Arthur C. Clarke - 3001

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Title: 3001 The final odissey

Author: Arthur C. Clarke

Original copyright year: 1997

Genre: science fiction

Comments: to my knowledge, this is the only available e-text of this book.

Source: scanned and OCR-read from a hardback edition with Xerox TextBridge Pro 9.0, proofread in

MS Word 2000.

Date of e-text: August 9, 1999

Prepared by: Anada Sucka

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

3001 The final Odissey

Arthur C. Clarke

For Cherene, Tamara and Melinda - may you be happy in a far better century than mine

PROLOGUE

The Firstborn

Call them the Firstborn. Though they were not remotely human, they were flesh and blood, and

when they looked out across the deeps of space, they felt awe, and wonder - and loneliness. As

soon as they possessed the power, they began to seek for fellowship among 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 passed away, their morning promise annihilated by a random

hammerblow from space, 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 that they could, they began to modify. They

tinkered with the destiny of many species, on land and in the seas. But which of their experiments

would bear fruit, they could not know for at least a million years.

They were patient, but they were not yet immortal. There was so much 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 from the stars. With a yet slower rhythm than the polar ice, the tides of civilization

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ebbed and flowed across the Galaxy. Strange and beautiful and terrible empires rose and fell, and

passed on their knowledge to their successors.

And now, out among the stars, evolution was driving towards 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 gemstone. In these, they roamed the Galaxy. 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.

Into pure energy, therefore, they presently transformed themselves; and on a thousand worlds,

the empty shells they had discarded twitched for a while in a mindless dance of death, then

crumbled into dust.

Now they were Lords of the Galaxy, and could rove at will among the stars, or sink like a

subtle mist through the very interstices of space. Though they were freed at last from the tyranny

of matter, they had not wholly forgotten their origin, in the warm slime of a vanished sea. And

their marvellous instruments still continued to function, watching over the experiments started so

many ages ago.

But no longer were they always obedient to the mandates of their creators; like all material

things, they were not immune to the corruption of Time and its patient, unsleeping servant,

Entropy.

And sometimes, they discovered and sought goals of their own.

STAR CITY

Comet Cowboy

Captain Dimitri Chandler [M2973.04.21/93.106//Mars//I SpaceAcad3005] - or 'Dim' to his very

best friends - was understandably annoyed. The message from Earth had taken six hours to reach the

space-tug Goliath, here beyond the orbit of Neptune; if it had arrived ten minutes later he could

have answered 'Sorry - can't leave now - we've just started to deploy the sun-screen.'

The excuse would have been perfectly valid: wrapping a comet's core in a sheet of reflective

film only a few molecules thick, but kilometres on a side, was not the sort of job you could

abandon while it was half-completed.

Still, it would be a good idea to obey this ridiculous request: he was already in disfavour

sunwards, through no fault of his own. Collecting ice from the rings of Saturn, and nudging it

towards Venus and Mercury, where it was really needed, had started back in the 2700s - three

centuries ago. Captain Chandler had never been able to see any real difference in the 'before and

after' images the Solar Conservers were always producing, to support their accusations of

celestial vandalism. But the general public, still sensitive to the ecological disasters of

previous centuries, had thought otherwise, and the 'Hands off Saturn!' vote had passed by a

substantial majority. As a result, Chandler was no longer a Ring Rustler, but a Comet Cowboy.

So here he was at an appreciable fraction of the distance to Alpha Centauri, rounding up

stragglers from the Kuiper Belt. There was certainly enough ice out here to cover Mercury and

Venus with oceans kilometres deep, but it might take centuries to extinguish their hell-fires and

make them suitable for life. The Solar Conservers, of course, were still protesting against this,

though no longer with so much enthusiasm. The millions dead from the tsunami caused by the Pacific

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asteroid in 2304 - how ironic that a land impact would have done much less damage! - had reminded

all future generations that the human race had too many eggs in one fragile basket.

