Paul Preuss - Venus Prime 1 - Breaking Strain

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ARTHUR C. CLARKE'S VENUS PRIME: VOLUME I

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Kristina Anderson, San Francisco artist and bookbinder, for an introduction to the

bookmaker’s craft. Carol Dawson, writer, and Lenore Coral, librarian at Cornell, refreshed my memories

of London in general and Sotheby’s in particular. My daughter, Mona Helen Preuss, slogged through old

auction catalogues at the library of the University of California and Berkeley. The staff of the rare-book

room of the San Francisco Public Library were customarily, anonymously, efficient and helpful. Thanks

to them all, and let them be reassured that my mistakes are my own.

–Paul Preuss

Introduction

by ARTHUR C. CLARKE

U nlike some authors, I have not generally been given to collaborative work in the science fiction area,

especially in regard to my novels which, for the most part, have been written alone. There have been,

however, some notable exceptions. In the 1960s, I worked with director Stanley Kubrick on the most

realistic SF film done to that time, an ambitious little project called 2001: A Space Odyssey. Over a

decade and a half later, I had another close encounter with a Hollywood director named Peter Hyams,

who produced and directed the visually impressive adaptation of my sequel, 2010.

Both films were rewarding experiences, and I found myself both surprised and delighted by some of the

results. Now I find myself once again involved in an intriguing collaborative venture that has evolved

from my original story, Breaking Strain.

The novella (horrid word!) Breaking Strain was written in the summer of 1948, while I was taking my

belated degree at King’s College, London. My agent, Scott Meredith, then in his early twenties,

promptly sold it to Thrilling Wonder Stories; it can be more conveniently located in my first collection

of stories, Expedition to Earth (1954).

Soon after Breaking Strain appeared, some perceptive critic remarked that I apparently aspired to be the

Kipling of the Spaceways. Even if I was not conscious of it, that was certainly a noble ambition–

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ARTHUR C. CLARKE'S VENUS PRIME: VOLUME I

especially as I never imagined that the dawn of the Space Age was only nine years ahead.

And if I may be allowed to continue the immodest comparison, Kipling made two excellent attempts to

being the Clarke of the Air Age; see “With the Night Mail” and “As Easy As ABC.” The ABC,

incidentally, stands for Aerial Board of Control.

Oh, yes, Breaking Strain. The original story is of course now slightly dated, though not as much as I had

expected. In any case, that doesn’t matter; the kind of situation it describes is one which must have

occurred countless times in the past and will be with us–in ever more sophisticated forms–as long as the

human race endures.

Indeed, the near-catastrophe of the 1970 Apollo 13 mission presents some very close parallels. I still

have hanging up on my wall the first page of the mission summary, on which NASA Administrator Tom

Paine has written: “Just as you always said it would be, Arthur.”

But the planet Venus, alas, has gone; my friend Brian Aldiss neatly summed up our sense of loss in the

title of his anthology Farewell, Fantastic Venus . . .

Where are the great rivers and seas, home of gigantic monsters that could provide a worthy challenge to

heroes in the Edgar Rice Burroughs mold? (Yes, ERB made several visits there, when Mars got boring.)

Gone with the thousand-degree-Farenheit wind of sulphuric acid vapor . . .

Yet all is not lost. Though no human beings may ever walk the surface of Venus as it is today, in a few

centuries–or millennia–we may refashion the planet nearer to the heart’s desire. The beautiful Evening

Star may become the twin of Earth that we once thought it to be, and the remote successors of Star

Queen will ply the spaceways between the worlds.

Paul Preuss, who knows about all these things, has cleverly updated my old tale and introduced some

elements of which I never dreamed (though I’m amazed to see that The Seven Pillars of Wisdom was in

the original; when I read the new text, I thought that was Paul’s invention). Although I deplore the fact

that crime stories have such a universal attraction, I suppose that somebody will still be trying to make a

dishonest buck selling life insurance the day before the Universe collapses into the final Black Hole.

It is also an interesting challenge combining the two genres of crime and science fiction, especially as

some experts have claimed that it’s impossible. (My sole contribution here is “Trouble with Time”; and

though I hate to say so, Isaac What’s-His-Name managed it superbly in his Caves of Steel series.)

Now it’s Paul’s turn. I think he’s done a pretty good job.

–Arthur C. Clarke

Columbo, Sri Lanka

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ARTHUR C. CLARKE'S VENUS PRIME: VOLUME I

PART ONE

THE FOX

AND THE HEDGEHOG

“Does the word Sparta mean anything to you?”

A young woman sat on a spoke-backed chair of varnished pine. Her face was turned to the tall window;

her unmarked features were pale in the diffuse light that flooded the white room, reflected from the

wintry landscape outside.

