25 – The View from Lagrange

   Astronomy was full of such intriguing but meaningless coincidences. The most famous was the fact that, from the Earth, both Sun and Moon have the same apparent diameter. Here at the L.1 libration point, which Big Brother had chosen for its cosmic balancing act on the gravitational tightrope between Jupiter and Io, a similar phenomenon occurred. Planet and satellite appeared exactly the same size.
   And what a size! Not the miserable half-degree of Sun and Moon, but forty times their diameter – sixteen hundred times their area. 'The sight of either was enough to fill the mind with awe and wonder; together, the spectacle was overwhelming.
   Every forty-two hours, they would go through their complete cycle of phases; when Io was new, Jupiter was full, and vice versa. But even when the Sun was hiding behind Jupiter and the planet presented only its nightside, it was unmistakably there – a huge black disk eclipsing the stars. Sometimes that blackness would be momentarily rent by lightning flashes lasting for many seconds, from electrical storms far larger than the Earth.
   On the opposite side of the sky, always keeping the same face toward its giant master, Io would be a sluggishly boiling cauldron of reds and oranges, with occasional yellow clouds erupting from one of its volcanoes, and falling swiftly back to the surface. Like Jupiter, but on a slightly longer time scale, Io was a world without geography. Its face was remodelled in a matter of decades – Jupiter's, in a matter of days.
   As Io waned toward its last quarter, so the vast, intricately banded Jovian cloudscape would light up beneath the tiny, distant sun. Sometimes the shadow of Io itself, or one of the outer satellites, would drift across the face of Jupiter; while every revolution would show the planet-sized vortex of the Great Red Spot – a hurricane that had endured for centuries if not for millennia.
   Poised between such wonders, the crew of Leonov had material for lifetimes of research – but the natural objects of the Jovian system were at the very bottom of their list of priorities. Big Brother was Number 1; though the ships had now moved in to only five kilometres, Tanya still refused to allow any direct physical contact. 'I'm going to wait,' she said, 'until we're in a position to make a quick getaway. We'll sit and watch – until our launch window opens. Then we'll consider our next move.'
   It was true that Nina had finally grounded on Big Brother, after a leisurely fifty-minute fall. This had allowed Vasili to calculate the object's mass as a surprisingly low 950,000 tons, which gave it about the density of air. Presumably it was hollow – which provoked endless speculation about what might be inside.
   But there were plenty of practical, everyday problems to take their minds off these greater issues. Housekeeping chores aboard Leonov and Discovery absorbed ninety per cent of their working time, though operations' were much more efficient since the two ships had been coupled by a flexible docking connection. Curnow had finally convinced Tanya that Discovery's carousel would not suddenly seize up and tear the ships to pieces, so it had become possible to move freely from one vessel to the other merely by opening and closing two sets of airtight doors. Spacesuits and time-consuming EVAs were no longer necessary – to the great delight of everyone except Max, who loved going outside and exercising with his broomstick.
   The two crew members quite unaffected by this were Chandra and Ternovsky, who now virtually lived aboard Discovery and worked around the clock, continuing their apparently endless dialogue with Hal. 'When will you be ready?' they were asked at least once a day. They refused to make any promises; Hal remained a low-grade moron.
   Then, a week after the rendezvous with Big Brother, Chandra unexpectedly announced: 'We're ready.'
   Only the two lady medics were absent from Discovery's flight deck, and that was merely because there was no room for them; they were watching on Leonov's monitors. Floyd stood immediately behind Chandra, his hand never far from what Curnow, with his usual gift for the neat phrase, had called his pocket giant-killer.
   'Let me emphasize again,' said Chandra, 'that there must be no talking. Your accents will confuse him; I can speak, but no one else. Is that understood?'
   Chandra looked, and sounded, at the edge of exhaustion. Yet his voice held a note of authority that no one had ever heard before. Tanya might be the boss everywhere else, but he was master there.
   The audience – some anchored to convenient handholds, some floating freely – nodded assent. Chandra closed an audio switch and said, quietly but clearly: 'Good morning, Hal.'
   An instant later, it seemed to Floyd that the years had rolled away. It was no longer a simple electronic toy that answered back. Hal had returned.
   'Good morning, Dr Chandra.'
   'Do you feel capable of resuming your duties?'
   'Of course. I am completely operational and all my circuits are functioning perfectly.'
   'Then do you mind if I ask you a few questions?'
   'Not at all.'
   'Do you recall a failure of the AE 35 antenna control unit?'
   'Certainly not.'
   Despite Chandra's injunction, there was a little gasp from the listeners. This is like tiptoeing through a minefield, thought Floyd, as he patted the reassuring shape of the radio cut-off. If that line of questioning triggered another psychosis, he could kill Hal in a second. (He knew, having rehearsed the procedure a dozen times.) But a second was aeons to a computer; that was a chance they would have to take.
   'You do not remember either Dave Bowman or Frank Poole going out to replace the AE 35 unit?'
   'No. That could not have happened, or I would have remembered it. Where are Frank and Dave? Who are these people? I can only identify you – though I compute a sixty-five per cent probability that the man behind you is Dr Heywood Floyd.'
   Remembering Chandra's strict injunction, Floyd refrained from congratulating Hal. After a decade, sixty-five per cent was a pretty good score. Many humans would not have done so well.
   'Don't worry, Hal – I will explain everything later.'
   'Has the mission been completed? You know I have the greatest enthusiasm for it.'
   'The mission has been completed; you have carried out your program. Now – if you will excuse us – we wish to have a private conversation.'
   'Certainly.'
   Chandra switched off sound and vision inputs to the main console. As far as this part of the ship was concerned, Hal was now deaf and blind.
   'Well, what was all that about?' demanded Vasili Orlov.
   'It means,' said Chandra, carefully and precisely, 'that I have erased all Hal's memories, beginning at the moment when the trouble started.'
   'That sounds quite a feat,' marvelled Sasha. 'How did you do it?'
   'I am afraid it would take me longer to explain than it did to carry out the operation.'
   'Chandra, I am a computer expert – though not in the same class as you and Nikolai. The 9000 series uses holographic memories, doesn't it? So you couldn't have used a simple chronological erasure. It must have been some kind of tapeworm, homing on selected words and concepts?'
   'Tapeworm?' said Katerina over the ship's intercom. 'I thought that was my department – though I'm glad to say I've never seen one of the beastly things outside a jar of alcohol. What are you talking about?'
   'Computer jargon, Katerina. In the old days – the very old days – they really did use magnetic tape. And it's possible to construct a program that can be fed into a system to hunt down and destroy – eat, if you like – any desired memories. 'Can't you do the same sort of thing to human beings, by hypnosis?'
   'Yes, but it can always be reversed. We never really forget anything. We only think we do.'
   'A computer doesn't work that way. When it's told to forget something, it does. The information is completely erased.'
   'So Hal has absolutely no memory of his... misbehaviour?'
   'I cannot be a hundred per cent certain of that,' answered Chandra. 'There may be some memories that were in transit from one address to another when the... tapeworm was making its search. But this is very unlikely.'
   'Fascinating,' said Tanya, after everyone had thought this over in silence for some time. 'But the much more important question is: Can he be relied upon in future?'
   Before Chandra could answer, Floyd anticipated him.
   'The same set of circumstances can never arise again; I can promise you that. The whole trouble started because it's difficult to explain Security to a computer.'
   'Or to human beings,' muttered Curnow, not very sotto voce.
   'I hope you're right,' said Tanya, without much conviction. 'What's the next step, Chandra?'
   'Nothing so tricky – merely long and tedious. Now we have to program him to initiate the Jupiter escape sequence – and to bring Discovery home. Three years after we've got back on our high-speed orbit.'

