3001 The Final Odyssey

chapter 32 A Gentleman of Leisure
On the whole, it had been an interesting but uneventful decades, punctuated by the joys and sorrows which Time and Fate bring to all mankind. The greatest of those had been wholly unexpected; in fact, before he left for Ganymede, Poole would have dismissed the very idea as preposterous.

There is much truth in the saying that absence makes the heart grow fonder. When he and Indra Wallace met again, they discovered that, despite their bantering and occasional disagreements, they were closer than they had imagined. One thing led to another including, to their mutual joy, Dawn Wallace and Martin Poole.

It was rather late in life to start a family - quite apart from that little matter of a thousand years - and Professor Anderson had warned them that it might be impossible. Or even worse...

'You were lucky in more ways than you realize,' he told Poole. 'Radiation damage was surprisingly low, and we were able to make all essential repairs from your intact DNA. But until we do some more tests, I can't promise genetic integrity. So enjoy yourselves - but don't start a family until I give the OK.'

The tests had been time-consuming, and as Anderson had feared, further repairs were necessary. There was one major set-back - something that could never have lived, even if it had been allowed to go beyond the first few weeks after conception - but Martin and Dawn were perfect, with just the right number of heads, arms and legs. They were also handsome and intelligent, and barely managed to escape being spoiled by their doting parents - who continued to be the best of friends when, after fifteen years, each opted for independence again. Because of their Social Achievement Rating, they would have been permitted - indeed, encouraged - to have another child, but they decided not to put any more of a burden on their astonishingly good luck.

One tragedy had shadowed Poole's personal life during this period - and indeed had shocked the whole Solar community. Captain Chandler and his entire crew had been lost when the nucleus of a comet they were reconnoitring exploded suddenly, destroying Goliath so completely that only a few fragments were ever located. Such explosions - caused by reactions among unstable molecules which existed at very low temperatures - were a well-known danger to comet-collectors, and Chandler had encountered several during his career. No one would ever know the exact circumstances which caused so experienced a spaceman to be taken by surprise.

Poole missed Chandler very badly: he had played a unique role in his life, and there was no one to replace him - no one, except Dave Bowman, with whom he had shared so momentous an adventure. He and Chandler had often made plans to go into space together again, perhaps all the way out to the Oort Cloud with its unknown mysteries and its remote but inexhaustible wealth of ice. Yet some conflict of schedules had always upset their plans, so this was a wished-for future that would never exist.

Another long-desired goal Poole had managed to achieve - despite doctor's orders. He had been down to Earth: and once was quite enough.

The vehicle in which he had travelled looked almost identical to the wheelchairs used by the luckier paraplegics of his own time. It was motorized, and had balloon tyres which allowed it to roll over reasonably smooth surfaces. However, it could also fly - at an altitude of about twenty centimetres - on an aircushion produced by a set of small but very powerful fans. Poole was surprised that so primitive a technology was still in use, but inertia-control devices were too bulky for such small-scale applications.

Seated comfortably in his hoverchair, he was scarcely conscious of his increasing weight as he descended into the heart of Africa; though he did notice some difficulty in breathing, he had experienced far worse during his astronaut training. What he was not prepared for was the blast of furnace-heat that smote him as he rolled out of the gigantic, sky-piercing cylinder that formed the base of the Tower. Yet it was still morning: what would it be like at noon?

He had barely accustomed himself to the heat when his sense of smell was assailed. A myriad odours - none unpleasant, but all unfamiliar - clamoured for his attention. He closed his eyes for a few minutes, in an attempt to avoid overloading his input circuits.

Before he had decided to open them again, he felt some large, moist object palpating the back of his neck.

'Say hello to Elizabeth,' said his guide, a burly young man dressed in traditional Great White Hunter garb, much too smart to have seen any real use: 'she's our official greeter.'

Poole twisted round in his chair, and found himself looking into the soulful eyes of a baby elephant.

'Hello, Elizabeth,' he answered, rather feebly. Elizabeth lifted her trunk in salute, and emitted a sound not usually heard in polite society, though Poole felt sure it was well-intentioned.

Altogether, he spent less than an hour on Planet Earth, skirting the edge of a jungle whose stunted trees compared unfavourably with Skyland's, and encountering much of the local fauna. His guides apologized for the friendliness of the lions, who had been spoilt by tourists - but the malevolent expressions of the crocodiles more than compensated; here was Nature raw and unchanged.

Before he returned to the Tower, Poole risked taking a few steps away from his hoverchair. He realized that this would be the equivalent of carrying his own weight on his back, but that did not seem an impossible feat, and he would never forgive himself unless he attempted it.

It was not a good idea; perhaps he should have tried it in a cooler climate. After no more than a dozen steps, he was glad to sink back into the luxurious clutches of the chair.

'That's enough,' he said wearily. 'Let's go back to the Tower.'