Well, Chandler told himself, it would be fifty years before this particular package reached

its destination, so a delay of a week would hardly make much difference. But all the calculations

about rotation, centre of mass, and thrust vectors would have to be redone, and radioed back to

Mars for checking. It was a good idea to do your sums carefully, before nudging billions of tons

of ice along an orbit that might take it within hailing distance of Earth.

As they had done so many times before, Captain Chandler's eyes strayed towards the ancient

photograph above his desk. It showed a three-masted steamship, dwarfed by the iceberg that was

looming above it - as, indeed, Goliath was dwarfed at this very moment.

How incredible, he had often thought, that only one long lifetime spanned the gulf between

this primitive Discovery and the ship that had carried the same name to Jupiter! And what would

those Antarctic explorers of a thousand years ago have made of the view from his bridge? They

would certainly have been disoriented, for the wall of ice beside which Goliath was floating

stretched both upwards and downwards as far as the eye could see. And it was strange-looking ice,

wholly lacking the immaculate whites and blues of the frozen Polar seas. In fact, it looked dirty -

as indeed it was. For only some ninety per cent was water-ice: the rest was a witch's brew of

carbon and sulphur compounds, most of them stable only at temperatures not far above absolute

zero. Thawing them out could produce unpleasant surprises: as one astrochemist had famously

remarked, 'Comets have bad breath'.

'Skipper to all personnel,' Chandler announced. 'There's been a slight change of programme.

We've been asked to delay operations, to investigate a target that Spaceguard radar has picked

up.'

'Any details?' somebody asked, when the chorus of groans over the ship's intercom had died

away.

'Not many, but I gather it's another Millennium Committee project they've forgotten to

cancel.'

More groans: everyone had become heartily sick of all the events planned to celebrate the end

of the 2000s. There had been a general sigh of relief when 1 January 3001 had passed uneventfully,

and the human race could resume its normal activities.

'Anyway, it will probably be another false alarm, like the last one. We'll get back to work

just as quickly as we can. Skipper out.'

This was the third wild-goose-chase, Chandler thought morosely, he'd been involved with during

his career. Despite centuries of exploration, the Solar System could still produce surprises, and

presumably Spaceguard had a good reason for its request. He only hoped that some imaginative idiot

hadn't once again sighted the fabled Golden Asteroid. If it did exist - which Chandler did not for

a moment believe - it would be no more than a mineralogical curiosity: it would be of far less

real value than the ice he was nudging sunwards, to bring life to barren worlds.

There was one possibility, however, which he did take quite seriously. Already, the human race

had scattered its robot probes through a volume of space a hundred light-years across - and the

Tycho Monolith was sufficient reminder that much older civilizations had engaged in similar

activities. There might well be other alien artefacts in the Solar System, or in transit through

it. Captain Chandler suspected that Spaceguard had something like this in mind: otherwise it would

hardly have diverted a Class I space-tug to go chasing after an unidentified radar blip.

Five hours later, the questing Goliath detected the echo at extreme range; even allowing for

the distance, it seemed disappointingly small. However, as it grew clearer and stronger, it began

to give the signature of a metallic object, perhaps a couple of metres long. It was travelling on

an orbit heading out of the Solar System, so was almost certainly, Chandler decided, one of the

myriad pieces of space-junk that Mankind had tossed towards the stars during the last millennium

and which might one day provide the only evidence that the human race had ever existed.

Then it came close enough for visual inspection, and Captain Chandler realized, with awed

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astonishment, that some patient historian was still checking the earliest records of the Space

Age. What a pity that the computers had given him the answer, just a few years too late for the

Mifiermium celebrations!

'Goliath here,' Chandler radioed Earthwards, his voice tinged with pride as well as solemnity.

'We're bringing aboard a thousand-year-old astronaut. And I can guess who it is.'

Awakening

Frank Poole awoke, but he did not remember. He was not even sure of his name.

Obviously, he was in a hospital room: even though his eyes were still closed, the most

primitive, and evocative, of his senses told him that. Each breath brought the faint and not

unpleasant tang of antiseptics in the air, and it triggered a memory of the time when - of course!

