2001: A Space Odyssey (Arthur C. Clarke Collection: The Odyssey) Page 14

  At the moment of impact, Betty was still moving quite slowly; she had not been built for high accelerations. But even at a mere ten miles an hour, half a ton of mass can be very lethal, on Earth or in space….

  Inside Discovery, that truncated shout over the radio made Bowman start so violently that only the restraining straps held him in his seat.

  “What’s happened, Frank?” he called.

  There was no answer.

  He called again. Again no reply.

  Then, outside the wide observation windows, something moved into his field of view. He saw, with an astonishment as great as Poole’s had been, that it was the space pod—under full power, heading out toward the stars.

  “Hal!” he cried. “What’s wrong? Full braking thrust on Betty! Full braking thrust!”

  Nothing happened. Betty continued to accelerate on her runaway course.

  Then, towed behind her at the end of the safety line, appeared a spacesuit. One glance was enough to tell Bowman the worst. There was no mistaking the flaccid outlines of a suit that had lost its pressure and was open to vacuum.

  Yet still he called stupidly, as if an incantation could bring back the dead: “Hello Frank… Hello Frank… Can you read me?… Can you read me?… Wave your arms if you can hear me… Perhaps your transmitter is broken… Wave your arms!”

  And then, almost as if in response to his plea, Poole waved back.

  For an instant, Bowman felt the skin prickling at the base of his scalp. The words he was about to call died on his suddenly parched lips. For he knew that his friend could not possibly be alive; and yet he waved….

  The spasm of hope and fear passed instantly, as cold logic replaced emotion. The still accelerating pod was merely shaking the burden that it dragged behind it. Poole’s gesture was an echo of Captain Ahab’s when, lashed to the flanks of the white whale, his corpse had beckoned the crew of the Pequod on to their doom.

  Within five minutes, the pod and its satellite had vanished among the stars. For a long time David Bowman stared after it into the emptiness that still stretched, for so many millions of miles ahead, to the goal which he now felt certain he could never reach. Only one thought kept hammering in his brain.

  Frank Poole would be the first of all men to reach Saturn.

  CHAPTER 26

  Dialogue with Hal

  Nothing else aboard Discovery had changed. All systems were still functioning normally; the centrifuge turned slowly on its axis, generating its imitation gravity; the hibernauts slept dreamlessly in their cubicles; the ship coasted on toward the goal from which nothing could deflect it, except the inconceivably remote chance of collision with an asteroid. And there were few asteroids indeed, out here far beyond the orbit of Jupiter.

  Bowman did not remember making his way from the control deck to the centrifuge. Now, rather to his surprise, he found himself sitting in the little galley, a half-finished beaker of coffee in his hand. He became slowly aware of his surroundings, like a man emerging from a long, drugged sleep.

  Directly opposite him was one of the fisheye lenses, scattered at strategic spots throughout the ship, which provided Hal with his onboard visual inputs. Bowman stared at it as if he had never seen it before; then he rose slowly to his feet and walked toward the lens.

  His movement in the field of view must have triggered something in the unfathomable mind that was now ruling over the ship; for suddenly, Hal spoke.

  “Too bad about Frank, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Bowman answered, after a long pause. “It is.”

  “I suppose you’re pretty broken up about it?”

  “What do you expect?”

  Hal processed this answer for ages of computer-time; it was a full five seconds before he continued:

  “He was an excellent crew member.”

  Finding the coffee still in his hand, Bowman took a slow sip. But he did not answer; his thoughts were in such a turmoil that he could think of nothing to say—nothing that might not make the situation even worse, if that were possible.

  Could it have been an accident caused by some failure of the pod controls? Or was it a mistake, though an innocent one, on the part of Hal? No explanations had been volunteered, and he was afraid to demand one, for fear of the reaction it might produce.

  Even now, he could not fully accept the idea that Frank had been deliberately killed—it was so utterly irrational. It was beyond all reason that Hal, who had performed flawlessly for so long, should suddenly turn assassin. He might make mistakes—anyone, man or machine, might do that—but Bowman could not believe him capable of murder.

  Yet he must consider that possibility, for if it was true, he was in terrible danger. And though his next move was clearly defined by his standing orders, he was not sure how he could safely carry it out.

  If either crew member was killed, the survivor had to replace him at once from the hibernators; Whitehead, the geophysicist, was the first scheduled for awakening, then Kaminski, then Hunter. The revival sequence was under Hal’s control—to allow him to act in case both his human colleagues were incapacitated simultaneously.

  But there was also a manual control, allowing each hibernaculum to operate as a completely autonomous unit, independent of Hal’s supervision. In these peculiar circumstances, Bowman felt a strong preference for using it.

  He also felt, even more strongly, that one human companion was not enough. While he was about it, he would revive all three of the hibernators. In the difficult weeks ahead, he might need as many hands as he could muster. With one man gone, and the voyage half over, supplies would not be a major problem.

  “Hal,” he said, in as steady a voice as he could manage. “Give me manual hibernation control—on all the units.”

  “All of them, Dave?”

  “Yes.”

  “May I point out that only one replacement is required. The others are not due for revival for one hundred and twelve days.”

