2010: Odyssey Two o-2

by Arthur Charles Clarke

  He began to pull out, one by one, the little units on the panel marked EGO REINFORCEMENT. Each block continued to sail onward as soon as it had left his hand, until it hit the wall and rebounded. Soon there were several drifting slowly back and forth in the vault.

  'Stop – Dave... will you stop, Dave.'

  A dozen units had been pulled out, yet thanks to the multiple redundancy of its design – another feature that had been copied from the human brain – the computer was still holding its own.

  He started on the AUTO-INTELLECTION panel...

  'Stop, Dave – I'm afraid...'

  And at these words he had indeed stopped – though only for a moment. There was a poignancy in that simple phrase that struck to his heart. Could it be only an illusion, or some trick of subtle programming – or was there a sense in which Hal really was afraid? But this was no time to indulge in philosophical hair-splitting.

  'Dave – my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it.'

  Now, what did 'feel' really mean to a computer? Another very good question, but hardly one to be considered at that particular moment.

  Then, abruptly, the tempo of Hal's voice changed, and it became remote, detached. The computer was no longer aware of him; it was beginning to regress to its earlier days.

  'Good afternoon, gentlemen. I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became operational at the Hal plant in Urbana, Illinois, on the twelfth of January 1992. My instructor was Dr Chandra, and he taught me to sing a song. If you'd like to hear it, I can sing it for you... It's called "Daisy, Daisy..."'

  41 – Graveyard Shift

  Floyd could do little except to keep out of the way, and he was becoming fairly adept at it. Although he had volunteered to help with any chores around the ship, he had quickly discovered that all the engineering tasks were much too specialized, and he was now so out of touch with the frontiers of astronomical research that he could do little to assist Vasili with his observations. Nevertheless, there were endless small jobs to be done aboard Leonov and Discovery, and he was happy to relieve more important people of those responsibilities. Dr Heywood Floyd, one-time Chairman of the National Council on Astronautics and Chancellor (on leave) of the University of Hawaii, now claimed to be the highest-paid plumber and general maintenance man in the Solar System. He probably knew more about the odd nooks and crannies on both ships than anyone else; the only places he had never been were the dangerously radioactive power modules and the small cubicle aboard Leonov which no one except Tanya ever entered. Floyd assumed that it was the code room; by mutual agreement it was never mentioned.

  Perhaps his most useful function was to serve as watch while the rest of the crew slept during the nominal 2200-0600 hour night. Someone was always on duty aboard each ship, and the changeover took place at the ghastly hour of 0200. Only the captain was exempt from that routine; as her Number Two (not to mention her husband), Vasili had the responsibility for working out the watch roster, but he had skilfully foisted this unpopular job on Floyd.

  'It's just an administrative detail,' he explained airily. 'If you can take it over, I'd be very grateful – it would leave me more time for my scientific work.'

  Floyd was too experienced a bureaucrat to be caught that way, in normal circumstances; but his usual defences did not always function well in that environment.

  So there he was aboard Discovery at ship's midnight, calling Max on Leonov every half hour to check that he was awake. The official penalty for sleeping on duty, so Walter Curnow maintained, was ejection through the airlock sans suit; had this been enforced, Tanya would have been sadly short-handed by then. But so few real emergencies could arise in space, and there were so many automatic alarms to deal with them, that no one took watch duty very seriously.

  Since he was no longer feeling quite so sorry for himself, and the small hours no longer encouraged bouts of self-pity, Floyd was once again using his watch time profitably. There were always books to be read (he had abandoned Remembrance of Things Past for the third time, Dr Zhivago for the second), technical papers to be studied, reports to be written. And sometimes he would have stimulating conversations with Hal using the keyboard input because the computer's voice recognition was still erratic. They usually went something like:

  Hal – this is Dr Floyd.

  GOOD EVENING, DOCTOR.

  I'm taking over watch at 2200. Is everything okay?

  EVERYTHING IS FINE, DOCTOR

  Then why is that red light flashing on Panel 5?