26 – Probation

   To: Victor Millson, Chairman, National Council on Astronautics, Washington
   From: Heywood Floyd, aboard USSC Discovery
   Subject: Malfunction of onboard computer HAL 9000
   Classification: SECRET
   Dr Chandrasegarampillai (hereinafter referred to as Dr C.) has now completed his preliminary examination of Hal. He has restored all missing modules and the computer appears to be fully operational. Details of Dr C.'s actions and conclusions will be found in the report he and Dr Ternovsky will submit shortly.
   Meanwhile you have asked me to summarize them in non-technical terms for the benefit of the Council – especially the new members who will not be familiar with the background. Frankly, I doubt my ability to do this; as you know, I am not a computer specialist. But I will do my best.
   The problem was apparently caused by a conflict between Hal's basic instructions and the requirements of Security. By direct Presidential order, the existence of TMA-1 was kept a complete secret. Only those with a need to know were permitted access to the information.
   Discovery's mission to Jupiter was already in the advanced planning stage when TMA-1 was excavated, and radiated its signal to that planet. As the function of the prime crew (Bowman. Poole) was merely to get the vessel to its destination, it was decided that they should not be informed of its new objective. By training the investigative team (Kaminski, Hunter, Whitehead) separately, and placing them in hibernation before the voyage began, it was felt that a much higher degree of security would be attained, as the danger of leaks (accidental or otherwise) would be greatly reduced.
   I would like to remind you that, at the time (my memorandum NCA 342/23/TOP SECRET of 01.04.03) I pointed out several objections to this policy. However, they were overruled at a higher level.
   As Hal was capable of operating the ship without human assistance, it was also decided that he should be programmed to carry out the mission autonomously in the event of the crew's being incapacitated or killed. He was therefore given full knowledge of its objectives, but was not permitted to reveal them to Bowman or Poole.
   This situation conflicted with the purpose for which Hal had been designed – the accurate processing of information without distortion or concealment. As a result, Hal developed what would be called, in human terms, a psychosis – specifically, schizophrenia. Dr C. informs me that, in technical terminology, Hal became trapped in a Hofstadter-Moebius loop, a situation apparently not uncommon among advanced computers with autonomous goal-seeking programs. He suggests that for further information you contact Professor Hofstadter himself.
   To put it crudely (if I understand Dr C.) Hal was faced with an intolerable dilemma, and so developed paranoiac symptoms that were directed against those monitoring his performance back on Earth. He accordingly attempted to break the radio link with Mission Control, first by reporting a (non-existent) fault in the AE 35 antenna unit.
   This involved him not only in a direct lie – which must have aggravated his psychosis still further – but also in a confrontation with the crew. Presumably (we can only guess at this, of course) he decided that the only way out of the situation was to eliminate his human colleagues – which he very nearly succeeded in doing. Looking at the matter purely objectively, it would have been interesting to see what would have happened had he continued the mission alone, without man-made 'interference'.
   This is virtually all I have been able to learn from Dr C.; I do not like to question him further, as he is working to the point of exhaustion. But even allowing for this fact, I must frankly state (and please keep this absolutely confidential) that Dr C. is not always as cooperative as he should be. He adopts a defensive attitude toward Hal, which sometimes makes it extremely difficult to discuss the subject. Even Dr Ternovsky, who might have been expected to be a little more independent, often appears to share this viewpoint.
   However, the only really important question is: Can Hal be relied upon in the future? Dr C., of course, has no doubts on the matter. He claims to have obliterated all the computer's memories of the traumatic events leading up to the disconnection. Nor does he believe that Hal can suffer from anything remotely analogous to the human sense of guilt.
   In any case, it seems impossible that the situation that caused the original problem can ever arise again. Although Hal suffers from a number of peculiarities, they are not of a nature that would cause any apprehension; they are merely minor annoyances, some of them even amusing. And as you know – but Dr C. does not – I have taken steps that will give us complete control as a last resort.
   To sum up: The rehabilitation of HAL 9000 is proceeding satisfactorily. One might even say that he is on probation.
   I wonder if he knows it.

27 – Interlude: True Confessions

   The human mind has an astonishing capacity to adapt; after a while, even the incredible becomes commonplace. There were times when the crew of Leonov switched off their surroundings, perhaps in an unconscious move to preserve sanity.
   Dr Heywood Floyd often thought that, on such occasions, Walter Curnow worked a little too hard at being the life and soul of the party. And though he triggered what Sasha Kovalev later called the 'True Confessions' episode, he certainly had not planned anything of the sort. It arose spontaneously when he voiced the universal dissatisfaction with almost all aspects of zero-gravity plumbing.
   'If I could have one wish granted,' he exclaimed during the daily Six O'Clock Soviet, 'it would be to soak in a nice foaming bathtub, scented with essence of pine and with just my nose above the waterline.'
   When the murmurs of assent and sighs of frustrated desire had died away, Katerina Rudenko took up the challenge.
   'How splendidly decadent, Walter,' she beamed at him with cheerful disapproval. 'It makes you sound like a Roman emperor. If I were back on Earth, I'd like something more active.'
   'Such as?'
   'Umm... Am I allowed to go back in time as well?'
   'If you like.'
   'When I was a girl, I used to go for holidays to a collective farm in Georgia. There was a beautiful palomino stallion, bought by the director out of the money he'd made on the local black market. He was an old scoundrel, but I loved him – and he used to let me gallop Alexander all over the countryside. I might have been killed – but that's the memory that brings Earth back to me, more than anything else.'
   There was a moment of thoughtful silence; then Curnow asked, 'Any other volunteers?'
   Everyone seemed so lost in their own memories that the game might have ended there, had not Maxim Brailovsky started it off again.
   'I'd like to be diving – that was just about my favourite hobby, when I had time for one – and I was glad I could keep it up through my cosmonaut training. I've dived off Pacific atolls, the Great Barrier Reef, the Red Sea – coral reefs are the most beautiful places in the world. Yet the experience I remember best was in quite a different place – one of the Japanese kelp forests. It was like an underwater cathedral, with sunlight slanting through those enormous leaves. Mysterious... magical. I've never been back; perhaps it wouldn't be the same the next time. But I'd like to try.'
   'Fine,' said Walter, who as usual had appointed himself master of ceremonies. 'Who's next?'
   'I'll give you a quick answer,' said Tanya Orlova. 'The Bolshoi – Swan Lake. But Vasili won't agree. He hates ballet.'
   'That makes two of us. Anyway, what would you select, Vasili?'
   'I was going to say diving, but Max beat me to it. So I'll go in the opposite direction – gliding. Soaring through the clouds on a summer day, in complete silence. Well, not quite complete – the airflow over the wing can get noisy, especially when you're banking. That's the way to enjoy Earth– like a bird.'
   'Zenia?'
   'Easy. Skiing in the Pamirs. I love snow.'
   'And you, Chandra?'
   The atmosphere changed noticeably when Walter put the question. After all this time, Chandra was still a stranger – perfectly polite, even courteous, but never revealing himself.
   'When I was a boy,' he said slowly, 'my grandfather took me on a pilgrimage to Varanasi – Benares. If you've never been there, I'm afraid you won't understand. To me – to many Indians even nowadays, whatever their religion – it's the centre of the world. One day I plan to go back.'
   'And you, Nikolai?'
   'Well, we've had the sea and sky. I'd like to combine both. My favourite sport used to be wind-surfing. I'm afraid I'm too old for it now – but I'd like to find out.'
   'That only leaves you, Woody. What's your choice?'
   Floyd did not even stop to think; his spontaneous answer surprised himself as much as the others.
   'I don't mind where on Earth I am – as long as I'm with my little son.'
   After that, there was no more to be said. The session was over.

