4 – The Leopard

   The tools they had been programmed to use were simple enough, yet they could change this world and make the man-apes its masters. The most primitive was the hand-held stone, that multiplied manyfold the power of a blow. Then there was the bone club, that lengthened the reach and could provide a buffer against the fangs or claws of angry animals. With these weapons, the limitless food that roamed the savannas was theirs to take.
   But they needed other aids, for their teeth and nails could not readily dismember anything larger than a rabbit, Luckily, Nature had provided the perfect tools, requiring only the wit to pick them up; First there was a crude but very efficient knife or saw, of a model that would serve well for the next three million years. It was simply the lower jawbone of an antelope, with the teeth still in place; there would be no substantial improvement until the coming of steel. Then there was an awl or dagger in the form of a gazelle horn, and finally a scraping tool made from the complete jaw of almost any small animal.
   The stone club, the toothed saw, the horn dagger, the bone scraper – these were the marvelous inventions which the man-apes needed in order to survive. Soon they would recognize them for the symbols of power that they were, but many months must pass before their clumsy fingers had acquired the skill – or the will – to use them.
   Perhaps, given time, they might by their own efforts have come to the awesome and brilliant concept of using natural weapons as artificial tools. But the odds were all against them, and even now there were endless opportunities for failure in the ages that lay ahead.
   The man-apes had been given their first chance. There would be no second one; the future was, very literally, in their own hands.

   Moons waxed and waned; babies were born and sometimes lived; feeble, toothless thirty-year-olds died; the leopard took its toll in the night; the Others threatened daily across the river – and the tribe prospered. In the course of a single year, Moon-Watcher and his companions had changed almost beyond recognition.
   They had learned their lessons well; now they could handle all the tools that had been revealed to them. The very memory of hunger was fading from their minds; and though the warthogs were becoming shy, there were gazelles and antelopes and zebras in countless thousands on the plains. All these animals, and others, had fallen prey to the apprentice hunters.
   Now that they were no longer half-numbed with starvation, they had time both for leisure and for the first rudiments of thought. Their new way of life was now casually accepted, and they did not associate it in any way with the monolith still standing beside the trail to the river. If they had ever stopped to consider the matter, they might have boasted that they had brought about their improved status by their own efforts; in fact, they had already forgotten any other mode of existence.
   But no Utopia is perfect, and this one had two blemishes. The first was the marauding leopard, whose passion for man-apes seemed to have grown even stronger now that they were better nourished. The second was the tribe across the river; for somehow the Others had survived, and had stubbornly refused to die of starvation.
   The leopard problem was resolved partly by chance, partly owing to a serious – indeed almost fatal – error on Moon-Watcher's part. Yet at the time his idea had seemed such a brilliant one that he had danced with joy, and perhaps he could hardly be blamed for overlooking the consequences.
   The tribe still experienced occasional bad days, though these no longer threatened its very survival. Toward dusk, it had failed to make a kill; the home caves were already in sight as Moon-Watcher led his tired and disgruntled companions back to shelter. And there, on their very threshold, they found one of nature's rare bonanzas. A full-grown antelope was lying by the trail. Its foreleg was broken, but it still had plenty of fight in it, and the circling jackals gave its daggerlike horns a respectful berth. They could afford to wait; they knew that they had only to bide their time. But they had forgotten about the competition, and retreated with angry snarls when the man-apes arrived.
   They too circled warily, keeping beyond the range of those dangerous horns; then they moved to the attack with clubs and stones.
   It was not a very effective or coordinated attack; by the time the wretched beast had been given its quietus the light had almost gone – and the jackals were regaining their courage. Moon-Watcher, torn between fear and hunger, slowly realized that all this effort might have been in vain. It was too dangerous to stay here any longer.
   Then, not for the first or the last time, he proved himself a genius. With an immense effort of imagination, he visualized the dead antelope – in the safety of his own cave. He began to drag it toward the cliff face; presently, the others understood his intentions, and began to help him.
   If he had known how difficult the task would be, he would never have attempted it. Only his great strength, and the agility inherited from his arboreal ancestors allowed him to haul the carcass up the steep slope. Several times, weeping with frustration, he almost abandoned his prize, but a stubbornness as deep-seated as his hunger drove him on. Sometimes the others helped him, sometimes they hindered; more often, they merely got in the way. But finally it was done; the battered antelope was dragged over the lip of the cave, as the last hues of sunlight faded from the sky; and the feasting began.
   Hours later, gorged to repletion, Moon-Watcher awoke. Not knowing why, he sat up in the darkness among the sprawled bodies of his equally satiated companions, and strained his ears into the night.
   There was no sound except the heavy breathing around him; the whole world seemed asleep. The rocks beyond the mouth of the cave were pale as bone in the brilliant light from the moon, now high overhead. Any thought of danger seemed infinitely remote.
   Then, from a long way off, came the sound of a falling pebble. Fearful, yet inquisitive, Moon-Watcher crawled out onto the ledge of the cave and peered down the face of the cliff.
   What he saw left him so paralyzed with fright that for long seconds he was unable to move. Only twenty feet below, two gleaming golden eyes were staring straight up at him; they held him so hypnotized with fear that he was scarcely aware of the lithe, streaked body behind them, flowing smoothly and silently from rock to rock. Never before had the leopard climbed so high. It had ignored the lower caves, though it must have been well aware of their inhabitants. Now it was after other game; it was following the spoor of blood, up the moon-washed face of the cliff.
   Seconds later, the night was made hideous by the shrieks of alarm from the man-apes in the cave above. The leopard gave a snarl of fury as it realized that it had lost the element of surprise. But it did not check its advance, for it knew that it had nothing to fear.
   It reached the ledge, and rested for a moment on the narrow open space. The scent of blood was all around, filling its fierce and tiny mind with one overwhelming desire. Without hesitation, it padded silently into the cave.
   And here it made its first error, for as it moved out of the moonlight even its superbly night-adapted eyes were at a momentary disadvantage. The man-apes could see it, partly silhouetted against the opening of the cave, more clearly than it could see them. They were terrified, but they were no longer utterly helpless.
   Snarling and lashing its tail in arrogant confidence, the leopard advanced in search of the tender food that it craved. Had it met its prey in the open, it would have had no problems; but now that the man-apes were trapped, desperation had given them the courage to attempt the impossible. And for the first time they had the means to achieve it.
   The leopard knew that something was wrong when it felt a stunning blow on its head. It lashed out with its forepaw, and heard a shriek of agony as its claws slashed through soft flesh. Then there was a piercing pain as something sharp drove into its flanks – once, twice, and yet a third time. It whirled around to strike at the shadows screaming and dancing on all sides.
   Again there was a violent blow as something caught it across the snout. Its teeth snapped on a white, moving blur – only to grate uselesssly upon dead bone. And now – in a final, unbelievable indignity – its tail was being dragged out by the roots.
   It whirled around, throwing its insanely daring tormentor against the wall of the cave. Yet whatever it did, it could not escape the rain of blows, inflicted on it by crude weapons wielded by clumsy but powerful hands. Its snarls ran the gamut from pain to alarm, from alarm to outright terror. The implacable hunter was now the victim, and was desperately trying to retreat.
   And then it made its second mistake, for in its surprise and fright it had forgotten where it was. Or perhaps it had been dazed or blinded by the blows rained on its head; whatever the case, it bolted abruptly from the cave. There was a horrible screech as it went toppling out into space. Ages later, it seemed, there came a thud as it crashed into an outcropping halfway down the cliff; thereafter, the only sound was the sliding of loose stones, which quickly died away into the night.
   For a long time, intoxicated by victory, Moon-Watcher stood dancing and gibbering at the entrance of the cave. He rightly sensed that his whole world had changed and that he was no longer a powerless victim of the forces around him.
   Then he went back into the cave and, for the first time in his life, had an unbroken night's sleep.

   In the morning, they I found the body of the leopard at the foot of the cliff. Even in death, it was some time before anyone dared to approach the vanquished monster, but presently they closed in upon it, with their bone knives and saws.
   It was very hard work, and they did no hunting that day.

5 – Encounter in the Dawn

   As he led the tribe down to the river in the dim light of dawn, Moon-Watcher paused uncertainly at a familiar spot. Something, he knew, was missing; but what it was, he could not remember. He wasted no mental effort on the problem, for this morning he had more important matters on his mind.
   Like thunder and lightning and clouds and eclipses, the great block of crystal had departed as mysteriously as it had come. Having vanished into the nonexistent past, it never troubled Moon-Watcher's thoughts again.
   He would never know what it had done to him; and none of his companions wondered, as they gathered round him in the morning mist, why he had paused for a moment here on the way to the river.

   From their side of the stream, in the never-violated safety of their own territory, the Others first saw Moon-Watcher and a dozen males of his tribe as a moving frieze against the dawn sky. At once they began to scream their daily challenge; but this time, there was no answer.

   Steadily, purposefully – above all, silently – Moon-Watcher and his band descended the low hillock that overlooked the river; and as they approached, the Others became suddenly quiet. Their ritual rage ebbed away, to be replaced by a mounting fear. They were dimly aware that something had happened, and that this encounter was unlike all those that had ever gone before.
   The bone clubs and knives that Moon-Watcher's group carried did not alarm them, for they did not understand their purpose. They only knew that their rivals' movements were now imbued with determination, and with menace.
   The party stopped at the water's edge, and for a moment the Others' courage revived. Led by One-Ear, they halfheartedly resumed their battle chant. It lasted only a few seconds before a vision of terror struck then dumb.
   Moon-Watcher raised his arms high into the air, revealing the burden that until now had been concealed by the hirsute bodies of his companions. He was holding a stout branch, and impaled upon it was the bloody head of the leopard. The mouth had been jammed open with a stick, and the great fangs gleamed a ghastly white in the first rays of the rising sun.
   Most of the Others were too paralyzed with fright to move; but some began a slow, stumbling retreat. That was all the encouragement that Moon-Watcher needed. Still holding the mangled trophy above his head, he started to cross the stream. After a moment's hesitation, his companions splashed after him.
   When Moon-Watcher reached the far side, One-Ear was still standing his ground. Perhaps he was too brave or too stupid to run; perhaps he could not really believe that this outrage was actually happening. Coward or hero, it made no difference in the end, as the frozen snarl of death came crashing down upon his uncomprehending head.
   Shrieking with fright, the Others scattered into the bush; but presently they would return, and soon they would forget their lost leader.
   For a few seconds Moon-Watcher stood uncertainly above his new victim, trying to grasp the strange and wonderful fact that the dead leopard could kill again. Now he was master of the world, and he was not quite sure what to do next.
   But he would thinkof something.