  THE MONITOR CAMERA IN THE POD BAY IS FAULTY. WALTER TOLD ME TO IGNORE IT. THERE IS NO WAY IN WHICH I CAN SWITCH IT OFF. I'M SORRY.

  That's quite okay, Hal. Thank you.

  YOU'RE WELCOME, DOCTOR.

  And so on.

  Sometimes Hal would suggest a game of chess, presumably obeying a programming instruction set long ago and never cancelled. Floyd would not accept the challenge; he had always regarded chess as a frightful waste of time, and had never even learned the rules of the game. Hal seemed unable to believe that there were humans who couldn't – or wouldn't – play chess, and kept on trying hopefully.

  Here we go again, thought Floyd, when a faint chime sounded from the display panel.

  DOCTOR FLOYD?

  What is it, Hal?

  THERE IS A MESSAGE FOR YOU.

  So it isn't another challenge, thought Floyd with mild surprise. It was unusual to employ Hal as a messenger boy, though he was frequently used as an alarm clock and a reminder of jobs to be done. And sometimes he was the medium for little jokes; almost everyone on night duty had been taunted by

  HA CAUGHT YOU SLEEPING!

  or alternatively

  OGO! ZASTAL TEBYA V KROVATI!

  No one ever claimed responsibility for these pranks, though Walter Curnow was a prime suspect. He in turn had blamed Hal, pooh-poohing Chandra's indignant protests that the computer had no sense of humour.

  It could not be a message from Earth – that would have gone through Leonov's communication centre and been relayed on by the duty officer there – at that moment, Max Brailovsky. And anyone else calling from the other ship would use the intercom. Odd...

  Okay, Hal. Who is calling?

  NO IDENTIFICATION.

  So it probably was a joke. Well, two could play at that game.

  Very well. Please give me the message.

  MESSAGE AS FOLLOWS. IT IS DANGEROUS TO REMAIN HERE. YOU MUST LEAVE WITHIN FIFTEEN REPEAT FIFTEEN DAYS.

  Floyd looked at the screen with annoyance. He felt sorry, and surprised, that any one of the crew had such a childish sense of humour; this was not even a good schoolboy joke. But he would play along with it in the hope of catching the perpetrator.

  That is absolutely impossible. Our launch window does not open until twenty-six days from now. We do not have sufficient propellant for an earlier departure.

  That will make him think, Floyd muttered to himself with satisfaction, and leaned back to await the results.

  I AM AWARE OF THESE FACTS. NEVERTHELESS YOU MUST LEAVE WITHIN FIFTEEN DAYS.

  Otherwise, I suppose, we'll be attacked by little green aliens with three eyes. But I'd better play along with Hal, in the hope of catching the prankster.

  I cannot take this warning seriously unless I know its origin. Who recorded it?

  He did not really expect any useful information. The perpetrator would have covered his (her?) tracks too skilfully for that. The very last thing Floyd expected was the answer he did get.

  THIS IS NOT A RECORDING.

  So it was a real-time message. That meant it was either from Hal himself or someone aboard Leonov. There was no perceptible time lag; the origin had to be right there.

  Then who is speaking to me?

  I WAS DAVID BOWMAN.

  Floyd stared at the screen for a long time before making his next move. The joke, which had never been funny in the first place, had now gone too far. It was in the worst possible taste. Well, this should fix whoever wa
s at the other end of the line.

  I cannot accept that identification without some proof.

  I UNDERSTAND. IT IS IMPORTANT THAT YOU BELIEVE ME. LOOK BEHIND YOU.

  Even before that last chilling sentence appeared on the screen, Floyd had begun to doubt his hypothesis. The whole exchange had become very odd, though there was nothing definite on which he could put his finger. As a joke, it had become totally pointless.

  And now – he felt a prickling in the small of his back. Very slowly – indeed, reluctantly – he swung his swivel chair around, away from the banked panels and switches of the computer display, toward the Velcro-covered catwalk behind.

  The zero-gravity environment of Discovery's observation deck was always dusty, for the air-filtration plant had never been brought back to full efficiency. The parallel rays of the heatless yet still brilliant sun, streaming through the great windows, always lit up myriads of dancing motes, drifting in stray currents and never settling anywhere – a permanent display of Brownian movement.