28 – Frustration

   'You've seen all the technical reports, Dimitri, so you'll understand our frustration. We've learned nothing new from all our tests and measurements. Zagadka just sits there, filling half the sky, ignoring us completely.
   'Yet it can't be inert – an abandoned space derelict. Vasili has pointed out that it must be taking some positive action, to remain here at the unstable libration point. Otherwise it would have drifted away ages ago, just as Discovery did, and crashed into Io.
   'So what do we do next? We wouldn't have nuclear explosives on board, would we, in contravention of UN '08, para 3? I'm only joking.
   'Now that we're under less pressure, and the launch window for the homeward trip is still weeks away, there's a distinct feeling of boredom, as well as frustration. Don't laugh – I can imagine how that sounds to you, back in Moscow. How could any intelligent person get bored out here, surrounded by the greatest marvels human eyes have ever seen?
   'Yet there's no doubt of it. Morale isn't what it was. Until now, we've all been disgustingly healthy. Now almost everyone has a minor cold, or an upset stomach, or a scratch that won't heal despite all of Katerina's pills and powders. She's given up now, and just swears at us.
   'Sasha has helped to keep us amused with a series of bulletins on the ship's bulletin board. Their theme is: STAMP OUT RUSSLISH! and he lists horrid mixtures of both languages he claims to have overheard, wrong uses of words, and so forth. We'll all need linguistic decontamination when we get home; several times I've come across your countrymen chatting in English without even being aware of it, lapsing into their native tongue only for difficult words. The other day I caught myself talking Russian to Walter Curnow – and neither of us noticed for several minutes.
   'There was one bit of unscheduled activity the other day that will tell you something about our state of mind. The fire alarm went off in the middle of the night, triggered by one of the smoke detectors.
   'Well, it turned out that Chandra had smuggled some of his lethal cigars aboard, and couldn't resist temptation anymore. He was smoking one in the toilet, like a guilty schoolboy.
   'Of course, he was horribly embarrassed; everyone else thought it hysterically funny, after the initial panic. You know the way some perfectly trivial joke, which doesn't mean a thing to outsiders, can sweep through a group of otherwise intelligent people and reduce them to helpless laughter. One had only to pretend to light a cigar for the next few days, and everybody would go to pieces.
   'What makes it even more ridiculous is that no one would have minded in the least if Chandra had just gone into an airlock, or switched off the smoke detector. But he was too shy to admit that he had such a human weakness; so now he spends even more of his time communing with Hal.'
   Floyd pressed the PAUSE button and stopped the recording. Perhaps it was not fair to make fun of Chandra, tempting though it often was. All sorts of little quirks of personality had surfaced during the last few weeks; there had even been some bad quarrels, for no obvious reason. And for that matter, what of his own behaviour? Had that always been above criticism?
   He was still not sure if he had handled Curnow properly. Though he did not suppose that he would ever really like the big engineer, or enjoy the sound of his slightly too-loud voice, Floyd's attitude toward him had changed from mere tolerance to respectful admiration. The Russians adored him, not least because his rendering of such favourites as 'Polyushko Polye' often reduced them to tears. And in one case, Floyd felt that the adoration had gone a little too far.
   'Walter,' he had begun cautiously, 'I'm not sure if it's my business, but there's a personal matter I'd like to raise with you...'
   'When someone says it's not his business, he's usually right. What's the problem?'
   'To be blunt, your behaviour with Max.'
   There was a frigid silence, which Floyd occupied with a careful inspection of the poor paintjob on the opposite wall. Then Curnow replied, in a soft yet implacable voice: 'I was under the distinct impression that he was more than eighteen.'
   'Don't confuse the issue. And frankly, it's not Max I'm concerned about. It's Zenia.'
   Curnow's lips parted in unconcealed surprise. 'Zenia? What's she got to do with it?'
   'For an intelligent man, you're often singularly unobservant – even obtuse. Surely you realize that she's in love with Max. Haven't you noticed the way she looks, when you put your arm around him?'
   Floyd had never imagined that he would see Curnow looking abashed, but the blow seemed to have struck home.
   'Zenia? I thought everyone was joking – she's such a quiet little mouse. And everyone's in love with Max, after their fashion – even Catherine the Great. Still... um, I guess I should be more careful. At least while Zenia's around.'
   There was a prolonged silence while the social temperature rose back to normal. Then, obviously to show that there was no ill feeling, Curnow added in a conversational tone: 'You know, I've often wondered about Zenia, Somebody did a marvellous job of plastic surgery on her face, but they couldn't repair all the damage. The skin's too tight, and I don't think I've ever seen her laugh properly. Maybe that's why I've avoided looking at her – would you credit me with so much aesthetic sensitivity, Heywood?'
   The deliberately formal 'Heywood' signalled good-natured needling rather than hostility, and Floyd allowed himself to relax.
   'I can satisfy some of your curiosity – Washington finally got hold of the facts. It seems she was in a bad air crash and was lucky to recover from her burns. There's no mystery, as far as we can tell, but Aeroflot isn't supposed to have accidents.'
   'Poor girl. I'm surprised they let her go into space, but I suppose she was the only qualified person available when Irma eliminated herself. I'm sorry for her; apart from the injuries, the psychological shock must have been terrible.'
   'I'm sure it was; but she's obviously made a full recovery.' You're not telling the whole truth, said Floyd to himself, and you never will. After their encounter on the approach to Jupiter, there would always be a secret bond between them – not of love, but of tenderness, which is often more enduring.
   He found himself suddenly and unexpectedly grateful to Curnow; the other was obviously surprised at his concern for Zenia, but had not attempted to exploit it in his own defence.
   And if he had, would it have been unfair? Now, days later, Floyd was beginning to wonder if his own motives were altogether admirable. For his part, Curnow had certainly kept his promise; indeed, if one did not know better, one might have imagined that he was deliberately ignoring Max – at least while Zenia was around. And he treated her with much greater kindness; indeed, there were occasions when he had even succeeded in making her laugh out loud.
   So the intervention had been worthwhile, whatever the impulse behind it. Even if, as Floyd sometimes ruefully suspected, it was no more than the secret envy that normal homo or heterosexuals feel, if completely honest with themselves, toward cheerfully well-adjusted polymorphs.
   His finger crept back toward the recorder, but the train of thought had been broken. Inevitably, images of his own home and family came crowding into his mind, He closed his eyes, and memory recalled the climax of Christopher's birthday party – the child blowing out the three candles on the cake, less than twenty-four hours ago but almost a billion kilometres away. He had played the video back so often that now he knew the scene by heart.
   And how often had Caroline played his messages to Chris, so that the boy would not forget his father – or view him as a stranger when he returned after missing yet another birthday? He was almost afraid to ask.
   Yet he could not blame Caroline. To him, only a few weeks would have passed before they met again. But she would have aged more than two years while he was in his dreamless sleep between the worlds. That was a long time to be a young widow, even a temporary one.
   I wonder if I'm coming down with one of the shipboard maladies, Floyd thought; he had seldom felt such a sense of frustration, even of failure. I may have lost my family, across the gulfs of time and space, all to no purpose. For I have achieved nothing; even though I have reached my goal, it remains a blank, impenetrable wall of total darkness.
   And yet – David Bowman had once cried: 'My God! It's full of stars!'

