'... Now about the house. I'm glad the Regents have taken that attitude, which will make it much easier for both of us. I know we both loved the place, but it will be too big now and will bring back too many memories. For the time being, I'll probably get an apartment in Hilo: I hope I can find some permanent place as quickly as possible.
'That's one thing I can promise everyone I won't leave Earth again. I've had enough of space travelling for one lifetime. Oh, perhaps the Moon, if I really have to but of course that's just a weekend excursion.
'And talking of moons, we've just passed the orbit of Sinope, so we're now leaving the Jovian system. Jupiter is more than twenty million kilometres away, and is barely larger than our own Moon.
'Yet even from this distance, you can tell that something terrible has happened to the planet. Its beautiful orange colour has vanished; it's a kind of sickly grey, only a fraction of its former brilliance. No wonder it's only a faint star now in the sky of Earth.
'But nothing else has happened, and we're well past the deadline. Could the whole thing have been a false alarm or a kind of cosmic practical joke? I doubt if we'll ever know. Anyway, it's brought us home ahead of schedule, and I'm grateful for that.
'Goodbye for the present, Caroline and thank you for everything. I hope we can still be friends. And my dearest love, as ever, to Chris.'
When he had finished, Floyd sat quietly for a while in the tiny cubicle he would not need much longer. He was just about to carry the audio chip up to the bridge for transmission, when Chandra came drifting in.
Floyd had been agreeably surprised by the way in which the scientist had accepted his increasing separation from Hal. They were still in touch for several hours every day, exchanging data on Jupiter and monitoring conditions aboard Discovery. Though no one had expected any great display of emotion, Chandra seemed to be taking his loss with remarkable fortitude. Nikolai Ternovsky, his only confidant, had been able to give Floyd a plausible explanation of his behaviour.
'Chandra's got a new interest, Woody. Remember he's in a business where if something works, it's obsolete. He's learned a lot in the last few months. Can't you guess what he's doing now?'
'Frankly, no. You tell me.'
'He's busy designing HAL 10,000.'
Floyd's jaw dropped. 'So that explains those log messages to Urbana that Sasha's been grumbling about. Well, he won't be blocking the circuits much longer.'
Floyd recalled the conversation when Chandra entered; he knew better than to ask the scientist if it was true, for it was really none of his business. Yet there was another matter about which he was still curious.
'Chandra,' he said, 'I don't believe I ever thanked you properly for the job you did at the flyby, when you persuaded Hal to cooperate. For a while, I was really afraid he'd give us trouble. But you were confident all along and you were right. Still, didn't you have any qualms?'
'Not at all, Dr Floyd.'
'Why not? He must have felt threatened by the situation and you know what happened last time.'
'There was a big difference. If I may say so, perhaps the successful outcome this time had something to do with our national characteristics.'
'I don't understand.'
'Put it this way, Dr Floyd. Bowman tried to use force against Hal. I didn't. In my language we have a word ahimsa. It's usually translated as "non-violence", though it has more positive implications. I was careful to use ahimsa in my dealings with Hal.'
'Very commendable, I'm sure. But there are times when something more energetic is needed, regrettable though the necessity may be.' Floyd paused, wrestling with temptation. Chandra's holier-than-thou attitude was a little tiresome. It wouldn't do any harm, now, to tell him some of the facts of life.
'I'm glad it's worked out this way. But it might not have done so, and I had to prepare for every eventuality. Ahimsa, or whatever you call it, is all very well; I don't mind admitting I had a back-up to your philosophy. If Hal had been well, stubborn, I could have dealt with him.'
Floyd had once seen Chandra crying; now he saw him laughing, and that was an equally disconcerting phenomenon.
'Really, Dr Floyd! I'm sorry you give me such low marks for intelligence. It was obvious from the beginning that you'd install a power cut-out somewhere. I disconnected it months ago.'
Whether the flabbergasted Floyd could think of a suitable answer would never be known. He was still giving a very creditable imitation of a galled fish when up on the flight deck Sasha cried out: 'Captain! All hands! Get to the monitors! BOZHE MOI! LOOK AT THAT!'
51 The Great Game
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 became farmers in the fields of stars; they sowed, and sometimes they reaped.
And sometimes, dispassionately, they had to weed.
The great dinosaurs had long since perished when the survey ship entered the Solar System after a voyage that had already lasted a thousand years. It swept past the frozen outer planets, paused briefly above the deserts of dying Mars, and presently looked down on Earth.
Spread out beneath them, the explorers saw a world swarming with life. For years they studied, collected, catalogued. When they had learned all they could, they began to modify. They tinkered with the destinies of many species on land and in the ocean. But which of their experiments would succeed, they could not know for at least a million years.
They were patient, but they were not yet immortal. So much remained to do in this universe of a hundred billion suns, and other worlds were calling. So they set out once more into the abyss, knowing that they would never come this way again.
Nor was there any need. The servants they had left behind would do the rest.
On Earth the glaciers came and went, while above them the changeless Moon still carried its secret. With a yet slower rhythm than the polar ice, the tides of civilization ebbed and flowed across the Galaxy. Strange and beautiful and terrible empires rose and fell, and passed on their knowledge to their successors. Earth was not forgotten, but another visit would serve little purpose. It was one of a million silent worlds, few of which would ever speak.
And now, out among the stars, evolution was driving toward new goals. The first explorers of Earth had long since come to the limits of flesh and blood; as soon as their machines were better than their bodies, it was time to move. First their brains, and then their thoughts alone, they transferred into shining new homes of metal and plastic.
In these, they roamed among the stars. They no longer built spaceships. They were spaceships.
But the age of the Machine-entities swiftly passed. In their ceaseless experimenting, they had learned to store knowledge in the structure of space itself, and to preserve their thoughts for eternity in frozen lattices of light. They could become creatures of radiation, free at last from the tyranny of matter.