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发信人: by (春天的小懒虫), 信区: SFworld
标  题: 2010 (53)
发信站: 哈工大紫丁香 (Wed Oct  6 15:31:38 1999), 转信

                             53
                     A Gift of Worlds

The radio message beamed to Earth must have left Discovery
only minutes before the blast of radiation engulfed the ship.
It was in plain text and merely repeated over and over again:

     ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS - EXCEPT EUROPA.
                ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS THERE.

  There were about a hundred repetitions; then the letters
became garbled, and the transmission ceased.
  `I begin to understand,' said Floyd, when the message had
been relayed by an awed and anxious Mission Control.
`That's quite a parting present - a new sun, and the planets
around it.'
  `But why only three?' asked Tanya.
  `Let's not be greedy,' Floyd replied. `I can think of one
very good reason. We know there's life on Europa. Bow-
man - or his friends, whoever they may be - want us to
leave it alone.'
  `That makes good sense in another way, said Vasili. `I've
been doing some calculations. Assuming that Sol 2 has
settled down and will continue to radiate at its present level
Europa should have a nice tropical climate - when the ice
has melted. Which it's doing pretty quickly right now.'
  `What about the other moons?'
  `Ganymede will be quite pleasant - the dayside will be
temperate. Callisto will be-very cold; though if there's much
outgassing, the new atmosphere may make it habitable. But
Io will be even worse than it is now, I expect
  `No great loss. It was hell even before this happened
  `Don't write off Io,' said Curnow. `I know a lot of
Texarab oilmen who'd love to tackle it, just on general
principles. There must be something valuable, in a place as
nasty as that. And by the way, I've just had a rather disturb-
ing thought.'
  `Anything that disturbs you must be serious,' said Vasili.
`What is it?'
  `Why did Hal send that message to Earth, and not to us?
We were much closer.'
  There was a rather long silence; then Floyd said thought-
fully: `I see what you mean. Perhaps he wanted to make
certain it was received on Earth.'
  `But he knew we would relay it - oh!' Tanya's eyes
widened, as if she had just become aware of something
unpleasant.
  `You've lost me,' complained Vasili.
  `I think this is what Walter's driving at,' said Floyd. `It's
all  very well to feel grateful to Bowman - or whatever gave
that  warning.  But that's all they did. We could still have
been killed.'
  `But  we  weren't,'  answered Tanya. `We saved ourselves -
by  our own efforts. And perhaps that was the whole idea. If
we  hadn't  -  we  wouldn't  have  been  worth  saving.  You
know,  survival  of the fittest. Darwinian selection. Elimi-
nating the genes for stupidity.'
  `I've  an  unpleasant  feeling you're right,' said Curnow.
`And  if we'd  stuck to our launch date, and not used Discov-
ery  as  a booster, would it, or they, have done anything to
save  us?  That wouldn't have required much extra effort for
an intelligence that could blow up Jupiter.'
  There  was  an  uneasy  silence, broken at last by Heywood
Floyd.
  `On the whole,' he said, `I'm very glad that's one question
we'll never get answered.'

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