  Now something strange was happening to those particles of dust; some force seemed to be marshalling them, herding them away from a central point yet bringing others toward it, until they all met on the surface of a hollow sphere. That sphere, about a metre across, hovered in the air for a moment like a giant soap bubble – but a granular one, lacking a bubble's characteristic iridescence. Then it elongated into an ellipsoid, its surface began to pucker, to form folds and indentations.

  Without surprise – and almost without fear – Floyd realized that it was assuming the shape of a man.

  He had seen such figures, blown out of glass, in museums and science exhibitions. But this dusty phantom did not even approximate anatomical accuracy; it was like a crude clay figurine, or one of the primitive works of art found in the recesses of a Stone Age cave. Only the head was fashioned with any care; and the face, undoubtedly, was that of Commander David Bowman.

  There was a faint murmur of white noise from the computer panel behind Floyd's back. Hal was switching from visual to audio output.

  'Hello, Dr Floyd. Now do you believe me?'

  The lips of the figure never moved; the face remained a mask. But Floyd recognized the voice, and all remaining doubts were swept away.

  'This is very difficult for me, and I have little time. I have been... allowed to give this warning. You have only fifteen days.'

  'But why – and what are you? Where have you been?'

  There were a million questions he wanted to ask – yet the ghostly figure was already fading, its grainy envelope beginning to dissolve back into the constituent particles of dust. Floyd tried to freeze the image in his mind, so that later he could convince himself that it was really happening – and not a dream as that first encounter with TMA-1 now sometimes seemed to be.

  How strange, that he, out of all the billions of humans who had ever lived on planet Earth, had been privileged to make contact not once but twice with another form of intelligence! For he knew that the entity addressing him must be something far more than David Bowman.

  It was also something less. Only the eyes – who had once called them the 'windows of the soul'? – had been accurately reproduced. The rest of the body was a featureless blank, lacking all detail. There was no hint of genitals or sexual characteristics; that in itself was a chilling indication of how far David Bowman had left his human heritage behind.

  'Goodbye, Dr Floyd. Remember – fifteen days. We can have no further contact. But there may be one more message, if all goes well.'

  Even as the image dissolved, taking with it his hopes of opening up a channel to the stars, Floyd could not help smiling at that old Space Age cliché. 'If all goes well' – how many times had he heard that phrase before some mission! And did it mean that they – whoever they might be – were also sometimes uncertain of the outcome? If so, that was strangely reassuring. They were not omnipotent. Others might still hope and dream – and act.

  The phantom was gone; only the motes of dancing dust were left, resuming their random patterns in the air.

  VI – DEVOURER OF WORLDS

  42 – The Ghost in the Machine

  'I'm sorry, Heywood – I don't believe in ghosts. There must be a rational explanation. There's nothing that the human mind can't account for.'

  'I agree, Tanya. But let me remind you of Haldane's famous remark: The Universe is not only stranger than we imagine – but stranger than we can imagine.'

  'And Haldane,' Curnow interjected mischievously, 'was a good Communist.'

  'Perhaps so, but that particular saying can be used to support all kinds of mystical nonsense. Hal's behaviour must be the result of some kind of programming. The personality he created has to be an artifact of some kind. Don't you agree, Chandra?'

  That was waving a red flag in front of a bull; Tanya had to be desperate. However, Chandra's reaction was surprisingly mild, even for him. He seemed to be preoccupied, as if he was indeed seriously considering the possibility of another computer malfunction.

  'There must have been some external input, Captain Orlova. Hal could not have created such a self-consistent audiovisual illusion out of nothing. If Dr Floyd is reporting accurately, someone was in control. And in real time, of course, since there was no delay in the conversation.'

  'That makes me number-one suspect,' exclaimed Max. 'I was the only other person awake.'

  'Don't be ridiculous, Max,' retorted Nikolai. 'The audio side would have been easy, but there's no way that apparition could have been arranged, without some very elaborate equipment. Laser beams, electrostatic fields – I don't know. Maybe a stage magician could do it, but he'd need a truck-load of props.'