- as a reckless teenager he had broken a rib in the Arizona Hang-gliding Championship.

Now it was all beginning to come back. I'm Deputy Commander Frank Poole, Executive Officer,

USSS Discovery, on a Top Secret mission to Jupiter - It seemed as if an icy hand had gripped his

heart. He remembered, in slow-motion playback, that runaway space-pod jetting towards him, metal

claws outstretched. Then the silent impact - and the not-so-silent hiss of air rushing out of his

suit. After that - one last memory, of spinning helplessly in space, trying in vain to reconnect

his broken air-hose.

Well, whatever mysterious accident had happened to the space-pod controls, he was safe now.

Presumably Dave had made a quick EVA and rescued him before lack of oxygen could do permanent

brain damage.

Good old Dave! He told himself. I must thank - just a moment! - I'm obviously not aboard

Discovery now - surely I haven't been unconscious long enough to be taken back to Earth!

His confused train of thought was abruptly broken by the arrival of a Matron and two nurses,

wearing the immemorial uniform of their profession. They seemed a little surprised: Poole wondered

if he had awakened ahead of schedule, and the idea gave him a childish feeling of satisfaction.

'Hello!' he said, after several attempts; his vocal cords appeared to be very rusty. 'How am I

doing?'

Matron smiled back at him and gave an obvious 'Don't try to talk' command by putting a finger

to her lips. Then the two nurses fussed swiftly over him with practised skill, checking pulse,

temperature, reflexes. When one of them lifted his right arm and let it drop again, Poole noticed

something peculiar It fell slowly, and did not seem to weigh as much as normal. Nor, for that

matter, did his body, when he attempted to move.

So I must be on a planet, he thought. Or a space-station with artificial gravity. Certainly

not Earth - I don't weigh enough.

He was about to ask the obvious question when Matron pressed something against the side of his

neck; he felt a slight tingling sensation, and sank back into a dreamless sleep. Just before he

became unconscious, he had time for one more puzzled thought.

How odd - they never spoke a single word - all the time they were with me.

Rehabilitation

When he woke again, and found Matron and nurses standing round his bed, Poole felt strong

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enough to assert himself.

'Where am I? Surely you can tell me that!' The three women exchanged glances, obviously

uncertain what to do next. Then Matron answered, enunciating her words very slowly and carefully:

'Everything is fine, Mr Poole. Professor Anderson will be here in a minute He will explain.'

Explain what? thought Poole with some exasperation. But at least she speaks English, even

though I can't place her accent.

Anderson must have been already on his way, for the door opened moments later - to give Poole

a brief glimpse of a small crowd of inquisitive onlookers peering in at him. He began to feel like

a new exhibit at a zoo.

Professor Anderson was a small, dapper man whose features seemed to have combined key aspects

of several races - Chinese, Polynesian, Nordic - in a thoroughly confusing fashion. He greeted

Poole by holding up his right palm, then did an obvious double-take and shook hands, with such a

curious hesitation that he might have been rehearsing some quite unfamiliar gesture.

'Glad to see you're looking so well, Mr Poole... We'll have you up in no time.'

Again that odd accent and slow delivery - but the confident bedside manner was that of all

doctors, in all places and all ages.

'I'm glad to hear it. Now perhaps you can answer a few questions...'

'Of course, of course. But just a minute.'

Anderson spoke so rapidly and quietly to the Matron that Poole could catch only a few words,

several of which were wholly unfamiliar to him. Then the Matron nodded at one of the nurses, who

opened a wall-cupboard and produced a slim metal band, which she proceeded to wrap around Poole's

head.

'What's that for?' he asked - being one of those difficult patients, so annoying to doctors,

who always want to know just what's happening to them. 'EEC readout?'

Professor, Matron and nurses looked equally baffled. Then a slow smile spread across

Anderson's face.

