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发信人: by (春天的小懒虫), 信区: SFworld
标  题: 2010  (1)
发信站: 哈工大紫丁香 (Wed Oct  6 14:22:42 1999), 转信

                         PART I
                         LEONOV

                            1
                  Meeting at the Focus

Even in this metric age, it was still the thousand-foot tele-
scope, not the three-hundred-metre one. The great saucer
set among the mountains was already half full of shadow, as
the tropical sun dropped swiftly to rest, but the triangular
raft of the antenna complex suspended high above its centre
still blazed with light. From the ground far below, it would
have taken keen eyes to notice the two human figures in
the aerial maze of girders, support cables, and wave-
guides.
  'The time has come,' said Dr Dimitri Moisevitch to his
old friend Heywood Floyd, 'to talk of many things. Of
shoes and spaceships and sealing wax, but mostly of mono-
liths and malfunctioning computers.'
  'So that's why you got me away from the conference. Not
that I really mind -- I've heard Carl give that SETI speech so
many times that I can recite it myself. And the view certain-
ly is fantastic -- you know, all the times I've been to Arecibo,
I've never made it up here to the antenna feed.'
  'Shame on you. I've been here three times. Imagine --
we're listening to the whole universe -- but no one can
overhear us. So let's talk about your problem.'
  'What problem?'
  'To start with, why you had to resign as Chairman of the
National Council on Astronautics.'
  'I didn't resign. The University of Hawaii pays a lot
better.'
  'Okay -- you didn't resign -- you were one jump ahead of
them. After all these years, Woody, you can't fool me, and
you should give up trying. If they offered the NCA back to
you right now, would you hesitate?'
  'All right, you old Cossack. What do you want to know?'
  'First of all, there are lots of loose ends in the report you
finally issued after so much prodding. We'll overlook the
ridiculous and frank) y illegal secrecy with which your
people dug up the Tycho monolith -- '
  'That wasn't my idea.'
  'Glad to hear it: I even believe you. And we appreciate the
fact that you're now letting everyone examine the thing --
which of course is what you should have done in the first
place. Not that it's done much good...'
  There was a gloomy silence while the two men contem-
plated the black enigma up there on the Moon, still contemp-
tuously defying all the weapons that human ingenuity could
bring to bear upon it. Then the Russian scientist continued.
  'Anyway, whatever the Tycho monolith may be, there's
something more important out at Jupiter. That's where it
sent its signal, after all. And that's where your people ran
into trouble. Sorry about that, by the way -- though Frank
Poole was the only one I knew personally. Met him at the
'98 IAF Congress -- he seemed a good man.'
  'Thank you; they were all good men. I wish we knew
what happened to them.'
  'Whatever it was, surely you'll admit that it now concerns
the whole human race -- not merely the United States. You
can no longer try to use your knowledge for purely national
advantage. '
  'Dimitri -- you know perfectly well that your side
would have done exactly the same thing. And you'd have
helped.'
  'You're absolutely right. But that's ancient history -- like
the just-departed administration of yours that was respon-
sible for the whole mess. With a new President, perhaps
wiser counsels will prevail.'
  'Possibly. Do you have any suggestions, and are they
official or just personal hopes?'
  'Entirely unofficial at the moment. What the bloody
politicians call exploratory talks. Which I shall flatly deny
ever occurred.'
  'Fair enough. Go on.'
  'Okay-here's the situation. You're assembling Discovery 2
in parking orbit as quickly as you can, but you can't hope
to have it ready in less than three years, which means you'll
miss the next launch window -'
  'I neither confirm nor deny. Remember I'm merely a
humble university chancellor, the other side of the world
from the Astronautics Council.'
  'And your last trip to Washington was just a holiday to
see old friends, I suppose. To continue: our own Alexei
Leonov --'
  'I thought you were calling it Gherman Titov.'
  'Wrong, Chancellor. The dear old CIA's let you down
again. Leonov it is, as of last January. And don't let anyone
know I told you it will reach Jupiter at least a year ahead of
Discovery.'
  'Don't let anyone know I told you we were afraid of that.
But do go on.'
  'Because my bosses are just as stupid and shortsighted as
yours, they want to go it alone. which means that whatever
went wrong with you may happen to us, and we'll all be
back to square one -- or worse.'
  'What do you think went wrong? we're just as baffled as
