How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph) Note that chapters aren't numbered, so need to be numbered manually, 1 to 14.
Quote #4
As she tried to take off her dress, an extraordinary fact became apparent: there were no zips, or fastenings of any sort; the red buttons down the front were merely decorative. (5.134)
Rheya is an artificial person, so she has an artificial dress. The dress isn't real, which makes sense, since the dress is in fact not real—it's part of a story, which you're reading about. You can't put on the dress, just like Rheya can't. Lem is emphasizing the foreignness of the alien Rheya, but he's also slyly pointing out the foreignness of the character, Rheya. A character in a book might be considered a kind of alien, with whom you get to have a limited psychic content, even if you can't ultimately understand them.
Quote #5
I could not bear to expose myself again to the sound of that horrifying voice, which was no longer even remotely human. (5.156)
Has Rheya really stopped sounding human? Or is Kelvin just seeing her as more inhuman now that he's shut her in the rocket and blasted her into space? Maybe foreignness is in the ear of the hearer—in how much humanity you're willing to grant someone else.
Quote #6
"Its eyes sparkled, and you really would have thought it was a living child, if it hadn't been for the movements, the gestures, as though someone was trying… It was as though someone else was responsible for the gestures…" (6.208)
Berton sees a giant human baby in the ocean, but it doesn't look quite like a giant human baby, and he doesn't like it at all. This sounds something like the theory of the uncanny valley: the idea that people are revolted by human representations that look almost, but not quite, like human beings. The baby looks like an alien other is manipulating it; it's uncanny. Humans are okay, and aliens are okay, but an alien that looks almost like a human is uncanny. Run, do not walk, Berton. Giant evil-possessed baby critter is coming.