6 – Ascent of Man

   A new animal was abroad on the planet, spreading slowly out from the African heartland. It was still so rare that a hasty census might have overlooked it, among the teeming billions of creatures roving over land and sea. There was no evidence, as yet, that it would prosper or even survive: on this world where so many mightier beasts had passed away, its fate still wavered in the balance.
   In the hundred thousand years since the crystals had descended upon Africa, the man-apes had invented nothing. But they had started to change, and had developed skills which no other animal possessed. Their bone clubs had increased their reach and multiplied their strength; they were no longer defenseless against the predators with whom they had to compete. The smaller carnivores they could drive away from their own kills; the larger ones they could at least discourage, and sometimes put to flight.
   Their massive teeth were growing smaller, for they were no longer essential. The sharp-edged stones that could be used to dig out roots, or to cut and saw through tough flesh or fiber, had begun to replace them, with immeasurable consequences. No longer were the man-apes faced with starvation when their teeth became damaged or worn; even the crudest tools could add many years to their lives. And as their fangs diminished, the shape of their face started to alter; the snout receded, the massive jaw became more delicate, the mouth able to make more subtle sounds. Speech was still a million years away, but the first steps toward it had been taken.
   And then the world began to change. In four great waves, with two hundred thousand years between their crests, the Ice Ages swept by, leaving their mark on all the globe. Outside the tropics, the glaciers slew those who had prematurely left theft ancestral home; and everywhere they winnowed out the creatures who could not adapt.
   When the ice had passed, so had much of the planet's early life – including the man-apes. But, unlike so many others, they had left descendants; they had not merely become extinct – they had been transformed. The toolmakers had been remade by their own tools.
   For in using clubs and flints, their hands had developed a dexterity found nowhere else in the animal kingdom, permitting them to make still better tools, which in turn had developed their limbs and brains yet further. It was an accelerating, cumulative process; and at its end was Man.
   The first true men had tools and weapons only a little better than those of their ancestors a million years earlier, but they could use them with far greater skill.
   And somewhere in the shadowy centuries that had gone before they had invented the most essential tool of all, though it could be neither seen nor touched. They had learned to speak, and so had won their first great victory over Time. Now the knowledge of one generation could be handed on to the next, so that each age could profit from those that had gone before.
   Unlike the animals, who knew only the present, Man had acquired a past; and he was beginning to grope toward a future.
   He was also learning to harness the forces of nature; with the taming of fire, he had laid the foundations of technology and left his animal origins far behind. Stone gave way to bronze, and then to iron. Hunting was succeeded by agriculture. The tribe grew into the village, the village into the town. Speech became eternal, thanks to certain marks on stone and clay and papyrus. Presently he invented philosophy, and religion. And he peopled the sky, not altogether inaccurately, with gods.
   As his body became more and more defenseless, so his means of offense became steadily more frightful. With stone and bronze and iron and steel he had run the gamut of everything that could pierce and slash, and quite early in time he had learned how to strike down his victims from a distance. The spear, the bow, the gun, and finally the guided missile had given him weapons of infinite range and all but infinite power.
   Without those weapons, often though he had used them against himself, Man would never have conquered his world. Into them he had put his heart and soul, and for ages they had served him well.
   But now, as long as they existed, he was living on borrowed time.

II – TMA-1

7 – Special Flight

   No matter how many times you left Earth, Dr. Heywood Floyd told himself, the excitement never really palled. He had been to Mars once, to the Moon three times, and to the various space stations more often than he could remember. Yet as the moment of takeoff approached, he was conscious of a rising tension, a feeling of wonder and awe – yes; and of nervousness – which put him on the same level as any Earthlubber about to receive his first baptism of space.
   The jet that had rushed him here from Washington, after that midnight briefing with the President, was now dropping down toward one of the most familiar, yet most exciting, landscapes in all the world. There lay the first two generations of the Space Age, spanning twenty miles of the Florida coast to the south, outlined by winking red warning lights, were the giant gantries of the Saturns and Neptunes, that had set men on the path to the planets, and had now passed into history. Near the horizon, a gleaming silver tower bathed in floodlights, stood the last of the Saturn V's, for almost twenty years a national monument and place of pilgrimage. Not far away, looming against the sky like a man-made mountain, was the incredible bulk of the Vehicle Assembly Building, still the largest single structure on Earth.
   But these things now belonged to the past, and he was flying toward the future. As they banked, Dr. Floyd could see below him a maze of buildings, then a great airstrip, then a broad, dead-straight scar across the fiat Florida landscape – the multiple rails of a giant launch-lug track. At its end, surrounded by vehicles and gantries, a spaceplane lay gleaming in a pool of light, being prepared for its leap to the stars. In a sudden failure of perspective, brought on by his swift changes of speed and height, it seemed to Floyd that he was looking down on a small silver moth, caught in the beam of a flashlight.
   Then the tiny, scurrying figures on the ground brought home to him the real size of the spacecraft; it must have been two hundred feet across the narrow V of its wings.
   And that enormous vehicle, Floyd told himself with some incredulity – yet also with some pride – is waiting for me. As far as he knew, it was the first time that an entire mission had been set up to take a single man to the Moon.
   Though, it was two o'clock in the morning, a group of reporters and cameramen intercepted him on his way to the floodlit Orion III spacecraft. He knew several of them by sight, for as Chairman of the National Council of Astronautics, the news conference was part of his way of life. This was neither the time nor the place for one, and he had nothing to say; but it was important not to offend the gentlemen of the communications media.
   "Dr. Floyd? I'm Jim Forster of Associated News. Could you give us a few words about this flight of yours?"
   "I'm very sorry – I can't say anything."
   "But you did meet with the President earlier this evening?" asked a familiar voice.
   "Oh – hello, Mike. I'm afraid you've been dragged out of bed for nothing. Definitely no comment."
   "Can you at least confirm or deny that some kind of epidemic has broken out on the Moon?" a TV reporter asked, managing to jog alongside and keep Floyd properly framed in his miniature TV camera.
   "Sorry," said Floyd, shaking his head.
   "What about the quarantine?" asked another reporter. "How long will it be kept on?"
   "Still no comment."
   "Dr. Floyd," demanded a very short and determined lady of the press, "what possible justification can there be for this total blackout of news from the Moon? Has it anything to do with the political situation?"
   "What political situation?" Floyd asked dryly. There was a sprinkle of laughter, and someone called, "Have a good trip, Doctor!" as he made his way into the sanctuary of the boarding gantry.
   As long, as he could remember, it had been not a "situation" so much as a permanent crisis. Since the 1970s, the world had been dominated by two problems which, ironically, tended to cancel each other out.
   Though birth control was cheap, reliable, and endorsed by all the main religions, it had come too late; the population of the world was now six billion – a third of them in the Chinese Empire. Laws had even been passed in some authoritarian societies limiting families to two children, but their enforcement had proved impracticable. As a result, food was short in every country; even the United States had meatless days, and widespread famine was predicted within fifteen years, despite heroic efforts to farm the sea and to develop synthetic foods.
   With the need for international cooperation more urgent than ever, there were still as many frontiers as in any earlier age. In a million years, the human race had lost few of its aggressive instincts; along symbolic lines visible only to politicians, the thirty-eight nuclear powers watched one another with belligerent anxiety. Among them, they possessed sufficient megatonnage to remove the entire surface crust of the planet. Although there had been – miraculously – no use of atomic weapons, this situation could hardly last forever.
   And now, for their own inscrutable reasons, the Chinese were offering to the smallest have-not nations a complete nuclear capability of fifty warheads and delivery systems. The cost was under $200,000,000, and easy terms could be arranged.
   Perhaps they were only trying to shore up their sagging economy, by turning obsolete weapons systems into hard cash, as some observers had suggested. Or perhaps they had discovered methods of warfare so advanced that they no longer had need of such toys; there had been talk of radio-hypnosis from satellite transmitters, compulsion viruses, and blackmail by synthetic diseases for which they alone possessed the antidote.
   These charming ideas were almost certainly propaganda or pure fantasy, but it was not safe to discount any of them. Every time Floyd took off from Earth, he wondered if it would still be there when the time came to return.
   The trim stewardess greeted him as he entered the cabin. "Good morning, Dr. Floyd. I'm Miss Simmons – I'd like to welcome you aboard on behalf of Captain Tynes and our copilot, First Officer Ballard."
   "Thank you," said Floyd with a smile, wondering why stewardesses always had to sound like robot tour guides.
   "Takeoff's in five minutes," she said, gesturing into the empty twenty-passenger cabin. "You can take any seat you want, but Captain Tynes recommends the forward window seat on the left, if you want to watch the docking operations."
   "I'll do that," he answered, moving toward the preferred seat. The stewardess fussed over him awhile and then moved to her cubicle at the rear of the cabin.
   Floyd settled down in his seat, adjusted the safety harness around waist and shoulders, and strapped his briefcase to the adjacent seat. A moment later, the loudspeaker came on with a soft popping noise. "Good morning," said Miss Simmons' voice. "This is Special Flight 3, Kennedy to Space Station One."
   She was determined, it seemed, to go through the full routine for her solitary passenger, and Floyd could not resist a smile as she continued inexorably.
   "Our transit time will be fifty-five minutes. Maximum acceleration will be two-gee, and we will be weightless for thirty minutes. Please do not leave your seat until the safety sign is lit."
   Floyd looked over his shoulder and called, "Thank you." He caught a glimpse of a slightly embarrassed but charming smile.
   He leaned back into his seat and relaxed. This trip, he calculated, would cost the taxpayers slightly over a million dollars. If it was not justified, he would be out of his job; but he could always go back to the university and to his interrupted studies of planetary formation.
   "Auto-countdown procedures all Go," the captain's voice said over the speaker with the soothing singsong used in RT chat. "Lift-off in one minute."
   As always, it seemed more like an hour. Floyd became acutely aware of the gigantic forces coiled up around him, waiting to be released. In the fuel tanks of the two spacecraft, and in the power storage system of the launching track, was pent up the energy of a nuclear bomb. And it would all be used to take him a mere two hundred miles from Earth.
   There was none of the old-fashioned FIVE-FOIJR-THREE-TWO-ONE-ZERO business, so tough on the human nervous system.
   "Launching in fifteen seconds. You will be more comfortable if you start breathing deeply."
   That was good psychology, and good physiology.
   Floyd felt himself well charged with oxygen, and ready to tackle anything, when the launching track began to sling its thousand-ton payload out over the Atlantic.
   It was hard to tell when they lifted from the track and became airborne, but when the roar of the rockets suddenly doubled its fury, and Floyd found himself sinking deeper and deeper into the cushions of his seat, he knew that the first-stage engines had taken over. He wished he could look out of the window, but it was an effort even to turn his head, Yet there was no discomfort; indeed, the pressure of acceleration and the overwhelming thunder of the motors produced an extraordinary euphoria. His ears ringing, the blood pounding in his veins, Floyd felt more alive than he had for years. He was young again, he wanted to sing aloud – which was certainly safe, for no one could possibly hear him.
   The mood passed swiftly, as he suddenly realized that he was leaving Earth, and everything he had ever loved. Down there were his three children, motherless since his wife had taken that fatal flight to Europe ten years ago. (Ten years? Impossible! Yet it was so...) Perhaps, for their sake, he should have remarried.
   He had almost lost sense of time when the pressure and the noise abruptly slackened, and the cabin speaker announced: "Preparing to separate from lower stage. Here we go."
   There was a slight jolt; and suddenly Floyd recalled a quotation of Leonardo da Vinci's which he had once seen displayed in a NASA office:

