2010: Odyssey Two

'Thanks, Katerina... hope you have a nice trip.'

Drowsy though he was, Floyd became aware that Surgeon-Commander Rudenko seemed a little uncertain, even – could it be? – shy. It looked as if she wanted to tell him something, but couldn't make up her mind.

'What is it, Katerina?' he said sleepily.

'I haven't told anyone else yet – but you certainly won't be talking. Here's a little surprise.'

'You'd... better... hurry...'

'Max and Zenia are going to get married.'

'That... is... supposed... to... be... a... surprise?...'

'No. It's just to prepare you. When we get back to Earth, so are Walter and I. What do you think of that?'

Now I understand why you were spending so much time together. Yes, it is indeed a surprise... who would have thought it!

'I'm... very... happy... to... hear...'

Floyd's voice faded out before he could complete the sentence. But he was not yet unconscious, and was still able to focus some of his dissolving intellect on this new situation.

I really don't believe it, he said to himself. Walter will probably change his mind before he wakes up.

And then he had one final thought, just before he went to sleep himself. If Walter does change his mind, he'd better not wake up.

Dr Heywood Floyd thought that was very fu

55 – Lucifer Rising

Fifty times more brilliant than the full Moon, Lucifer had transformed the skies of Earth, virtually banishing night for months at a time. Despite its sinister co

On the credit side, the end of night had vastly extended the scope of human activity, especially in the less-developed countries. Everywhere, the need for artificial lighting had been substantially reduced, with resulting huge savings in electrical power. It was as if a giant lamp had been hoisted into space, to shine upon half the globe. Even in daytime Lucifer was a dazzling object, casting distinct shadows.

Farmers, mayors; city managers, police, seamen, and almost all those engaged in outdoor activities – especially in remote areas – welcomed Lucifer; it had made their lives much safer and easier. But it was hated by lovers, criminals, naturalists, and astronomers.

The first two groups found their activities seriously restricted, while naturalists were concerned about Lucifer's impact upon animal life. Many nocturnal creatures had been seriously affected, while others had managed to adapt. The Pacific grunion, whose celebrated mating pattern was locked to high tides and moonless nights, was in grave trouble, and seemed to be heading for rapid extinction.

And so, it seemed, were Earth-based astronomers. That was not such a scientific catastrophe as it would once have been, for more than fifty per cent of astronomical research depended upon instruments in space or on the Moon. They could be easily shielded from Lucifer's glare; but terrestrial observatories were seriously inconvenienced by the new sun in what had once been the night sky.

The human race would adapt, as it had done to so many changes in the past. A generation would soon be born that had never known a world without Lucifer; but that brightest of all stars would be an eternal question to every thinking man and woman.

Why had Jupiter been sacrificed – and how long would the new sun radiate? Would it burn out quickly, or would it maintain its power for thousands of years– perhaps for the lifetime of the human race? Above all, why the interdiction upon Europa, a world now as cloud-covered as Venus?

There must be answers to those questions; and Mankind would never be satisfied until it had found them.

Epilogue: 20,001

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.

Only during the last few generations have the Europans ventured into the Farside, beyond the light and warmth of their never-setting sun, into the wilderness where the ice that once covered all their world may still be found. And even fewer have remained there to face the brief and fearful night that comes, when the brilliant but powerless Cold Sun sinks below the horizon.

Yet already, those few hardy explorers have discovered that the Universe around them is stranger than they ever imagined. The sensitive eyes they developed in the dim oceans still serve them well; they can see the stars and the other bodies moving in their sky. They have begun to lay the foundations of astronomy, and some daring thinkers have, even surmised that the great world of Europa is not the whole of creation.

Very soon after they had emerged from the ocean, during the explosively swift evolution forced upon them by the melting of the ice, they had realized that the objects in the sky fell into three distinct classes. Most important, of course, was the sun. Some legends – though few took them seriously – claimed that it had not always been there, but had appeared suddenly, heralding a brief, cataclysmic age of transformation, when much of Europa's teeming life had been destroyed. If that was indeed true, it was a small price to pay for the benefits that poured down from the tiny, inexhaustible source of energy that hung unmoving in the sky.

Perhaps the Cold Sun was its distant brother, banished for some crime and condemned to march forever around the vault of heaven. It was of no importance except to those peculiar Europans who were always asking questions about matters that all sensible folk took for granted.

Still, it must be admitted that those cranks had made some interesting discoveries during their excursions into the darkness of Farside. They claimed – though this was hard to believe – that the whole sky was sprinkled with uncountable myriads of tiny lights, even smaller and feebler than the Cold Sun. They varied greatly in brilliance; and though they rose and set, they never moved from their fixed positions.

Against this background, there were three objects that did move, apparently obeying complex laws that no one had yet been able to fathom. And unlike all the others in the sky, they were quite large – though both shape and size varied continually. Sometimes they were disks, sometimes half-circles, sometimes slim crescents. They were obviously closer than all the other bodies in the Universe, for their surfaces showed an immense wealth of complex and ever-changing detail.

The theory that they were indeed other worlds had at last been accepted – though no one except a few fanatics believed that they could be anything like as large, or as important, as Europa. One lay toward the Sun, and was in a constant state of turmoil. On its nightside could be seen the glow of great fires – a phenomenon still beyond the understanding of the Europans, for their atmosphere, as yet, contains no oxygen. And sometimes vast explosions hurl clouds of debris up from the surface; if the sunward globe is indeed a world, it must be a very unpleasant place to live. Perhaps even worse than the nightside of Europa.

The two outer, and more distant, spheres seem to be much less violent places, yet in some ways they are even more mysterious. When darkness falls upon their surfaces, they too show patches of light, but these are very different from the swiftly changing fires of the turbulent i