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 clich�. ‘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.
VI
DEVOURER OF WORLDS
42
The Ghost in the Machine
‘I’m sorry, Heywood – I don’t believe in ghosts. There must be a rational explanation. There’s nothing that the human mind can’t account for.’
‘I agree, Tanya. But let me remind you of Haldane’s famous remark: The Universe is not only stranger than we imagine – but stranger than we can imagine.’
‘And Haldane,’ Curnow interjected mischievously, ‘was a good Communist.’
‘Perhaps so, but that particular saying can be used to support all kinds of mystical nonsense. Hal’s behaviour must be the result of some kind of programming. The personality he created has to be an artifact of some kind. Don’t you agree, Chandra?’
That was waving a red flag in front of a bull; Tanya had to be desperate. However, Chandra’s reaction was surprisingly mild, even for him. He seemed to be preoccupied, as if he was indeed seriously considering the possibility of another computer malfunction.
‘There must have been some external input, Captain Orlova. Hal could not have created such a self-consistent audiovisual illusion out of nothing. If Dr Floyd is reporting accurately, someone was in control. And in real time, of course, since there was no delay in the conversation.’
‘That makes me number-one suspect,’ exclaimed Max. ‘I was the only other person awake.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Max,’ retorted Nikolai. ‘The audio side would have been easy, but there’s no way that apparition could have been arranged, without some very elaborate equipment. Laser beams, electrostatic fields – I don’t know. Maybe a stage magician could do it, but he’d need a truck-load of props.’
‘Just a moment!’ said Zenia brightly. ‘If this really happened, surely Hal will remember and you could ask…’
Her voice died away as she saw the glum expressions around her. Floyd was the first to take pity on her embarrassment.
‘We tried that, Zenia; he has absolutely no recollection of the phenomenon. But as I’ve already pointed out to the others, that doesn’t prove anything. Chandra’s shown how Hal’s memories can be selectively erased – and the auxiliary speech-synthesizer modules have nothing to do with the mainframe. They could be operated without Hal knowing anything about it…’ He paused for breath, then launched his pre-emptive strike.
‘I admit that this doesn’t leave many alternatives. Either I was imagining the whole thing, or it really happened. I know it wasn’t a dream, but I can’t be sure it wasn’t some kind of hallucination. But Katerina’s seen my medical reports – she knows I wouldn’t be here if I had that sort of problem. Still, it can’t be ruled out – and I won’t blame anyone for making it their number-one hypothesis. I’d probably do the same.
‘The only way I can prove it wasn’t a dream is to get some supporting evidence. So let me remind you of the other strange things that have happened recently. We know that Dave Bowman went into Big Bro – Zagadka. Something came out, and headed for Earth. Vasili saw it – I didn’t! Then there was the mysterious explosion of your orbiting bomb -,
‘Yours.’
‘Sorry – the Vatican’s, And it does seem rather curious that soon afterward old Mrs Bowman died very peacefully, for no apparent medical reason. I’m not saying there’s any connection, but – well, do you know the saying: Once is an accident; twice is a coincidence; three times is a conspiracy.’
‘And there’s something else,’ Max interjected with sudden excitement, ‘I caught it on one of the daily newscasts – it was only a small item. An old girlfriend of Commander Bowman’s claimed she’d had a message from him.’
‘Yes – I saw the same report,’ confirmed Sasha.
‘And you never mentioned it?’ Floyd asked incredulously. Both men looked slightly abashed.
‘Well, it was treated as a joke,’ said Max sheepishly. ‘The woman’s husband reported it. Then she denied it – I think.’
‘The commentator said it was a publicity stunt – like the rash of UFO sightings around the same time. There were dozens in that first week; then they stopped reporting them.’
‘Perhaps some of them were real. If it’s not been wiped, could you dig that item out of ship’s archives, or ask for a repeat from Mission Control?’
‘A hundred tales won’t convince me,’ scoffed Tanya. ‘What we need is solid proof.’
‘Such as?’
‘Oh – something that Hal couldn’t possibly know, and that none of us could have told him. Some physical – er, manifes… manifestation.’
‘A good, old-fashioned miracle?’
‘Yes, I’d settle for that. Meanwhile, I’m not saying anything to Mission Control. And I suggest you do the same, Heywood.’
Floyd knew a direct order when he heard it, and nodded in wry agreement.
‘I’ll be more than happy to go along with that. But I’d like to make one suggestion.’
‘Yes?’
‘We should start contingency planning. Let’s assume that this warning is valid – as I certainly do.’
‘What can we do about it? Absolutely nothing. Of course, we can leave Jupiter space anytime we like – but we can’t get into an Earth-return orbit until the launch window opens.’
‘That’s eleven days after the deadline!’
‘Yes. I’d be happy to get away sooner; but we don’t have the fuel for a higher-energy orbit…’ Tanya’s voice trailed away into uncharacteristic indecision. ‘I was going to announce this later, but now that the subject has come up…’
There was a simultaneous intake of breath, and an instant hush from the audience.
‘I’d like to delay our departure five days, to make our orbit closer to the ideal Hohmann one and give us a better fuel reserve.’
The announcement was not unexpected, but it was greeted with a chorus of groans.
‘What will that do to our arrival time?’ asked Katerina, in a slightly ominous tone of voice. The two formidable ladies regarded each other for a moment like well-matched adversaries, respectful of each other but neither willing to give ground.
‘Ten days,’ Tanya answered at last.
‘Better late than never,’ said Max cheerfully, trying to ease the tension, and not succeeding very well.
Floyd hardly noticed; he was lost in his own thoughts. The duration of the trip would make no difference to him and his two colleagues, in their dreamless sleep. But that was now completely unimportant.
He felt certain – and the knowledge filled him with helpless despair – that if they did not leave before that mysterious deadline, they would not leave at all.
‘… This is an incredible situation, Dimitri, and a very frightening one. You’re the only person on Earth who knows about it – but very soon Tanya and I will have to have a showdown with Mission Control.