Solaris

by Stanisław Lem

We’re not searching for anything except people. We don’t need other worlds. We need mirrors. We don’t know what to do with other worlds. One world is enough, even there we feel stifled. We desire to find our own idealized image; they’re supposed to be globes, civilizations more perfect than ours; in other worlds we expect to find the image of our own primitive past. Yet on the other side there’s something we refuse to accept, that we fend off; though after all, from Earth we didn’t bring merely a distillation of virtues, the heroic figure of Humankind! We came here as we truly are, and when the other side shows us that truth—the part of it we pass over in silence—we’re unable to come to terms with it!”

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.

Seeking a motivation for this is anthropomorphism. Where there are no humans, there are none of the motives available to humans. To continue the projected research we’d have had to destroy either our own thoughts or their material realization. The former is beyond our powers. The latter looks too much like murder.“