you are. And don't tell me you haven't got all of Dave
Bowman's transmissions.'
  'Of course we have. Right up to that last "My God, it's
full of stars!" We've even done a stress analysis on his voice
patterns. We don't think he was hallucinating; he was trying
to describe what he actually saw.'
  'And what do you make of his Doppler shift?'
  'Completely impossible, of course. When we lost his
signal, he was receding at a tenth of the speed of light. And
he'd reached that in less than two minutes. Twenty-five
thousand gravities!'
  'So he must have been killed instantly.'
  'Don't pretend to be naive, Woody. Your space-pod
radios aren't built to withstand even a hundredth of that
acceleration. If they could survive, so could Bowman -- at
least, until we lost contact.'
  'Just doing an independent check on your deductions.
From there on, we're as much in the dark as you are. If you
are.'
  'Merely playing with lots of crazy guesses I'd be ashamed
to tell you. Yet none of them, I suspect, will be half as crazy
as the truth.'
  In small crimson explosions the navigation warning
lights winked on all around them, and the three slim towers
supporting the antenna complex began to blaze like beacons
against the darkling sky. The last red sliver of the sun
vanished below the surrounding hills; Heywood Floyd
waited for the Green Flash, which he had never seen. Once
again, he was disappointed.
  'So, Dimitri,' he said, 'let's get to the point. Just what are
you driving at?'
  'There must be a vast amount of priceless information
stored in Discovery's data banks; presumably it's still being
gathered, even though the ship's stopped transmitting.
We'd like to have that.'
  'Fair enough. But when you get out there, and Leonov
makes a rendezvous, what's to prevent you from boarding
Discovery and copying everything you want?'
  'I never thought I'd have to remind you that Discovery is
United States territory, and an unauthorized entry would be
piracy.'
  'Except in the event of a life-or-death emergency, which
wouldn't be difficult to arrange. After all, it would be hard
for us to check what your boys were up to, from a billion
kilometres away.'
  'Thanks for the most interesting suggestion; I'll pass it
on. But even if we went aboard, it would take us weeks to
learn all your systems, and read out all your memory banks.
What I propose is cooperation. I'm convinced that's the best
idea -- but we may both have a job selling it to our respective
bosses.'
  'You want one of our astronauts to fly with Leonov?'
  'Yes -- preferably an engineer who's specialized in Discov-
ery's systems. Like the ones you're training at Houston to
bring the ship home.'
  'How did you know that?'
  'For heaven's sake, Woody --- it was on Aviation Week's
videotext at least a month ago.'
  'I am out of touch; nobody tells me what's been de-
classified.'
  'All the more reason to spend time in Washington. Will
you back me up?'
  'Absolutely. I agree with you one hundred per cent.
But -'
  'But what?'
  'We both have to deal with dinosaurs with brains in their
tails. Some of mine will argue: Let the Russians risk their
necks, hurrying out to Jupiter. We'll be there anyway a
couple of years later -- and what's the hurry?'
  For a moment there was silence on the antenna raft,
except for a faint creak from the immense supporting cables
that held it suspended a hundred metres in the sky. Then
Moisevitch continued, so quietly that Floyd had to strain to
hear him: 'Has anyone checked Discovery's orbit lately?'
  'I really don't know -- but I suppose so. Anyway, why
bother? It's a perfectly stable one.'
  'Indeed. Let me tactlessly remind you of an embarrassing
incident from the old NASA days. Your first space station --
Skylab. It was supposed to stay up at least a decade, but you
didn't do your calculations right. The air drag in the iono-
sphere was badly underestimated, and it came down years
ahead of schedule. I'm sure you remember that little cliff-
hanger, even though you were a boy at the time.'
  'It was the year I graduated, and you know it. But Discov-
ery doesn't go anywhere near Jupiter. Even at perigee --- er,
perijove --- it's much too high to be affected by atmospheric
drag.'
  'I've already said enough to get me exiled to my dacha
again -- and you might not be allowed to visit me next time.
So just ask your tracking people to do their job more
carefully, will you? And remind them that Jupiter has the
biggest magnetosphere in the Solar System.'
  'I understand what you're driving at -- many thanks.
Anything else before we go down? I'm starting to freeze.'
  'Don't worry, old friend. As soon as you let all this filter
through to Washington -- wait a week or so until I'm clear --
things are going to get very, very hot.'

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