'Oh - electro... enceph .. alo... gram,' he said slowly, as if dredging the word up from the

depth of memory, 'You're quite right. We just want to monitor your brain functions.'

My brain would function perfectly well if you'd let me use it, Poole grumbled silently. But at

least we seem to be getting somewhere - finally.

'Mr Poole,' said Anderson, still speaking in that curious stilted voice, as if venturing in a

foreign language, 'you know, of course, that you were - disabled - in a serious accident, while

you were working outside Discovery.'

Poole nodded agreement.

'I'm beginning to suspect,' he said dryly, 'that "disabled" is a slight understatement.'

Anderson relaxed visibly, and a slow smile spread across his face.

'You're quite correct. Tell me what you think happened.'

'Well, the best case scenario is that, after I became unconscious, Dave Bowman rescued me and

brought me back to the ship. How is Dave? No one will tell me anything!'

'All in due course... and the worst case?'

It seemed to Frank Poole that a chill wind was blowing gently on the back of his neck. The

suspicion that had been slowly forming in his mind began to solidify.

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'That I died, but was brought back here - wherever "here" is - and you've been able to revive

me. Thank you...'

'Quite correct. And you're back on Earth. Well, very near it.'

What did he mean by 'very near it'? There was certainly a gravity field here - so he was

probably inside the slowly turning wheel of an orbiting space-station. No matter: there was

something much more important to think about.

Poole did some quick mental calculations. If Dave had put him in the hibernaculum, revived the

rest of the crew, and completed the mission to Jupiter - why, he could have been 'dead' for as

much as five years!

'Just what date is it?' he asked, as calmly as possible.

Professor and Matron exchanged glances. Again Poole felt that cold wind on his neck.

'I must tell you, Mr Poole, that Bowman did not rescue you. He believed - and we cannot blame

him - that you were irrevocably dead. Also, he was facing a desperately serious crisis that

threatened his own survival...'

'So you drifted on into space, passed through the Jupiter system, and headed out towards the

stars. Fortunately, you were so far below freezing point that there was no metabolism - but it's a

near-miracle that you were ever found at all. You are one of the luckiest men alive. No - ever to

have lived!'

Am I? Poole asked himself bleakly. Five years, indeed! It could be a century - or even more.

'Let me have it,' he demanded.

Professor and Matron seemed to be consulting an invisible monitor: when they looked at each

other and nodded agreement, Poole guessed that they were all plugged into the hospital information

circuit, linked to the headband he was wearing.

'Frank,' said Professor Anderson, making a smooth switch to the role of long-time family

physician, 'this will be a great shock to you, but you're capable of accepting it - and the sooner

you know, the better.'

'We're near the beginning of the Fourth Millennium. Believe me - you left Earth almost a

thousand years ago.'

'I believe you,' Poole answered calmly. Then, to his great annoyance, the room started to spin

around him, and he knew nothing more.

When he regained consciousness, he found that he was no longer in a bleak hospital room but in

a luxurious suite with attractive - and steadily changing - images on the walls. Some of these

were famous and familiar paintings, others showed land and sea-scapes that might have been from

his own time. There was nothing alien or upsetting: that, he guessed, would come later.

His present surroundings had obviously been carefully programmed: he wondered if there was the

equivalent of a television screen somewhere (how many channels would the Fourth Millennium have?)

but could see no sign of any controls near his bed. There was so much he would have to learn in

this new world: he was a savage who had suddenly encountered civilization.

But first, he must regain his strength - and learn the language; not even the advent of sound

recording, already more than a century old when Poole was born, had prevented major changes in

grammar and pronunciation. And there were thousands of new words, mostly from science and

technology, though often he was able to make a shrewd guess at their meaning.

More frustrating, however, were the myriad of famous and infamous personal names that had

accumulated over the millennium, and which meant nothing to him. For weeks, until he had built up

a data bank, most of his conversations had to be interrupted with potted biographies. As Poole's

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strength increased, so did the number of his visitors, though always under Professor Anderson's

watchful eye. They included medical specialists, scholars of several disciplines, and - of the

greatest interest to him - spacecraft commanders.

