“We're near the beginning of the Fourth Millennium. Believe me – you left Earth almost a thousand years ago.”
“I believe you,” Poole answered calmly. Then, to his great annoyance, the room started to spin around him, and he knew nothing more.
When he regained consciousness, he found that he was no longer in a bleak hospital room but in a luxurious suite with attractive – and steadily changing – images on the walls. Some of these were famous and familiar paintings, others showed land and sea-scapes that might have been from his own time. There was nothing alien or upsetting: that, he guessed, would come later.
His present surroundings had obviously been carefully programmed: he wondered if there was the equivalent of a television screen somewhere (how many channels would the Fourth Millennium have?) but could see no sign of any controls near his bed. There was so much he would have to learn in this new world: he was a savage who had suddenly encountered civilization.
But first, he must regain his strength – and learn the language; not even the advent of sound recording, already more than a century old when Poole was born, had prevented major changes in grammar and pronunciation. And there were thousands of new words, mostly from science and technology, though often he was able to make a shrewd guess at their meaning.
More frustrating, however, were the myriad of famous and infamous personal names that had accumulated over the millennium, and which meant nothing to him. For weeks, until he had built up a data bank, most of his conversations had to be interrupted with potted biographies. As Poole's strength increased, so did the number of his visitors, though always under Professor Anderson's watchful eye. They included medical specialists, scholars of several disciplines, and – of the greatest interest to him – spacecraft commanders.
There was little that he could tell the doctors and historians that was not recorded somewhere in Mankind's gigantic data banks, but he was often able to give them research shortcuts and new insights about the events of his own time. Though they all treated him with the utmost respect and listened patiently as he tried to answer their questions, they seemed reluctant to answer his. Poole began to feel that he was being over-protected from culture shock, and half-seriously wondered how he could escape from his suite. On the few occasions he was alone, he was not surprised to discover that the door was locked.
Then the arrival of Doctor Indra Wallace changed everything. Despite her name, her chief racial component appeared to be Japanese, and there were times when with just a little imagination Poole could picture her as a rather mature Geisha Girl. It was hardly an appropriate image for a distinguished historian, holding a Virtual Chair at a university still boasting real ivy.
She was the first visitor with a fluent command of Poole's own English, so he was delighted to meet her.
“Mr Poole,” she began, in a very business-like voice, “I've been appointed your official guide and – let's say – mentor. My qualifications – I've specialized in your period – my thesis was 'The Collapse of the Nation-State, 2000-50'. 1 believe we can help each other in many ways.”
“I'm sure we can. First I'd like you to get me out of here, so I can see a little of your world.”
“Exactly what we intend to do. But first we must give you an Ident. Until then you'll be – what was the term? – a non-person. It would be almost impossible for you to go anywhere, or get anything done. No input device would recognize your existence.”
“Just what I expected,” Poole answered, with a wry smile. “It was starting to get that way in my own time – and many people hated the idea.”
“Some still do. They go off and live in the wilderness – there's a lot more on Earth than there was in your century! But they always take their compaks with them, so they can call for help as soon as they get into trouble. The median time is about five days.”
“Sorry to hear that. The human race has obviously deteriorated.”
He was cautiously testing her, trying to find the limits of her tolerance and to map out her personality. It was obvious that they were going to spend much time together, and that he would have to depend upon her in hundreds of ways. Yet he was still not sure if he would even like her: perhaps she regarded him merely as a fascinating museum exhibit.
Rather to Poole's surprise, she agreed with his criticism.
“That may be true – in some respects. Perhaps we're physically weaker, but we're healthier and better adjusted than most humans who have ever lived. The Noble Savage was always a myth.”
She walked over to a small rectangular plate, set at eye-level in the door. It was about the size of one of the countless magazines that had proliferated in the far-off Age of Print, and Poole had noticed that every room seemed to have at least one. Usually they were blank, but sometimes they contained lines of slowly scrolling text, completely meaningless to Poole even when most of the words were familiar. Once a plate in his suite had emitted urgent beepings, which he had ignored on the assumption that someone else would deal with the problem, whatever it was. Fortunately the noise stopped as abruptly as it had started.
Dr Wallace laid the palm of her hand upon the plate, then removed it after a few seconds. She glanced at Poole, and said smilingly: “Come and look at this.”
The inscription that had suddenly appeared made a good deal of sense, when he read it slowly:WALLACE, INDRA [F2970.03.11 :31.885 / /HIST.OXFORD] “I suppose it means Female, date of birth 11 March 2970 – and that you're associated with the Department of History at Oxford. And I guess that 31.885 is a personal identification number. Correct?”
“Excellent, Mr Poole. I've seen some of your e-mail addresses and credit card numbers – hideous strings of alpha-numeric gibberish that no one could possibly remember! But we all know our date of birth, and not more than 99,999 other people will share it. So a five-figure number is all you'll ever need... and even if you forget that, it doesn't really matter. As you see, it's a part of you.”
