2001_ A Space Odyssey - Arthur C. Clarke [34]
Though he felt his strength swiftly returning, he would have been content to lie here forever, if there had been no further stimulus from outside. But presently another voice spoke to him — and this time it was wholly human, not a construct of electrical pulses assembled by a more-than-human memory. It was also a familiar voice, though it was some time before he could recognize it
“Hello, Dave. You’re coming round fine. You can talk now. Do you know where you are?”
He worried about this for some time. If he was really orbiting Saturn, what had happened during all the months since he had left Earth? Again he began to wonder if he was suffering from amnesia. Paradoxically, that very thought reassured him. If he could remember the word “amnesia” his brain must be in fairly good shape…
But he still did not know where he was, and the speaker at the other end of the circuit must have understood his situation completely.
“Don’t worry, Dave. This is Frank Poole. I’m watching your heart and respiration — everything is perfectly normal. Just relax — take it easy. We’re going to open the door now and pull you out.”
Soft light flooded into the chamber; he saw moving shapes silhouetted against the widening entrance. And in that moment, all his memories came back to him, and he knew exactly where he was.
Though he had come back safely from the furthest borders of sleep, and the nearest borders of death, he had been gone only a week. When he left the Hibernaculum, he would not see the cold Saturnian sky; that was more than a year in the future and a billion miles away. He was still in the trainer at the Houston Space Flight Center under the hot Texas sun.
Chapter 16
Hal
But now Texas was invisible, and even the United States was hard to see. Though the low-thrust plasma drive had long since been closed down, Discovery was still coasting with her slender arrowlike body pointed away from Earth, and all her high-powered optical gear was oriented toward the outer planets, where her destiny lay.
There was one telescope, however, that was permanently aimed at Earth. It was mounted like a gunsight on the rim of the ship’s long-range antenna, and checked that the great parabolic bowl was rigidly locked upon its distant target. While Earth remained centered in the crosswires, the vital communication link was intact, and messages could come and go along the invisible beam that lengthened more than two million miles with every day that passed.
At least once in every watch period Bowman would look homeward through the antenna-alignment telescope. As Earth was now far back toward the sun, its darkened hemisphere faced Discovery, and on the central display screen the planet appeared as a dazzling silver crescent, like another Venus.
It was rare that any geographical features could be identified in that ever-shrinking arc of light, for cloud and haze concealed them, but even the darkened portion of the disk was endlessly fascinating. It was sprinkled with shining cities; sometimes they burned with a steady light, sometimes they twinkled like fireflies as atmospheric tremors passed over them.
There were also periods when, as the Moon swung back and forth in its orbit, it shone down like a great lamp upon the darkened seas and continents of Earth. Then, with a thrill of recognition, Bowman could often glimpse familiar coastlines, shining in that spectral lunar light. And sometimes, when the Pacific was calm, he could even see the moonglow shimmering across its face; and he would remember nights beneath the palm trees of tropical lagoons.
Yet he had no regrets for these lost beauties. He had enjoyed them all, in his thirty-five years of life; and he was determined to enjoy them again, when he returned rich and famous. Meanwhile, distance made them all the more precious.
The sixth member of the crew cared for none of these things, for it was not human. It was the highly advanced HAL 9000 computer, the brain and nervous system of the ship.
Hal (for Heuristically