Venus Prime - Vol 1 Read online

  VENUS PRIME – Vol 1

  Arthur C. Clarke & Paul Preuss, 1999

  Forward

  Acknowledgments

  Introduction

  PART ONE

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  PART TWO

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  PART THREE

  IX

  X

  XI

  XII

  PART FOUR

  XIII

  XIV

  XV

  XVI

  PART FIVE

  XVII

  XVIII

  XIX

  Epilogue

  Forward

  Arthur C. Clarke is the world-renowned author of such science fiction classics as 2001: A Space Odyssey, for which he shared an Oscar nomination with director Stanley Kubrick, and its popular sequels, 2010: Odyssey Two, 2061: Odyssey Three, and 3001: Final Odyssey; the highly acclaimed The Songs of Distant Earth; the bestselling collection of original short stories, The Sentinel; and over two dozen other books of fiction and nonfiction.

  He received the Marconi International Fellowship in 1982. He resides in Sri Lanka, where he continues to write and consult on issues of science, technology, and the future.

  Paul Preuss began his successful writing career after years of producing documentary and television films and writing screenplays.

  He is the author of thirteen novels, including Secret Passages and the near-future thrillers Core and Starfire. His nonfiction has appeared in The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, New York Newsday, and the San Francisco Chronicle.

  Besides writing, he has been a science consultant for several film companies. He lives near San Francisco, California.

  Acknowledgments

  I am grateful to Kristina Anderson, San Francisco artist and bookbinder, for an introduction to the bookmaker’s craft.

  Carol Dawson, writer, and Lenore Coral, librarian at Cornell, refreshed my memories of London in general and Sotheby’s in particular. My daughter, Mona Helen Preuss, slogged through old auction catalogues at the library of the University of California and Berkeley. The staff of the rare-book room of the San Francisco Public Library were customarily, anonymously, efficient and helpful. Thanks to them all, and let them be reassured that my mistakes are my own.

  —Paul Preuss

  Introduction

  by ARTHUR C. CLARKE

  Unlike some authors, I have not generally been given to collaborative work in the science fiction area, especially in regard to my novels which, for the most part, have been written alone. There have been, however, some notable exceptions. In the 1960s, I worked with director Stanley Kubrick on the most realistic SF film done to that time, an ambitious little project called 2001: A Space Odyssey. Over a decade and a half later, I had another close encounter with a Hollywood director named Peter Hyams, who produced and directed the visually impressive adaptation of my sequel, 2010.

  Both films were rewarding experiences, and I found myself both surprised and delighted by some of the results.

  Now I find myself once again involved in an intriguing collaborative venture that has evolved from my original story, Breaking Strain.

  The novella (horrid word!) Breaking Strain was written in the summer of 1948, while I was taking my belated degree at King’s College, London. My agent, Scott Meredith, then in his early twenties, promptly sold it to Thrilling Wonder Stories; it can be more conveniently located in my first collection of stories, Expedition to Earth (1954).

  Soon after Breaking Strain appeared, some perceptive critic remarked that I apparently aspired to be the Kipling of the Spaceways. Even if I was not conscious of it, that was certainly a noble ambition—especially as I never imagined that the dawn of the Space Age was only nine years ahead.

  And if I may be allowed to continue the immodest comparison, Kipling made two excellent attempts to being the Clarke of the Air Age; see “With the Night Mail” and “As Easy As ABC.” The ABC, incidentally, stands for Aerial Board of Control.

  Oh, yes, Breaking Strain. The original story is of course now slightly dated, though not as much as I had expected.

  In any case, that doesn’t matter; the kind of situation it describes is one which must have occurred countless times in the past and will be with us—in ever more sophisticated forms—as long as the human race endures.

  Indeed, the near-catastrophe of the 1970 Apollo 13 mission presents some very close parallels. I still have hanging up on my wall the first page of the mission summary, on which NASA Administrator Tom Paine has written: “Just as you always said it would be, Arthur.”

  But the planet Venus, alas, has gone; my friend Brian Aldiss neatly summed up our sense of loss in the title of his anthology Farewell, Fantastic Venus . . .

  Where are the great rivers and seas, home of gigantic monsters that could provide a worthy challenge to heroes in the Edgar Rice Burroughs mold? (Yes, ERB made several visits there, when Mars got boring.) Gone with the thousand-degree-Farenheit wind of sulphuric acid vapor . . .

  Yet all is not lost. Though no human beings may ever walk the surface of Venus as it is today, in a few centuries —or millennia—we may refashion the planet nearer to the heart’s desire. The beautiful Evening Star may become the twin of Earth that we once thought it to be, and the remote successors of Star Queen will ply the spaceways between the worlds.

  Paul Preuss, who knows about all these things, has cleverly updated my old tale and introduced some elements of which I never dreamed (though I’m amazed to see that The Seven Pillars of Wisdom was in the original; when I read the new text, I thought that was Paul’s invention).

  Although I deplore the fact that crime stories have such a universal attraction, I suppose that somebody will still be trying to make a dishonest buck selling life insurance the day before the Universe collapses into the final Black Hole.