“Implant?”
“Yes – nanochip at birth, one in each palm for redundancy. You won't even feel yours when it goes in. But you've given us a small problem...”
“What's that?”
“The readers you'll meet most of the time are too simple-minded to believe your date of birth. So, with your permission, we've moved it up a thousand years.”
“Permission granted. And the rest of the Ident?”
“Optional. You can leave it empty, give your current interests and location – or use it for personal messages, global or targeted.”
Some things, Poole was quite sure, would not have changed over the centuries. A high proportion of those 'targeted' messages would be very personal indeed.
He wondered if there were still self or state-appointed censors in this day and age – and if their efforts at improving other people's morals had been more successful than in his own time.
He would have to ask Dr Wallace about that, when he got to know her better.
4. A Room with a View
“Frank – Professor Anderson thinks you're strong enough to go for a little walk.”
“I'm very pleased to hear it. Do you know the expression 'stir crazy'?”
“No – but I can guess what it means.”
Poole had so adapted to the low gravity that the long strides he was taking seemed perfectly normal. Half a gee, he had estimated – just right to give a sense of well-being. They met only a few people on their walk, all of them strangers, but every one gave a smile of recognition. By now, Poole told himself with a trace of smugness, I must be one of the best-known celebrities in this world. That should be a great help – when I decide what to do with the rest of my life. At least another century, if I can believe Anderson.
The corridor along which they were walking was completely featureless apart from occasional numbered doors, each bearing one of the universal recog panels. Poole had followed Indra for perhaps two hundred meters when he came to a sudden halt, shocked because he had not realized something so blindingly obvi
ous.
“This space-station must be enormous!' he exclaimed. Indra smiled back at him.
“Didn't you have a saying – 'You ain't seen anything yet'?”
“ 'Nothing',” he corrected, absent-mindedly. He was still trying to estimate the scale of this structure when he had another surprise. Who would have imagined a space-station large enough to boast a subway – admittedly a miniature one, with a single small coach capable of seating only a dozen passengers.
“Observation Lounge Three,” ordered Indra, and they drew silently and swiftly away from the terminal.
Poole checked the time on the elaborate wrist-band whose functions he was still exploring. One minor surprise had been that the whole world was now on Universal Time: the confusing patchwork of Time Zones had been swept away by the advent of global communications There had been much talk of this, back in the twenty-first century, and it had even been suggested that Solar should be replaced by Sidereal Time. Then, during the course of the year, the Sun would move right round the clock: setting at the time it had risen six months earlier.
However, nothing had come of this “Equal time in the Sun” proposal – or of even more vociferous attempts to reform the calendar. That particular job, it had been cynically suggested, would have to wait for somewhat major advances in technology. Some day, surely, one of God's minor mistakes would be corrected, and the Earth's orbit would be adjusted, to give every year twelve months of thirty exactly equal days.
As far as Poole could judge by speed and elapsed time, they must have travelled at least three kilometers before the vehicle came to a silent stop, the doors opened, and a bland autovoice intoned, 'Have a good view. Thirty-five per cent cloud-cover today.”
At last, thought Poole, we're getting near the outer wall. But here was another mystery – despite the distance he had gone, neither the strength nor the direction of gravity had altered! He could not imagine a spinning space-station so huge that the gee-vector would not be changed by such a displacement... could he really be on some planet after all? But he would feel lighter – usually much lighter – on any other habitable world in the Solar System.
When the outer door of the terminal opened, and Poole found himself entering a small airlock, he realized that he must indeed be in space. But where were the spacesuits? He looked around anxiously: it was against all his instincts to be so close to vacuum, naked and unprotected. One experience of that was enough...
“We're nearly there,” said Indra reassuringly.
The last door opened, and he was looking out into the utter blackness of space, through a huge window that was curved both vertically and horizontally. He felt like a goldfish in its bowl, and hoped that the designers of this audacious piece of engineering knew exactly what they were doing. They certainly possessed better structural materials than had existed in his time.
Though the stars must be shining out there, his light-adapted eyes could see nothing but black emptiness beyond the curve of the great window. As he started to walk towards it to get a wider view, Indra restrained him and pointed straight ahead.
“Look carefully,” she said “Don't you see it–”
Poole blinked, and stared into the night. Surely it must be an illusion – even, heaven forbid, a crack in the window...
He moved his head from side to side. No, it was real. But what could it be? He remembered Euclid's definition “A lie has length, but no thickness”.
For spanning the whole height of the window, and obviously continuing out of sight above and below, was a thread of light quite easy to see when he looked for it, yet so one-dimensional that the word “thin” could not even be applied. However, it was not completely featureless; there were barely visible spots of greater brilliance at irregular intervals along its length, like drops of water on a spider's web.
Poole continued walking towards the window, and the view expanded until at last he could see what lay below him. It was familiar enough: the whole continent of Europe, and much of northern Africa, just as he had seen them many times from space. So he was in orbit after all – probably an equatorial one, at a height of at least a thousand kilometers.
