The Monsters
- With a title like "The Monsters," you might think this would be some sort of big all out sci-fi battle, with fangs and claws and nasty galumphing critters exploding in space where no one can hear you grunt or explode.
- But, if you've read this far, you probably realize that none of that will happen in Solaris. Solaris does not galumph.
- And we're back to Kelvin sleeping again and waking up out of a dream. There's a lot of that.
- Rheya is upset because Kelvin in his sleep has been saying she isn't really Rheya and that he wants her to go, but she doesn't know how.
- Kelvin does more comforting; then he asks Rheya if she sleeps, and she says she thinks she semi-dreams, and that there are thoughts coming from outside her.
- This upsets Kelvin, but he keeps it together.
- She says she loves him, and he almost screams.
- In the morning there's a note from Snow saying Sartorius wants Kelvin to go out to collect some plasma from the planet; they may be able to destabilize it.
- Kelvin has decided he doesn't want to get rid of Rheya; instead, he wants to keep her with him, so he goes to the library to try to read up on neutrinos and plasma and such (Rheya comes with him).
- He doesn't find much he can understand, so he ends up reading more about the history of Solaris, and telling you and Shmoop all about it. Exposition follows.
- He reads about Giese, an early explorer who tried to categorize the formations created by the Solaris ocean.
- Giese was obsessed with "mimoids," objects which the Solaris ocean creates that appear to mimic things external to the ocean itself.
- Long, detailed description of how the mimoids works. Lots and lots of description.
- And then a description of symmetriads, which are symmetrical forms that are created in the ocean. They're unstable, so they can be dangerous—of you see a symmetriad in your tub, call 9-1-1.
- Symmetriads defy physics and people thought they were computers but then decided they weren't.
- More about how limited humans and science are: You know nothing, Shmoop knows nothing, science knows nothing.
- Kelvin tells an anecdote about a schoolchild visiting the Solarist Institute who asked, "what does all this mean?" and no one knew.
- They should have looked it up on Shmoop, obviously.
- Kelvin talks about one time when a construction of the ocean suddenly fell in, killing one hundred and six people.
- Folks on earth talked about dropping nuclear bombs on it, but then decided not to, in part because a scientist on the planet threatened to stay there and let the bomb kill him.
- Kelvin finishes reading, and turns to trying to figure out some way to save Rheya from Sartorius's plans to make the visitors go away.
- Kelvin pretended to agree to the plan, but now he's looking through physics texts to try to find some way to invalidate it.
- Snow comes to the room; he is introduced to Rheya for the first time (Shmoop believes this is the first time Kelvin comes out and says that Rheya is his wife).
- He says he's divorced, which means he's somehow gotten rid of his visitor for the time being.
- Snow says that Sartorius is out of touch at the moment, but that he wants to try beaming X-rays modified by Kelvin's brainwaves at the ocean. Because, reasons.
- Snow wants to know if Kelvin will agree. Kelvin thinks it is silly, Snow says that okay, then they'll build an annihilator.
- Kelvin says that the annihilator (a negative neutrino field, if you believe it) will cause the visitors to explode, killing everyone.
- Snow is depressed and skeptical, but he takes Kelvin's calculations to show Sartorius.
- Then Snow leaves.
- Rheya thinks Snow was looking at her funny. Which he probably was, all things considered.