VENUS PRIME
Forward
Acknowledgments
Introduction
PART ONE
I
II
III
IV
PART TWO
V
VI
VII
VIII
PART THREE
IX
X
XI
XII
PART FOUR
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
PART FIVE
XVII
XVIII
XIX
Epilogue
Forward
Arthur C. Clarke is the world-renowned author of such science fiction classics as 2001: A Space Odyssey, for which he shared an Oscar nomination with director Stanley Kubrick, and its popular sequels, 2010: Odyssey Two, 2061: Odyssey Three, and 3001: Final Odyssey; the highly acclaimed The Songs of Distant Earth; the bestselling collection of original short stories, The Sentinel; and over two dozen other books of fiction and nonfiction.
He received the Marconi International Fellowship in 1982. He resides in Sri Lanka, where he continues to write and consult on issues of science, technology, and the future.
Paul Preuss began his successful writing career after years of producing documentary and television films and writing screenplays.
He is the author of thirteen novels, including Secret Passages and the near-future thrillers Core and Starfire. His nonfiction has appeared in The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, New York Newsday, and the San Francisco Chronicle.
Besides writing, he has been a science consultant for several film companies. He lives near San Francisco, California.
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to Kristina Anderson, San Francisco artist and bookbinder, for an introduction to the bookmaker’s craft.
Carol Dawson, writer, and Lenore Coral, librarian at Cornell, refreshed my memories of London in general and Sotheby’s in particular. My daughter, Mona Helen Preuss, slogged through old auction catalogues at the library of the University of California and Berkeley. The staff of the rare-book room of the San Francisco Public Library were customarily, anonymously, efficient and helpful. Thanks to them all, and let them be reassured that my mistakes are my own.
—Paul Preuss
Introduction
by ARTHUR C. CLARKE
Unlike some authors, I have not generally been given to collaborative work in the science fiction area, especially in regard to my novels which, for the most part, have been written alone. There have been, however, some notable exceptions. In the 1960s, I worked with director Stanley Kubrick on the most realistic SF film done to that time, an ambitious little project called 2001: A Space Odyssey. Over a decade and a half later, I had another close encounter with a Hollywood director named Peter Hyams, who produced and directed the visually impressive adaptation of my sequel, 2010.
Both films were rewarding experiences, and I found myself both surprised and delighted by some of the results.
Now I find myself once again involved in an intriguing collaborative venture that has evolved from my original story, Breaking Strain.
The novella (horrid word!) Breaking Strain was written in the summer of 1948, while I was taking my belated degree at King’s College, London. My agent, Scott Meredith, then in his early twenties, promptly sold it to Thrilling Wonder Stories; it can be more conveniently located in my first collection of stories, Expedition to Earth (1954).
Soon after Breaking Strain appeared, some perceptive critic remarked that I apparently aspired to be the Kipling of the Spaceways. Even if I was not conscious of it, that was certainly a noble ambition—especially as I never imagined that the dawn of the Space Age was only nine years ahead.
And if I may be allowed to continue the immodest comparison, Kipling made two excellent attempts to being the Clarke of the Air Age; see “With the Night Mail” and “As Easy As ABC.” The ABC, incidentally, stands for Aerial Board of Control.
Oh, yes, Breaking Strain. The original story is of course now slightly dated, though not as much as I had expected.
In any case, that doesn’t matter; the kind of situation it describes is one which must have occurred countless times in the past and will be with us—in ever more sophisticated forms—as long as the human race endures.
Indeed, the near-catastrophe of the 1970 Apollo 13 mission presents some very close parallels. I still have hanging up on my wall the first page of the mission summary, on which NASA Administrator Tom Paine has written: “Just as you always said it would be, Arthur.”
But the planet Venus, alas, has gone; my friend Brian Aldiss neatly summed up our sense of loss in the title of his anthology Farewell, Fantastic Venus . . .
