Solaris

Sartorius and Snow strap Kris down and broadcast his brain waves to the ocean. Kris fears this will deprive him of Rheya. Chapter 11 also contains a lengthy reflection on the various schools of thought regarding Solaris. Kris notes there were “entire generations of scientists who believe that their observations were evidence of a conscious will, teleological processes and activity monitored by some inner need of the ocean” (166). While this is true, Kris notes that his dissertation in favor of Solaris’s potential intelligence was criticized.

When six days pass with no clear response from Solaris, the researchers decide they will send Kris’s thoughts once more. This time, he experiences dreams in which he becomes alien matter, surrounded by pink globules that grant him knowledge. He is embraced by a woman, but it is not Rheya.

Two days later, Kris and Rheya encounter an inebriated Snow while eating. He comments on them and refers to Sartorius as a “reverse Faust,” someone attempting to solve immortality by destroying the visitors.

Three weeks pass with no clear response from Solaris. Kris finds himself brooding over his inability to take Rheya to Earth. He notices she has become more withdrawn. One night, she gives him a glass of juice and insists he drink it. The juice contains a drug that causes Kris to sleep through the night.

When he wakes up the next morning, Kris realizes he has been drugged and that Rheya is not with him. He runs through the station calling for her and finds Snow in the medical cupboard. He demands to know where she is, and Snow says “Rheya is dead” (189). When Kris says she will come back, Snow informs him that since the last broadcast, his and Sartorius’s visitors stopped coming; Snow killed Rheya at her request. In a suicide note, Rheya explains her decision.

Eventually, the scientists discuss the report they must send to Earth. They realize it has been two months since Gibarian died. Resolute in his desire to leave the planet, Kris is stunned by Snow’s decision to remain on the station.

With their report submitted, Kris waits for a spaceship to bring him back to Earth. He meets with Snow, and they compare religious faiths and what they learned from Solaris’s ocean. Kris wishes to go to the ocean for the first time. He puts on an atmosphere suit and goes to the ocean. He interacts with a mimoid, toying with it as it creates and places a flower in his hand; it then loses interest in him. As Kris reflects on the ocean, he refers to its happenings as “cruel miracles” (204).