There were even stranger shapes, exploiting almost every possibility of geometry – bizarre, translucent kites, tetrahedra, spheres, polyhedra, tangles of twisted ribbons… The gigantic plankton of the Jovian atmosphere, they were designed to float like gossamer in the uprising currents, until they had lived long enough to reproduce; then they would be swept down into the depths to be carbonized and recycled in a new generation.
He was searching a world more than a hundred times the area of Earth, and though he saw many wonders, nothing there hinted of intelligence. The radio voices of the great balloons carried only simple messages of warning or of fear. Even the hunters, who might have been expected to develop higher degrees of organization, were like the sharks in Earth’s oceans – mindless automata.
And for all its breathtaking size and novelty, the biosphere of Jupiter was a fragile world, a place of mists and foam, of delicate silken threads and paper-thin tissues spun from the continual snowfall of petrochemicals formed by lightning in the upper atmosphere. Few of its constructs were more substantial than soap bubbles; its most awesome predators could be torn to shreds by even the feeblest of terrestrial carnivores.
Like Europa, but on a vastly grander scale, Jupiter was an evolutionary cul-de-sac. Intelligence would never emerge here; even if it did, it would be doomed to a stunted existence. A purely aerial culture might develop, but in an environment where fire was impossible, and solids scarcely existed, it could never even reach the Stone Age.
31
Nursery
MISS PRINGLE RECORD
Well, Indra – Dim – I hope that came through in good shape – I still find it hard to believe. All those fantastic creatures – surely we should have detected their radio voices, even if we couldn’t understand them! – wiped out in a moment, so that Jupiter could be made into a sun.
And now we can understand why. It was to give the Europs their chance. What pitiless logic: is intelligence the only thing that matters? I can see some long arguments with Ted Khan over this – The next question is: will the Europs make the grade – or will they remain forever stuck in the kindergarten – not even that – the nursery? Though a thousand years is a very short time, one would have expected some progress, but according to Dave they’re exactly the same now as when they left the sea. Perhaps that’s the trouble; they still have one foot – or one twig! – in the water.
And here’s another thing we got completely wrong. We thought they went back into the water to sleep. It’s just the other way round – they go back to eat, and sleep when they come on land! As we might have guessed from their structure – that network of branches – they’re plankton feeders…
I asked Dave about the igloos they’ve built. Aren’t they a technological advance? And he said: not really – they’re only adaptations of structures they make on the sea-bed, to protect themselves from various predators – especially something like a flying carpet, as big as a football field…
There’s one area, though, where they have shown initiative – even creativity. They’re fascinated by metals, presumably because they don’t exist in pure form in the ocean. That’s why Tsien was stripped – the same thing’s happened to the occasional probes that have come down in their territory. What do they do with the copper and beryllium and titanium they collect? Nothing useful, I’m afraid. They pile it all together in one place, in a fantastic heap that they keep reassembling. They could be developing an aesthetic sense – I’ve seen worse in the Museum of Modem Art… But I’ve got another theory – did you ever hear of cargo cults? During the twentieth century, some of the few primitive tribes that still existed made imitation aeroplanes out of bamboo, in the hope of attracting the big birds in the sky that occasionally brought them wonderful gifts. Perhaps the Europs have the same idea.
Now that question you keep asking me… What is Dave? And how did he – and Hal – become whatever it is they are now?
The quick answer, of course, is that they’re both emulations – simulations – in the Monolith’s gigantic memory. Most of the time they’re inactivated; when I asked Dave about this, he said he’d been ‘awake’ – his actual word -for only fifty years altogether, in the thousand since his – er – metamorphosis.
When I asked if he resented this takeover of his life, he said, ‘Why should I resent it? I am performing my functions perfectly.’ Yes, that sounds exactly like Hal! But I believe it was Dave – if there’s any distinction now.
Remember that Swiss Army knife analogy? Halman is one of this cosmic knife’s myriad of components.
But he’s not a completely passive tool – when he’s awake, he has some autonomy, some independence – presumably within limits set by the Monolith’s overriding control. During the centuries, he’s been used as a kind of intelligent probe to examine, Jupiter – as you’ve just seen – as well as Ganymede and the Earth. That confirms those mysterious events in Florida, reported by Dave’s old girl-friend, and the nurse who was looking after his mother, just moments before her death… as well as the encounters in Anubis City.
And it also explains another mystery. I asked Dave directly: why was I allowed to land on Europa, when everyone else has been turned away for centuries? I fully expected to be!
The answer’s ridiculously simple. The Monolith uses Dave – Halman – from time to time, to keep an eye on us.
Dave knew all about my rescue – even saw some of the media interviews I made, on Earth and on Ganymede. I must say I’m still a little hurt he made no attempt to contact me! But at least he put out the Welcome mat when I did arrive…
Dim – I still have forty-eight hours before Falcon leaves – with or without me! I don’t think I’ll need them, now I’ve made contact with Halman; we can keep in touch just as easily from Anubis… if he wants to do so.
And I’m anxious to get back to the Grannymede as quickly as possible. Falcon’s a fine little spacecraft, but her plumbing could be improved – it’s beginning to smell in here, and I’m itching for a shower.
Look forward to seeing you – and especially Ted Khan.
We have much to talk about, before I return to Earth.
TRANSMIT
STORE
V
TERMINATION
The toil of all that be
Heals not the primal fault;
It rains into the sea,
And still the sea is salt.
– A. E. Housman, More Poems
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.