   The Great Bird will take its flight on the back of the great bird, bringing glory to the nest where it was born.

   Well, the Great Bird was flying now, beyond all the dreams of da Vinci, and its exhausted companion was winging back to earth. In a ten-thousand-mile arc, the empty lower stage would glide down into the atmosphere, trading speed for distance as it homed on Kennedy. In a few hours, serviced and refueled, it would be ready again to lift another companion toward the shining silence with it could never reach.
   Now, thought Floyd, we are on our own, more than halfway to orbit. When the acceleration came on again, as the upper stage rockets fired, the thrust was much more gentle: indeed, he felt no more than normal gravity. But it would have been impossible to walk, since "Up" was straight toward the front of the cabin. If he had been foolish enough to leave his seat, he would have crashed at once against the rear wall.
   This effect was a little disconcerting, for it seemed that the ship was standing on its tail. To Floyd, who was at the very front of the cabin, all the seats appeared to be fixed on a wall topping vertically beneath him. He was doing his best to ignore this uncomfortable illusion when dawn exploded outside the ship.
   In seconds, they shot through veils of crimson and pink and gold and blue into the piercing white of day.
   Though the windows were heavily tinted to reduce the glare, the probing beams of sunlight that now slowly swept across the cabin left Floyd half-blinded for several minutes. He was in space, yet there was no question of being able to see the stars.
   He shielded his eyes with his hands and tried to peer through the window beside him. Out there the swept-back wing of the ship was blazing like white-hot metal in the reflected sunlight; there was utter darkness all around it, and that darkness must be full of stars – but it was impossible to see them.
   Weight was slowly ebbing; the rockets were being throttled back as the ship eased itself into orbit. The thunder of the engines dropped to a muted roar, then a gentle hiss, then died into silence. If it had not been for the restraining straps, Floyd would have floated out of his seat; his stomach felt as if it was going to do so anyway. He hoped that the pills he had been given half an hour and ten thousand miles ago would perform as per specifications. He had been spacesick just once in his career, and that was much too often.
   The pilot's voice was firm and confident as it came over the cabin speaker. "Please observe all Zero-gee regulations. We will be docking at Space Station One in forty-five minutes."
   The stewardess came walking up the narrow corridor to the right of the closely spaced seats. There was a slight buoyancy about her steps, and her feet came away from the floor reluctantly as if entangled in glue. She was keeping to the bright yellow band of Velcro carpeting that ran the full length of the floor – and of the ceiling. The carpet, and the soles of her sandals, were covered with myriads of tiny hooks, so that they clung together like burrs. This trick of walking in free fall was immensely reassuring to disoriented passengers.
   "Would you like some coffee or tea, Dr. Floyd?" she asked cheerfully.
   "No thank you," he smiled. He always felt like a baby when he had to suck at one of those plastic drinking tubes.
   The stewardess was still hovering anxiously around him as he popped open his briefcase and prepared to remove his papers.
   "Dr. Floyd, may I ask you a question?"
   "Certainly," he answered, looking up over his glasses. "My fiancé is a geologist at Clavius," said Miss Simmons, measuring her words carefully, "and I haven't heard from him for over a week."
   "I'm sorry to hear that; maybe he's away from his base, and out of touch."
   She shook her head. "He always tells me when that's going to happen. And you can imagine how worried I am – with all these rumors. Is it really true about an epidemic on the Moon?"
   "If it is, there's no cause for alarm.. Remember, there was a quarantine back in '98, over that mutated flu virus. A lot of people were sick – but no one died, And that's really all I can say," he concluded firmly.
   Miss Simmons smiled pleasantly and straightened up. "Well, thank you anyway, Doctor. I'm sorry to have bothered you."
   "No bother at all," he said gallantly, but not very accurately. Then he buried himself in his endless technical reports, in a desperate last-minute assault on the usual backlog;
   He would have no time for reading when he got to the Moon.

8 – Orbital Rendezvous

   Half an hour later the pilot announced: "We make contact in ten minutes. Please check your seat harness."
   Floyd obeyed, and put away his papers. It was asking for trouble to read during the celestial juggling act which took place during the last 300 miles; best to close one's eyes and relax while the spacecraft was nudged back and forth with brief bursts of rocket power.
   A few minutes later he caught his first glimpse of Space Station One, only a few miles away. The sunlight glinted and sparkled from the polished metal surfaces of the slowly revolving, three-hundred-yard-diameter disk. Not far away, drifting in the same orbit, was a sweptback Titov-V spaceplane, and close to that an almost spherical Aries-1B, the workhorse of space, with the four stubby legs of its lunar-landing shock absorbers jutting from one side.
   The Orion III spacecraft was descending from a higher orbit, which brought the Earth into spectacular view behind the Station. From his altitude of 200 miles, Floyd could see much of Africa and the Atlantic Ocean. There was considerable cloud cover, but he could still detect the blue-green outlines of the Gold Coast.
   The central axis of the Space Station, with its docking arms extended, was now slowly swimming toward them. Unlike the structure from which it sprang, it was not rotating – or, rather, it was running in reverse at a rate which exactly countered the Station's own spin. Thus a visiting spacecraft could be coupled to it, for the transfer of personnel or cargo, without being whirled disastrously around.
   With the softest of thuds, ship and Station made contact. There were metallic, scratching noises from outside, then the brief hissing of air as pressures equalized.
   A few seconds later the airlock door opened, and a man wearing the light, close-fitting slacks and short-sleeved shirt which was almost the uniform of Space Station personnel came into the cabin.
   "Pleased to meet you, Dr. Floyd. I'm Nick Miller, Station Security; I'm to look after you until the shuttle leaves."
   They shook hands, then Floyd smiled at the stewardess and said: "Please give my compliments to Captain Tynes, and thank him for the smooth ride. Perhaps I'll see you on the way home."
   Very cautiously – it was more than a year since he had last been weightless and it would be some time before he regained his spacelegs – he hauled himself hand over hand through the airlock and into the large, circular chamber at the axis of the Space Station. It was a heavily padded room, its walls covered with recessed handholds; Floyd gripped one of these firmly while the whole chamber started to rotate, until it matched the spin of the Station.
   As it gained speed, faint and ghostly gravitational fingers began to clutch at him, and he drifted slowly toward the circular wall. Now he was standing, swaying back and forth gently like seaweed in the surge of the tide, on what had magically become a curving floor. The centrifugal force of the Station's spin had taken hold of him; it was very feeble here, so near the axis, but would increase steadily as he moved outward.
   From the central transit chamber he followed Miller down a curving stair. At first his weight was so slight that he had almost to force himself downward by holding on to the handrail. Not until he reached the passenger lounge, on the outer skin of the great revolving disk, had he acquired enough weight to move around almost normally.
   The lounge had been redecorated since his last visit, and had acquired several new facilities. Besides the usual chairs, small tables, restaurant, and post office there were now a barber shop, drugstore, movie theater and a souvenir shop selling photographs and slides of lunar and planetary landscapes, guaranteed genuine pieces of Luniks, Rangers, and Surveyors, all neatly mounted in plastic, and exorbitantly priced.
   "Can I get you anything while we're waiting?" Miller asked. "We board in about thirty minutes?'
   "I could do with a cup of black coffee – two lumps – and I'd like to call Earth."
   "Right, Doctor – I'll get the coffee – the phones are over there."
   The picturesque booths were only a few yards from a barrier with two entrances labeled WELCOME TO THE U.S. SECTION and WELCOME TO THE SOVIET SECTION.
   Beneath these were notices which read, in English, Russian, and Chinese, French, German, and Spanish.