As he rolled into the elevator lobby, he noticed a sign which he had somehow overlooked during the excitement of his arrival. It read:

WELCOME TO AFRICA! 'In wildness is the preservation of the world.' HENRY DAVID THOREAU (1817-1862)

Observing Poole's interest, the guide asked 'Did you know him?'

It was the sort of question Poole heard all too often, and at the moment he did not feel equipped to deal with it.

'I don't think so,' he answered wearily, as the great doors closed behind them, shutting out the sights, scents and sounds of Mankind's earliest home.

His vertical safari had satisfied his need to visit Earth, and he did his best to ignore the various aches and pains acquired there when he returned to his apartment at Level 10,000 - a prestigious location, even in this democratic society. Indra, however, was mildly shocked by his appearance, and ordered him straight to bed.

'Just like Antaeus - but in reverse!' she muttered darkly. 'Who?' asked Poole: there were times when his wife's erudition was a little overwhelming, but he had determined never to let it give him an inferiority complex.

'Son of the Earth Goddess, Gaea. Hercules wrestled with him - but every time he was thrown to the ground, Antaeus renewed his strength.'

'Who won?'

'Hercules, of course - by holding Antaeus in the air, so Ma couldn't recharge his batteries.'

'Well, I'm sure it won't take me long to recharge mine. And I've learned one lesson. If I don't get more exercise, I may have to move up to Lunar Gravity level.'

Poole's good resolution lasted a full month: every morning he went for a brisk five-kilometre walk, choosing a different level of the Africa Tower each day. Some floors were still vast, echoing deserts of metal which would probably never be occupied, but others had been landscaped and developed over the centuries in a bewildering variety of architectural styles. Many were borrowings from past ages and cultures; others hinted at futures which Poole would not care to visit. At least there was no danger of boredom, and on many of his walks he was accompanied, at a respectful distance, by small groups of friendly children. They were seldom able to keep up with him for long.

One day, as Poole was striding down a convincing - though sparsely populated - imitation of the Champs Elyse´es, he suddenly spotted a familiar face.

'Danil!' he called.

The other man took not the slightest notice, even when Poole called again, more loudly.

'Don't you remember me?'

Danil - and now that he had caught up with him, Poole did not have the slightest doubt of his identity - looked genuinely baffled.

'I'm sorry,' he said. 'You're Commander Poole, of course. But I'm sure we've never met before.'

Now it was Poole's turn to be embarrassed.

'Stupid of me,' he apologized. 'Must have mistaken you for someone else. Have a good day.'

He was glad of the encounter, and was pleased to know that Danil was back in normal society. Whether his original crime had been axe-murders or overdue library books should no longer be the concern of his one-time employer; the account had been settled, the books closed. Although Poole sometimes missed the cops-and-robbers dramas he had often enjoyed in his youth, he had grown to accept the current wisdom: excessive interest in pathological behaviour was itself pathological.

With the help of Miss Pringle, Mk III, Poole had been able to schedule his life so that there were even occasional blank moments when he could relax and set his Braincap on Random Search, scanning his areas of interest. Outside his immediate family, his chief concerns were still among the moons of Jupiter/Lucifer, not least because he was recognized as the leading expert on the subject, and a permanent member of the Europa Committee.

This had been set up almost a thousand years ago, to consider what, if anything, could and should be done about the mysterious satellite. Over the centuries, it had accumulated a vast amount of information, going all the way back to the Voyager flybys of 1979 and the first detailed surveys from the orbiting Galileo spacecraft of 1996.

Like most long-lived organizations, the Europa Committee had become slowly fossilized, and now met only when there was some new development. It had woken up with a start after Halman's reappearance, and appointed an energetic new chairperson whose first act had been to co-opt Poole.

Though there was little that he could contribute that was not already recorded, Poole was very happy to be on the Committee. It was obviously his duty to make himself available, and it also gave him an official position he would otherwise have lacked. Previously his status was what had once been called a 'national treasure', which he found faintly embarrassing. Although he was glad to be supported in luxury by a world wealthier than all the dreams of war-ravaged earlier ages could have imagined, he felt the need to justify his existence.

He also felt another need, which he seldom articulated even to himself. Halman had spoken to him, if only briefly, at their strange encounter two decades ago. Poole was certain that, if he wished, Halman could easily do so again. Were all human contacts no longer of interest to him? He hoped that was not the case; yet that might be one explanation of his silence.

He was frequently in touch with Theodore Khan - as active and acerbic as ever, and now the Europa Committee's representative on Ganymede. Ever since Poole had returned to Earth, Ted had been trying in vain to open a channel of communication with Bowman. He could not understand why long lists of important questions on subjects of vital philosophical and historic interest received not even brief acknowledgements.

'Does the Monolith keep your friend Halman so busy that he can't talk to me?' he complained to Poole. 'What does he do with his time, anyway?'

It was a very reasonable question; and the answer came, like a thunderbolt out of a cloudless sky, from Bowman himself - as a perfectly commonplace vidphone call.