2061: Odyssey Three Read online

  To which Victor Willis had promptly retorted: "How does he know? And by the way, Beagle's commander cut his throat when he got back to England."

  That was rather typical of Victor, perhaps the planet's best-known science communicator - to his fans - or 'pop-scientist' - to his equally numerous detractors. It would be unfair to call them enemies; admiration for his talents was universal, if occasionally grudging. His soft, mid-Pacific accent and expansive gestures on camera were widely parodied, and he had been credited (or blamed) for the revival of full-length beards. "A man who grows that much hair," critics were fond of saying, "must have a lot to hide."

  He was certainly the most instantly recognizable of the six VIPs - though Floyd, who no longer regarded himself as a celebrity, always referred to them ironically as "The Famous Five". Yva Merlin could often walk unrecognized on Park Avenue, on the rare occasions when she emerged from her apartment. Dimitri Mihailovich, to his considerable annoyance, was a good ten centimetres below average height; this might help to explain his fondness for thousand-piece orchestras - real or synthesized -but did not enhance his public image.

  Clifford Greenburg and Margaret M'Bala also fell into the category of "famous unknowns" - though this would certainly change when they got back to Earth. The first man to land on Mercury had one of those pleasant, unremarkable faces that are very hard to remember; moreover the days when he had dominated the news were now thirty years in the past. And like most authors who are not addicted to talk shows and autographing sessions, Ms M'Bala would be unrecognized by the vast majority of her millions of readers.

  Her literary fame had been one of the sensations of the forties. A scholarly study of the Greek pantheon was not usually a candidate for the best-seller lists, but Ms M'Bala had placed its eternally inexhaustible myths in a contemporary space-age setting. Names which a century earlier had been familiar only to astronomers and classical scholars were now part of every educated person's world picture; almost every day there would be news from Ganymede, Callisto, Io, Titan, Japetus - or even more obscure worlds like Carme, Pasiphaë, Hyperion, Phoebe...

  Her book would have been no more than modestly successful, however, had she not focused on the complicated family life of Jupiter-Zeus, Father of all the Gods (as well as much else). And by a stroke of luck, an editor of genius had changed her original title, The View from Olympus, to The Passions of the Gods. Envious academics usually referred to it as Olympic Lusts, but invariably wished they had written it.

  Not surprisingly, it was Maggie M - as she was quickly christened by her fellow passengers - who first used the phrase Ship of Fools. Victor Willis adopted it eagerly, and soon discovered an intriguing historical resonance. Almost a century ago, Katherine Anne Porter had herself sailed with a group of scientists and writers aboard an ocean liner to watch the launch of Apollo 17, and the end of the first phase of lunar exploration.

  "I'll think about it," Ms M'Bala had remarked ominously, when this was reported to her. "Perhaps it's time for a third version. But I won't know, of course, until we get back to Earth..."

  11: The Lie

  It was many months before Rolf van der Berg could once again turn his thoughts and energies towards Mount Zeus. The taming of Ganymede was a more than full-time job, and he was away from his main office at Dardanus Base for weeks at a time, surveying the route of the proposed Gilgamesh-Osiris monorail.

  The geography of the third and largest Galilean moon had changed drastically since the detonation of Jupiter - and it was still changing. The new sun that had melted the ice of Europa was not as powerful here, four hundred thousand kilometers further out - but it was warm enough to produce a temperate climate at the centre of the face forever turned towards it. There were small, shallow seas - some as large as Earth's Mediterranean - up to latitudes forty north and south. Not many features still survived from the maps generated by the Voyager missions back in the twentieth century. Melting permafrost and occasional tectonic movements triggered by the same tidal forces operating on the two inner moons made the new Ganymede a cartographer's nightmare.

  But those very factors also made it a planetary engineer's paradise. Here was the only world, except for the arid and much less hospitable Mars, on which men might one day walk unprotected beneath an open sky. Ganymede had ample water, all the chemicals of life, and - at least while Lucifer shone - a warmer climate than much of Earth.