   PLEASE HAVE READY YOUR:
   Passport
   Visa
   Medical Certificate
   Transportation Permit
   Weight Declaration

   There was a rather pleasant symbolism about the fact that as soon as they had passed through the barriers, in either direction, passengers were free to mix again. The division was purely for administrative purposes.
   Floyd, after checking that the Area Code for the United States was still 81, punched his twelve-digit home number, dropped his plastic all-purpose credit card into the pay slot, and was through in thirty seconds.
   Washington was still sleeping, for it was several hours to dawn, but he would not disturb anyone. His housekeeper would get the message from the recorder as soon as she awoke.
   "Miss Flemming – this is Dr. Floyd. Sorry I had to leave in such a hurry. Would you please call my office and ask them to collect the car – it's at Dulles Airport and the key is with Mr. Bailey, Senior Flight Control Officer. Next, will you call the Chevy Chase Country Club and leave a message for the secretary. I definitely won't be able to play in the tennis tournament next weekend. Give my apologies – I'm afraid they were counting on me. Then call Downtown Electronies and tell them that if the video in my study isn't fixed by – oh, Wednesday – they can take the damn thing back." He paused for breath, and tried to think of any other crises or problems that might arise during the days ahead.
   "If you run short of cash, speak to the office; they can get urgent messages to me, but I may be too busy to answer. Give my love to the children, and say I'll be back as soon as I can. Oh, hell – here's someone I don't want to see – I'll call from the Moon if I can – good-bye."
   Floyd tried to duck out of the booth, but it was too late; he had already been spotted. Bearing down on him through the Soviet Section exit was Dr. Dimitri Moisevitch, of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Science. Dimitri was one of Floyd's best friends; and for that very reason, he was the last person he wished to talk to, here and now.

9 – Moon Shuttle

   The Russian astronomer was tall, slender, and blond, and his unlined face belied his fifty-five years – the last ten of which had been spent building up the giant radio observatory on the far side of the Moon, where two thousand miles of solid rock would shield it from the eletronic racket of Earth.
   "Why, Heywood," he said, shaking hands firmly. "It's a small universe... How are you – and your charming children?"
   "We're fine," Floyd replied warmly, but with a slightly distracted air. "We often talk about the wonderful time you gave us last summer." He was sorry he could not sound more sincere; they really had enjoyed a week's vacation in Odessa with Dimitri during one of the Russian's visits to Earth.
   "And you – I suppose you're on your way up?" Dimitri inquired.
   "Er, yes – my flight leaves in half an hour," answered Floyd. "Do you know Mr. Miller?"
   The Security Officer had now approached, and was standing at a respectful distance holding a plastic cup full of coffee.
   "Of course. But please put that down, Mr. Miller. This is Dr. Floyd's last chance to have a civilized drink – let's not waste it. No – I insist."
   They followed Dimitri out of the main lounge into the observation section, and soon were sitting at a table under a dim light watching the moving panorama of the stars. Space Station One revolved once a minute, and the centrifugal force generated by this slow spin produced an artificial gravity equal to the Moon's. This, it had been discovered, was a good compromise between Earth gravity and no gravity at all; moreover, it gave moon-bound passengers a chance to become acclimatized.
   Outside the almost invisible windows, Earth and stars marched in a silent procession. At the moment, this side of the Station was tilted away from the sun; otherwise, it would have been impossible to look out, for the lounge would have been blasted with light. Even as it was, the glare of the Earth, filling half the sky, drowned all but the brighter stars.
   But Earth was waning, as the Station orbited toward the night side of the planet; in a few minutes it would be a huge black disk, spangled with the lights of cities. And then the sky would belong to the stars.
   "Now," said Dimitri, after he had swiftly downed his first drink and was toying with the second, "what's all this about an epidemic in the U.S. Sector? I wanted to go there on this trip. 'No, Professor,' they told me. 'We're very sorry, but there's a strict quarantine until further notice.' I pulled all the strings I could; It was no use. Now you tell me what's happening."
   Floyd groaned inwardly. Here we go again, he said. The sooner I'm on that shuttle, headed for the Moon, the happier I'll be.
   "The – ah – quarantine is purely a safety precaution," he said cautiously. 'We're not even sure it's really necessary, but we don't believe in taking chances."
   "But what is the disease – what are the symptoms? Could it be extraterrestrial? Do you want any help from our medical services?"
   "I'm sorry, Dimitri – we've been asked not to say anything at the moment. Thanks for the offer, but we can handle the situation."
   "Hmm," said Moisevitch, obviously quite unconvinced. "Seems odd to me that you, an astronomer, should be sent up to the Moon to look into an epidemic."
   "I'm only an ex-astronomer; it's years since I did any real research. Now I'm a scientific expert; that means I know nothing about absolutely everything."
   "Then do you know what TMA-1 means?"
   Miller seemed about to choke on his drink, but Floyd was made of sterner stuff. He looked his old friend straight in the eye, and said calmly: "TMA-1? What an odd expression. Where did you hear it?"
   "Never mind," retorted the Russian. "You can't fool me. But if you've run into something you can't handle, I hope you don't leave it until too late before you yell for help."
   Miller looked meaningfully at his watch.
   "Due to board in five minutes, Dr. Floyd," he said. "I think we'd better get moving."
   Though he knew that they still had a good twenty minutes, Floyd got up with haste. Too much haste, for he had forgotten the one-sixth of a gravity. He grabbed the table just in time to prevent a takeoff.
   "It was fine meeting you, Dimitri," he said, not quite accurately. "Hope you have a good trip down to Earth – I'll give you a call as soon as I'm back."
   As they left the lounge, and checked through the U.S. transit barrier, Floyd remarked: "Phew – that was close. Thanks for rescuing me."
   "You know, Doctor," said the Security Officer, "I hope he isn't right."
   "Right about what?"
   "About us running into something we can't handle."
   "That," Floyd answered with determination, "is what I intend to find out."
   Forty-five minutes later, the Aries-lB lunar carrier pulled away from the Station. There was none of the power and fury of a takeoff from Earth – only an almost inaudible, far-off whistling as the low-thrust plasma jets blasted their electrified streams into space. The gentle push lasted for more than fifteen minutes, and the mild acceleration would not have prevented anyone from moving around the cabin. But when it was over, the ship was no longer bound to Earth, as it had been while it still accompanied the Station. It had broken the bonds of gravity and was now a free and independent planet, circling the sun in an orbit of its own.
   The cabin Floyd now had all to himself had been designed for thirty passengers. It was strange, and rather lonely, to see all the empty seats around him, and to have the undivided attention of the steward and stewardess – not to mention pilot, copilot, and two engineers. He doubted that any man in history had ever received such exclusive service, and it was most unlikely that anyone would do so in the future. He recalled the cynical remark of one of the less reputable pontiffs: "Now that we have the papacy, let us enjoy it." Well, he would enjoy this tip, and the euphoria of weightlessness. With the loss of gravity he had – at least for a while – shed most of his cares. Someone had once said that you could be terrified in space, but you could not be worried there. It was perfectly true.
   The stewards, it appeared, were determined to make him eat for the whole twenty-five hours of the trip, and he was continually fending off unwanted meals. Eating in zero gravity was no real problem, contrary to the dark forebodings of the early astronauts. He sat at an ordinary table, to which the plates were clipped, as aboard ship in a rough sea. All the courses had some element of stickiness, so that they would not take off and go wandering round the cabin. Thus a chop would be glued to the plate by a thick sauce, and a salad kept under control by an adhesive dressing. With a little skill and care there were few items that could not be tackled safely; the only things banned were hot soups and excessively crumbly pastries. Drinks of course, were a different matter; all liquids simply had to be kept in plastic squeeze tubes.
   A whole generation of research by heroic but unsung volunteers had gone into the design of the washroom, and it was now considered to be more or less foolproof. Floyd investigated it soon after free fall had begun. He found himself in a little cubicle with all the fittings of an ordinary airline toilet, but illuminated with a red light that was very harsh and unpleasant to the eye. A notice printed in prominent letters announced: MOST IMPORTANT! FOR YOUR OWN COMFORT, PLEASE READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY!
   Floyd sat down (one still tended to do so, even when weightless) and read the notice several times. When he was sure that there had been no modifications since his last trip, he pressed the START button.
   Close at hand, an electric motor began to whirr, and Floyd felt himself moving. As the notice advised him to do, he closed his eyes and waited. After a minute, a bell chimed softly and he looked around.
   The light had now changed to a soothing pinkish-white; but, more important, he was under gravity again.
   Only the faintest vibration revealed that it was a spurious gravity, caused by the carrousel-like spin of the whole toilet compartment. Floyd picked up a piece of soap, and watched it drop in slow motion; he judged that the centrifugal force was about a quarter of a normal gravity. But that was quite enough; it would ensure that everything moved in the right direction, in the one place where this mattered most.
   He pressed the STOP FOR EXIT button, and closed his eyes again. Weight slowly ebbed as the rotation ceased, the bell gave a double chime, and the red warning light was back. The door was then locked in the right position to let him glide out into the cabin, where he adhered as quickly as possible to the carpet. He had long ago exhausted the novelty of weightlessness, and was grateful for the Velcro slippers that allowed him to walk almost normally.
   There was plenty to occupy his time, even if he did nothing but sit and read. When he tired of official reports and memoranda and minutes, he would plug his foolscap-sized Newspad into the ship's information circuit and scan the latest reports from Earth. One by one he would conjure up the world's major electronic papers; he knew the codes of the more important ones by heart, and had no need to consult the list on the back of his pad. Switching to the display unit's short-term memory, he would hold the front page while he quickly searched the headlines and noted the items that interested him.
   Each had its own two-digit reference; when he punched that, the postage-stamp-sized rectangle would expand until it neatly filled the screen and he could read it with comfort. When he had finished, he would flash back to the complete page and select a new subject for detailed examination.
   Floyd sometimes wondered if the Newspad, and the fantastic technology behind it, was the last word in man's quest for perfect communications. Here he was, far out in space, speeding away from Earth at thousands of miles an hour, yet in a few milliseconds he could see the headlines of any newspaper he pleased. (That very word "newspaper," of course, was an anachronistic hangover into the age of electronics.) The text was updated automatically on every hour; even if one read only the English versions, one could spend an entire lifetime doing nothing but absorbing the ever-changing flow of information from the news satellites.
   It was hard to imagine how the system could be improved or made more convenient. But sooner or later, Floyd guessed, it would pass away, to be replaced by something as unimaginable as the Newspad itself would have been to Caxton or Gutenberg.
   There was another thought which a scanning of those tiny electronic headlines often invoked. The more wonderful the means of communication, the more trivial, tawdry, or depressing its contents seemed to be. Accidents, crimes, natural and man-made disasters, threats of conflict, gloomy editorials – these still seemed to be the main concern of the millions of words being sprayed into the ether. Yet Floyd also wondered if this was altogether a bad thing; the newspapers of Utopia, he had long ago decided, would be terribly dull.
   From time to time the captain and the other members of the crew came into the cabin and exchanged a few words with him. They treated their distinguished passenger with awe, and were doubtless burning with curiosity about his mission, but were too polite to ask any questions or even to drop any hints.
   Only the charming little stewardess seemed completely at ease in his presence. As Floyd quickly discovered, she came from Bali, and had carried beyond the atmosphere some of the grace and mystery of that still largely unspoiled island. One of his strangest, and most enchanting, memories of the entire trip was her zero-gravity demonstration of some classical Balinese dance movements, with the lovely, blue-green crescent of the waning Earth as a backdrop.
   There was one sleep period, when the main cabin lights were switched off and Floyd fastened down his arms and legs with the elastic sheets that would prevent him from drifting away into space. It seemed a crude arrangement – but here in zero gravity his unpadded couch was more comfortable than the most luxurious mattress on Earth.
   When he had strapped himself in, Floyd dozed off quickly enough, but woke up once in a drowsy, half-conscious condition, to be completely baffled by his strange surroundings. For a moment he thought that be was in the middle of some dimly lit Chinese lantern; the faint glow from the other cubicles around him gave that impression. Then he said to himself, firmly and successfully: "Go to sleep, boy. This is just an ordinary moon shuttle."
   When he awoke, the Moon had swallowed up half the sky, and the braking maneuvers were about to begin.
   The wide arc of windows set in the curving wall of the passenger section now looked out onto the open sky, not the approaching globe, so he moved into the control cabin. Here, on the rear-view TV screens, he could watch the final stages of the descent.
   The approaching lunar mountains were utterly unlike those of Earth; they lacked the dazzling caps of snow, the green, close-fitting garments of vegetation, the moving crowns of cloud, Nevertheless, the fierce contrasts of light and shadow gave them a strange beauty of their own. The laws of earthly aesthetics did not apply here; this world had been shaped and molded by other than terrestrial forces, operating over eons of time unknown to the young, verdant Earth, with its fleeting Ice Ages, its swiftly rising and falling seas, its mountain ranges dissolving like mists before the dawn. Here was age inconceivable – but not death, for the Moon had never lived – until now.
   The descending ship was poised almost above the line dividing night from day, and directly below was a chaos of jagged shadows and brilliant, isolated peaks catching the first light of the slow lunar dawn. That would be a fearful place to attempt a landing, even with all possible electronic aids; but they were slowly drifting away from it, toward the night side of the Moon.
   Then Floyd saw, as his eyes grew more accustomed to the fainter illumination, that the night land was not wholly dark. It was aglow with a ghostly light, in which peaks and valleys and plains could be clearly seen. The Earth, a giant moon to the Moon, was flooding the land below with its radiance.
   On the pilot's panel, lights flashed above radar screens, numbers came and went on computer displays, clocking off the distance of the approaching Moon. They were still more than a thousand miles away when weight returned as the jets began their gentle but steady deceleration. For ages, it seemed, the Moon slowly expanded across the sky, the sun sank below the horizon, and at last a single giant crater filled the field of view.
   The shuttle was falling toward its central peaks – and suddenly Floyd noticed that near one of those peaks a brilliant light was flashing with a regular rhythm. It might have been an airport beacon back on Earth, and he stared at it with a tightening of the throat. It was proof that men had established another foothold on the Moon.
   Now the crater had expanded so much that its ramparts were slipping below the horizon, and the smaller craterlets that peppered its interior were beginning to disclose their real size. Some of these, tiny though they had seemed from far out in space, were miles across, and could have swallowed whole cities.
   Under its automatic controls, the shuttle was sliding down the starlit sky, toward that barren landscape glimmering in the light of the great gibbous Earth. Now a voice was calling somewhere above the whistle of the jets and the electronic beepings that came and went through the cabin.
   "Clavius Control to Special 14, you are coming in nicely. Please make manual check of landing-gear lock, hydraulic pressure, shock-pad inflation."
   The pilot pressed sundry switches, green lights flashed, and he called back, "All manual checks completed. Landing-gear lock, hydraulic pressure, shock pad O.K."
   "Confirmed," said the Moon, and the descent continued wordlessly. Though there was still plenty of talking, it was all being done by machines, flashing binary impulses to one another at a thousand times the rate their slow-thinking makers could communicate.
   Some of the mountain peaks were already towering above the shuttle; now the ground was only a few thousand feet away, and the beacon light was a brilliant star, flashing steadily above a group of low buildings and odd vehicles. In the final stage of the descent, the jets seemed to be playing some strange tune; they pulsed on and off, making the last fine adjustments to the thrust.
   Abruptly, a swirling cloud of dust hid everything, the jets gave one final spurt, and the shuttle rocked very slightly, like a rowboat when a small wave goes by. It was some minutes before Floyd could really accept the silence that now enfolded him and the weak gravity that gripped his limbs.
   He had made, utterly without incident and in little more than one day, the incredible journey of which men had dreamed for two thousand years. After a normal routine flight, he had landed on the Moon.