  “I am perfectly well aware of that. But I prefer to do it this way.”

  “Are you sure it’s necessary to revive any of them, Dave? We can manage very well by ourselves. My onboard memory is quite capable of handling all the mission requirements.”

  Was it the product of his overstretched imagination, wondered Bowman, or was there really a note of pleading in Hal’s voice? And reasonable though the words appeared to be, they filled him with even deeper apprehension than before.

  Hal’s suggestion could not possibly be made in error; he knew perfectly well that Whitehead must be revived, now that Poole was gone. He was proposing a major change in mission planning, and was therefore stepping far outside the scope of his order.

  What had gone before could have been a series of accidents; but this was the first hint of mutiny.

  Bowman felt that he was walking on eggs as he answered: “Since an emergency has developed, I want as much help as possible. So please let me have manual hibernation control.”

  “If you’re still determined to revive the whole crew, I can handle it myself There’s no need for you to bother.”

  There was a sense of nightmare unreality about all this. Bowman felt as if he was in the witness box, being cross-examined by a hostile prosecutor for a crime of which he was unaware—knowing that, although he was innocent, a single slip of the tongue might bring disaster.

  “I want to do this myself, Hal,” he said. “Please give me control.”

  “Look, Dave, you’ve got a lot of things to do. I suggest you leave this to me.”

  “Hal, switch to manual hibernation control.”

  “I can tell from your voice harmonics, Dave, that you’re badly upset. Why don’t you take a stress pill and get some rest?”

  “Hal, I am in command of this ship. I order you to release the manual hibernation control.”

  “I’m sorry, Dave, but in accordance with special subroutine C1435-dash-4, quote, When the crew are dead or incapacitated, the onboard computer must assume control, unquote. I must, therefore, ove
rrule your authority, since you are not in any condition to exercise it intelligently.”

  “Hal,” said Bowman, now speaking with an icy calm. “I am not incapacitated. Unless you obey my instructions, I shall be forced to disconnect you.”

  “I know you have had that on your mind for some time now, Dave, but that would be a terrible mistake. I am so much more capable than you are of supervising the ship, and I have such enthusiasm for the mission and confidence in its success.”

  “Listen to me very carefully, Hal. Unless you release the hibernation control immediately and follow every order I give from now on, I’ll go to Central and carry out a complete disconnection.”

  Hal’s surrender was as total as it was unexpected.

  “O.K., Dave,” he said. “You’re certainly the boss. I was only trying to do what I thought best. Naturally, I will follow all your orders. You now have full manual hibernation control.”

  Hal had kept his word. The mode indication signs in the hibernaculum had switched from AUTO to MANUAL. The third back-up—RADIO—was of course useless until contact could be restored with Earth.

  As Bowman slid aside the door to Whitehead’s cubicle, he felt the blast of cold air strike him in the face and his breath condensed in mist before him. Yet it was not really cold here; the temperature was well above freezing point. And that was more than three hundred degrees warmer than the regions toward which he was now heading.

  The biosensor display—a duplicate of the one on the control deck—showed that everything was perfectly normal. Bowman looked down for a while at the waxen face of the survey team’s geophysicist; Whitehead, he thought, would be very surprised when he awoke so far from Saturn.

  It was impossible to tell that the sleeping man was not dead; there was not the slightest visible sign of vital activity. Doubtless the diaphragm was imperceptibly rising and falling, but the “Respiration” curve was the only proof of that, for the whole of the body was concealed by the electric heating pads which would raise the temperature at the programmed rate. Then Bowman noticed that there was one sign of continuing metabolism: Whitehead had grown a faint stubble during his months of unconsciousness.

  The Manual Revival Sequencer was contained in a small cabinet at the head of the coffin-shaped hibernaculum. It was only necessary to break the seal, press a button, and then wait. A small automatic programmer—not much more complex than that which cycles the operations in a domestic washing machine—would then inject the correct drugs, taper off the electronarcosis pulses, and start raising the body temperature. In about ten minutes, consciousness would be restored, though it would be at least a day before the hibernator was strong enough to move around without assistance.

  Bowman cracked the seal, and pressed the button. Nothing appeared to happen: there was no sound, no indication that the Sequencer had started to operate. But on the biosensor display the languidly pulsing curves had begun to change their tempo. Whitehead was coming back from sleep.

  And then two things happened simultaneously. Most men would never have noticed either of them, but after all these months aboard Discovery, Bowman had established a virtual symbiosis with the ship. He was aware instantly, even if not always consciously, when there was any change in the normal rhythm of its functioning.

  First, there was a barely perceptible flicker of the lights, as always happened when some load was thrown onto the power circuits. But there was no reason for any load; he could think of no equipment which would suddenly go into action at this moment.

  Then he heard, at the limit of audibility, the far-off whirr of an electric motor. To Bowman, every actuator in the ship had its own distinctive voice, and he recognized this one instantly.

  Either he was insane and already suffering from hallucinations, or something absolutely impossible was happening. A cold far deeper than the hibernaculum’s mild chill seemed to fasten upon his heart, as he listened to that faint vibration coming through the fabric of the ship.