Indra was looking at him with a quizzical smile.
“Go closer to the window,” she said, very softly. “So that you can look straight down. I hope you have a good head for heights.”
What a silly thing to say to an astronaut! Poole told himself as he moved forward. If I ever suffered from vertigo, I wouldn't be in this business...
The thought had barely passed through his mind when he cried “My God!” and involuntarily stepped back from the window, Then, bracing himself, he dared to look again.
He was looking down on the distant Mediterranean from the face of a cylindrical tower, whose gently curving wall indicated a diameter of several kilometers. But that was nothing compared with its length, for it tapered away down, down, down – until it disappeared into the mist somewhere over Africa. He assumed that it continued all the way to the surface.
“How high are we?” he whispered.
“Two thousand kay. But now look upwards.”
This time, it was not such a shock: he had expected what he would see. The tower dwindled away until it became a glittering thread against the blackness of space, and he did not doubt that it continued all the way to the geostationary orbit, thirty-six thousand kilometers above the Equator. Such fantasies had been well known in Poole's day: he had never dreamed he would see the reality – and be living in it.
He pointed towards the distant thread reaching up from the eastern horizon.
“That must be another one.”
“Yes – the Asian Tower. We must look exactly the same to them.”
“How many are there?”
“Just four, equally spaced around the Equator. Africa, Asia, America, Pacifica. The last one's almost empty – only a few hundred levels completed. Nothing to see except water...”
Poole was still absorbing this stupendous concept when a disturbing thought occurred to him.
“There were already thousands of satellites, at all sorts of altitudes, in my time. How do you avoid collisions?”
Indra looked slightly embarrassed.
“You know – I never thought about that – it's not my field.” She paused for a moment, clearly searching her memory. Then her face brightened.
“I believe there was a big clean-up operation, centuries ago. There just aren't any satellites, below the stationary orbit.”
That made sense, Poole told himself. They wouldn't be needed – the four gigantic towers could provide all the facilities once provided by thousands of satellites and space-stations.
“And there have never been any accidents – any collisions with spaceships leaving earth, or re-entering the atmosphere?”
Indra looked at him with surprise.
“But they don't, any more,” She pointed to the ceiling. “All the spaceports are where they should be – up there, on the outer ring. I believe it's four hundred years since the last rocket lifted off from the surface of the Earth.”
Poole was still digesting this when a trivial anomaly caught his attention. His training as an astronaut had made him alert to anything out of the ordinary: in space, that might be a matter of life or death.
The Sun was out of view, high overhead, but its rays streaming down through the great window painted a brilliant band of light on the floor underfoot. Cutting across that band at an angle was another, much fainter one, so that the frame of the window threw a double shadow.
Poole had to go almost down on his knees so that he could peer up at the sky. He had thought himself beyond surprise, but the spectacle of two suns left him momentarily speechless.
“What's that?” he gasped, when he had recovered his breath.
“Oh – haven't you been told? That's Lucifer.”
“Earth has another sun?”
“Well, it doesn't give us much heat, but it's put the Moon out of business... Before the Second Mission went t
here to look for you, that was the planet Jupiter.”
I knew I would have much to learn in this new world, Poole told himself. But just how much, I never dreamed.
5. Education
Poole was both astonished and delighted when the television set was wheeled into the room and positioned at the end of his bed. Delighted because he was suffering from mild information starvation – and astonished because it was a model which had been obsolete even in his own time.
“We've had to promise the Museum we'll give it back,” Matron informed him. “And I expect you know how to use this,”
As he fondled the remote-control, Poole felt a wave of acute nostalgia sweep over him. As few other artifact could, it brought back memories of his childhood, and the days when most television sets were too stupid to understand spoken commands.
“Thank you, Matron. What's the best news channel?”
She seemed puzzled by his question, then brightened.
“Oh – I see what you mean. But Professor Anderson thinks you're not quite ready yet. So Archives has put together a collection that will make you feel at home.”
Poole wondered briefly what the storage medium was in this day and age. He could still remember compact disks, and his eccentric old Uncle George had been the proud possessor of a collection of vintage videotapes. But surely that technological contest must have finished centuries ago – in the usual Darwinian way, with the survival of the fittest.
He had to admit that the selection was well done, by someone (Indra?) familiar with the early twenty-first century. There was nothing disturbing – no wars or violence, and very little contemporary business or politics, all of which would now be utterly irrelevant. There were some light comedies, sporting events (how did they know that he had been a keen tennis fan?), classical and pop music, and wildlife documentaries.
And whoever had put this collection together had a sense of humor, or they would not have included episodes from each Star Trek series. As a very small boy, Poole had met both Patrick Stewart and Leonard Nimoy: he wondered what they would have thought if they could have known the destiny of the child who had shyly asked for their autographs.
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