Arthur Clarke - The Songs of Distant Earth

“Excellent idea. When we’ve finished building our shield, we could help them get started. Not that they should need much help, for there’s certainly no hurry. After all, it will be almost four centuries before they can hear from us again — even if we start transmitting just as soon as we arrive.”

Loren finished recording the scene, and prepared to fly down the slope of the mountain before turning towards South Island. He had descended scarcely a thousand metres when Kaldor said in a puzzled voice, “What’s that smoke over to the northeast? It looks like a signal.”

Halfway to the horizon, a thin white column was rising against the cloudless blue of the Thalassan sky. It had certainly not been there a few minutes before.

“Let’s have a look. Perhaps there’s a boat in trouble.”

“You know what it reminds me of?” said Kaldor.

Loren answered with a silent shrug.

“A spouting whale. When they came up to breathe, the big cetaceans used to blow out a column of water vapour. It looked very much like that.”

“There are two things wrong with your interesting theory,” Loren said. “That column is now at least a kilometre high. Some whale!”

“Agreed. And whale spouts only lasted a few seconds — this is continuous. What’s your second objection?”

“According to the chart, that’s not open water. So much for the boat theory.”

“But that’s ridiculous — Thalassa is all ocean — oh, I see. The Great Eastern Prairie. Yes — there’s its edge. You’d almost imagine that was land down there.”

Coming swiftly towards them was the floating continent of seaborne vegetation which covered much of the Thalassan ocean and generated virtually all the oxygen in the planet’s atmosphere. It was one continuous sheet of vivid — almost virulent — green and looked solid enough to walk upon. Only the complete absence of hills or any other change of elevation, revealed its true nature.

But in one region, about a kilometre across, the floating prairie was neither flat nor unbroken. Something was boiling beneath the surface, throwing up great clouds of steam and occasional masses of tangled weed.

“I should have remembered,” Kaldor said. “Child of Krakan.”

“Of course,” Loren answered. “That’s the first time it’s been active since we arrived. So this is how the islands were born.”

“Yes — the volcanic plume is moving steadily eastward. Perhaps in a few hundred years the Lassans will have a whole archipelago.”

They circled for another few minutes, then turned back towards East Island. To most spectators, this submarine volcano, still struggling to be born, would have been an awesome sight.

But not to men who had seen the destruction of a solar system.

The presidential yacht, alias Inter-Island Ferry Number 1, had certainly never looked so handsome at any previous stage of its three-centuries-long career. Not only was it festooned with bunting, but it had been given a new coat of white paint. Unfortunately, either paint or labour had become exhausted before the job was quite finished, so the captain had to be careful to anchor with only the starboard side visible from land.

President Farradine was also ceremonially attired in a striking outfit (designed by Mrs. President) that made him look like a cross between a Roman emperor and a pioneer astronaut. He did not appear altogether at ease in it; Captain Sirdar Bey was glad that his uniform consisted of the plain white shorts, open-neck shirt, shoulder badges, and gold-braided cap in which he felt completely at home — though it was hard to remember when he had last worn it.

Despite the president’s tendency to trip over his toga, the official tour had gone very well, and the beautiful onboard model of the freezing plant had worked perfectly. It had produced an unlimited supply of hexagonal ice wafers just the right size to fit into a tumbler of cool drink. But the visitors could hardly be blamed for failing to understand the appropriateness of the name Snowflake; after all, few on Thalassa had ever seen snow.

And now they had left the model behind to inspect the real thing, which covered several hectares of the Tarna coastline. It had taken some time to shuttle the president and his entourage, Captain Bey and his officers, and all the other guests from yacht to shore. Now, in the last light of day, they were standing respectfully around the rim of a hexagonal block of ice twenty metres across and two metres thick. Not only was it the largest mass of frozen water that anyone had ever seen — it was probably the largest on the planet. Even at the Poles, ice seldom had a chance to form. With no major continents to block circulation, the rapidly moving currents from the equatorial regions quickly melted any incipient floes.

“But why is it that shape?” the president asked.

Deputy Captain Malina sighed; he was quite sure that this had already been explained several times.

“It’s the old problem of covering any surface with identical tiles,” he said patiently. “You have only three choices — squares, triangles, or hexagons. In our case, the hex is slightly more efficient and easier to handle. The blocks — over two hundred of them, each weighing six hundred tons — will be keyed into each other to build up the shield. It will be a kind of ice-sandwich three layers thick. When we accelerate, all the blocks will fuse together to make a single huge disk. Or a blunt cone, to be precise.”

“You’ve given me an idea.’ The president was showing more animation than he had done all afternoon. “We’ve never had ice-skating on Thalassa. It was a beautiful sport — and there was a game called ice-hockey, though I’m not sure I’d like to revive that, from the vids I’ve seen of it. But it would be wonderful if you could make us an ice-rink in time for the Olympics. Would that be possible?”

“I’ll have to think about it,” Deputy Captain Malina replied, rather faintly. “It’s a very interesting idea. Perhaps you’ll let me know how much ice you’d need.”

“I’ll be delighted. And it will be an excellent way of using all this freezing plant when it’s done its job.”

A sudden explosion saved Malina the necessity of a reply. The fireworks had started, and for the next twenty minutes the sky above the island erupted with polychromatic incandescence.

The Lassans loved fireworks and indulged in them at every opportunity. The display was intermingled with laser imagery — even more spectacular, and considerably safer, but lacking the smell of gunpowder that added that final touch of magic.

When all the festivities were over and the VIPs had departed to the ship, Deputy Captain Malina said thoughtfully, “The president’s full of surprises, even though he does have a one-track mind. I’m tired of hearing about his damned Olympics — but that ice-rink is an excellent idea and should generate a lot of goodwill for us.”

“I’ve won my bet, though,” Lieutenant Commander Lorenson said.

“What bet was that?” Captain Bey asked.

Malina gave a laugh.

“I would never have believed it. Sometimes the Lassans don’t seem to have any curiosity — they take everything for granted. Though I suppose we should be flattered that they have such faith in our technological know-how. Perhaps they think we have antigravity!

“It was Loren’s idea that I should leave it out of the briefing — and he was right. President Farradine never bothered to ask what would have been my very first question — just how we’re going to lift a hundred and fifty thousand tons of ice up to Magellan.”