Where are the great rivers and seas, home of gigantic monsters that could provide a worthy challenge to heroes in the Edgar Rice Burroughs mold? (Yes, ERB made several visits there, when Mars got boring.) Gone with the thousand-degree-Farenheit wind of sulphuric acid vapor . . .
Yet all is not lost. Though no human beings may ever walk the surface of Venus as it is today, in a few centuries —or millennia—we may refashion the planet nearer to the heart’s desire. The beautiful Evening Star may become the twin of Earth that we once thought it to be, and the remote successors of Star Queen will ply the spaceways between the worlds.
Paul Preuss, who knows about all these things, has cleverly updated my old tale and introduced some elements of which I never dreamed (though I’m amazed to see that The Seven Pillars of Wisdom was in the original; when I read the new text, I thought that was Paul’s invention).
Although I deplore the fact that crime stories have such a universal attraction, I suppose that somebody will still be trying to make a dishonest buck selling life insurance the day before the Universe collapses into the final Black Hole.
It is also an interesting challenge combining the two genres of crime and science fiction, especially as some experts have claimed that it’s impossible. (My sole contribution here is “Trouble with Time”; and though I hate to say so, Isaac What’s-His-Name managed it superbly in his Caves of Steel series.) Now it’s Paul’s turn. I think he’s done a pretty good job.
—Arthur C. Clarke Columbo, Sri Lanka
PART ONE
THE FOX AND THE HEDGEHOG
I
“Does the word Sparta mean anything to you?”
A young woman sat on a spoke-backed chair of varnished pine. Her face was turned to the tall window; her unmarked features were pale in the diffuse light that flooded the white room, reflected from the wintry landscape outside.
Her interrogator fussed with his trim salt-and-pepper beard and peered at her over the top of his spectacles as he waited for an answer. He sat behind a battered oak desk a hundred and fifty years old, a kindly fellow with all the time in the world.
“Of course.” In her oval face her brows were wide ink strokes above eyes of liquid brown; beneath her upturned nose her mouth was full, her lips innocent in their delicate, natural pinkness. The unwashed brown hair that lay in lank strands against her cheeks, her shapeless dressing gown, these could not disguise her beauty.
“What does it mean to you?”
“What?”
“The word Sparta, what does that mean to you?”
“Sparta is my name.” Still she did not look at him.
“What about the name Linda? Does that mean anything to you?”
She shook her head.
“Or how about Ellen?”
She did not respond.
“Do you know who I am?” he asked.
“I don’t believe we’ve met, Doctor.” She continued to stare out the window, studying something a great distance away.
“But you do know that I’m a doctor.”
She shifted in her chair, glanced around the room, taking in the diplomas, the books, returning her gaze to him with a thin smile. The doctor smiled back. Though in fact they had met every week for the past year, her point was taken—again. Yes, any sane person would know she was in a doctor’s office. Her smile faded and she turned back to the window.
“Do you know where you are?”
“No. They brought me here during the night. Usually I’m in . . . the program.”
“Where is that?”
“In . . . Maryland.”
“What is the name of the program?”
“I . . .” She hesitated. A frown creased her brow.
“. . . I can’t tell you that.”
“Can you remember it?”
Her eyes flashed angrily. “It’s not on the white side.”
“You mean it’s classified?”
“Yes. I can’t tell anyone without a Q clearance.”
“I have a Q clearance, Linda.”
“That is not my name. How do I know you have a clearance? If my father tells me I can talk to you about the program, I will.”
He had often told her that her parents were dead. Invariably she greeted the news with disbelief. If he did not repeat it within five or ten minutes, she promptly forgot; if, however, he persisted, trying to persuade her, she became wild with confusion and grief—only to recover her sad calm a few minutes after he relented. He had long since ceased to torture her with temporary horrors.
Of all his patients, she was the one who most excited his frustration and regret. He longed to restore her lost core and he believed he could do it, if her keepers would permit him to.