  Best of all, full-body spacesuits were no longer necessary; the atmosphere, though still unbreathable, was just dense enough to permit the use of simple face-masks and oxygen cylinders. In a few decades - so the microbiologists promised, though they were hazy about specific dates - even these could be discarded. Strains of oxygen-generating bacteria had already been let loose across the face of Ganymede; most had died but some had flourished, and the slowly rising curve on the atmospheric analysis chart was the first exhibit proudly displayed to all visitors at Dardanus.

  For a long time, van der Berg kept a watchful eye on the data flowing in from Europa VI, hoping that one day the clouds would clear again when it was orbiting above Mount Zeus. He knew that the odds were against it, but while the slightest chance existed he made no effort to explore any other avenue of research. There was no hurry, he had far more important work on his hands - and anyway, the explanation might turn out to be something quite trivial and uninteresting.

  Then Europa VI suddenly expired, almost certainly as a result of a random meteoric impact. Back on Earth, Victor Willis had made rather a fool of himself - in the opinion of many - by interviewing the "Euronuts" who now more than adequately filled the gap left by the UFO-enthusiasts of the previous century. Some of them argued that the probe's demise was due to hostile action from the world below: the fact that it had been allowed to operate without interference for fifteen years - almost twice its design life - did not bother them in the least. To Victor's credit, he stressed this point and demolished most of the cultists' other arguments; but the consensus was that he should never have given them publicity in the first place.

  To van der Berg, who quite relished his colleagues' description of him as a "stubborn Dutchman" and did his best to live up to it, the failure of Europa VI was a challenge not to be resisted. There was not the slightest hope of funding a replacement, for the silencing of the garrulous and embarrassingly long-lived probe had been received with considerable relief.

  So what was the alternative? van der Berg sat down to consider his options. Because he was a geologist, and not an astrophysicist, it was several days before he suddenly realized that the answer had been staring him in the face ever since he had landed on Ganymede.

  Afrikaans is one of the world's best languages in which to curse; even when spoken politely, it can bruise innocent bystanders. van der Berg let off steam for a few minutes; then he put through a call to the Tiamat Observatory - sitting precisely on the equator, with the tiny, blinding disc of Lucifer forever vertically overhead.

  Astrophysicists, concerned with the most spectacular objects in the universe, tend to patronize mere geologists who devote their lives to small, messy things like planets. But out here on the frontier, everyone helped everyone else, and Dr Wilkins was not only interested but sympathetic.

  The Tiamat Observatory had been built for a single purpose, which had indeed been one of the main reasons for establishing a base on Ganymede. The study of Lucifer was of enormous importance not only to pure scientists but also to nuclear engineers, meteorologists, oceanographers - and, not least, to statesmen and philosophers. That there were entities which could turn a planet into a sun was a staggering thought, and had kept many awake at night. It would be well for mankind to learn all it could about the process; one day there might be need to imitate it - or prevent it.

  And so for more than a decade Tiamat had been observing Lucifer with every possible type of instrumentation, continually recording its spectrum across the entire electromagnetic band, and also actively probing it with radar from a modest hundred-metre dish, s
lung across a small impact crater.

  "Yes," said Dr Wilkins, "we've often looked at Europa and Io. But our beam is fixed on Lucifer, so we can only see them for a few minutes while they're in transit. And your Mount Zeus is just on the dayside, so it's hidden from us then."

  "I realize that," said van der Berg a little impatiently. "But couldn't you offset the beam by just a little, so you could have a look at Europa before it comes in line? Ten or twenty degrees would get you far enough into dayside."

  "One degree would be enough to miss Lucifer, and get Europa full-face on the other side of its orbit. But then it would be more than three times further away, so we'd only have a hundredth of the reflected power. Might work, though: we'll give it a try. Let me have the specs on frequencies, wave envelopes, polarization and anything else your remote-sensing people think will help. It won't take us long to rig up a phase-shifting network that will slew the beam a couple of degrees. More than that I don't know - it's not a problem we've ever considered. Though perhaps we should have done so - anyway, what do you expect to find on Europa, except ice and water?"

