2001 A Space Odyssey

Chapter 35 - Big Brother
"I'm coming round to the daylight side again, and it's just as I reported on the last orbit. This place seems to have only two kinds of surface material. The black stuff looks burned, almost like charcoal, and with the same kind of texture as far as I can judge in the telescope. In fact, it reminds me very much of burned toast.

"I still can't make any sense of the white area. It starts at an absolutely sharp-edged boundary, and shows no surface detail at all. It could even be a liquid - it's flat enough. I don't know what impression you've got from the videos I've transmitted, but if you picture a sea of frozen milk you'll get the idea exactly.

"It could even be some heavy gas - no, I suppose that's impossible. Sometimes I get the feeling that it's moving, very slowly: but I can never be sure.

I'm over the white area again, on my third orbit. This time I hope to pass closer to that mark I spotted at its very center, when I was on my way in.

If my calculations are correct, I should go within fifty miles of it - whatever it is.

Yes, there's something ahead, just where I calculated. It's coming up over the horizon - and so is Saturn, in almost the same quarter of the sky - I'll move to the telescope...

"Hello! It looks like some kind of building - complefely black - quite hard to see. No windows or any other features. Just a big, vertical slab - it must be at least a mile high to be visible from this distance. It reminds me - of course! It's just like the thing you found on the Moon! This is TMA-l's big brother!"