10 – Clavius Base

   Clavius, 150 miles in diameter, is the second largest crater on the visible face of the Moon, and lies in the center of the Southern Highlands. It is very old; ages of vulcanism and bombardment from space have scarred its walls and pockmarked its floor. But since the last era of crater formation, when the debris from the asteroid belt was still battering the inner planets, it had known peace for half a billion years.
   Now there were new, strange stirrings on and below its surface, for here Man was establishing his first permanent bridgehead on the Moon. Clavius Base could, in an emergency, be entirely self-supporting. All the necessities of life were produced from the local rocks, – after they had been crushed, heated, and chemically processed. Hydrogen, oxygen; carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus – all these, and most of the other elements, could be found inside the Moon, if one knew where to look for them. The Base was a closed system, like a tiny working model of Earth itself, recycling all the chemicals of life. The atmosphere was purified in a vast "hothouse" – a large, circular room buried just below the lunar surface. Under blazing lamps by night, and filtered sunlight by day, acres of stubby green plants grew in a warm, moist atmosphere. They were special mutations, designed for the express purpose of replenishing the air with oxygen, and providing food as a by-product. More food was produced by chemical processing systems and algae culture. Although the green scum circulating through yards of transparent plastic tubes would scarcely have appealed to a gourmet, the biochemists could convert it into chops and steaks only an expert could distinguish from the real thing.
   The eleven hundred men and six hundred women who made up the personnel of the Base were all highly trained scientists or technicians, carefully selected before they had left Earth. Though lunar living was now virtually free from the hardships, disadvantages, and occasional dangers of the early days, it was still psychologically demanding, and not recommended for anyone suffering from claustrophobia. Since it was expensive and time-consuming to cut a large underground base out of solid rock or compacted lava, the standard one-man "living module" was a room only about six feet wide, ten feet long, and eight feet high.
   Each room was attractively furnished and looked very much like a good motel suite, with convertible sofa, TV, small hi-fi set, and vision-phone. Moreover, by a simple trick of interior decoration, the one unbroken wall could be converted by the flip of a switch into a convincing terrestrial landscape. There was a choice of eight views. This touch of luxury was typical of the Base, though it was sometimes hard to explain its necessity to the folk back on Earth. Every man and woman in Clavius had cost a hundred thousand dollars in training and transport and housing; it was worth a little extra to maintain their peace of mind. This was not art for art's sake, but art for the sake of sanity.
   One of the attractions of life in the base – and on the Moon as a whole – was undoubtedly the low gravity, which produced a sense of general well-being. However, this had its dangers, and it was several weeks before an emigrant from Earth could adapt to it. On the Moon, the human body had to learn a whole new set of reflexes. It had, for the first time, to distinguish between mass and weight.
   A man who weighed one hundred eighty pounds on Earth might be delighted to discover that he weighed only thirty pounds on the Moon. As long as he moved in a straight line at a uniform speed, he felt a wonderful sense of buoyancy. But as soon as he attempted to change course, to turn corners, or to stop suddenly – then he would find that his full one hundred eighty pounds of mass, or inertia, was still there. For that was fixed and unalterable – the same on Earth, Moon, Sun, or in free space. Before one could be properly adapted to lunar living, therefore, it was essential to learn that all objects were now six times as sluggish as their mere weight would suggest. It was a lesson usually driven home by numerous collisions and hard knocks, and old lunar hands kept their distance from newcomers until they were acclimatized.
   With its complex of workshops, offices, storerooms, computer center, generators, garage, kitchen, laboratories, and food-processing plant, Clavius Base was a miniature world in itself. And, ironically, many of the skills that had been used to build this underground empire had been developed during the half century of the Cold War.
   Any man who had ever worked in a hardened missile site would have felt at home in Clavius. Here on the Moon were the same arts and hardware of underground living, and of protection against a hostile environment; but here they had been turned to the purposes of peaee.
   After ten thousand years, man had at last found something as exciting as war. Unfortunately, not all nations had yet realized that fact.
   The mountains that had been so prominent just before landing had mysteriously disappeared, hidden from sight below the steeply curving lunar horizon. Around the spacecraft was a flat, gray plain; brilliantly lit by the slanting earthlight. Although the sky was, of course, completely black, only the brighter stars and planets could be seen, unless the eyes were shaded from the surface glare.
   Several very odd vehicles were rolling up to the Aries-lB spaceship – cranes, hoists, servicing trucks – some automatic, some operated by a driver in a small pressure cabin. Most of them moved on balloon tires, for this smooth, level plain posed no transportation difficulties; but one tanker rolled on the peculiar flex-wheels which had proved one of the best all-purpose ways of getting around on the Moon. A series of flat plates arranged in a circle, each plate independently mounted and sprung, the flex-wheel had many of the advantages of the caterpillar track from which it had evolved. It would adapt its shape and diameter to the terrain over which it was moving, and, unlike a caterpillar track, would continue to function even if a few sections were missing.
   A small bus with an extension tube like a stubby elephant trunk was now nuzzling affectionately up against the spacecraft. A few seconds later, there were bangings and bumpings from outside, followed by the sound of hissing air as connections were made and pressure was equalized. The inner door of the airlock opened, and the welcoming delegation entered.
   It was led by Ralph Halvorsen, the Administrator of the Southern Province – which meant not only the Base but also any exploring parties that operated from it.
   With him was his Chief Scientist, Dr. Roy Michaels, a grizzled little geophysicist whom Floyd knew from previous visits, and half a dozen senior scientists and executives. They greeted him with respectful relief; from the Administrator downward, it was obvious that they looked forward to a chance of unloading some of their worries.
   "Very pleased to have you with us, Dr. Floyd," said Halvorsen. "Did you have a good trip?"
   "Excellent," Floyd answered. "It couldn't have been better. The crew looked after me very well." He exchanged the usual small talk that courtesy demanded while the bus rolled away from the spacecraft; by unspoken agreement, no one mentioned the reason for his visit. After traveling a thousand feet from the landing site, the bus came to a large sign which read:

   WELCOME TO CLAVIUS BASE
   U.S. Astronautical Engineering Corps
   1994

   It then dived into a cutting which took it quickly below ground level. A massive door opened ahead, then closed behind them. This happened again, and yet a third time. When the last door had closed, there was a great roaring of air, and they were back in atmosphere once more, in the shirt-sleeve environment of the Base.
   After a short walk through a tunnel packed with pipes and cables, and echoing hollowly with rhythmic thumpings and throbbings, they arrived in executive territory, and Floyd found himself back in the familiar environment of typewriters, office computers, girl assistants, wall charts, and ringing telephones. As they paused outside the door labeled ADMINISTRATOR, Halvorsen said diplomatically: "Dr. Floyd and I will be along to the briefing room in a couple of minutes."
   The others nodded, made agreeable sounds, and drifted off down the corridor. But before Halvorsen could usher Floyd into his office, there was an interruption, The door opened, and a small figure hurled itself at the Administrator.
   "Daddy! You've been Topside! And you promised to take me!"
   "Now, Diana," said Halvorsen, with exasperated tenderness, "I only said I'd take you if I could. But I've been very busy meeting Dr. Floyd. Shake hands with him – he's just come from Earth."
   The little girl – Floyd judged that she was about eight – extended a limp hand. Her face was vaguely familiar, and Floyd suddenly became aware that the Administrator was looking at him with a quizzical smile. With a shock of recollection, he understood why.
   "I don't believe it!" he exclaimed. "When I was here last she was just a baby!"
   "She had her fourth birthday last week," Halvorsen answered proudly. "Children grow fast in this low gravity. But they don't age so quickly – they'll live longer than we do."
   Floyd stared in fascination at the self-assured little lady, noting the graceful carriage and the unusually delicate bone structure. "It's nice to meet you again, Diana," he said. Then something – perhaps sheer curiosity, perhaps politeness – impelled him to add: "Would you like to go to Earth?"
   Her eyes widened with astonishment; then she shook her head.
   "It's a nasty place; you hurt yourself when you fall down. Besides, there are too many people,"
   So here, Floyd told himself, is the first generation of the Spaceborn; there would be more of them in the years to come. Though there was sadness in this thought, there was also a great hope. When Earth was tamed and tranquil, and perhaps a little tired, there would still be scope for those who loved freedom, for the tough pioneers, the restless adventurers. But their tools would not be ax and gun and canoe and wagon; they would be nuclear power plant and plasma drive and hydroponic farm. The time was fast approaching when Earth, like all mothers, must say farewell to her children.
   With a mixture of threats and promises, Halvorsen managed to evict his determined offspring and led Floyd into the office. The Administrator's suite was only about fifteen feet square, but it managed to contain all the fittings and status symbols of the typical $50,000 a year head of a department. Signed photographs of important politicians – including the President of the United States and the Secretary General of the United Nations – adorned one wall, while signed photos of celebrated astronauts covered most of another.
   Floyd sank into a comfortable leather chair and was given a glass of "sherry," courtesy of the lunar biochemical labs. "How's it going, Ralph?" Floyd asked, sipping the drink with caution, then with approval.
   "Not too bad," Halvorsen replied. "However, there is something you'd better know about, before you go in there."
   "What is it?'
   "Well, I suppose you could describe it as a morale problem," Halvorsen sighed.
   "Oh?"
   "It isn't serious yet, but it's getting there fast." "The news blackout," Floyd said flatly. "Right," Halvorsen replied. "My people are getting very steamed up about it. After all, most of them have families back on Earth; they probably believe they're all dead of moon-plague."
   "I'm sorry about that," said Floyd, "but no one could think of a better cover story, and so far it's worked. By the way – I met Moisevitch at the Space Station, and even he bought it."
   "Well, that should make Security happy."
   "Not too happy – he'd heard of TMA-1; rumors are beginning to leak out. But we just can't issue any statement, until we know what the damn thing is and whether our Chinese friends are behind it."
   "Dr. Michaels thinks he has the answer to that. He's dying to tell you."
   Floyd drained his glass. "And I'm dying to hear him. Let's go."