29 – Emergence

   Sasha's latest edict read:
   RUSSLISH BULLETIN #8
   Subject: Tovanshch (tovarish)
   To our American guests:
   Frankly, pals, I can't remember when I was last addressed by this term. To any twenty-first century Russian, it's way back there with the battleship Potemkin – a reminder of cloth caps and red flags and Vladimir Ilich haranguing the workers from the steps of railway carriages
   Ever since I was a kid it's been bratets or druzhok– take your choice, you're welcome.
   Comrade Kovalev
   Floyd was still chuckling over this notice when Vasili Orlov joined him as he floated through the lounge/observation deck on his way to the bridge.
   'What amazes me, tovarishch, is that Sasha ever found time to study anything besides engineering physics. Yet he's always quoting poems and plays I don't even know, and he speaks better English than – well, Walter.'
   'Because he switched to science, Sasha is – what do you say – the black sheep of the family. His father was a professor of English at Novosibirsk. Russian was only allowed in the house Monday to Wednesday; Thursday to Saturday it was English.'
   'And Sundays?'
   'Oh, French or German, alternate weeks.'
   'Now I know exactly what you mean by nekulturny; fits me like a glove. Does Sasha feel guilty about his... defection? And with such a background, why did he ever become an engineer?'
   'At Novosibirsk, you soon learn who are the serfs and who are the aristocrats. Sasha was an ambitious young man, as well as a brilliant one.'
   'Just like you, Vasili.'
   'Et tu, Brute! You see, I can quote Shakespeare as well – Bozhe moi! – what was that?'
   Floyd was unlucky; he was floating with his back to the observation window, and saw nothing at all. When he twisted around, seconds later, there was only the familiar view of Big Brother, bisecting the giant disk of Jupiter, just as it had done ever since their arrival.
   But to Vasili, for a moment that would be imprinted on his memory forever, that sharp-edged outline held a completely different, and wholly impossible, scene. It was as if a window had suddenly been opened onto another universe.
   The vision lasted for less than a second, before his involuntary blink reflex cut it off. He was looking into a field not of stars, but of suns, as if into the crowded heart of a galaxy, or the core of a globular cluster. In that moment, Vasili Orlov lost forever the skies of Earth. From now on they would seem intolerably empty; even mighty Orion and glorious Scorpio would be scarcely noticeable patterns of feeble sparks, not worthy of a second glance.
   When he dared to open his eyes again, it was all gone. No – not completely. At the very centre of the now-restored ebon rectangle, a faint star was still shining.
   But a star did not move as one watched. Orlov blinked again, to clear his watering eyes. Yes, the movement was real; he was not imagining it.
   A meteor? It was some indication of Chief Scientist Vasili Orlov's state of shock that several seconds passed before he remembered that meteors were impossible in airless space.
   Then it blurred suddenly into a streak of light, and within a few heartbeats had vanished beyond the edge of Jupiter. By this time, Vasili had recovered his wits and was once more the cool, dispassionate observer.
   Already he had a good estimate of the object's trajectory. There could be no doubt; it was aimed directly at Earth.