  "If I knew," said van der Berg cheerfully, "I wouldn't be asking for help, would I?"

  "And I wouldn't be asking for full credit when you publish. Too bad my name's at the end of the alphabet; you'll be ahead of me by only one letter."

  That was a year ago: the long-range scans hadn't been good enough, and offsetting the beam to look on to Europa's dayside just before conjunction had proved more difficult than expected. But at last the results were in; the computers had digested them, and van der Berg was the first human being to look at a mineralogical map of post-Lucifer Europa.

  It was, as Dr Wilkins had surmised, mostly ice and water, with outcroppings of basalt interspersed with deposits of sulphur. But there were two anomalies.

  One appeared to be an artefact of the imaging process; there was an absolutely straight feature, two kilometers long, which showed virtually no radar echo. van der Berg left Dr Wilkins to puzzle over that; he was only concerned with Mount Zeus.

  It had taken him a long time to make the identification, because only a madman - or a really desperate scientist - would have dreamed that such a thing was possible. Even now, though every parameter checked to the limits of accuracy, he still could not really believe it. And he had not even attempted to consider his next move.

  When Dr Wilkins called, anxious to see his name and reputation spreading through the data banks, he mumbled that he was still analysing the results. But at last he could put it off no longer.

  "Nothing very exciting," he told his unsuspecting colleague. "Merely a rare form of quartz - I'm still trying to match it from Earth samples."

  It was the first time he had ever lied to a fellow scientist, and he felt terrible about it.

  But what was the alternative?

  12: Oom Paul

  Rolf van der Berg had not seen his Uncle Paul for a decade, and it was not likely that they would ever again meet in the flesh. Yet he felt very close to the old scientist - the last of his generation, and the only one who could recall (when he wished, which was seldom) his forefathers' way of life.

  Dr Paul Kreuger - "Oom Paul" to all his family and most of his friends - was always there when he was needed, with information and advice, either in person or at the end of a half-billion-kilometer radio link. Rumour had it that only extreme political pressure had forced the Nobel Committee - with great reluctance - to overlook his contributions to particle physics, now once more in desperate disarray after the general house-cleaning at the end of the twentieth century.

  If this was true, Dr Kreuger bore no grudge. Modest and unassuming, he had no personal enemies, even among the cantankerous factions of his fellow exiles. Indeed, he was so universally respected that he had received several invitations to re-visit the United States of Southern Africa, but had always politely declined - not, he hastened to explain, because he felt he would be in any physical danger in the USSA, but because he feared that the sense of nostalgia would be overwhelming.

  Even using the security of a language now understood by less than a million people, van der Berg had been very discreet, and had used circumlocutions and references that would be meaningless except to a close relative. But Paul had no difficulty in understanding his nephew's message, though he could not take it seriously. He was afraid young Rolf had made a fool of himself, and would let him down as gently as possible. Just as well he hadn't rushed to publish: at least he had the sense to keep quiet...

  And suppose - just suppose - it was true? The scanty hairs rose on the back of Paul's head. A whole spectrum of possibilities - scientific, financial, political - suddenly opened up before his eyes, and the more he considered them, the more awesome they appeared.

  Unlike his devout ancestors, Dr Kreuger had no God to address in moments of crisis or perplexity. Now, he almost wished he had; but even if he could pray, that wouldn't really help. As he sat down at his computer and started to access the data banks, he did not know whether to hope that his nephew had made a stupendous discovery - or was talking utter nonsense. Could the Old One really play such an incredible trick on mankind? Paul remembered Einstein's famous comment that though He was subtle, He was never malicious.

  Stop daydreaming, Dr Paul Kreuger told himself. Your likes or dislikes, your hopes or fears, have absolutely nothing to do with the matter.

  A challenge had been flung to him across half the width of the Solar System; he would not know peace until he had uncovered the truth.