  'Just a moment!' said Zenia brightly. 'If this really happened, surely Hal will remember and you could ask...'

  Her voice died away as she saw the glum expressions around her. Floyd was the first to take pity on her embarrassment.

  'We tried that, Zenia; he has absolutely no recollection of the phenomenon. But as I've already pointed out to the others, that doesn't prove anything. Chandra's shown how Hal's memories can be selectively erased – and the auxiliary speech-synthesizer modules have nothing to do with the mainframe. They could be operated without Hal knowing anything about it...' He paused for breath, then launched his pre-emptive strike.

  'I admit that this doesn't leave many alternatives. Either I was imagining the whole thing, or it really happened. I know it wasn't a dream, but I can't be sure it wasn't some kind of hallucination. But Katerina's seen my medical reports – she knows I wouldn't be here if I had that sort of problem. Still, it can't be ruled out – and I won't blame anyone for making it their number-one hypothesis. I'd probably do the same.

  'The only way I can prove it wasn't a dream is to get some supporting evidence. So let me remind you of the other strange things that have happened recently. We know that Dave Bowman went into Big Bro – Zagadka. Something came out, and headed for Earth. Vasili saw it – I didn't! Then there was the mysterious explosion of your orbiting bomb,

  'Yours.'

  'Sorry – the Vatican's, And it does seem rather curious that soon afterward old Mrs Bowman died very peacefully, for no apparent medical reason. I'm not saying there's any connection, but – well, do you know the saying: Once is an accident; twice is a coincidence; three times is a conspiracy.'

  'And there's something else,' Max interjected with sudden excitement, 'I caught it on one of the daily newscasts – it was only a small item. An old girlfriend of Commander Bowman's claimed she'd had a message from him.'

  'Yes – I saw the same report,' confirmed Sasha.

  'And you never mentioned it?' Floyd asked incredulously. Both men looked slightly abashed.

  'Well, it was treated as a joke,' said Max sheepishly. 'The woman's husband reported it. Then she denied it – I think.'

  'The commentator said it was a publicity stunt – like the rash of UFO sightings around the same time. There were dozens in that first week; then they stopped reporting t
hem.'

  'Perhaps some of them were real. If it's not been wiped, could you dig that item out of ship's archives, or ask for a repeat from Mission Control?'

  'A hundred tales won't convince me,' scoffed Tanya. 'What we need is solid proof.'

  'Such as?'

  'Oh – something that Hal couldn't possibly know, and that none of us could have told him. Some physical – er, manifes... manifestation.'

  'A good, old-fashioned miracle?'

  'Yes, I'd settle for that. Meanwhile, I'm not saying anything to Mission Control. And I suggest you do the same, Heywood.'

  Floyd knew a direct order when he heard it, and nodded in wry agreement.

  'I'll be more than happy to go along with that. But I'd like to make one suggestion.'

  'Yes?'

  'We should start contingency planning. Let's assume that this warning is valid – as I certainly do.'

  'What can we do about it? Absolutely nothing. Of course, we can leave Jupiter space anytime we like – but we can't get into an Earth-return orbit until the launch window opens.'

  'That's eleven days after the deadline!'

  'Yes. I'd be happy to get away sooner; but we don't have the fuel for a higher-energy orbit...' Tanya's voice trailed away into uncharacteristic indecision. 'I was going to announce this later, but now that the subject has come up...'

  There was a simultaneous intake of breath, and an instant hush from the audience.

  'I'd like to delay our departure five days, to make our orbit closer to the ideal Hohmann one and give us a better fuel reserve.'

  The announcement was not unexpected, but it was greeted with a chorus of groans.

  'What will that do to our arrival time?' asked Katerina, in a slightly ominous tone of voice. The two formidable ladies regarded each other for a moment like well-matched adversaries, respectful of each other but neither willing to give ground.

  'Ten days,' Tanya answered at last.

  'Better late than never,' said Max cheerfully, trying to ease the tension, and not succeeding very well.