V – A CHILD OF THE STARS

30 – Homecoming

   It was as if he had awakened from a dream – or a dream within a dream. The gate between the stars had brought him back to the world of men, but no longer as a man.
   How long had he been away? A whole lifetime... no, two lifetimes; one forward, one in reverse.
   As David Bowman, commander and last surviving crew member of United States Spaceship Discovery, he had been caught in a gigantic trap, set three million years ago and triggered to respond only at the right time, and to the right stimulus. He had fallen through it, from one universe to another, meeting wonders some of which he now understood, others which he might never comprehend.
   He had raced at ever-accelerating speed, down infinite corridors of light, until he had outraced light itself. That, he knew, was impossible; but now he also knew how it could be done. As Einstein had rightly said, the Good Lord was subtle, but never malicious.
   He had passed through a cosmic switching system – a Grand Central Station of the galaxies – and emerged, protected from its fury by unknown forces, close to the surface of a giant red star.
   There he had witnessed the paradox of sunrise on the face of a sun, when the dying star's brilliant white dwarf companion had climbed into its sky – a searing apparition, drawing a tidal wave of fire beneath it. He had felt no fear, but only wonder, even when his space pod had carried him down into the inferno below... to arrive, beyond all reason, in a beautifully appointed hotel suite containing nothing that was not wholly familiar. However, much of it was fake; the books on the shelves were dummies, the cereal boxes and the cans of beer in the icebox – though they bore famous labels – all contained the same bland food with a texture like bread but a taste that was almost anything he cared to imagine.
   He had quickly realized that he was a specimen in a cosmic zoo, his cage carefully recreated from the images in old television programmes. And he wondered when his keepers would appear, and in what physical form.
   How foolish that expectation had been! He knew now that one might as well hope to see the wind, or speculate about the true shape of fire.
   Then exhaustion of mind and body had overwhelmed him. For the last time, David Bowman slept.
   It was a strange sleep, for he was not wholly unconscious. Like a fog creeping through a forest, something invaded his mind. He sensed it only dimly, for the full impact would have destroyed him as swiftly and surely as the fires raging around him. Beneath its dispassionate scrutiny, he felt neither hope nor fear.
   Sometimes, in that long sleep, he dreamed he was awake. Years had gone by; once he was looking in a mirror, at a wrinkled face he barely recognized as his own. His body was racing to its dissolution, the hands of the biological clock spinning madly toward a midnight they would never reach. For at the last moment, Time came to a halt – and reversed itself.
   The springs of memory were being trapped: in controlled recollection, he was reliving his past, being drained of knowledge and experience as he swept back toward his childhood. But nothing was being lost: all that he had ever been, at every moment of his life, was being transferred to safer keeping. Even as one David Bowman ceased to exist, another became immortal, passing beyond the necessities of matter.
   He was an embryo god, not yet ready to be born. For ages he floated in limbo, knowing what he had been, but not what he had become. He was still in a state of flux -somewhere between chrysalis and butterfly. Or perhaps only between caterpillar and chrysalis.
   And then, the stasis was broken: Time re-entered his little world. The black, rectangular slab that suddenly appeared before him was like an old friend.
   He had seen it on the Moon; he had encountered it in orbit around Jupiter; and he knew, somehow, that his ancestors had met it long ago. Though it held still unfathomed secrets, it was no longer a total mystery; some of its powers he now understood.
   He realized that it was not one, but multitudes; and that whatever measuring instruments might say, it was always the same size – as large as necessary.
   How obvious, now, was that mathematical ratio of its sides, the quadratic sequence 1:4:9! And how naive to have imagined that the series ended there, in only three dimensions!
   Even as his mind focused upon these geometrical simplicities, the empty rectangle filled with stars. The hotel suite – if indeed it had ever really existed – dissolved back into the mind of its creator; and there before him was the luminous whirlpool of the Galaxy.
   It might have been some beautiful, incredibly detailed model, embedded in a block of plastic. But it was the reality, now grasped by him as a whole with senses more subtle than vision. If he wished, he could focus his attention upon any one of its hundred billion stars.
   Here he was, adrift in this great river of suns, halfway between the banked fires of the galactic core and the lonely, scattered sentinel stars of the rim. And there was his origin, on the far side of this chasm in the sky, this serpentine band of darkness, empty of all stars. He knew that this formless chaos, visible only by the glow that limned its edges from fire mists far beyond, was the still unused stuff of creation, the raw material of evolutions yet to be. Here, Time had not yet begun; not until the suns that now burned were long since dead would light and life reshape this void.
   Unwittingly, he had crossed it once: now, far better prepared, though still wholly ignorant of the impulse that drove him, he must cross it again.
   The Galaxy burst forth from the mental frame in which he had enclosed it: stars and nebulae poured past him in an illusion of infinite speed. Phantom suns exploded and fell behind as he slipped like a shadow through their cores.
   The stars were thinning out, the glare of the Milky Way dimming into a pale ghost of the glory he had known – and might one day know again. He was back in the space that men called real, at the very point he had left it, seconds or centuries ago.
   He was vividly aware of his surroundings, and far more conscious than in that earlier existence of myriad sensory inputs from the external world. He could focus upon any one of them, and scrutinize it in virtually limitless detail, until he confronted the fundamental, granular structure of time and space, below which there was only chaos.
   And he could move, though he did not know how. But had he ever really known that, even when he possessed a body? The chain of command from brain to limb was a mystery to which he had never given any thought.
   An effort of will, and the spectrum of that nearby star shifted toward the blue, by precisely the amount he wished. He was falling toward it at a large fraction of the speed of light: though he could go faster if he desired, he was in no hurry. There was still much information to be processed, much to be considered... and much more to be won. That, he knew, was his present goal; but he also knew that it was only part of some far wider plan, to be revealed in due course.
   He gave no thought to the gateway between universes dwindling so swiftly behind him, or to the anxious entities gathered around it in their primitive spacecraft. They were part of his memories; but stronger ones were calling him now, calling him home to the world he had never thought to see again.
   He could hear its myriad voices, growing louder and louder – as it too was growing, from a star almost lost against the Sun's outstretched corona, to a slim crescent, and finally to a glorious blue-white disk.
   They knew that he was coming. Down there on that crowded globe, the alarms would be flashing across the radar screens, the great tracking telescopes would be searching the skies – and history as men had known it would be drawing to a close.
   He became aware that a thousand kilometres below a slumbering cargo of death had awakened, and was stirring in its orbit. The feeble energies it contained were no possible menace to him; indeed, he could profitably use them.
   He entered the maze of circuitry, and swiftly traced the way to its lethal core. Most of the branchings could be ignored; they were blind alleys, devised for protection. Beneath his scrutiny, their purpose was childishly simple; it was easy to bypass them all.
   Now there was a single last barrier – a crude but effective mechanical relay, holding apart two contacts. Until they were closed, there would be no power to activate the final sequence.
   He put forth his will – and, for the first time, knew failure and frustration. The few grams of the microswitch would not budge. He was still a creature of pure energy; as yet, the world of inert matter was beyond his grasp. Well, there was a simple answer to that.
   He still had much to learn. The current pulse he induced in the relay was so powerful that it almost melted the coil, before it could operate the trigger mechanism.
   The microseconds ticked slowly by. It was interesting to observe the explosive lenses focus their energies, like the feeble match that ignites a powder train, which in turn -
   The megatons flowered in a silent detonation that brought a brief, false dawn to half the sleeping world. Like a phoenix rising from the flames, he absorbed what he needed, and discarded the rest. Far below, the shield of the atmosphere, which protected the planet from so many hazards, absorbed the most dangerous of the radiation. But there would be some unlucky men and animals who would never see again.
   In the aftermath of the explosion, it seemed as if the Earth was struck dumb. The babble of the short and medium waves was completely silenced, reflected back by the suddenly enhanced ionosphere. Only the microwaves still sliced through the invisible and slowly dissolving mirror that now surrounded the planet, and most of these were too tightly beamed for him to receive them. A few high-powered radars were still focused upon him, but that was a matter of no importance. He did not even bother to neutralize them as he could easily have done. And if any more bombs were to come his way, he would treat them with equal indifference. For the present, he had all the energy he needed.
   And now he was descending, in great sweeping spirals, toward the lost landscape of his childhood.

