Arthur Clarke - The Lost Worlds of 2001

One bright fellow negotiated a deal with several of the leading motion-picture distribution companies to buy the extraterrestrial rights to their entire library of back films– excluding the Moon, which had already been annexed by MGM.

Very privately, heads of government were deeply concerned about the possible threat such an incredibly advanced society might represent. No one could give a completely plausible reason why they might be hostile, but it was a possibility which could not be ignored.

A high-level, top-secret, military commission was set up by the major powers to study the possibilities of global defense. It would be unwise, they felt, to believe our weapons systems would mean a great deal against a culture at least three million years older, but a nuclear explosion might be annoying enough to deter a hostile but insufficiently motivated alien society. "We have absolute supremacy over a wasp's nest," one general explained, "but unless we have a damned good reason, we'll leave it alone."

Though this was mildly reassuring, most pessimists felt the problem would not be that "they" were invulnerable to a nuclear explosion-but that our delivery systems might be like Brazilian headhunters trying to spear lowflying supersonic aircraft.

The optimists refused to believe that an advanced extraterrestrial society would behave in a hostile manner. They felt that the fantastic knowledge of three million years must bring an equivalent advance in ethics and morality– or else, it was argued, any society would eventually destroy itself.

In countless subtle ways, that silent pyramid was leaving its mark upon the world. It had long been predicted that only an external threat could really unite mankind; this prediction now appeared to be coming true. Behind the scenes, statesmen were already at work, trying to end the national rivalries that had been in existence so long, and of which few could remember the origin. There was even a chance that the concept of world government, that battered dream of the idealists, would soon become reality, though for reasons that were hardly idealistic.

And as far as the mission was concerned, one vital matter of policy had already been decided-even though there were some who considered that it was taking good manners beyond the point of common sense.

The human race, until it knew what it was up against, would be well behaved. Whatever preparations might be made back on Earth, no weapons of any kind would be carried to Jupiter.

Man's emissaries would go into the unknown with open hands.

"But this is absurd," protested Victor Kaminski. "I'm not a bloody film star."

"Agreed," said Jules Manning, the Space Agency's Director of Public Affairs. "But you are the best-known astronomer in the world. If you do the commentary, we'll multiply the audience many times over. And the major networks will rush to carry it-especially as it won't cost them anything.

"I'm not even a particularly good astronomer-only a particularly healthy one, unaddicted to cannibalism, homosexuality, postnasal drip, and similar habits Not Wanted on Voyage. Or so the psychologists tell me."

"Seriously, Victor-you'll be doing the whole project a great service, and it won't take much of your time. Once you've read the script, the whole job can be done in an afternoon."

"I don't have any afternoons. Is it really all that important?"

"We think so. The last survey was rather depressing. Even now, twenty-three percent of the public thinks that the Sun is nearer than the Moon, that there are only a few thousand stars, and that they're not very big anyway. You can strike a major blow for education, and for astronomy if you'll go along with this."

"I'll make a deal-I'll speak the introduction. But I'm damned if I'll deliver the whole commercial-you'll have to get one of your tame actors for that. Agreed?"

"Agreed," said Manning promptly. He knew that half a loaf was better than no loaf at all. And, with a little patience and persuasion, he might yet get the other half as well.

MAN IS THE MEASURE OF ALL THINGS, burned the slogan on the screen, then, superimposed on the lettering, appeared da Vinci's famous drawing of the standing human figure inscribed in a circle.

"If this statement is indeed true, and not vanity," began the commentator, "we can use man as a yardstick to measure the universe. Of course, he is a very short yardstick; so let us multiply him a thousandfold…."

The camera zoomed away, the figure dwindled until it was barely visible. Then it reproduced itself hundreds of times, to form a dotted line-one side of an empty square.

"Here is our man-our yardstick-one thousand times repeated. That square is a mile* on a side. Now we'll keep on changing scale-a thousandfold each time-until we have reached the edge of the known universe. And because we'll have to make quite a few jumps, let us write down the scale factor as a reminder."

*Hopefully, by 2001 even the U.K. and the U.S. will have joined the civilized world and adopted the metric system.

The number 1000 appeared on the bottom of the screen. Then the square began to shrink, the digits blurred swiftly-and a new square appeared, with the number 1,000,000 beneath it. This 1000-mile-on-a side square was superimposed on the eastern seaboard of the United States ; the original one-mile square was still just visible, marked by an arrow.

"Now we jump again, another thousand times…."

The number 1,000,000,000 came up, and in the million mile-wide square on the screen appeared Earth and Moon, looking quite small.

"Now we are out into astronomical space, and we are dealing with numbers that are already too large for comprehension. We need a more convenient measure, and we can get it by using the fastest thing in the universe-light itself. .

"A beam of light could go round our entire globe seven times in a single second…."

Here a glowing spot appeared beside the Earth, and blurred into a circle as it orbited the globe once every seventh of a second.

"And it takes just over a second to reach the Moon…."

The spot broke away from its orbit, and sailed across to the tiny disk of the Moon, taking 1 1/4 seconds for the trip.

"Now our next thousand-to-one jump-the fourth since we started with that man, back on Earth…."

Here were all the planets out to Jupiter-the whole inner Solar System: Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, and Jupiter itself.

"On this scale, the planets are too small to be seen, we can only show their orbits. The picture is a billion miles on a side; light or radio waves would cross it in just over an hour. It shows the volume of space we have begun to explore; by our standards, it is enormous. All the men who have ever lived, laid end to end, would span about one tenth of it. But by the standards of the Universe, it is nothing. Here comes jump number five…."

The square shrank again; the number 1,000,000,000,000,000 flickered on to the screen. In the center of the new square, there was just one shining point-the Sun.

"The planets, of course, have vanished completely. But notice this-for the first time, nothing new has entered the picture. Even this huge jump has not taken us to the very nearest of the stars.

"If we wish to see them, we must jump again…."

1,000,000,000,000,000,000 flashed up, now the new square was dotted with dozens of tiny points of light.

"At last we enter the realm of the stars. There are a few hundred of them in this picture, which light takes 150 years to cross-the light which, remember, went from Earth to Moon in little more than a second. Of these stars, our own Sun is a perfectly average specimen. And because it is so average-so normal-we believe that many of the other stars are accompanied by similar planets, though they are too distant for our telescopes to show them. More than that-we also feel certain that many of those planets must have life.