Arthur Clarke: The Songs of Distant Earth

“Of course,” he answered. “But be careful not to touch anything.’ Brant was much too interested to notice the absence of ‘please’.

Loren led the way into the spaceplane’s tiny airlock. There was just enough room for the two of them, and it required complicated gymnastics to seal Brant into the spare bubble suit.

“I hope these won’t be necessary for long,” Loren explained, “but we have to wear them until the microbiology checks are complete. Close your eyes until we’ve been through the sterilization cycle.”

Brant was aware of a faint violet glow, and there was a brief hissing of gas. Then the inner door opened, and they walked into the control cabin.

As they sat down side by side, the tough, yet scarcely visible films around them barely hindered their movements. Yet it separated them as effectively as if they were on different worlds — which, in many senses, they still were.

Brant was a quick learner, Loren had to admit. Give him a few hours and he could handle this machine — even though he would never be able to grasp the underlying theory. For that matter, legend had it that only a handful of men had ever really comprehended the geodynamics of superspace — and they were now centuries dead.

They quickly became so engrossed in technical discussions that they almost forgot the outside world. Suddenly, a slightly worried voice remarked from the general direction of the control panel, “Loren? Ship calling. What’s happening? We’ve not heard from you for half an hour.”

Loren reached lazily for a switch.

“Since you’re monitoring us on six video and five audio channels, that’s a slight exaggeration.’ He hoped that Brant had got the message: We’re in full charge of the situation, and we’re not taking anything for granted. “Over to Moses — he’s doing all the talking as usual.”

Through the curved windows, they could see that Kaldor and the mayor were still in earnest discussion, with Councillor Simmons joining in from time to time. Loren threw a switch, and their amplified voices suddenly filled the cabin, more loudly than if they had been standing beside them.

“ — our hospitality. But you realize, of course, that this is an extraordinarily small world, as far as land surface is concerned. How many people did you say were aboard your ship?”

“I don’t think I mentioned a figure, Madame Mayor. In any event, only a very few of us will ever come down to Thalassa, beautiful though it is. I fully understand your — ah — concern, but there’s no need to feel the slightest apprehension. In a year or two, if all goes well, we’ll be on our way again.

“At the same time, this isn’t a social call — after all, we never expected to meet anyone here! But a starship doesn’t delta-vee through half the velocity of light except for very good reasons. You have something that we need, and we have something to give you.”

“What, may I ask?”

“From us, if you will accept it, the final centuries of human art and science. But I should warn you — consider what such a gift may do to your own culture. It might not be wise to accept everything we can offer.”

“I appreciate your honesty — and your understanding. You must have treasures beyond price. What can we possibly offer in exchange?”

Kaldor gave his resonant laugh.

“Luckily, that’s no problem. You wouldn’t even notice, if we took it without asking.

“All we want from Thalassa is a hundred thousand tons of water. Or, to be more specific, ice.”

The President of Thalassa had been in office for only two months and was still unreconciled to his misfortune. But there was nothing he could do about it, except to make the best of a bad job for the three years it would last. Certainly it was no use demanding a recount; the selection program, which involved the generation and interleaving of thousand-digit random numbers, was the nearest thing to pure chance that human ingenuity could devise.

There were exactly five ways to avoid the danger of being dragged into the Presidential Palace (twenty rooms, one large enough to hold almost a hundred guests). You could be under thirty or over seventy; you could be incurably ill; you could be mentally defective; or you could have committed a grave crime. The only option really open to President Edgar Farradine was the last, and he had given it serious thought.

Yet he had to admit that, despite the personal inconvenience it had caused him, this was probably the best form of government that mankind had ever devised. The mother planet had taken some ten thousand years to perfect it, by trial and often hideous error.

As soon as the entire adult population had been educated to the limits of its intellectual ability (and sometimes, alas, beyond) genuine democracy became possible. The final step required the development of instantaneous personal communications, linked with central computers. According to the historians, the first true democracy on Earth was established in the (Terran) year 2011, in a country called New Zealand.

Thereafter, selecting a head of state was relatively unimportant. Once it was universally accepted that anyone who deliberately aimed at the job should automatically be disqualified, almost any system would serve equally well, and a lottery was the simplest procedure.

“Mr. President,” the secretary to the cabinet said, “the visitors are waiting in the library.”

“Thank you, Lisa. And without their bubble suits?”

“Yes — all the medical people agree that it’s perfectly safe. But I’d better warn you, sir. They — ah — smell a little odd.”

“Krakan! In what way?”

The secretary smiled.

“Oh, it’s not unpleasant — at least, I don’t think so. It must be something to do with their food; after a thousand years, our biochemistries may have diverged. “Aromatic” is probably the best word to describe it.”

The president was not quite sure what that meant and was debating whether to ask when a disturbing thought occurred to him.

“And how,” he said, “do you suppose we smell to them?

To his relief, his five guests showed no obvious signs of olfactory distress when they were introduced, one at a time. But Secretary Elisabeth Ishihara was certainly wise to have warned him; now he knew exactly what the word ‘aromatic’ implied. She was also correct in saying that it was not unpleasant; indeed, he was reminded of the spices his wife used when it was her turn to do the cooking in the palace.

As he sat down at the curve of the horseshoe-shaped conference table, the President of Thalassa found himself musing wryly about Chance and Fate — subjects that had never much concerned him in the past. But Chance, in its purest form, had put him in his present position. Now it — or its sibling, Fate — had struck again. How odd that he, an unambitious manufacturer of sporting equipment, had been chosen to preside at this historic meeting! Still, somebody had to do it; and he had to admit that he was beginning to enjoy himself. At the very least, no one could stop him from making his speech of welcome…

… It was, in fact, quite a good speech, though perhaps a little longer than necessary even for such an occasion as this. Towards the end he became aware that his listeners’ politely attentive expressions were becoming a trifle glazed, so he cut out some of the productivity statistics and the whole section about the new power grid on South Island. When he sat down, he felt confident that he had painted a picture of a vigorous, progressive society with a high level of technical skills. Any superficial impressions to the contrary notwithstanding, Thalassa was neither backward nor decadent, and still sustained the finest traditions of its great ancestors. Et cetera.