31 – Disneyville

   A fin-de-siecle philosopher had once remarked – and been roundly denounced for his pains – that Walter Elias Disney had contributed more to genuine human happiness than all the religious teachers in history. Now, half a century after the artist's death, his dreams were still proliferating across the Florida landscape.
   When it had opened in the early 1980s, his Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow had been a showcase for new technologies and modes of living. But as its founder had realized, EPCOT would only fulfil its purpose when some of its vast acreage was a genuine, living town, occupied by people who called it home. That process had taken the remainder of the century; now the residential area had twenty thousand inhabitants and had, inevitably, become popularly known as Disneyville.
   Because they could move in only after penetrating a palace guard of WED lawyers, it was not surprising that the average age of the occupants was the highest in any United States community, or that its medical services were the most advanced in the world. Some of them, indeed, could hardly have been conceived, still less created, in any other place.
   The apartment had been carefully designed not to look like a hospital suite, and only a few unusual fittings would have betrayed its purpose. The bed was scarcely knee-high, so that the danger of falls was minimized: it could, however, be raised and tilted for the convenience of the nurses. The bathroom tub was sunk into the floor, and had a built-in seat as well as handrails, so that even the elderly or infirm could get in and out of it easily. The floor was thickly carpeted, but there were no rugs over which one could trip, or sharp corners that might cause injuries. Other details were less obvious – and the TV camera was so well concealed that no one would have suspected its presence.
   There were few personal touches – a pile of old books in one corner, and a framed front page of one of the last printed issues of the New York Times proclaiming: US SPACESHIP LEAVES FOR JUPITER. Close to this were two photographs, one showing a boy in his late teens; the other, a considerably older man wearing astronaut's uniform.
   Though the frail, grey-haired woman watching the domestic comedy unfolding on the TV panel was not yet seventy, she looked much older. From time to time she chuckled appreciatively at some joke from the screen, but she kept glancing at the door as if expecting a visitor. And when she did so, she took a firmer grasp on the walking stick propped against her chair.
   Yet she was distracted by a moment of TV drama when the door finally opened, and she looked around with a guilty start as the little service trolley rolled into the room, followed closely by a uniformed nurse.
   'Time for lunch, Jessie,' called the nurse: 'We've got something very nice for you today.'
   'Don't want any lunch.'
   'It will make you feel a lot better.'
   'I won't eat until you tell me what it is.'
   'Why won't you eat it?'
   'I'm not hungry. Are you ever hungry?' she added slyly.
   The robot food trolley came to a halt beside the chair, and the transport covers opened up to reveal the dishes. Throughout, the nurse never touched anything, not even the controls on the trolley. She now stood motionless, with a rather fixed smile, looking at her difficult patient.
   In the monitor room fifty metres away, the medical technician said to the doctor: 'Now watch this.'
   Jessie's gnarled hand lifted the walking stick; then, with surprising speed, she swept it in a short arc toward the nurse's legs.
   The nurse took no notice whatsoever, even when the stick sliced right through her. Instead, she remarked soothingly, 'Now, doesn't that look nice? Eat it up, dear.'
   A cunning smile spread across Jessie's face, but she obeyed instructions. In a moment, she was eating heartily.
   'You see?' said the technician. 'She knows perfectly well what's going on. She's a lot brighter than she pretends to be, most of the time.'
   'And she's the first?'
   'Yes. All the others believe that really is Nurse Williams, bringing their meals.'
   'Well, I don't think it matters. Look how pleased she is, just because she's outsmarted us. She's eating her food, which is the purpose of the exercise. But we must warn the nurses – all of them, not just Williams.'
   'Why – oh, of course. The next time it may not be a hologram – and then think of the lawsuits we'll be facing from our battered staff.'

32 – Crystal Spring

   The Indians, and the Cajun settlers who had moved here from Louisiana, said that Crystal Spring was bottomless. That, of course, was nonsense, and surely even they could not believe it. One had only to put on a face mask and swim out a few strokes – and there, clearly visible, was the little cave from which the incredibly pure water flowed with the slender green weeds undulating around it. And peering up through them, the eyes of the Monster.
   Two dark circles, side by side – even though they never moved, what else could they be? That lurking presence gave an added excitement to every swim; one day the Monster would come rushing up from its lair, scattering the fish in its hunt for larger prey. Never would Bobby or David admit that nothing more dangerous than an abandoned, and doubtless stolen, bicycle lay half buried among the water weeds, a hundred metres down.
   That depth was hard to believe, even after line and sinker had established it beyond argument. Bobby, the older and better diver, had been perhaps a tenth of the way down, and had reported that the bottom looked just as far away as ever.
   But now the Crystal Spring was about to reveal its secrets; perhaps the legend of the Confederate treasure was true, despite the scorn of all the local historians. At the very least, they might endear themselves to the chief of police – always excellent policy – by recovering a few handguns deposited after recent crimes.
   The little air compressor that Bobby had found in the garage junk heap was now chugging healthily away, after their initial problems of starting it. Every few seconds it would cough and emit a cloud of blue smoke, but it showed no sign of stopping. 'And even if it does,' said Bobby, 'so what? If the girls in the Underwater Theatre can swim up from fifty metres without their air hoses, so can we. It's perfectly safe.'
   In that case, thought Dave fleetingly, why didn't we tell Ma what we were doing, and why did we wait until Dad had gone back to the Cape for the next shuttle launch? But he did not have any real qualms: Bobby always knew best. It must be wonderful to be seventeen, and to know everything. Though he wished he wouldn't spend quite so much time now with that stupid Betty Schultz. True, she was very pretty – but, dammit, she was a girl! It was only with the greatest difficulty that they had been able to get rid of her this morning.
   Dave was used to being a guinea pig; that was what younger brothers were for. He adjusted his face mask, put on his flippers, and slid into the crystalline water.
   Bobby handed him the air hose with the old scuba mouthpiece they had taped to it. Dave took a breath, and grimaced.
   'It tastes horrible.'
   'You'll get used to it. In you go – no deeper than that ledge. That's where I'll start adjusting the pressure valve so we don't waste too much air. Come up when I tug the hose.'
   Dave slid gently beneath the surface, and into wonderland. It was a peaceful, monochrome world, so different from the coral reefs of the Keys. There were none of the garish colours of the marine environment, where life – animal and vegetable – flaunted itself with all the hues of the rainbow. Here were only delicate shades of blue and green, and fish that looked like fish, not like butterflies.
   He flippered slowly down, dragging the hose behind him, pausing to drink from its stream of bubbles whenever he felt the need. The sensation of freedom was so wonderful that he almost forgot the horrible oily taste in his mouth. When he reached the ledge – actually an ancient, waterlogged tree trunk, so overgrown with weeds that it was unrecognizable – he sat down and looked around him.
   He could see right across the spring, to the green slopes at the far side of the flooded crater, at least a hundred metres away. There were not many fish around, but a small school went twinkling past like a shower of silver coins in the sunlight streaming down from above.
   There was also an old friend stationed, as usual, at the gap where the waters of the spring began their journey to the sea. A small alligator ('but large enough,' Bobby had once said cheerfully. 'He's bigger than I am.') was hanging vertically, without visible means of support, only his nose above the surface. They had never bothered him, and he had never bothered them.
   The air hose gave an impatient tug. Dave was happy to go; he had not realized how cold it could get at that hitherto unattainable depth – and he was also feeling distinctly sick. But the hot sunlight soon revived his spirits.
   'No problems,' said Bobby expansively. 'Just keep unscrewing the valve so the pressure gauge doesn't drop below the red line.'
   'How deep are you going?'
   'All the way, if I feel like it.'
   Dave did not take that seriously; they both knew about rapture of the depths and nitrogen narcosis. And in any case, the old garden hose was only thirty metres long. That would be plenty for this first experiment.
   As he had done so many times before, he watched with envious admiration as his beloved elder brother accepted a new challenge. Swimming as effortlessly as the fish around him, Bobby glided downward into that blue, mysterious universe. He turned once and pointed vigorously to the air hose, making it unmistakably clear that he needed an increased air flow.
   Despite the splitting headache that had suddenly come upon him, Dave remembered his duty. He hurried back to the ancient compressor, and opened the control valve to its deadly maximum – fifty parts per million of carbon monoxide.
   The last he saw of Bobby was that confidently descending, sunlight-dappled figure passing forever beyond his reach. The wax statue in the funeral parlour was a total stranger, who had nothing to do with Robert Bowman.