There was little that he could tell the doctors and historians that was not recorded somewhere

in Mankind's gigantic data banks, but he was often able to give them research shortcuts and new

insights about the events of his own time. Though they all treated him with the utmost respect and

listened patiently as he tried to answer their questions, they seemed reluctant to answer his.

Poole began to feel that he was being over-protected from culture shock, and half-seriously

wondered how he could escape from his suite. On the few occasions he was alone, he was not

surprised to discover that the door was locked.

Then the arrival of Doctor Indra Wallace changed everything. Despite her name, her chief

racial component appeared to be Japanese, and there were times when with just a little imagination

Poole could picture her as a rather mature Geisha Girl. It was hardly an appropriate image for a

distinguished historian, holding a Virtual Chair at a university still boasting real ivy.

She was the first visitor with a fluent command of Poole's own English, so he was delighted to

meet her.

'Mr Poole,' she began, in a very business-like voice, 'I've been appointed your official guide

and - let's say - mentor. My qualifications - I've specialized in your period - my thesis was "The

Collapse of the Nation-State, 2000-50". 1 believe we can help each other in many ways.'

'I'm sure we can. First I'd like you to get me out of here, so I can see a little of your

world.'

'Exactly what we intend to do. But first we must give you an Ident. Until then you'll be -

what was the term? -a non-person. It would be almost impossible for you to go anywhere, or get

anything done. No input device would recognize your existence.'

'Just what I expected,' Poole answered, with a wry smile. 'It was starting to get that way in

my own time - and many people hated the idea.'

'Some still do. They go off and live in the wilderness - there's a lot more on Earth than

there was in your century! But they always take their compaks with them, so they can call for help

as soon as they get into trouble. The median time is about five days.'

'Sorry to hear that. The human race has obviously deteriorated.'

He was cautiously testing her, trying to find the limits of her tolerance and to map out her

personality. It was obvious that they were going to spend much time together, and that he would

have to depend upon her in hundreds of ways. Yet he was still not sure if he would even like her:

perhaps she regarded him merely as a fascinating museum exhibit.

Rather to Poole's surprise, she agreed with his criticism.

'That may be true - in some respects. Perhaps we're physically weaker, but we're healthier and

better adjusted than most humans who have ever lived. The Noble Savage was always a myth'.

She walked over to a small rectangular plate, set at eye-level in the door. It was about the

size of one of the countless magazines that had proliferated in the far-off Age of Print, and

Poole had noticed that every room seemed to have at least one. Usually they were blank, but

sometimes they contained lines of slowly scrolling text, completely meaningless to Poole even when

most of the words were familiar. Once a plate in his suite had emitted urgent beepings, which he

had ignored on the assumption that someone else would deal with the problem, whatever it was.

Fortunately the noise stopped as abruptly as it had started.

Dr Wallace laid the palm of her hand upon the plate, then removed it after a few seconds. She

glanced at Poole, and said smilingly: 'Come and look at this.'

The inscription that had suddenly appeared made a good deal of sense, when he read it

slowly:WALLACE, INDRA [F2970.03.11 :31.885 / /HIST.OXFORD] 'I suppose it means Female, date of

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birth 11 March 2970 - and that you're associated with the Department of History at Oxford. And I

guess that 31.885 is a personal identification number. Correct?'

'Excellent, Mr Poole. I've seen some of your e-mail addresses and credit card numbers -

hideous strings of alpha-numeric gibberish that no one could possibly remember! But we all know

our date of birth, and not more than 99,999 other people will share it. So a five-figure number is

all you'll ever need... and even if you forget that, it doesn't really matter. As you see, it's a

part of you.'

'Implant?'

'Yes - nanochip at birth, one in each palm for redundancy. You won't even feel yours when it

goes in. But you've given us a small problem...'

'What's that?'

'The readers you'll meet most of the time are too simple-minded to believe your date of birth.