Her interrogator fussed with his trim salt-and-pepper beard and peered at her over the top of his

spectacles as he waited for an answer. He sat behind a battered oak desk a hundred and fifty years old, a

kindly fellow with all the time in the world.

“Of course.” In her oval face her brows were wide ink strokes above eyes of liquid brown; beneath her

upturned nose her mouth was full, her lips innocent in their delicate, natural pinkness. The unwashed

brown hair that lay in lank strands against her cheeks, her shapeless dressing gown, these could not

disguise her beauty.

“What does it mean to you?”

“What?”

“The word Sparta, what does that mean to you?”

“Sparta is my name.” Still she did not look at him.

“What about the name Linda? Does that mean anything to you?”

She shook her head.

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ARTHUR C. CLARKE'S VENUS PRIME: VOLUME I

“Or how about Ellen?”

She did not respond.

“Do you know who I am?” he asked.

“I don’t believe we’ve met, Doctor.” She continued to stare out the window, studying something a great

distance away.

“But you do know that I’m a doctor.”

She shifted in her chair, glanced around the room, taking in the diplomas, the books, returning her gaze

to him with a thin smile. The doctor smiled back. Though in fact they had met every week for the past

year, her point was taken–again. Yes, any sane person would know she was in a doctor’s office. Her

smile faded and she turned back to the window.

“Do you know where you are?”

“No. They brought me here during the night. Usually I’m in . . . the program.”

“Where is that?”

“In . . . Maryland.”

“What is the name of the program?”

“I . . .” She hesitated. A frown creased her brow.

“. . . I can’t tell you that.”

“Can you remember it?”

Her eyes flashed angrily. “It’s not on the white side.”

“You mean it’s classified?”

“Yes. I can’t tell anyone without a Q clearance.”

“I have a Q clearance, Linda.”

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ARTHUR C. CLARKE'S VENUS PRIME: VOLUME I

“That is not my name. How do I know you have a clearance? If my father tells me I can talk to you

about the program, I will.”

He had often told her that her parents were dead. Invariably she greeted the news with disbelief. If he did

not repeat it within five or ten minutes, she promptly forgot; if, however, he persisted, trying to persuade

her, she became wild with confusion and grief–only to recover her sad calm a few minutes after he

relented. He had long since ceased to torture her with temporary horrors.

Of all his patients, she was the one who most excited his frustration and regret. He longed to restore her

lost core and he believed he could do it, if her keepers would permit him to.

Frustrated, bored perhaps, he abandoned the script of the interview. “What do you see out there?” he

asked.

“Trees. Mountains.” Her voice was a longing whisper. “Snow on the ground.”

If he were to continue the routine they had established, a routine he remembered but she did not, he

would ask her to recount what had happened to her yesterday, and she would recite in great detail events

that had occurred over three years ago. He rose abruptly–surprising himself, for he rarely varied his

work schedule. “Would you like to go outside?”

She seemed as surprised as he.

The nurses grumbled and fussed over her, bundling her into wool trousers, flannel shirt, scarf, fur-lined

leather boots, a thick overcoat of some shiny gray quilted material–a fabulously expensive wardrobe,

which she took for granted. She was fully capable of dressing herself, but she often forgot to change her

clothes. They found it easier to leave her in her robe and slippers then, pretending to themselves that she

was helpless. They helped her now, and she allowed it.

The doctor waited for her outside on the icy steps of the stone veranda, studying the French doors with

their peeling frames, the yellow paint pigment turning to powder in the dry, thin air. He was a tall and

very round man, made rounder by the bulk of his black Chesterfield coat with its elegant velvet collar.

The coat was worth the price of an average dwelling. It was a sign of the compromises he had made.

The girl emerged, urged forward by the nurses, gasping at the sharpness of the air. High on her cheeks

two rosy patches bloomed beneath the transparent surface of her blue-white skin. She was neither tall

nor unusually slender, but there was a quick unthinking certainty in her movements that reminded him

she was a dancer. Among other things.

He and the girl walked on the grounds behind the main building. From this altitude they could see a

hundred miles across the patchwork brown and white plains to the east, a desert of overgrazed, farmed-

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摘要：

ARTHURC.CLARKE'SVENUSPRIME:VOLUMEIAcknowledgmentsIamgratefultoKristinaAnderson,SanFranciscoartistandbookbinder,\foranintroductiontothebookmaker’scraft.CarolDawson,writer,andLenoreCoral,librarian\atCornell,refreshedmymemoriesofLondoningeneralandSotheby’sinparticular.Mydaughter,MonaH\elenPreuss,slogge...

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