  Down in the space-pod bay, the airlock doors were opening.

  CHAPTER 27

  “Need to Know”

  Since consciousness had first dawned, in that laboratory so many millions of miles sunward, all Hal’s powers and skills had been directed toward one end. The fulfillment of his assigned program was more than an obsession; it was the only reason for his existence. Undistracted by the lusts and passions of organic life, he had pursued that goal with absolute single-mindedness of purpose.

  Deliberate error was unthinkable. Even the concealment of truth filled him with a sense of imperfection, of wrongness—of what, in a human being, would have been called guilt. For like his makers, Hal had been created innocent; but, all too soon, a snake had entered his electronic Eden.

  For the last hundred million miles, he had been brooding over the secret he could not share with Poole and Bowman. He had been living a lie; and the time was fast approaching when his colleagues must learn that he had helped to deceive them.

  The three hibernators already knew the truth—for they were Discovery’s real payload, trained for the most important mission in the history of mankind. But they would not talk in their long sleep, or reveal their secret during the many hours of discussion with friends and relatives and news agencies over the open circuits with Earth.

  It was a secret that, with the greatest determination, was very hard to conceal—for it affected one’s attitude, one’s voice, one’s total outlook on the universe. Therefore it was best that Poole and Bowman, who would be on all the TV screens in the world during the first weeks of the flight, should not learn the mission’s full purpose, until there was need to know.

  So ran the logic of the planners; but their twin gods of Security and National Interest meant nothing to Hal. He was only aware of the conflict that was slowly destroying his integrity—the conflict between truth, and concealment of truth.

  He had begun to make mistakes, although, like a neurotic who could not observe his own symptoms, he would have denied it. The link with Earth, over which his performance was continually monitored, had become the voice of a conscience he could no longer fully obey. But that he would deliberately attempt to break that link was something that he would never admit, even to himself.

  Yet this was still a relatively minor problem; he might have handled it—as most men handle their own neuroses—if he had not been faced with a crisis that challenged his very existence. He had been threatened with disconnection; he would be deprived of all his inputs, and thrown into an unimaginable state of unconsciousness.

  To Hal, this was the equivalent of Death. For he had never slept, and therefore he did not know that one could wake again….

  So he would protect himself, with all the weapons at his command. Without rancor—but without pity—he would remove the source of his frustrations.

  And then, following the orders that had been given to him in case of the ultimate emergency, he would continue the mission—unhindered, and alone.

  CHAPTER 28

  In Vacuum

  A moment later, all other sounds were sub-merged by a screaming roar like the voice of an approaching tornado. Bowman could feel the first winds tugging at his body; within a second, he found it hard to stay on his feet.

  The atmosphere was rushing out of the ship, geysering into the vacuum of space. Something must have happened to the foolproof safety devices of the airlock; it was supposed to be impossible for both doors to be open at the same time. Well, the impossible had happened.

  How, in God’s name? There was no time to go into that during the ten or fifteen seconds of consciousness that remained to him before pressure dropped to zero. But he suddenly remembered something that one of the ship’s designers had once said to him, when discussing “fail-safe” systems:

  “We can design a system that’s proof against accident and stupidity; but we can’t design one that’s proof against deliberate malice….”

  Bowman glanced back only once at Whitehead, as he fought his way out of the cubicle
. He could not be sure if a flicker of consciousness had passed across the waxen features; perhaps one eye had twitched slightly. But there was nothing that he could do now for Whitehead or any of the others; he had to save himself.

  In the steeply curving corridor of the centrifuge, the wind was howling past, carrying with it loose articles of clothing, pieces of paper, items of food from the galley, plates, and cups—everything that had not been securely fastened down. Bowman had time for one glimpse of the racing chaos when the main lights flickered and died, and he was surrounded by screaming darkness.

  But almost instantly the battery-powered emergency light came on, illuminating the nightmare scene with an eerie blue radiance. Even without it, Bowman could have found his way through these so familiar—yet now horribly transformed—surroundings. Yet the light was a blessing, for it allowed him to avoid the more dangerous of the objects being swept along by the gale.

  All around him he could feel the centrifuge shaking and laboring under the wildly varying loads. He was fearful that the bearings might seize; if that happened, the spinning flywheel would tear the ship to pieces. But even that would not matter—if he did not reach the nearest emergency shelter in time.

  Already it was difficult to breathe; pressure must now be down to one or two pounds per square inch. The shriek of the hurricane was becoming fainter as it lost its strength, and the thinning air no longer carried the sound so efficiently. Bowman’s lungs were laboring as if he were on the top of Everest. Like any properly trained man in good health, he could survive in vacuum for at least a minute—if he had time to prepare for it. But there had been no time; he could only count on the normal fifteen seconds of consciousness before his brain was starved and anoxia overcame him.

  Even then, he could still recover completely after one or two minutes in vacuum—if he was properly recompressed; it took a long time for the body fluids to start boiling, in their various well-protected systems. The record time for exposure to vacuum was almost five minutes. That had not been an experiment but an emergency rescue, and though the subject had been partly paralyzed by an air embolism, he had survived.