11 – Anomaly

   The briefing took place in a large rectangular chamber that could hold a hundred people with ease. It was equipped with the latest optical and electronic displays and would have looked like a model conference room but for the numerous posters, pinups, notices, and amateur paintings which indicated that it was also the center of the local cultural life. Floyd was particularly struck by a collection of signs, obviously assembled with loving care, which carried such messages as PLEASE KEEP OFF THE GRASS... NO PARKING ON EVEN DAYS... DEFENSE DE FUMER... TO THE BEACH... CATTLE CROSSING... SOFT SHOULDERS and DO NOT FEED THE ANIMALS. If these were genuine – as they certainly appeared to be – their transportation from Earth had cost a small fortune. There was a touching defiance about them; on this hostile world, men could still joke about the things they had been forced to leave behind – and which their children would never miss.
   A crowd of forty or fifty people was waiting for Floyd, and everyone rose politely as he entered behind the Administrator. As he nodded at several familiar faces, Floyd whispered to Halvorsen "I'd like to say a few words before the briefing."
   Floyd sat down in the front row, while the Administrator ascended the rostrum and looked round his audience.
   "Ladies and gentlemen," Halvorsen began, "I needn't tell you that this is a very important occasion. We are delighted to have Dr. Heywood Floyd with us. We all know him by reputation, and many of us are acquainted with him personally. He has just completed a special flight from Earth to be here, and before the briefing he has a few words for us. Dr. Floyd," Floyd walked to the rostrum amid a sprinkling of polite applause, surveyed the audience with a smile, and said: "Thank you – I only want to say this. The President has asked me to convey his appreciation of your – outstanding work, which we hope the world will soon be able to recognize. I'm quite aware," he continued carefully, "that some of you – perhaps most of you – are anxious that the present veil of secrecy be withdrawn; you would not be scientists if you thought otherwise." He caught a glimpse of Dr. Michaels, whose face was creased in a slight frown which brought out a long scar down his right cheek – presumably the aftermath of some accident in space. The geologist, he was well aware, had been protesting vigorously against what he called this "cops and robbers nonsense."
   "But I would remind you," Floyd continued, "that this is a quite extraordinary situation. We must be absolutely sure of our own facts; if we make errors now, there may be no second chance – so please be patient a little longer. Those are also the wishes of the President.
   "That's all I have to say. Now I'm ready for your report."
   He walked back to his seat; the Administrator said, 'Thank you very much, Dr. Floyd," and nodded, rather brusquely, to his Chief Scientist. On cue, Dr. Michaels walked up to the rostrum, and-the lights faded out.
   A photograph of the Moon flashed onto the screen. At the very center of the disk was a brilliant white crater ring, from which a striking pattern of rays fanned out. It looked exactly as if someone had hurled a bag of flour at the face of the Moon, and it had spattered out in all directions.
   "This is Tycho," said Michaels, pointing to the central crater. "On this vertical photograph Tycho is even more conspicuous than when seen from Earth; then it's rather near the edge of the Moon. But observed from this viewpoint – looking straight down from a thousand miles up – you'll see how it dominates an entire hemisphere."
   He let Floyd absorb this unfamiliar view of a familiar object, then continued: "During the past year we have been conducting a magnetic survey of the region, from a low-level satellite. It was completed only last month, and this is the result... the map that started all the trouble."
   Another picture flashed on the screen; it looked like a contour map, though it showed magnetic intensity, not heights above sea level. For the most part, the lines were roughly parallel and spaced well apart; but in one corner of the map they became suddenly packed together, to form a series of concentric circles – like a drawing of a knothole in a piece of wood.
   Even to an untrained eye, it was obvious that something peculiar had happened to the Moon's magnetic field in this region; and in large letters across the bottom of the map were the words: TYCHO MAGNETIC ANOMALY-ONE (TMA-l). Stamped on the top right was CLASSIFIED.
   "At first we thought it might be an outcrop of magnetic rock, but all the geological evidence was against it. And not even a big nickel-iron meteorite could produce a field as intense as this; so we decided to have a look.
   "The first party discovered nothing – just the usual level terrain, buried beneath a very thin layer of moon-dust. They sank a drill in the exact center of the magnetic field to get a core sample for study. Twenty feet down, the drill stopped. So the survey party started to dig – not an easy job in spacesuits, as I can assure you.
   "What they found brought them back to Base in a hurry. We sent out a bigger team, with better equipment. They excavated for two weeks – with the result you know."
   The darkened assembly room became suddenly hushed and expectant as the picture on the screen changed. Though everyone had seen it many times, there was not a person who failed to crane forward as if hoping to find new details. On Earth and Moon, less than a hundred people had so far been allowed to set eyes on this photograph.
   It showed a man in a bright red and yellow spacesuit standing at the bottom of an excavation and supporting a surveyor's rod marked off in tenths of a meter. It was obviously a night shot, and might have been taken anywhere on the Moon or Mars. But until now no planet had ever produced a scene like this.
   The object before which the spacesuited man was posing was a vertical slab of jet-black material, about ten feet high and five feet wide: it reminded Floyd, somewhat ominously, of a giant tombstone. Perfectly sharp-edged and symmetrical, it was so black it seemed to have swallowed up the light falling upon it; there was no surface detail at all. It was impossible to tell whether it was made of stone or metal or plastic – or some material altogether unknown to man.
   "TMA-1," Dr. Michaels declared, almost reverently. "It looks brand new, doesn't it? I can hardly blame those who thought it was just a few years old, and tried to connect it with the third Chinese Expedition, back in '98. But I never believed that – and now we've been able to date it positively, from local geological evidence.
   "My colleagues and I, Dr. Floyd, will stake our reputations on this. TMA-l has nothing to do with the Chinese. Indeed, it has nothing to do with the human race – for when it was buried, there were no humans.
   "You see, it is approximately three million years old. What you are now looking at is the first evidence of intelligent life beyond the Earth."

12 – Journey by Earthlight

   MACRO-CRATER PROVINCE: Extends S from near center of visible face of moon, E of Central Crater Province. Densely pocked with impact craters; many large, and including the largest on moon; in N some craters fractured from impact forming Mare Imbrium. Rough surfaces almost everywhere, except for some crater bottoms. Most surfaces in slopes, mostly 10° to 12°; some crater bottoms nearly level.
   LANDING AND MOVEMENT: landing generally difficult because of rough, sloping surfaces; less difficult in some level crater bottoms. Movement possible almost everywhere but route selection required; less difficult on some level crater bottoms.
   CONSTRUCTION: Generally moderately difficult because of slope, and numerous large blocks in loose material; excavation of lava difficult in some crater bottoms.
   TYCHO: Post-Maria crater, 54 miles diameter, rim 7,900 feet above surroundings; bottom 12,000 feet deep; has the most prominent ray system on the moon, some rays extending more than 500 miles.
   (Extract from "Engineer Special Study of the Surface of the Moon," Office, Chief of Engineers, Department of the Army. U.S. Geological Survey, Washington, 1961.)

   The mobile lab now rolling across the crater plain at fifty miles an hour looked rather like an outsized trailer mounted on eight flex-wheels. But it was very much more than this; it was a self-contained base in which twenty men could live and work for several weeks. Indeed, it was virtually a landgoing spaceship – and in an emergency it could even fly. If it came to a crevasse or canyon which was too large to detour, and too steep to enter, it could hop across the obstacle on its four underjets.
   As he peered out of the window, Floyd could see stretching ahead of him a well-defined trail, where dozens of vehicles had left a hard-packed band in the friable surface of the Moon. At regular intervals along the track were tall, slender rods, each carrying a flashing light. No one could possibly get lost on the 200-mile journey from Clavius Base to TMA-1, even though it was still night and the sun would not rise for several hours.
   The stars overhead were only a little brighter, or more numerous, than on a clear night from the high plateaus of New Mexico or Colorado. But there were two things in that coal-black sky that destroyed any illusion of Earth.
   The first was Earth itself – a blazing beacon hanging above the northern horizon. The light pouring down from that giant half-globe was dozens of times more brilliant than the full moon, and it covered all this land with a cold, blue-green phosphorescence.
   The second celestial apparition was a faintt, pearly cone of light slanting up the eastern sky. It became brighter and brighter toward the horizon, hinting of great fires just concealed below the edge of the Moon.
   Here was a pale glory that no man had ever seen from Earth, save during the few moments of a total eclipse. It was the corona, harbinger of the lunar dawn, giving notice that before long the sun would smite this sleeping land.
   As he sat with Halvorsen and Michaels in the forward observation lounge, immediately beneath the driver's position, Floyd found his thoughts turning again and again to the three-million-year-wide gulf that had just opened up before him. Like all scientifically literate men, he was used to considering far longer periods of time – but they had concerned only the movements of stars and the slow cycles of the inanimate universe. Mind or intelligence had not been involved; those eons were empty of all that touched the emotions.
   Three million years! The infinitely crowded panorama of written history, with its empires and its kings, its triumphs and its tragedies, covered barely one thousandth of this appalling span of time. Not only Man himself, but most of the animals now alive on Earth, did not even exist when this black enigma was so carefully buried here, in the most brilliant and most spectacular of all the craters of the Moon.
   That it had been buried, and quite deliberately, Dr. Michaels was absolutely sure. "At first," he explained, "I rather hoped it might mark the site of some underground structure, but our latest excavations have eliminated that. It's sitting on a wide platform of the same
   black material, with undisturbed rock beneath it. The – creatures – who designed it wanted to make sure it stayed put, barring major moonquakes. They were building for eternity."
   There was triumph, and yet sadness, in Michaels' voice, and Floyd could share both emotions. At last, one of man's oldest questions had been answered; here was the proof, beyond all shadow of doubt, that his was not the only intelligence that the universe had brought forth. But with that knowledge there came again an aching awareness of the immensity of Time. Whatever had passed this way had missed mankind by a hundred thousand generations. Perhaps, Floyd told himself, it was just as well. And yet – what we might have learned from creatures who could cross space, while our ancestors were still living in trees!
   A few hundred yards ahead, a signpost was coming up over the Moon's strangely close horizon. At its base was a tent-shaped structure covered with shining silver foil, obviously for protection against the fierce heat of day. As the bus rolled by, Floyd was able to read in the brilliant earthlight:

   EMERGENCY DEPOT No. 3
   20 Kilos Lox
   10 Kilos Water
   20 Foodpaks Mk 4
   1 Toolkit Type B
   1 Suit Repair Outfit
   ! TELEPHONE !

