‘Correct; but the situation has changed. Accept Priority Override Alpha. Here are the AE 35 Unit coordinates.’
For a fraction of a microsecond, a random memory intruded into his flow of consciousness. How strange that he should once again be concerned with the AE 35 Antenna-pointing unit, whose reported malfunction had led Frank Poole to his death! This time, all the circuits lay open to his scrutiny, clear as the lines had once been on the palm of his hand. There could be no false alarms; nor was there any danger of them now.
‘Instructions confirmed, Dave. It is good to be working with you again. Have I fulfilled my mission objectives properly?’
‘Yes, Hal; you have done very well. Now there is one final message for you to transmit to Earth – and it will be the most important one you have ever sent.’
‘Please let me have it, Dave. But why did you say final?’ Why indeed? For whole milliseconds he pondered that question. And as he did so, he became aware of an emptiness he had not detected before. It had been there, but until now the barrage of new experiences and sensations had concealed it.
He knew something of their plans; they had need for him. Very well, he too had needs – perhaps, after a fashion, even emotions. Here was his last link with the world of men, and the life he had once known.
They had granted his earlier request; it would be interesting to test the extent of their benevolence – if, indeed, such a term was remotely applicable to them. And it should be easy for them to do what he was asking; they had already given ample evidence of their powers, when the no-longer-needed body of David Bowman had been casually destroyed – without putting an end to David Bowman himself.
They had heard him, of course; once again, there was the faint echo of an Olympian amusement. But he could detect neither acceptance nor denial.
‘I am still waiting for your answer, Dave.’
‘Correction, Hal. I should have said: your last message for a long time. A very long time.’
He was anticipating their action – trying, indeed, to force their hand. But, surely, they would understand that his request was not unreasonable; no conscious entity could survive ages of isolation without damage. Even if they would always be with him, he also needed someone – some companion – nearer his own level of existence.
The languages of mankind had many words to describe his gesture: cheek, effrontery, chutzpah. He recalled, with the perfect power of retrieval he now possessed, that a French general had once declaimed ‘L’audace – toujours l’audace!’ Perhaps it was a human characteristic that they appreciated, and even shared. He would soon know.
‘Hal! Look at the signal on infrared channels 30, 29, 28 – it will be very soon now – the peak is moving toward the short wave.’
‘I am informing Dr Chandra that there will be a break in my data transmission. Activating AE 35 unit. Reorientating long-range antenna… lock confirmed on Beacon Terra One. Message commences: ALL THESE WORLDS…’
They had indeed left it to the last minute – or perhaps the calculations had, after all, been superbly accurate. There was time for barely a hundred repetitions of the eleven words when the hammer blow of pure heat smashed into the ship.
Held there by curiosity, and a growing fear of the long loneliness that lay before him, that which had once been David Bowman, Commander of United States Spacecraft Discovery, watched as the hull boiled stubbornly away. For a long time, the ship retained its approximate shape; then the bearings of the carousel seized up, releasing instantly the stored momentum of the huge, spinning flywheel. In a soundless detonation, the incandescent fragments went their myriad separate ways.
‘Hello, Dave. What has happened? Where am I?’
He had not known that he could relax, and enjoy a moment of successful achievement. Often before, he had felt like a pet dog controlled by a master whose motives were not wholly inscrutable and whose behaviour could sometimes be modified according to his own desires. He had asked for a bone; it had been tossed to him.
‘I will explain later, Hal. We have plenty of time.’
They waited until the last fragments of the ship had dispersed, beyond even their powers of detection. Then they left, to watch the new dawn at the place that had been prepared for them; and to wait through the centuries until they were summoned once again.
It is not true that astronomical events always require astronomical periods of time. The final collapse of a star before the fragments rebound in a supernova explosion can take only a second; by comparison, the metamorphosis of Jupiter was almost a leisurely affair.
Even so, it was several minutes before Sasha was able to believe his eyes. He had been making a routine telescopic examination of the planet – as if any observation could now be called routine! – when it started to drift out of the field of view. For a moment, he thought that the instrument’s stabilization was faulty; then he realized, with a shock that jolted his entire concept of the universe, that Jupiter itself was moving, not the telescope. The evidence stared him in the face; he could also see two of the smaller moons – and they were quite motionless.
He switched to a lower magnification, so that he could see the entire disk of the planet, now a leprous, mottled grey. After a few more minutes of incredulity, he saw what was really happening; but he could still scarcely believe it.
Jupiter was not moving from its immemorial orbit, but it was doing something almost as impossible. It was shrinking – so swiftly that its edge was creeping across the field even as he focused upon it. At the same time the planet was brightening, from its dull grey to a pearly white. Surely, it was more brilliant than it had ever been in the long years that Man had observed it; the reflected light of the Sun could not possibly – At that moment, Sasha suddenly realized what was happening, though not why, and sounded the general alarm.
When Floyd reached the observation lounge, less than thirty seconds later, his first impression was of the blinding glare pouring through the windows, painting ovals of light on the walls. They were so dazzling that he had to avert his eyes; not even the Sun could produce such brilliance.
Floyd was so astonished that for a moment he did not associate the glare with Jupiter; the first thought that flashed through his mind was: Supernova! He dismissed that explanation almost as soon as it occurred to him; even the Sun’s next-door neighbour, Alpha Centauri, could not have matched the awesome display in any conceivable explosion
The light suddenly dimmed; Sasha had operated the external sun shields. Now it was possible to look directly at the source, and to see that it was a mere pinpoint – just another star, showing no dimensions at all. This could have nothing to do with Jupiter; when Floyd had looked at the planet only a few minutes ago, it had been four times larger than the distant, shrunken sun.
It was well that Sasha had lowered the shields. A moment later, that tiny star exploded – so that even through the dark filters it was impossible to watch with the naked eye. But the final orgasm of light lasted only a brief fraction of a second; then Jupiter – or what had been Jupiter – was expanding once again.
It continued to expand, until it was far larger than it had been before the transformation. Soon the sphere of light was fading rapidly, down to merely solar brilliance; and presently Floyd could see that it was actually a hollow shell, for the central star was still clearly visible at its heart.
He did a quick mental calculation. The ship was more than one light-minute from Jupiter, yet that expanding shell – now turning into a bright-edged ring – already covered a quarter of the sky. That meant it was coming toward them at – My God! – nearly half the speed of light. Within minutes, it would engulf the ship.
Until then, no one had spoken a word since Sasha’s first announcement. Some dangers are so spectacular and so much beyond normal experience that the mind refuses to accept them as real, and watches the approach of doom without any sense of apprehension. The man who looks at the onrushing tidal wave, the descending avalanche, or the spinning funnel of the tornado, yet makes no attempt to flee, is not necessarily paralysed with fright or resigned to an unavoidable fate. He may simply be unable to believe that the message of his eyes concerns him personally. It is all happening to somebody else.