2001_ A Space Odyssey - Arthur C. Clarke [72]
The thousands of miles shrank to hundreds, and as they did so, the fuel gauges dropped swiftly toward zero. At the control panel, Bowman’s eyes flickered anxiously back and forth over the situation display, and the improvised charts which he now had to consult for any real-time decisions. It would be an appalling anticlimax if, having survived so much, he failed to make rendezvous through lack of a few pounds of fuel…
The whistle of the jets faded, as the main thrust died and only the verniers continued to nudge Discovery gently into orbit. Japetus was now a giant crescent that filled the sky; until this moment, Bowman had always thought of it as a tiny, insignificant object — as indeed it was compared with the world around which it circled. Now, as it loomed menacingly above him, it seemed enormous — a cosmic hammer poised to crush Discovery like a nutshell.
Japetus was approaching so slowly that it scarcely seemed to move, and it was impossible to tell the exact moment when it made the subtle change from an astronomical body to a landscape, only fifty miles below. The faithful verniers gave their last spurts of thrust, then closed down forever. The ship was in its final orbit, completing one revolution every three hours at a mere eight hundred miles an hour — all the speed that was required in this feeble gravitational field.
Discovery had become a satellite of a satellite.
Chapter 36
Big Brother
I’m coming round to the daylight side again, and it’s just as I reported on the last orbit. This place seems to have only two kinds of surface material. The black stuff looks burned, almost like charcoal, and with the same kind of texture as far as I can judge in the telescope. In fact, it reminds me very much of burned toast…
“I still can’t make any sense of the white area. It starts at an absolutely sharp-edged boundary, and shows no surface detail at all. It could even be a liquid — it’s flat enough. I don’t know what impression you’ve got from the videos I’ve transmitted, but if you picture a sea of frozen milk you’ll get the idea exactly.
“It could even be some heavy gas — no, I suppose that’s impossible. Sometimes I get the feeling that it’s moving, very slowly; but I can never be sure…
“…I’m over the white area again, on my third orbit. This time I hope to pass closer to that mark I spotted at its very center, when I was on my way in. If my calculations are correct, I should go within fifty miles of it — whatever it is.
“…Yes, there’s something ahead, just where I calculated. It’s coming up over the horizon — and so is Saturn, in almost the same quarter of the sky — I’ll move to the telescope….
“Hello! It looks like some kind of building — completely black — quite hard to see. No windows or any other features. Just a big, vertical slab — it must be at least a mile high to be visible from this distance. It reminds me — of course! It’s just like the thing you found on the Moon! This is TMA-1’s big brother!”
Chapter 37
Experiment
Call it the Star Gate.
For three million years, it had circled Saturn, waiting for a moment of destiny that might never come. In its making, a moon had been shattered, and the debris of its creation orbited still.
Now the long wait was ending. On yet another world, intelligence had been born and was escaping from its planetary cradle. An ancient experiment was about to reach its climax.
Those who had begun that experiment, so long ago, had not been men — or even remotely human. But they were flesh and blood, and when they looked out across the deeps of space, they had felt awe, and wonder, and loneliness. As soon as they possessed the power, they set forth for the stars.
In their explorations, they encountered life in many forms, and watched the workings of evolution on a thousand worlds. They saw how often the first faint sparks of intelligence flickered and died in the cosmic night.
And because, in all the galaxy, they had found nothing more precious than Mind, they encouraged its dawning everywhere. They