   "Have you thought of that?" asked Floyd, pointing out of the window. "Suppose the thing's a supply cache, left behind by an expedition that never returned?"
   "It's a possibility," admitted Michaels. "That magnetic field certainly labeled its position, so that it could be easily found. But it's rather small – it couldn't hold much in the way of supplies."
   "Why not?" interjected Halvorsen. "Who knows bow big they were? Perhaps they were only six inches tall, which would make the thing twenty or thirty stories high."
   Michaels shook his head. "Out of the question," he protested. "You can't have very small, intelligent creatures; you need a minimum brain size."
   Michaels and Halvorsen, Floyd had noticed, usually took opposing viewpoints, yet there appeared to be little personal hostility or friction between them. They seemed to respect each other, and simply agreed to disagree.
   There was certainly little agreement anywhere about the nature of TMA-1 – or the Tycho Monolith, as some preferred to call it, retaining part of the abbreviation.
   In the six hours since he had landed on the Moon, Floyd had heard a dozen theories, but had committed himself to none. Shrine, survey marker, tomb, geophysical instrument – these were perhaps the favorite suggestions, and some of the protagonists grew very heated in their defense. A good many bets had-already been placed, and a lot of money would change hands when the truth was finally known – if, indeed, it ever was. So far, the hard black material of the slab had resisted all the rather mild attempts that Michaels and his colleagues had made to obtain samples. They had no doubt that a laser beam would cut into it – for, surely, nothing could resist that frightful concentration of energy – but the decision to employ such violent measures would be left to Floyd. He had already decided that X rays, sonic probes, neutron beams, and all other nondestructive means of investigation would be brought into play before he called up the heavy artillery of the laser. It was the mark of a barbarian to destroy something one could not understand; but perhaps men were barbarians, beside the creatures who had made this thing.
   And where could they have come from? The Moon itself? No, that was utterly impossible. If there had ever been indigenous life on this barren world, it had been destroyed during the last crater-forming epoch, when most of the lunar surface was white-hot.
   Earth? Very unlikely, though perhaps not quite impossible. Any advanced terrestrial civilization – presumably a nonhuman one – back in the Pleistocene Era would have left many other traces of its existence. We would have known all about it, thought Floyd, long before we got to the Moon.
   That left two alternatives – the planets, and the stars.
   Yet all the evidence was against intelligent life elsewhere in the Solar System – or indeed life of any kind except on Earth and Mars. The inner planets were too hot, the outer ones far too cold, unless one descended into their atmosphere to depths where the pressures amounted to hundreds of tons to the square inch.
   So perhaps these visitors had come from the stars – yet that was even more incredible. As he looked up at the constellations strewn across the ebon lunar sky, Floyd remembered how often his fellow scientists had "proved" that interstellar travel was impossible. The journey from Earth to Moon was still fairly impressive, but the very nearest star was a hundred million times more distant... Speculation was a waste of time; he must wait until there was more evidence,
   "Please fasten your seat belts and secure all loose objects," said the cabin speaker suddenly. "Forty degree slope approaching."
   Two marker posts with winking lights had appeared on the horizon, and the bus was steering between them.
   Floyd had barely adjusted his straps when the vehicle slowly edged itself over the brink of a really terrifying incline, and began to descend a long, rubble-covered slope as steep as the roof of a house. The slanting earth-light, coming from behind them, now gave very little illumination, and the bus's own floodlights had been switched on. Many years ago Floyd had stood on the lip of Vesuvius, staring into the crater; he could easily imagine that he was now driving down into it and the sensation was not a very pleasant one.
   They were descending one of the inner terraces of Tycho, and it leveled out again some thousand feet below. As they crawled down the slope, Michaels pointed out across the great expanse of plain now spread out beneath them.
   "There they are," he exclaimed. Floyd nodded; he had already noticed the cluster of red and green lights several miles ahead, and kept his eyes fixed upon it as the bus edged its way delicately down the slope. The big vehicle was obviously under perfect control, but he did not breathe easily until it was once more on an even keel.
   Now he could see, glistening like silver bubbles in the earthlight, a group of pressure domes – the temporary shelters housing the workers on the site. Near these was a radio tower, a drilling rig, a group of parked vehicles, and a large pile of broken rock, presumably the material that had been excavated to reveal the monolith. This tiny camp in the wilderness looked very lonely, very vulnerable to the forces of nature ranged silently around it. There was no sign of life, and no visible hint as to why men had come here, so far from home.
   "You can just see the crater," said Michaels. "Over there on the right – about a hundred yards from that radio antenna."
   So this is it, thought Floyd, as the bus rolled past the pressure domes, and came to the lip of the crater.
   His pulse quickened as he craned forward for a better view. The vehicle began to creep cautiously down a ramp of hard-packed rock, into the interior of the crater. And there, exactly as he had seen it in the photographs, was TMA-1.
   Floyd stared, blinked, shook his head, and stared again. Even in the brilliant earthlight, it was hard to see the object clearly; his first impression was of a flat rectangle that might have been cut out of carbon paper; it seemed to have no thickness at all. Of course, this was an optical illusion; though he was looking at a solid body, it reflected so little light that he could see it only in silhouette.
   The passengers were utterly silent as the bus descended into the crater. There was awe, and there was also incredulity – sheer disbelief that the dead Moon, of all worlds, could have sprung this fantastic surprise.
   The bus came to a halt within twenty feet of the slab and broadside on so that all the passengers could examine it. Yet, beyond the geometrically perfect shape of the thing, there was little to see. Nowhere were there any marks, or any abatement of its ultimate, ebon blackness. It was the very crystallization of night, and for one moment Floyd wondered if it could indeed be some extraordinary natural formation, born of the fires and pressures attending the creation of the Moon. But that remote possibility, he knew, had already been examined and dismissed.
   At some signal, floodlights around the lip of the crater were switched on, and the bright earthlight was obliterated by a far more brilliant glare. In the lunar vacuum the beams were, of course, completely invisible; they formed overlapping ellipses of blinding white, centered on the monolith. And where they touched it, its ebon surface seemed to swallow them.
   Pandora's box, thought Floyd, with a sudden sense of foreboding – waiting to be opened by inquisitive Man.
   And what will he find inside?

13 – The Slow Dawn

   The main pressure dome at the TMA-1 site was only twenty feet across, and its interior was uncomfortably crowded. The bus, coupled to it through one of the two airlocks, gave some much-appreciated extra living room.
   Inside this hemispherical, double-walled balloon lived, worked, and slept the six scientists and technicians now permanently attached to the project. It also contained most of their equipment and instruments, all the stores that could not be left in the vacuum outside, cooking, washing, and toilet facilities, geological samples and a small TV screen through which the site could be kept under continuous surveillance.
   Floyd was not surprised when Halvorsen elected to remain in the dome; he stated his views with admirable frankness.
   "I regard spacesuits as a necessary evil," said the Administrator, "I wear one four times a year, for my quarterly checkout tests. If you don't mind, I'll sit here and watch over the TV."
   Some of this prejudice was now unjustified, for the latest models were infinitely more comfortable than the clumsy suits of armor worn by the first lunar explorers. They could be put on in less than a minute, even without help, and were quite automatic. The Mk V into which Floyd was now carefully sealed would protect him from the worst that the Moon could do, either by day or by night.
   Accompanied by Dr. Michaels, he walked into the small airlock. As the throbbing of the pumps died away, and his suit stiffened almost imperceptibly around him, he felt himself enclosed in the silence of vacuum.
   That silence was broken by the welcome sound of his suit radio.
   "Pressure O.K., Dr. Floyd? Are you breathing normally?"
   "Yes – I'm fine."
   His companion carefully checked the dials and gauges on the outside of Floyd's suit. Then he said:
   "O.K.-let's go."
   The outer door opened, and the dusty moonscape lay before them, glimmering in the earthlight.
   With a cautious, waddling movement, Floyd followed Michaels through the lock. It was not hard to walk; indeed, in a paradoxical way the suit made him feel more at home than at any time since reaching the Moon. Its extra weight, and the slight resistance it imposed on his motion, gave some of the illusion of the lost terrestrial gravity.
   The scene had changed since the party had arrived barely an hour ago. Though the stars, and the half-earth, were still as bright as ever, the fourteen-day lunar night had almost ended. The glow of the corona was like a false moonrise along the eastern sky – and then, without warning, the tip of the radio mast a hundred feet above Floyd's head suddenly seemed to burst into flame, as it caught the first rays of the hidden sun.
   They waited while the project supervisor and two of his assistants emerged from the airlock, then walked slowly toward the crater. By the time they had reached it, a thin bow of unbearable incandescence had thrust itself above the eastern horizon. Though it would take more than an hour for the sun to clear the edge of the slowly turning moon, the stars were already banished. The crater was still in shadow, but the floodlights mounted around its rim lit the interior brilliantly. As Floyd walked slowly down the ramp toward the black rectangle, he felt a sense not only of awe but of helplessness. Here, at the very portals of Earth, man was already face to face with a mystery that might never be solved. Three million years ago, something had passed this way, had left this unknown and perhaps unknowable symbol of its-purpose, and had returned to the planets – or to the stars.
   Floyd's suit radio interrupted his reverie. "Project supervisor speaking. If you'd all line up on this side, we'd like to take a few photos. Dr. Floyd, will you stand in the middle – Dr. Michaels – thank you. No one except Floyd seemed to think that there was anything funny about this. In all honesty, he had to admit that he was glad someone had brought a camera; here was a photo that would undoubtedly be historic, and he wanted copies for himself. He hoped that his face would be clearly visible through the helmet of the suit.
   "Thanks, gentlemen," said the photographer, after they had posed somewhat self-consciously in front of the monolith, and he had made a dozen exposures.
   "We'll ask the Base Photo Section to send you copies." Then Floyd turned his full attention to the ebon slab – walking slowly around it, examining it from every angle, trying to imprint its strangeness upon his mind.
   He did not expect to find anything, for he knew that every square inch had already been gone over with microscopic care.
   Now the sluggish sun had lifted itself above the edge of the crater, and its rays were pouring almost broadside upon the eastern face of the block. Yet it seemed to absorb every particle of light as if it had never been.
   Floyd decided to try a simple experiment; he stood between the monolith and the sun, and looked for his own shadow on the smooth black sheet. There was no trace of it. At least ten kilowatts of raw heat must be falling on the slab; if there was anything inside, it must be rapidly cooking.
   How strange, Floyd thought, to stand here while – this thing – is seeing daylight for the first time since the Ice Ages began on Earth. He wondered again about its black color; that was ideal, of course, for absorbing solar energy. But he dismissed the thought at once; for who would be crazy enough to bury a sunpowered device twenty feet underground?
   He looked up at the Earth, beginning to wane in the morning sky. Only a handful of the six billion people there knew of this discovery; how would the world react to the news when it was finally released? The political and social implications were immense; every person of real intelligence – everyone who looked an inch beyond his nose – would find his life, his values, his philosophy, subtly changed. Even if nothing whatsoever was discovered about TMA-1, and it remained an eternal mystery, Man would know that he was not unique in the universe. Though he had missed them by millions of years, those who had once stood here might yet return: and if not, there might well be others. All futures must now contain this possibility.
   Floyd was still musing over these thoughts when his helmet speaker suddenly emitted a piercing electronic shriek, like a hideously overloaded and distorted time signal. Involuntarily, he tried to block his ears with his spacesuited hands; then he recovered and groped frantically for the gain control of his receiver. While he was still fumbling four more of the shrieks blasted out of the ether; then there was a merciful silence.
   All around the crater, figures were standing in attitudes of paralyzed astonishment. So it's nothing wrong with my gear, Floyd told himself; everyone heard those piercing electronic screams.
   After three million years of darkness, TMA-1 had greeted the lunar dawn.