  13: "No One Told Us To Bring Swimsuits..."

  Captain Smith kept his little surprise until day five, just a few hours before turnaround. His announcement was received, as he had expected, with stunned incredulity.

  Victor Willis was the first to recover.

  "A swimming pool! In a spaceship! You must be joking!"

  The Captain leaned back and prepared to enjoy himself. He grinned at Heywood Floyd who had already been let into the secret.

  "Well, I suppose Columbus would have been amazed at some of the facilities on the ships that came after him."

  "Is there a diving board?" asked Greenburg wistfully. "I used to be college champion."

  "As a matter of fact - yes. It's only five metres - but that will give you three seconds of free fall, at our nominal tenth of a gee. And if you want a longer time, I'm sure Mr Curtis will be happy to reduce thrust."

  "Indeed?" said the Chief Engineer dryly. "And mess up all my orbit calculations? Not to mention the risk of the water crawling out, Surface tension, you know...

  "Wasn't there a space station once that had a spherical swimming pool?" somebody asked.

  "They tried it at the hub of Pasteur, before they started the spin," answered Floyd. "It just wasn't practical. In zero gravity, it had to be completely enclosed. And you could drown rather easily inside a big sphere of water, if you panicked."

  "One way of getting into the record books - first person to drown in space..."

  "No one told us to bring swimsuits," complained Maggie M'Bala.

  "Anyone who has to wear a swimsuit probably should," Mihailovich whispered to Floyd.

  Captain Smith rapped on the table to restore order. "This is more important, please. As you know, at midnight we reach maximum speed, and have to start braking. So the drive will shut down at 23.00, and the ship will be reversed. We'll have two hours of weightlessness before we commence thrust again at 01.00.

  "As you can imagine, the crew will be rather busy - we'll use the opportunity for an engine check and a hull inspection, which can't be done while we're under power. I strongly advise you to be sleeping then, with the restraint straps lightly fastened across your beds. The stewards will check that there aren't any loose articles that could cause trouble when weight comes on again. Questions?"

  There was a profound silence, as if the assembled passengers were still somewhat stunned by the revelation and were deciding what to do about it.

  "I was hoping you'd ask me abou
t the economics of such a luxury - but as you haven't, I'll tell you anyway. It's not a luxury at all - it doesn't cost a thing, but we hope it will be a very valuable asset on future voyages.

  "You see, we have to carry five thousand tons of water as reaction mass, so we might as well make the best use of it. Number One tank is now three-quarters empty; we'll keep it that way until the end of the voyage. So after breakfast tomorrow - see you down at the beach...

  Considering the rush to get Universe spaceborne, it was surprising that such a good job had been done on something so spectacularly non-essential.

  The "beach" was a metal platform, about five metres wide, curving around a third of the great tank's circumference. Although the far wall was only another twenty metres away, clever use of projected images made it seem at infinity. Borne on the waves in the middle distance, surfers were heading towards a shore which they would never reach, Beyond them, a beautiful passenger clipper which any travel agent would recognize instantly as Tsung Sea-Space Corporation's Tai-Pan was racing along the horizon under a full spread of sail.

  To complete the illusion, there was sand underfoot (slightly magnetized, so it would not stray too far from its appointed place) and the short length of beach ended in a grove of palm trees which were quite convincing, until examined too closely. Overhead, a hot tropical sun completed the idyllic picture; it was hard to realize that just beyond these walls the real Sun was shining, now twice as fiercely as on any terrestrial beach.

  The designer had really done a wonderful job, in the limited space available. It seemed a little unfair of Greenburg to complain: "Pity there's no surf..."

  14: Search

  It is a good principle in science not to believe any "fact" - however well-attested - until it fits into some accepted frame of reference. Occasionally, of course, an observation can shatter the frame and force the construction of a new one, but that is extremely rare. Galileos and Einsteins seldom appear more than once per century, which is just as well for the equanimity of mankind.