Solaris

When Kris emerges from the launch area, he finds Snow waiting for him. Snow realizes he had a visitor and disposed of it. Snow reveals the visitors approached him, Sartorius, and Gibarian one day, beginning with Gibarian. Snow tells Kris that his visitor will return. When he asks who the visitor was, Kris describes Rheya and how she died. When Kris asks why they didn’t call for help, Snow explains that he, Sartorius, and Gibarian brought the visitors upon themselves and likely wouldn’t be believed by authorities. He believes human hubris does not accommodate phenomena such as the visitors: “We don’t want to conquer the cosmos, we simply want to extend the boundaries of Earth to the frontiers of the cosmos” (72). In discussing Gibarian, Snow reveals he has the book Kris has been searching for—The Little Apocrypha. Kris takes the book and reads it. It contains the interrogation of a helicopter pilot, Berton, by a review council. Berton says he saw a symmetriad, an image created by the ocean—that of a giant infant. Because the council believes he was hallucinating, he refuses to elaborate. However, a council member named Dr. Messenger believes Berton. Messenger sits with him and listens to all he has seen.