“The Eagle has explained several times,” Nicole replied, a trace of anger in her voice, “mat during ‘this phase’ we will be permitted ‘sightings’ of other creatures but no additional contact. Your father has repeatedly asked why and the Eagle has always answered that we will find out in time. . . . And I wish you would try not to be so difficult, young lady.”
“It’s not much different from being in prison,” Katie groused. “We have only limited freedom here. And we’re never told the answers to the really important questions.”
They had reached the long passageway that connected the transportation center to the laboratory. A small vehicle, sitting at the edge of a moving sidewalk, was waiting for them. When they sat down, the top of the car closed over them and interior lights were illuminated. “Before you ask,” Nicole said to Katie, pulling off her helmet as they started to move, “we are not allowed to see out during this part of the transfer because we pass portions of the Engineering Module that are off limits to us. Your father
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and Uncle Michael asked this set of questions after their first sleep test.”
“Do you agree with Daddy,” Simone inquired after they had been riding in silence for several minutes, “that we have been having all these sleep tests in preparation for some kind of space voyage?”
“It seems likely,” Nicole answered. “But of course we don’t know for certain.”
“And where are they going to send us?” asked Katie.
“I have no idea,” Nicole replied. “The Eagle has been very evasive on all questions about our future.”
The car was moving about twenty kilometers per hour. After a fifteen-minute ride it stopped. The “lid” of the vehicle rolled itself back as soon as all the helmets were properly in place again. The women exited into the main transportation center of the Engineering Module. It was laid out in a circle and was twenty meters tall. In addition to half a dozen moving sidewalks leading to locations interior to the module, the center contained two large, multilevel structures from which the sleek tubes departed. These tubes transported equipment, robots, and living creatures back and forth among the Habitation, Engineering, and Administration modules, the three huge spherical complexes that were the primary components of the Node.
As soon as they were inside the station, Nicole and her daughters heard a voice on their helmet receivers. “Your tube will be on the second level. Take the escalator on the right. You will be departing in four minutes.”
Katie rolled her head from side to side, surveying the transportation center. She could see racks of equipment, cars waiting to take travelers to destinations inside the Engineering Module, lights, escalators, and station platforms. But there was nothing moving. No robots and no living creatures.
“What would happen,” she said to her sister and mother, “if we refused to go up there?” She stopped in the middle of the station. “Then your schedule would be all fouled up,” she shouted at the tall ceiling.
“Come on, Katie,” Nicole said impatiently, “we just went through this in the laboratory.”
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Katie started walking again. “But I do want to see something different,” she complained. “I know that this place is not always this empty. Why are we kept isolated? It’s as if we’re unclean or something.”
“Your tube will depart in two minutes,” the disembodied voice said. “Second level on the right.”
“Isn’t it amazing that the robots and controllers can communicate with each and every species in its own language?” Simone commented as they reached the escalator.
“I think it’s freaky,” Katie replied. “Just for once, I’d like to see whoever or whatever controls this place make a mistake. Everything is too slick. I’d like to hear them speak avian to us. Or for that matter, speak avian to the avians.”
On the second level they shuffled along a platform for about forty meters until they reached a transparent vehicle, shaped like a bullet, the size of an extremely large automobile on Earth. It was parked, as always, on a track on the left side of the median. There were four parallel tracks on the platform altogether, two on either side of the median. All the others were currently empty.
Nicole turned and looked across the transportation center. Sixty degrees around the circle was an identical tube station. The tubes on that side went to the Administration Module. Simone was watching her mother. “Have you ever been over there?” she asked.
“No,” replied Nicole. “But I bet it would be interesting. Your father says it looks wonderfully strange from up close.”
Richard just had to explore, Nicole thought, remembering the night almost a year ago when her husband set out to “hitch” a ride to the Administration Module. Nicole shuddered. She had gone out into the atrium of their apartment with Richard and tried to dissuade him while he was putting on his space suit. He had figured out how to fool the door monitor (the next day a new, foolproof system was in place) and could hardly wait to take an “unsuper-vised” look around.
Nicole had barely slept that night. In the wee hours of the morning their light panel had signaled that someone or something was in the atrium. When she had looked on
a.
the monitor, there was a strange birdman standing there, holding her unconscious husband in his arms. That had been their first contact with the Eagle. . . .
The thrust of the tube momentarily pinned them against the backs of their seats and returned Nicole to the present. They zoomed away from the Engineering Module. In less than a minute they were hurtling at full speed down the long, extremely narrow cylinder that connected the two modules.
The median and four tube tracks were at the center of the long cylinder. Out to their right, in the far distance, the lights of the spherical Administration Module shone against a blue background of space. Katie had her tiny binoculars out. “I want to be ready,” she said. “They always go by so fast.”
Several minutes later she announced “It’s coming” and the three women pressed against the right side of the vehicle. In the far distance another tube approached on the opposite side of the track. Within instants it was upon them and the humans had no more than a second to stare across at the occupants of the vehicle heading for the Engineering Module.
“Wow!” said Katie as the tube rushed past.
“There were two different types,” said Simone.
“Eight or ten creatures altogether.”
“One set was pink, the other gold. Both mostly spherical.”
“And those long stringy tentacles, like gossamer. How big would you guess they were, Mother?”
“Five, maybe six meters in diameter,” Nicole said. “Much bigger than we are.”
“Wow!” said Katie again. “That was really something.” There was excitement in her eyes. The girl loved the feeling of adrenaline rushing through her system.
/ too have never stopped being amazed, Nicole thought. Not once during these thirteen months. But is this all there is? Were we brought all the way here from Earth just to be tested? And titillated by the existence of creatures from other worlds? Or is there some other, deeper purpose?
There was a momentary silence in the speeding vehicle.
132 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
Nicole, who was sitting in the middle, drew her daughters closer to her. “You know I love you, don’t you?” she said.
“Yes, Mother,” Simone replied. “And we love you too.”
2
T:
•he reunion party was a success. Benjy embraced his beloved Simone the moment she walked into the apartment. Katie had Patrick pinned to the floor no more than a minute later.
“See,” she said, “I can still beat you.”
“But not by much,” Patrick replied. “I’m getting stronger. You’d better watch out.”
Nicole hugged both Richard and Michael before little Ellie ran over and leapt into her arms. It was evening, two hours after dinner on the twenty-four-hour clock used by the family, and Ellie had been almost ready for bed when her mother and sisters had arrived. The little girl walked down the hall to her room after proudly showing Nicole that she could now read cat, dog, and boy.
The adults let Patrick stay awake until he was exhausted. Michael carried him to bed and Nicole tucked him in. “I’m glad you’re back, Mommy,” he said. “I missed you very much.”
“And I missed you too,” Nicole answered. “I don’t think I’ll be going away for so long again.”
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“I hope not,” the six-year-old said. “I like having you here.”
Everyone but Nicole was asleep by one o’clock in the morning. Nicole was not tired. After all, she had just finished sleeping for five weeks. After lying restlessly beside Richard in bed for thirty minutes, she decided to take a walk.
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