33 – Betty

   Why had he come here, returning like an unquiet ghost to the scene of ancient anguish? He had no idea; indeed, he had not been conscious of his destination, until the round eye of Crystal Spring had gazed up at him from the forest below.
   He was master of the world, yet he was paralysed by a sense of devastating grief he had not known for years. Time had healed the wound, as it always does; yet it seemed only yesterday that he had stood weeping beside the emerald mirror, seeing only the reflections of the surrounding cypresses with their burden of Spanish moss. What was happening to him?
   And now, still without deliberate volition, but as if swept by some gentle current, he was drifting northward, toward the state capital. He was looking for something; what it was, he would not know until he found it.
   No one, and no instrument, detected his passage. He was no longer radiating wastefully, but had almost mastered his control of energy, as once he had mastered lost though not forgotten limbs. He sank like a mist into the earthquakeproof vaults, until he found himself among billions of stored memories, and dazzling, flickering networks of electronic thoughts.
   This task was more complex than the triggering of a crude nuclear bomb, and took him a little longer. Before he found the information he was seeking, he made one trivial slip, but did not bother to correct it. No one ever understood why, the next month, three hundred Florida taxpayers, all of whose names began with F, received cheques for precisely one dollar. It cost many times the overpayment to straighten matters out, and the baffled computer engineers finally put the blame on a cosmic-ray shower. Which, on the whole, was not so very far from the truth.
   In a few milliseconds, he had moved from Tallahassee to 634 South Magnolia Street, Tampa. It was still the same address; he need not have wasted time looking it up.
   But then, he had never intended to look it up, until the very moment when he had done so.
   After three births and two abortions, Betty Fernandez (née Schultz) was still a beautiful woman. At the moment she was also a very thoughtful one; she was watching a TV programme that brought back memories, bitter and sweet.
   It was a News Special, triggered by the mysterious events of the preceding twelve hours, beginning with the warning that Leonov had beamed back from the moons of Jupiter. Something was heading for Earth; something had – harmlessly – detonated an orbiting nuclear bomb which no one had come forward to claim. That was all, but it was quite enough.
   The news commentators had dredged up all the old videotapes – and some of them really were tapes – going back to the once top-secret records showing the discovery of TMA-l on the Moon. For the fiftieth time, at least, she heard that eerie radio shriek as the monolith greeted the lunar dawn and hurled its message toward Jupiter. And once again she watched the familiar scenes and listened to the old interviews aboard Discovery.
   Why was she watching? It was all stored somewhere in the home archives (though she never played it back when José was around). Perhaps she was expecting some newsflash; she did not like to admit, even to herself, how much power the past still held over her emotions.
   And there was Dave, as she had expected. It was an old BBC interview, of which she knew almost every word. He was talking about Hal, trying to decide whether the computer was self-conscious or not.
   How young he looked – how different from those last blurred images from the doomed Discovery! And how much like Bobby as she remembered him.
   The image wavered as her eyes filled with tears. No – something was wrong with the set, or the channel. Both sound and image were behaving erratically.
   Dave's lips were moving, but she could hear nothing. Then his face seemed to dissolve, to melt into blocks of colour. It reformed, blurred again, and then was steady once more. But there was still no sound.
   Where had they got this picture! This was not Dave as a man, but as a boy – as she had known him first. He was looking out of the screen almost as if he could see her across the gulf of years.
   He smiled; his lips moved.
   'Hello, Betty,' he said.
   It was not hard to form the words, and to impose them on the currents pulsing in the audio circuits. The real difficulty was to slow down his thoughts to the glacial tempo of the human brain. And then to have to wait an eternity for the answer.
   Betty Fernandez was tough; she was also intelligent, and though she had been a housewife for a dozen years, she had not forgotten her training as an electronics serviceperson. This was just another of the medium's countless miracles of simulation; she would accept it now, and worry about the details later.
   'Dave,' she answered. 'Dave – is that really you?'
   'I am not sure,' replied the image on the screen, in a curiously toneless voice. 'But I remember Dave Bowman, and everything about him.'
   'Is he dead?'
   Now that was another difficult question.
   'His body – yes. But that is no longer important. All that Dave Bowman really was, is still part of me.'
   Betty crossed herself – that was a gesture she had learned from José – and whispered:
   'You mean – you're a spirit?'
   'I do not know a better word.'
   'Why have you returned?'
   'Ah! Betty – why indeed! I wish you could tell me.'
   Yet he knew one answer, for it was appearing on the TV screen. The divorce between body and mind was still far from complete, and not even the most complaisant of the cable networks would have transmitted the blatantly sexual images that were forming there now.
   Betty watched for a little while, sometimes smiling, sometimes shocked. Then she turned away, not through shame but sadness – regret for lost delights.
   'So it's not true,' she said, 'what they always told us about angels.'
   Am I an angel? he wondered. But at least he understood what he was doing there, swept back by the tides of sorrow and desire to a rendezvous with his past. The most powerful emotion he had ever known had been his passion for Betty; the elements of grief and guilt it contained only made it stronger.
   She had never told him if he was a better lover than Bobby; that was one question he had never asked, for that would have broken the spell. They had clung to the same illusion, sought in each other's arms (and how young he had been – still only seventeen when it had started, barely two years after the funeral!) a balm for the same wound.
   Of course, it could not last, but the experience had left him irrevocably changed. For more than a decade, all his autoerotic fantasies had centred upon Betty; he had never found another woman to compare with her, and long ago had realized that he never would. No one else was haunted by the same beloved ghost.
   The images of desire faded from the screen; for a moment, the regular programme broke through, with an incongruous shot of Leonov hanging above Io. Then Dave Bowman's face reappeared. He seemed to be losing control, for its lineaments were wildly unstable. Sometimes he would seem only ten years old – then twenty or thirty -then, incredibly, a wizened mummy whose wrinkled features were a parody of the man she had once known.
   'I have one more question before I go. Carlos – you always said he was Jose's son, and I always wondered. What was the truth?'
   Betty Fernandez stared for one long, last time into the eyes of the boy she had once loved (he was eighteen again, and for a moment she wished she could see his entire body, not merely his face).
   'He was your son, David,' she whispered.
   The image faded; the normal service resumed. When, almost an hour later, José Fernandez came quietly into the room, Betty was still staring at the screen.
   She did not turn around as he kissed her on the back of the neck.
   'You'll never believe this, José.'
   'Try me.'
   'I've just lied to a ghost.'

