The Sentinel - Arthur C. Clarke [119]
Also, despite taking elaborate precautions, each group infects the other with nasty head colds.
It is agreed that Argo can siphon (by means of a space elevator at the equator) several million tons of water to build a new shield. It is frozen in the shadow of a giant sunshade; then it is assembled by robots in a slow-motion ice ballet, lit by the cold light of Oceana’s three moons.
Meanwhile Falcon meets Loren and Marissa and falls in love with them both. Despite their cultural differences the two societies are equally civilized and sexual jealousy is (almost) extinct. But, ironically, another problem arises: Falcon is deeply attracted to Oceana, while Loren and Marissa feel the lure of the great, unknown universe beyond.
During the weeks of shield building, there is a catastrophic power failure in another OTEC grid. The Shaanans appeal to Argo. After some debate (they don’t want to make the islanders even less self-reliant) the voyagers re-create a deep-diving submersible from the ship’s information banks. Falcon plugs in temporarily to the recorded skills and personality of a long-dead deep-sea explorer and he dives with Loren. They discover that the installation had been damaged deliberately.
Diving deeper, they encounter the Shining Ones, giant squidlike creatures, which communicate in the total darkness of the abyss by beautiful displays of multicolored luminescence. They can even produce pictures the way giant TV screens do.
Falcon and Loren are also astonished to see that the squids are using tools fashioned from whalebone. They are on the verge of developing technology, and the OTEC conductors are their source of metal.
Falcon and Loren escape with difficulty. The Shaanans want to destroy the squids, but this horrifies the voyagers, who have already seen too much death.
With the help of special equipment and the ship’s computers, they reach a limited understanding with the squids, which are bought off with a gift of metal. But one day the Shaanans may be faced with a more serious threat from these beautiful and magnificent beasts: the future of the planet will belong to the more energetic race. In this coming conflict Argo cannot, and should not, interfere. The threat from the deep may be exactly what is needed to revitalize the Shaanans.
Argo’s shield is complete; the ship is ready to depart.
To help the Shaanans understand, Falcon takes Marissa (now bearing his child) and Loren up to orbit.
They enter the hibernaculum. At its portal stands one of the greatest works of art ever produced by mankind, the golden mask of the young Pharaoh Tutankhamun, one of the last treasures saved from Earth. Now it guards the sleeping as once it guarded the dead.
They pass thousands of men and women in their crystal cells until they find Falcon’s wife, who is in the last stages of pregnancy. Falcon explains that they had intended the child to be born on Earth but time ran out. Soon he will join them both in their long sleep and will awaken in time to greet them when Argo reaches its goal 500 years later.
On the beach where they first met, beneath the light of the three moons, Marissa and Loren await the moment of departure. Thousands of kilometers overhead the plasma drive ignites brighter than 100 suns, as Argo draws away from Oceana and heads out to the stars.
Loren comforts Marissa and reminds her of the child they will cherish all their lives. Yet always there will be the phantom image of another child conceived 500 years before, to be born 500 years hence.
A child whose father will remember them when he awakens, centuries after they have turned to dust.
ARTHUR C. CLARKE was born at Minehead, Somerset, England, in 1917. He is a graduate of King’s College, London, where he earned First class Honors in Physics and Mathematics. During World War II, he served as an officer in the Royal Air Force in charge of the first radar “talk down” equipment