  It is also an interesting challenge combining the two genres of crime and science fiction, especially as some experts have claimed that it’s impossible. (My sole contribution here is “Trouble with Time”; and though I hate to say so, Isaac What’s-His-Name managed it superbly in his Caves of Steel series.) Now it’s Paul’s turn. I think he’s done a pretty good job.

  —Arthur C. Clarke Columbo, Sri Lanka

  PART ONE

  THE FOX AND THE HEDGEHOG

  I

  “Does the word Sparta mean anything to you?”

  A young woman sat on a spoke-backed chair of varnished pine. Her face was turned to the tall window; her unmarked features were pale in the diffuse light that flooded the white room, reflected from the wintry landscape outside.

  Her interrogator fussed with his trim salt-and-pepper beard and peered at her over the top of his spectacles as he waited for an answer. He sat behind a battered oak desk a hundred and fifty years old, a kindly fellow with all the time in the world.

  “Of course.” In her oval face her brows were wide ink strokes above eyes of liquid brown; beneath her upturned nose her mouth was full, her lips innocent in their delicate, natural pinkness. The unwashed brown hair that lay in lank strands against her cheeks, her shapeless dressing gown, these could not disguise her beauty.

  “What does it mean to you?”

  “What?”

  “The word Sparta, what does that mean to you?”

  “Sparta is my name.” Still she did not look at him.

  “What about the name Linda? Does that mean anything to you?”

  She shook her head.

  “Or how about Ellen?”

  She did not respond.

  “Do you know who I am?” he asked.

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nbsp; “I don’t believe we’ve met, Doctor.” She continued to stare out the window, studying something a great distance away.

  “But you do know that I’m a doctor.”

  She shifted in her chair, glanced around the room, taking in the diplomas, the books, returning her gaze to him with a thin smile. The doctor smiled back. Though in fact they had met every week for the past year, her point was taken—again. Yes, any sane person would know she was in a doctor’s office. Her smile faded and she turned back to the window.

  “Do you know where you are?”

  “No. They brought me here during the night. Usually I’m in . . . the program.”

  “Where is that?”

  “In . . . Maryland.”

  “What is the name of the program?”

  “I . . .” She hesitated. A frown creased her brow.

  “. . . I can’t tell you that.”

  “Can you remember it?”

  Her eyes flashed angrily. “It’s not on the white side.”

  “You mean it’s classified?”

  “Yes. I can’t tell anyone without a Q clearance.”

  “I have a Q clearance, Linda.”

  “That is not my name. How do I know you have a clearance? If my father tells me I can talk to you about the program, I will.”

  He had often told her that her parents were dead. Invariably she greeted the news with disbelief. If he did not repeat it within five or ten minutes, she promptly forgot; if, however, he persisted, trying to persuade her, she became wild with confusion and grief—only to recover her sad calm a few minutes after he relented. He had long since ceased to torture her with temporary horrors.

  Of all his patients, she was the one who most excited his frustration and regret. He longed to restore her lost core and he believed he could do it, if her keepers would permit him to.

  Frustrated, bored perhaps, he abandoned the script of the interview. “What do you see out there?” he asked.

  “Trees. Mountains.” Her voice was a longing whisper.

  “Snow on the ground.”

  If he were to continue the routine they had established, a routine he remembered but she did not, he would ask her to recount what had happened to her yesterday, and she would recite in great detail events that had occurred over three years ago. He rose abruptly—surprising himself, for he rarely varied his work schedule. “Would you like to go outside?”

  She seemed as surprised as he.

  The nurses grumbled and fussed over her, bundling her into wool trousers, flannel shirt, scarf, fur-lined leather boots, a thick overcoat of some shiny gray quilted material —a fabulously expensive wardrobe, which she took for granted. She was fully capable of dressing herself, but she often forgot to change her clothes. They found it easier to leave her in her robe and slippers then, pretending to themselves that she was helpless. They helped her now, and she allowed it.

  The doctor waited for her outside on the icy steps of the stone veranda, studying the French doors with their peeling frames, the yellow paint pigment turning to powder in the dry, thin air. He was a tall and very round man, made rounder by the bulk of his black Chesterfield coat with its elegant velvet collar. The coat was worth the price of an average dwelling. It was a sign of the compromises he had made.

  The girl emerged, urged forward by the nurses, gasping at the sharpness of the air. High on her cheeks two rosy patches bloomed beneath the transparent surface of her blue-white skin. She was neither tall nor unusually slender, but there was a quick unthinking certainty in her movements that reminded him she was a dancer. Among other things.

  He and the girl walked on the grounds behind the main building. From this altitude they could see a hundred miles across the patchwork brown and white plains to the east, a desert of overgrazed, farmed-out grit. Not all the white was snow; some was salt. Afternoon sun glinted from the windows of a moving magneplane heading south, too far away to see; ice-welded blades of brown grass crunched under their feet where the sunlight had sublimed the snow cover.

  The edge of the lawn was marked by bare cottonwoods planted close together, paralleling an ancient wall of brownstone. The ten-foot electrified fence beyond the wall was almost invisible against the mountainside, which rose abruptly into shadow; higher up, blue drifts of snow persisted beneath squat junipers.