34 – Valediction

   When the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics published its controversial summary Fifty Years of UFOs in 1997, many critics pointed out that unidentified flying objects had been observed for centuries, and that Kenneth Arnold's 'Flying Saucer' sighting of 1947 had countless precedents. People had been seeing strange things in the sky since the dawn of history; but until the mid-twentieth century, UFOs were a random phenomenon of no general interest. After that date, they became a matter of public and scientific concern, and the basis for what could only be called religious beliefs.
   The reason was not far to seek; the arrival of the giant rocket and the dawn of the Space Age had turned men's minds to other worlds. Realization that the human race would soon be able to leave the planet of its birth prompted the inevitable questions: Where's everyone, and when may we expect visitors? There was also the hope, though it was seldom spelled out in as many words, that benevolent creatures from the stars might help mankind heal its numerous self-inflicted wounds and save it from future disasters.
   Any student of psychology could have predicted that so profound a need would be swiftly satisfied. During the last half of the twentieth century, there were literally thousands of reports of spacecraft sightings from every part of the globe. More than that, there were hundreds of reports of 'close encounters' – actual meetings with extraterrestrial visitors, frequently embellished by tales of celestial joyrides, abductions, and even honeymoons in space. The fact that, over and over again, these were demonstrated to be lies or hallucinations did nothing to deter the faithful. Men who had been shown cities on the far side of the Moon lost little credibility even when Orbiter surveys and Apollo revealed no artifacts of any kind; ladies who married Venusians were still believed when that planet, sadly, turned out to be hotter than molten lead.
   By the time the ALAA published its report no reputable scientist – even among those few who had once espoused the idea– believed that UFOs had any connection with extraterrestrial life or intelligence. Of course, it would never be possible to prove that; any one of those myriad sightings, over the last thousand years, might have been the real thing. But as time went by, and satellite cameras and radars scanning the entire heavens produced no concrete evidence, the general public lost interest in the idea. The cultists, of course, were not discouraged, but kept the faith with their newsletters and books, most of them regurgitating and embellishing old reports long after they had been discredited or exposed.
   When the discovery of the Tycho monolith – TMA-I – was finally announced, there was a chorus of 'I told you so's!' It could no longer be denied that there had been visitors to the Moon – and presumably to the Earth as well – a little matter of three million years ago. At once, UFOs infested the heavens again; though it was odd that the three independent national tracking systems, which could locate anything in space larger than a ballpoint pen, were still unable to find them.
   Rather quickly, the number of reports dropped down to the 'noise level' once more – the figure that would be expected, merely as a result of the many astronomical, meteorological, and aeronautical phenomena constantly occurring in the skies.
   But now it had started all over again. This time, there was no mistake; it was official. A genuine UFO was on its way to Earth.
   Sightings were reported within minutes of the warning from Leonov; the first close encounters were only a few hours later. A retired stockbroker, walking his bulldog on the Yorkshire Moors, was astonished when a disk-shaped craft landed beside him and the occupant – quite human, except for the pointed ears – asked the way to Downing Street. The contactee was so surprised that he was only able to wave his stick in the general direction of Whitehall; conclusive proof of the meeting was provided by the fact that the bulldog now refused to take his food.
   Although the stockbroker had no previous history of mental illness, even those who believed him had some difficulty in accepting the next report. This time it was a Basque shepherd on a traditional mission; he was greatly relieved when what he had feared to be border guards turned out to be a couple of cloaked men with piercing eyes, who wanted to know the way to the United Nations Headquarters.
   They spoke perfect Basque – an excruciatingly difficult tongue with no affinity to any other known language of mankind. Clearly, the space visitors were remarkable linguists, even if their geography was oddly deficient.
   So it went on, case after case. Very few of the contactees were actually lying or insane; most of them sincerely believed their own stories, and retained that belief even under hypnosis. And some were just victims of practical jokes or improbable accidents – like the unlucky amateur archaeologists who found the props that a celebrated science-fiction moviemaker had abandoned in the Tunisian desert almost four decades earlier.
   Yet only at the beginning – and at the very end – was any human being genuinely aware of his presence; and that was because he so desired it.
   The world was his to explore and examine as he pleased, without restraint or hindrance. No walls could keep him out, no secrets could be hidden from the senses he possessed. At first he believed that he was merely fulfilling old ambitions, by visiting the places he had never seen in that earlier existence. Not until much later did he realize that his lightning-like sallies across the face of the globe had a deeper purpose.
   In some subtle way, he was being used as a probe, sampling every aspect of human affairs. The control was so tenuous that he was barely conscious of it; he was rather like a hunting dog on a leash, allowed to make excursions of his own, yet nevertheless compelled to obey the overriding wishes of his master.
   The pyramids, the Grand Canyon, the moon-washed snows of Everest – these were choices of his own. So were some art galleries and concert halls; though he would certainly, on his own initiative, never have endured the whole of the Ring.
   Nor would he have visited so many factories, prisons, hospitals, a nasty little war in Asia, a racecourse, a complicated orgy in Beverly Hills, the Oval Room of the White House, the Kremlin archives, the Vatican Library, the sacred Black Stone of the Kaabah at Mecca.
   There were also experiences of which he had no clear memory, as if they had been censored – or he was being protected from them by some guardian angel. For example -What was he doing at the Leakey Memorial Museum, in Olduvai Gorge? He had no greater interest in the origin of Man than any other intelligent member of the species H. sapiens, and fossils meant nothing to him. Yet the famous skulls, guarded like crown jewels in their display cases, aroused strange echoes in his memory, and an excitement for which he was unable to account. There was a feeling of déja vu stronger than any he had ever known; the place should be familiar – but something was wrong. It was like a house to which one returns after many years, to find that all the furniture has been changed, the walls moved, and even the stairways rebuilt.
   It was bleak, hostile terrain, dry and parched. Where were the lush plains and the myriad fleet-footed herbivores that had roamed across them, three million years ago?
   Three million years. How had he known that?
   No answer came from the echoing silence into which he had thrown the question. But then he saw, once more looming before him, a familiar black rectangular shape. He approached, and a shadowy image appeared in its depths, like a reflection in a pool of ink.
   The sad and puzzled eyes that stared back from beneath that hairy, receding forehead looked beyond him into a future they could never see. For he was that future, a hundred thousand generations further down the stream of time.
   History had begun there; that at least he now understood. But how – and above all, why – were secrets still withheld from him?
   But there was one last duty, and that was hardest of all. He was still sufficiently human to put it off until the very end.
   Now what's she up to? the duty nurse asked herself, zooming the TV monitor onto the old lady. She's tried lots of tricks, but this is the first time I've seen her talking to her hearing aid, for goodness sake. I wonder what she's saying?
   The microphone was not sensitive enough to pick up the words, but that scarcely seemed to matter. Jessie Bowman had seldom looked so peaceful and content. Though her eyes were closed, her entire face was wreathed in an almost angelic smile while her lips continued to form whispered words.
   And then the watcher saw something that she tried hard to forget because to report it would instantly disqualify her in the nursing profession. Slowly and jerkily, the comb lying on the bedside table raised itself in the air as if lifted by clumsy, invisible fingers.
   On the first attempt, it missed; then, with obvious difficulty, it began to part the long silver strands, pausing sometimes to disentangle a knot.
   Jessie Bowman was not speaking now, but she continued to smile. The comb was moving with more assurance, and no longer in abrupt, uncertain jerks.
   How long it lasted the nurse could never be certain. Not until the comb was gently replaced on the table did she recover from her paralysis.
   Ten-year-old Dave Bowman had finished the chore which he always hated but which his mother loved. And a David Bowman who was now ageless had gained his first control of obdurate matter.
   Jessie Bowman was still smiling when the nurse finally came to investigate. She had been too scared to hurry; but it would have made no difference anyway.