2010 Odyssey Two

THE TRIAL Chapter 5: A CHILD OF THE STARS Chapter 35 Rehabilitation
The uproar of Earth was comfortably muted, across the millions of kilometres of space. Leonov's crew watched, with fascination yet with a certain detachment, the debates in the United Nations, the interviews with distinguished scientists', the theorizing of the news commentators, the matter-of-fact yet wildly conflicting accounts of the UFO contactees. They could contribute nothing to the brouhaha, for they had witnessed no further manifestations of any kind. Zagadka, alias Big Brother, remained as blankly indifferent to their presence as ever. And that was indeed an ironic situation; they had come all the way from Earth to solve a mystery - and it looked as if the answer might be right back at their starting point.

For the first time, they felt grateful for the slow velocity of light, and the two-hour delay that made live interviews impossible on the Earth-Jupiter circuit. Even so, Floyd was badgered by so many media requests that he finally went on strike. Nothing more remained to be said, and he had said it at least a dozen times.

Besides, there was still much work to be done. Leonov had to be prepared for the long journey home, so that it would be ready to depart immediately when the launch window opened. The timing was not at all critical; even if they missed by a month, that would merely prolong the trip. Chandra, Curnow, and Floyd would not even notice as they slept their way toward the Sun; but the rest of the crew was grimly determined to leave just as soon as the laws of celestial mechanics permitted.

Discovery still posed many problems. The ship had barely sufficient propellant for the return to Earth, even if it left much later than Leonov and flew a minimum-energy orbit - which would take almost three years. And this would be possible only if Hal could be reliably programmed to carry out the mission with no human intervention except long-range monitoring. Without his cooperation, Discovery would have to be abandoned once again.

It had been fascinating - indeed, deeply moving - to watch the steady regrowth of Hal's personality, from brain-damaged child to puzzled adolescent and at length to slightly condescending adult. Although he knew that such anthropomorphic labels were highly misleading, Floyd found it quite impossible to avoid them.

And there were times when he felt that the whole situation had a haunting familiarity. How often he had seen videodramas in which disturbed youngsters were straightened out by all-wise descendants of the legendary Sigmund Freud! Essentially the same story was being played out in the shadow of Jupiter.

The electronic psychoanalysis had proceeded at a speed totally beyond human comprehension as repair and diagnostic programs flashed through Hal's circuits at billions of bits a second, pinpointing possible malfunctions and correcting them. Though most of these programs had been tested in advance on Hal's twin, SAL 9000, the impossibility of a real-time dialogue between the two computers was a serious handicap. Sometimes hours were wasted when it proved necessary to check back with Earth at a critical point in the therapy.

For despite all Chandra's work, the computer's rehabilitation was still far from complete. Hal exhibited numerous idiosyncrasies and nervous tics, sometimes even ignoring spoken words - though he would always acknowledge keyboard inputs from anyone. In the reverse direction, his outputs were even more eccentric.

There were times when he would give verbal replies, but would not display them visually. At other times he would do both - but refused to print hard copy. He would give no excuses or explanations - not even the stubbornly impenetrable 'I prefer not to' of Melville's autistic scrivener, Bartelby.

However, he was not actively disobedient so much as reluctant, and only where certain tasks were concerned. It was always possible to win his cooperation eventually - 'to talk him out of his sulk', as Curnow put it neatly.

It was not surprising that Dr Chandra was beginning to show the strain. On one celebrated occasion when Max Brailovsky innocently revived an old canard, he almost lost his temper.

'Is it true, Dr Chandra, that you chose the name Hal to be one step ahead of IBM?'

'Utter nonsense! Half of us come from IBM and we've been trying to stamp out that story for years. I thought that by now every intelligent person knew that H-A-L is derived from Heuristic ALgorithmic.'

Afterward, Max swore that he could distinctly hear the capital letters.

In Floyd's private opinion, the odds were at least fifty to one against flying Discovery safely back to Earth. And then Chandra came to him with an extraordinary proposal.

'Dr Floyd, can I have a word with you?'

After all the weeks and shared experiences, Chandra was still as formal as ever - not only to Floyd, but to all the crew. He would not even address the ship's baby, Zenia, without the prefix 'ma'am'.

'Of course, Chandra. What is it?'

'I've virtually completed the programming for the six most probable variations on the Hohmann return orbit. Five have now been run on a simulation, without any problems.'

'Excellent. I'm sure that no one else on Earth - in the Solar System - could have done it.'

'Thank you. However, you know as well as I do that it's impossible to program for every eventuality. Hal may - will - function perfectly, and will be able to handle any reasonable emergency. But all sorts of trivial accidents - minor equipment failures that could be fixed with a screwdriver, broken wires, stuck switches - could leave him helpless and abort the whole mission.'

'You're absolutely right, of course, and it's been worrying me. But what can we do about it?'

'It's really quite simple. I'd like to stay with Discovery.'

Floyd's immediate reaction was that Chandra had gone crazy. On second thoughts, perhaps he was only half crazy. It might indeed make all the difference between success and failure to have a human being - that superb all-purpose trouble-shooting and repair device - aboard Discovery for the long voyage back to Earth. But the objections were completely overwhelming.

'It's an interesting idea,' Floyd answered with extreme caution, 'and I certainly appreciate your enthusiasm. But have you thought of all the problems?' That was a silly thing to say; Chandra would have all the answers already filed away for immediate retrieval.

'You'll be on your own for over three years! Suppose you had an accident or a medical emergency?'

'That's a risk I'm prepared to take.'

'And what about food, water? Leonov doesn't have enough to spare.'

'I've checked Discovery's recycling system; it can be made operational again without too much difficulty. Besides, we Indians can manage on very little.'

It was unusual for Chandra to refer to his origins, or indeed to make any personal statements; his 'true confession' was the only example Floyd could remember. But he did not doubt the claim; Curnow had once remarked that Dr Chandra had the sort of physique that could only be achieved by centuries of starvation. Although it sounded like one of the engineer's unkinder wisecracks, it had been made entirely without malice - indeed, with sympathy; though not, of course, in Chandra's hearing.

'Well, we still have several weeks to decide. I'll think it over and talk to Washington.'

'Thank you; do you mind if I start making the arrangements?'

'Er - not at all, as long as they don't interfere with the existing plans. Remember - Mission Control will have to make the final decision.'

And I know exactly what Mission Control will say. It was madness to expect a man to survive in space for three, years, alone.

But, of course, Chandra had always been alone.