to calm down a little.
 "So it's Gibarian you've come for, is it? Poor old Gibarian. What do
you want with him?" His words, or rather his tone of voice, expressed hatred
and defiance; it was as though I had suddenly ceased to represent a threat to
him.
Bewildered, I mumbled: "What . . . Where is he?"
"Don't you know?"
Obviously he was drunk and raving. My anger rose. I should have
controlled myself and left the room, but I had lost patience. I shouted:
"That's enough! How could I know where he is since I've only just
arrived? Snow! What's going on here?" His jaw dropped. Once again he
caught his breath and his eyes gleamed with a different light. He seized the
arms of his chair with both hands and stood up with difficulty. His knees
were trembling.
"What? You've just arrived . . . Where have you come from?" he asked,
almost sober.
"From Earth!" I retorted angrily. "Maybe you've heard of it? Not that
anyone would ever guess it."
"From Earth? Good God! Then you must be Kelvin."
"Of course. Why are you looking at me like that? What's so startling
about me?"
He blinked rapidly.
"Nothing," he said, wiping his forehead, "nothing, Forgive me, Kelvin,
it's nothing, I assure you. I was simply surprised, I didn't expect to see
you."
"What do you mean, you didn't expect to see me? You were notified
months ago, and Moddard radioed only today from the _Prometheus_."