So, with your permission, we've moved it up a thousand years.'

'Permission granted. And the rest of the Ident?'

'Optional. You can leave it empty, give your current interests and location - or use it for

personal messages, global or targeted.'

Some things, Poole was quite sure, would not have changed over the centuries. A high

proportion of those 'targeted' messages would be very personal indeed.

He wondered if there were still self or state-appointed censors in this day and age - and if

their efforts at improving other people's morals had been more successful than in his own time.

He would have to ask Dr Wallace about that, when he got to know her better.

A Room with a View

'Frank - Professor Anderson thinks you're strong enough to go for a little walk.'

'I'm very pleased to hear it. Do you know the expression "stir crazy"?'

'No - but I can guess what it means.'

Poole had so adapted to the low gravity that the long strides he was taking seemed perfectly

normal. Half a gee, he had estimated - just right to give a sense of well-being. They met only a

few people on their walk, all of them strangers, but every one gave a smile of recognition. By

now, Poole told himself with a trace of smugness, I must be one of the best-known celebrities in

this world. That should be a great help - when I decide what to do with the rest of my life. At

least another century, if I can believe Anderson.

The corridor along which they were walking was completely featureless apart from occasional

numbered doors, each bearing one of the universal recog panels. Poole had followed Indra for

perhaps two hundred metres when he came to a sudden halt, shocked because he had not realized

something so blindingly obvious.

'This space-station must be enormous!' he exclaimed. Indra smiled back at him.

'Didn't you have a saying - "You ain't seen anything yet"?'

'"Nothing",' he corrected, absent-mindedly. He was still trying to estimate the scale of this

structure when he had another surprise. Who would have imagined a space-station large enough to

boast a subway - admittedly a miniature one, with a single small coach capable of seating only a

dozen passengers.

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'Observation Lounge Three,' ordered Indra, and they drew silently and swiftly away from the

terminal.

Poole checked the time on the elaborate wrist-band whose functions he was still exploring. One

minor surprise had been that the whole world was now on Universal Time: the confusing patchwork of

Time Zones had been swept away by the advent of global communications There had been much talk of

this, back in the twenty-first century, and it had even been suggested that Solar should be

replaced by Sidereal Time. Then, during the course of the year, the Sun would move right round the

clock: setting at the time it had risen six months earlier.

However, nothing had come of this 'Equal time in the Sun' proposal - or of even more

vociferous attempts to reform the calendar. That particular job, it had been cynically suggested,

would have to wait for somewhat major advances in technology. Some day, surely, one of God's minor

mistakes would be corrected, and the Earth's orbit would be adjusted, to give every year twelve

months of thirty exactly equal days.

As far as Poole could judge by speed and elapsed time, they must have travelled at least three

kilometres before the vehicle came to a silent stop, the doors opened, and a bland autovoice

intoned, 'Have a good view. Thirty-five per cent cloud-cover today.'

At last, thought Poole, we're getting near the outer wall. But here was another mystery -

despite the distance he had gone, neither the strength nor the direction of gravity had altered!

He could not imagine a spinning space-station so huge that the gee-vector would not be changed by

such a displacement... could he really be on some planet after all? But he would feel lighter -

usually much lighter - on any other habitable world in the Solar System.

When the outer door of the terminal opened, and Poole found himself entering a small airlock,

he realized that he must indeed be in space. But where were the spacesuits? He looked around

anxiously: it was against all his instincts to be so close to vacuum, naked and unprotected. One

experience of that was enough...

'We're nearly there,' said Indra reassuringly.

The last door opened, and he was looking out into the utter blackness of space, through a huge

window that was curved both vertically and horizontally. He felt like a goldfish in its bowl, and

hoped that the designers of this audacious piece of engineering knew exactly what they were doing.

They certainly possessed better structural materials than had existed in his time.

Though the stars must be shining out there, his light-adapted eyes could see nothing but black

emptiness beyond the curve of the great window. As he started to walk towards it to get a wider

view, Indra restrained him and pointed straight ahead.