  They sat on a bench in sunlight. He brought a chess pad from the pocket of his coat and laid it flat between them. “Would you like to play?”

  “Are you any good?” she asked simply.

  “Fair. Not as good as you.”

  “How do you know?”

  He hesitated—they had played often—but he was weary of challenging her with the truth. “It was in your file.”

  “I would like to see that file someday.”

  “I’m afraid I no longer have access to it,” he lied. The file she had in mind was a different file.

  The chess pad assigned her the white pieces and she opened swiftly with the Giuco Piano, throwing the doctor off balance with pawn to bishop-three on the fourth move.

  To give himself time to think he asked, “Is there anything else you would like?”

  “Anything else?”

  “Is there anything we can do for you?”

  “I would like to see my mother and father.”

  He didn’t answer, pondering the board instead. Like most amateurs, he struggled to think two or three moves deep but was unable to hold all the permutations in his mind. Like most masters, she thought in patterns; although at this moment she could no longer recall her opening moves, it didn’t matter. Years ago, before her short-term memory had been destroyed, she had stored uncounted patterns.

  He pushed the piece-keys and she replied instantly. On her next move one of his bishops was pinned. He smiled ruefully. Another rout in the making. Nevertheless he did his best to stay with her, to give her an interesting game.

  Until her keepers untied his hands he had little else to give her.

  An hour passed—time was nothing to her—before she said “check” for the last time. His queen was long gone, his situation hopeless. “Your game,” he said. She smiled, thanked him. He slipped the chess pad into his pocket.

  With the pad out of sight, her longing stare returned.

  They made a final tour of the wall. The shadows were long and their breath congealed before their faces; overhead the hazy blue sky was crisscrossed with a thousand icy contrails. A nurse met them at the door, but the doctor stayed outside. When he said good-bye the girl looked at him curiously, having forgotten who he was.

  Some rekindled spark of rebellion inspired the doctor to key the phonelink. “I want to talk to Laird.”

  The face on the videoplate was bland and polite.

  “Terribly sorry. I’m afraid the director cannot accept unscheduled calls.”

  “It’s personal and urgent. Please tell him that. I’ll wait.”

  “Doctor, believe me, there’s simply no way . . .”

  He was on the link a long time with one aide after another, finally wringing a promise from the last of them that the director would call him in the morning. These obstinate encounters fanned the rebellious spark, and the doctor was deeply angry when the last connection was cut.

  His patient had asked to see her file—the file of which she had been the subject until a year before her arrival at the hospital. He had meant to wait for clearance, but why bother? Laird and the rest of them would be incredulous, but there was no way she could use, or abuse, what she would see: she would forget it almost instantly.

  That, after all, was the point of this whole shameful exercise.

  He knocked on the door of her upstairs room. She opened it, still wearing the boots and shirt and trousers she had put on for her walk. “Yes?”

  “You asked to see your file.”

  She studied him. “Did my father send you?”

  “No. One of the M.I. staff.”

  “I’m not allowed to see my file. None of us are.”

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bsp; “An . . . exception has been made in your case. But it’s at your discretion. Only if you’re interested.”

  Wordlessly, she followed him down the echoing corridor, down flights of creaking stairs.

  The basement room was bright and warm, thickly carpeted, quite unlike the drafty halls and wards of the old sanatorium above. The doctor showed her to a carrel. “I’ve entered the appropriate code already. I’ll be right here if you have any questions.” He sat across the narrow aisle, two carrels down, with his back turned to her. He wanted her to feel that she had some privacy, but not to forget that he was present.

  She studied the flatscreen on the desk. Then her fingers expertly stroked the hemispheres of the manual input. Alphanumerics appeared on the screen: “WARNING: unauthorized access to this file is punishable by fine and/or imprisonment under the National Security Act.” After a few seconds a stylized logo appeared, the image of a fox.

  That image disappeared, to be replaced by more words and numbers. “Case L. N. 30851005, Specified Aptitude Resource Training and Assessment project. Access by other than authorized Multiple Intelligence personnel is strictly forbidden.”

  She stroked the input again.

  Across the aisle the doctor nervously smoked a cigarette —ancient and hideous vice—while he waited, seeing what she saw on the screen in front of him. The procedures and evaluations would be familiar to her, embedded in long-term memory, engrained there, because so much of what she had learned was not mere information, but was process, performance. . . .

  She was reminded of what had become part of her. She had been taught languages—many of them, including her own—by conversing and reading aloud at far beyond the level of vocabulary considered appropriate to her age. She had been taught to perform on the violin and the piano since infancy, since long before the fingers of her hands could stretch to form chords, and in the same way she had been taught dance and gymnastics and horseback riding, by being made to practice incessantly, by having the most expected of her. She had manipulated space-filling images on a computer, and learned drawing and sculpture from masters; she had been immersed in a swirling social matrix in the schoolroom since before she could speak; she had been tutored in set theory, geometry, and algebra from the time she had been able to distinguish among her toes and demonstrate Piagetian conservation. “L. N.” had a long number attached to her file name, but she was the first subject of SPARTA, which had been created by her father and mother.