And if he did not, Helena wished to have his child. He still recalled the blend of solemnity and hilarity with which they had made the necessary arrangements…
Now, a thousand years later, despite all his efforts, he had been unable to find if Helena had kept her promise. Just as there were now gaps in his own memory, so there were also in the collective records of Mankind. The worst was that created by the devastating electromagnetic pulse from the 2304 asteroid impact, which had wiped out several per cent of the world’s information banks, despite all backups and safety systems. Poole could not help wondering if, among all the exabytes that were irretrievably lost, were the records of his own children: even now, his descendants of the thirtieth generation might be walking the Earth; but he would never know.
It helped a little to have discovered that – unlike Aurora -some ladies of this era did not consider him to be damaged goods. On the contrary: they often found his alteration quite exciting, but this slightly bizarre reaction made it impossible for Poole to establish any close relationship. Nor was he anxious to do so; all that he really needed was the occasional healthy, mindless exercise.
Mindless – that was the trouble. He no longer had arty purpose in life. And the weight of too many memories was upon him; echoing the title of a famous book he had read in his youth, he often said to himself, ‘I am a Stranger in a Strange Time.’
There were even occasions when he looked down at the beautiful planet on which – if he obeyed doctor’s orders – he could never walk again, and wondered what it would be like to make a second acquaintance with the vacuum of space. Though it was not easy to get through the airlocks without triggering some alarm, it had been done: every few years, some determined suicide made a brief meteoric display in the Earth’s atmosphere.
Perhaps it was just as well that deliverance was on its way, from a completely unexpected direction.
*
‘Nice to meet you, Commander Poole – for the second time.’
‘I’m sorry – don’t recall – but then I see so many people.’
‘No need to apologize. First time was out round Neptune.’
‘Captain Chandler – delighted to see you! Can I get something from the autochef?’
‘Anything with over twenty per cent alcohol will be fine.’
‘And what are you doing back on Earth? They told me you never come inside Mars orbit.’
‘Almost true – though I was born here, I think it’s a dirty, smelly place – too many people – creeping up to a billion again!’
‘More than ten billion in my time. By the way, did you get my “Thank you” message?’
‘Yes – and I know I should have contacted you. But I waited until I headed sunwards again. So here I am. Your good health!’
As the Captain disposed of his drink with impressive speed, Poole tried to analyse his visitor. Beards – even small goatees like Chandler’s – were very rare in this society, and he had never known an astronaut who wore one: they did not co-exist comfortably with space-helmets. Of course, a Captain might go for years between EVs, and in any case most outside jobs were done by robots; but there was always the risk of the unexpected, when one might have to get suited in a hurry. It was obvious that Chandler was something of an eccentric, and Poole’s heart warmed to him.
‘You’ve not answered my question. If you don’t like Earth, what are you doing here?’
‘Oh, mostly contacting old friends – it’s wonderful to forget hour-long delays, and to have realtime conversations! But of course that’s not the reason. My old rust-bucket is having a refit, up at the Rim shipyard. And the armour has to be replaced; when it gets down to a few centimetres thick, I don’t sleep too well.’
‘Armour?’
‘Dust shield. Not such a problem in your time, was it? But it’s a dirty environment out round Jupiter, and our normal cruise speed is several thousand klicks – a second! So there’s a continuous gentle pattering, like raindrops on the roof.’
‘You’re joking!’
‘Course I am. If we really could hear anything, we’d be dead. Luckily, this sort of unpleasantness is very rare – last serious accident was twenty years ago. We know all the main comet streams, where most of the junk is, and are careful to avoid them – except when we’re matching velocity to round up ice.
‘But why don’t you come aboard and have a look around, before we take off for Jupiter?’
‘I’d be delighted… did you say Jupiter?’
‘Well, Ganymede, of course – Anubis City. We’ve a lot of business there, and several of us have families we haven’t seen for months.’
Poole scarcely heard him.
Suddenly – unexpectedly – and perhaps none too soon, he had found a reason for living.
Commander Frank Poole was the sort of man who hated to leave a job undone – and a few specks of cosmic dust, even moving at a thousand kilometres a second, were not likely to discourage him.
He had unfinished business at the world once known as Jupiter.
II
GOLIATH
14
A Farewell to Earth
‘Anything you want within reason,’ he had been told. Frank Poole was not sure if his hosts would consider that returning to Jupiter was a reasonable request; indeed, he was not quite sure himself, and was beginning to have second thoughts.
He had already committed himself to scores of engagements, weeks in advance. Most of them he would be happy to miss, but there were some he would be sorry to forgo. In particular, he hated to disappoint the senior class from his old high school – how astonishing that it still existed! – when they planned to visit him next month.
However, he was relieved – and a little surprised – when both Indra and Professor Anderson agreed that it was an excellent idea. For the first time, he realized that they had been concerned with his mental health; perhaps a holiday from Earth would be the best possible cure.
And, most important of all, Captain Chandler was delighted. ‘You can have my cabin,’ he promised. ‘I’ll kick the First Mate out of hers.’ There were times when Poole wondered if Chandler, with his beard and swagger, was not another anachronism. He could easily picture him on the bridge of a battered three-master, with Skull and Crossbones flying overhead.
Once his decision had been made, events moved with surprising speed. He had accumulated very few possessions, and fewer still that he needed to take with him. The most important was Miss Pringle, his electronic alter ego and secretary, now the storehouse of both his lives, and the small stack of terabyte memories that went with her.
Miss Pringle was not much larger than the hand-held personal assistants of his own age, and usually lived, like the Old West’s Colt 45, in a quick-draw holster at his waist. She could communicate with him by audio or Braincap, and her prime duty was to act as an information filter and a buffer to the outside world. Like any good secretary, she knew when to reply, in the appropriate format: ‘I’ll put you through now’ or – much more frequently: ‘I’m sorry – Mr Poole is engaged. Please record your message and he will get back to you as soon as possible.’ Usually, this was never.
There were very few farewells to be made: though realtime conversations would be impossible owing to the sluggish velocity of radio waves, he would be in constant touch with Indra and Joseph – the only genuine friends he had made.
Somewhat to his surprise, Poole realized that he would miss his enigmatic but useful ‘valet’, because he would now have to handle all the small chores of everyday life by himself. Danil bowed slightly when they parted, but otherwise showed no sign of emotion, as they took the long ride up to the outer curve of the world-circling wheel, thirty-six thousand kilometres above central Africa.
‘I’m not sure, Dim, that you’ll appreciate the comparison. But do you know what Goliath reminds me of?’
They were now such good friends that Poole could use the Captain’s nickname – but only when no one else was around.
‘Something unflattering, I assume.’
‘Not really. But when I was a boy, I came across a whole pile of old science-fiction magazines that my Uncle George had abandoned – “pulps”, they were called, after the cheap paper they were printed on… most of them were already falling to bits. They had wonderful garish covers, showing strange planets and monsters – and, of course, spaceships!
‘As I grew older, I realized how ridiculous those spaceships were. They were usually rocket-driven – but there was never any sign of propellant tanks! Some of them had rows of windows from stem to stem, just like ocean liners. There was one favourite of mine with a huge glass dome – a space-going conservatory…