Contact - Carl Sagan [148]
And swimming into her field of view as the dodec rotated was…a prodigy, a wonder, a miracle. They were upon it almost before they knew it. It filled half the sky. Now they were flying over it. On its surface were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of illuminated doorways, each a different shape. Many were polygonal or circular or with an elliptical cross section, some had projecting appendages or a sequence of partly overlapping off-center circles. She realized they were docking ports, thousands of different docking ports- some perhaps only meters in size, others clearly kilometers across, or larger. Every one of them, she decided, was the template of some interstellar machine like this one. Big creatures in serious machines had imposing entry ports. Little creatures, like us, had tiny ports. It was a democratic arrangement, with no hint of particularly privileged civilizations. The diversity of ports suggested few social distinctions among the sundry civilizations, but it implied a breathtaking diversity of beings and cultures. Talk about Grand Central Station! she thought.
The vision of a populated Galaxy, of a universe spilling over with life and intelligence, made her want to cry for joy.
They were approaching a yellow-lit port which, Ellie could see, was the exact template of the dodecahedron in which they were riding. She watched a nearby docking port, where something the size of the dodecahedron and shaped approximately like a starfish was gently insinuating itself onto its template. She glanced left and right, up and down, at the almost imperceptible curvature of this great Station situated at what she guessed was the center of the Milky Way. What a vindication for the human species, invited here at last! There's hope for us, she thought. There's hope! "Well, it isn't Bridgeport."
She said this aloud as the docking maneuver completed itself in perfect silence.
CHAPTER 20
Grand Central Station
All things are artificial, for nature is the art of God.
-THOMAS BROWNE
"On Dreams" Religio Media (1642)
Angels need an assumed body, not for themselves, but on our account.
-THOMAS AQUINAS
Summa Theologica, I, 51, 2
The devil hath power To assume a pleasing shape.
-WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Hamlet, II, ii, 628
THE AIRLOCK Was designed to accommodate only one person at a time. When questions of priority had come up-which nation would be first represented on the planet of another star-the Five had thrown up their hands in disgust and told the project managers that this wasn't that kind of mission. They had conscientiously avoided discussing the issue among themselves.
Both the interior and the exterior doors of the airlock opened simultaneously. They had given no command. Apparently, this sector of Grand central was adequately pressurized and oxygenated. "Well, who wants to go first?" Devi asked. Video camera in hand, Ellie waited in line to exit, but then decided that the palm frond should be with her when she set foot on this new world. As she went to retrieve it, she heard a whoop of delight from outside, probably from Vaygay. Ellie rushed into the bright sunlight. The threshold of the airlock's exterior doorway was flush with the sand. Devi was ankle-deep in the water, playfully splashing in Xi's direction. Eda was smiling broadly.
It was a beach. Waves were lapping on the sand. The blue sky sported a few lazy cumulus clouds. There was a stand of palm trees, irregularly spaced a little back from the water's edge. A sun was in the sky. One sun. A yellow one. Just like ours, she thought. A faint aroma was in the air; cloves, perhaps, and cinnamon. It could have been