'Look carefully,' she said 'Don't you see it-'

Poole blinked, and stared into the night. Surely it must be an illusion - even, heaven forbid,

a crack in the window...

He moved his head from side to side. No, it was real. But what could it be? He remembered

Euclid's definition 'A lie has length, but no thickness'.

For spanning the whole height of the window, and obviously continuing out of sight above and

below, was a thread of light quite easy to see when he looked for it, yet so one-dimensional that

the word 'thin' could not even be applied. However, it was not completely featureless; there were

barely visible spots of greater brilliance at irregular intervals along its length, like drops of

water on a spider's web.

Poole continued walking towards the window, and the view expanded until at last he could see

what lay below him. It was familiar enough: the whole continent of Europe, and much of northern

Africa, just as he had seen them many times from space. So he was in orbit after all - probably an

equatorial one, at a height of at least a thousand kilometres.

Indra was looking at him with a quizzical smile.

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'Go closer to the window,' she said, very softly. 'So that you can look straight down. I hope

you have a good head for heights.'

What a silly thing to say to an astronaut! Poole told himself as he moved forward. If I ever

suffered from vertigo, I wouldn't be in this business...

The thought had barely passed through his mind when he cried 'My God!' and involuntarily

stepped back from the window, Then, bracing himself, he dared to look again.

He was looking down on the distant Mediterranean from the face of a cylindrical tower, whose

gently curving wall indicated a diameter of several kilometres. But that was nothing compared with

its length, for it tapered away down, down, down - until it disappeared into the mist somewhere

over Africa. He assumed that it continued all the way to the surface.

'How high are we?' he whispered.

'Two thousand kay. But now look upwards.'

This time, it was not such a shock: he had expected what he would see. The tower dwindled away

until it became a glittering thread against the blackness of space, and he did not doubt that it

continued all the way to the geostationary orbit, thirty-six thousand kilometres above the

Equator. Such fantasies had been well known in Poole's day: he had never dreamed he would see the

reality - and be living in it.

He pointed towards the distant thread reaching up from the eastern horizon.

'That must be another one.'

'Yes - the Asian Tower. We must look exactly the same to them.'

'How many are there?'

'Just four, equally spaced around the Equator. Africa, Asia, America, Pacifica. The last one's

almost empty - only a few hundred levels completed. Nothing to see except water...'

Poole was still absorbing this stupendous concept when a disturbing thought occurred to him.

'There were already thousands of satellites, at all sorts of altitudes, in my time. How do you

avoid collisions?'

Indra looked slightly embarrassed.

'You know - I never thought about that - it's not my field.' She paused for a moment, clearly

searching her memory. Then her face brightened.

'I believe there was a big clean-up operation, centuries ago. There just aren't any

satellites, below the stationary orbit.'

That made sense, Poole told himself. They wouldn't be needed - the four gigantic towers could

provide all the facilities once provided by thousands of satellites and space-stations.

'And there have never been any accidents - any collisions with spaceships leaving earth, or re-

entering the atmosphere?'

Indra looked at him with surprise.

'But they don't, any more,' She pointed to the ceiling. 'All the spaceports are where they

should be - up there, on the outer ring. I believe it's four hundred years since the last rocket

lifted off from the surface of the Earth.'

Poole was still digesting this when a trivial anomaly caught his attention. His training as an

astronaut had made him alert to anything out of the ordinary: in space, that might be a matter of

life or death.

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file:///F|/rah/Arthur%20C.%20Clarke/3001%20The%20Final%20Odissey.txtTitle:3001ThefinalodisseyAuthor:ArthurC.ClarkeOriginalcopyrightyear:1997Genre:sciencefictionComments:tomyknowledge,thisistheonlyavailablee-textofthisbook.Source:scannedandOCR-readfromahardbackeditionwithXeroxTextBridgePro9.0,proof...

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Arthur C. Clarke - 3001

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