2010 Odyssey Two

THE TRIAL Chapter 5: A CHILD OF THE STARS Chapter 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 was 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 cliche. '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.