Arthur Clarke - The Songs of Distant Earth

“At the end of the Second Millennium, it was producing only — only! — the equivalent of a million books a year. And I’m referring merely to information that was presumed to be of some permanent value, so it was stored indefinitely.

“By the Third Millennium, the figure had multiplied by at least a hundred. Since writing was invented, until the end of Earth, it’s been estimated that ten thousand million books were produced. And as I told you, we have about ten per cent of that on board.

“If we dumped it all on you, even assuming you have the storage capacity, you’d be overwhelmed. It would be no kindness — it would totally inhibit your cultural and scientific growth. And most of the material would mean nothing at all to you; you’d take centuries to sort the wheat from the chaff

Strange, Kaldor said to himself, that I’ve not thought of the analogy before. This is precisely the danger that the opponents of SETI kept raising. Well, we never communicated with extraterrestrial intelligence, or even detected it. But the Lassans have done just that — and the ETs are us…

Yet despite their totally different backgrounds, he and Mirissa had so much in common. Her curiosity and intelligence were traits to be encouraged; not even among his fellow crew members was there anyone with whom he could have such stimulating conversations. Sometimes Kaldor was so hard put to answer her questions that the only defence was a counterattack.

“I’m surprised,” he told her after a particularly thorough cross-examination on Solar politics, “that you never took over from your father and worked here full-time. This would be the perfect job for you.”

“I was tempted. But he spent all his life answering other people’s questions and assembling files for the bureaucrats on North Island. He never had time to do anything himself.”

“And you?”

“I like collecting facts, but I also like to see them used. That’s why they made me deputy director of the Tarna Development Project.”

“Which I fear may have been slightly sabotaged by our operations. Or so the director told me when I met him coming out of the mayor’s office.”

“You know Brant wasn’t serious. It’s a long-range plan, with only approximate completion dates. If the Olympic Ice Stadium is built here, then the project may have to be modified — for the better, most of us believe. Of course, the Northers want to have it on their side — they think that First Landing is quite enough for us.”

Kaldor chuckled; he knew all about the generations-old rivalry between the two islands.

“Well — isn’t it? Especially now that you have us as an additional attraction. You mustn’t be too greedy.”

They had grown to know — and like — each other so well that they could joke about Thalassa or Magellan with equal impartiality. And there were no longer any secrets between them; they could talk frankly about Loren and Brant, and at last Moses Kaldor found he could speak of Earth.

“… Oh, I’ve lost count of my various jobs, Mirissa — most of them weren’t very important, anyway. The one I held longest was Professor of Political Science in Cambridge, Mars. And you can’t imagine the confusion that caused, because there was an older university at a place called Cambridge, Mass — and a still older one in Cambridge, England.

“But towards the end, Evelyn and I got more and more involved in the immediate social problems, and the planning for the Final Exodus. It seemed that I had some — well, oratorical talent — and could help people face what future was left to them.

“Yet we never really believed that the End would be in our time — who could! And if anyone had ever told me that I should leave Earth and everything I loved…”

A spasm of emotion crossed his face, and Mirissa waited in sympathetic silence until he had regained his composure. There were so many questions she wanted to ask that it might take a lifetime to answer them all; and she had only a year before Magellan set forth once more for the stars.

“When they told me I was needed, I used all my philosophical and debating skills to prove them wrong. I was too old; all the knowledge I had was stored in the memory banks; other men could do a better job… everything except the real reason.

“In the end, Evelyn made up my mind for me; it’s true, Mirissa, that in some ways women are much stronger than men — but why am I telling you that?

“ “They need you,” said her last message. “We have spent forty years together — now there is only a month left. Go with my love. Do not try to find me.”

“I shall never know if she saw the end of the Earth as I did — when we were leaving the solar system.”

He had seen Brant stripped before, when they had gone on that memorable boat-ride, but had never realized how formidably muscled the younger man was. Though Loren had always taken good care of his body, there had been little opportunity for sport or exercise since leaving Earth. Brant, however, was probably involved in some heavy physical exertion every day of his life — and it showed. Loren would have absolutely no chance against him unless he could conjure up one of the reputed martial arts of old Earth — none of which he had ever known.

The whole thing was perfectly ridiculous. There were his fellow officers grinning their stupid heads off. There was Captain Bey holding a stopwatch. And there was Mirissa with an expression that could only be described as smug.

“… two… one… zero… GO!” said the captain. Brant moved like a striking cobra. Loren tried to avoid the onslaught but discovered to his horror that he had no control over his body. Time seemed to have slowed down… his legs were made of lead and refused to obey him… he was about to lose not only Mirissa but his very manhood…

At that point, luckily, he had woken up, but the dream still bothered him. Its sources were obvious, but that did not make it any the less disturbing. He wondered if he should tell it to Mirissa.

Certainly he could never tell it to Brant, who was still perfectly friendly but whose company he now found embarrassing. Today, however, he positively welcomed it; if he was right, they were now confronted with something very much greater than their own private affairs.

He could hardly wait to see the reaction when Brant met the unexpected visitor who had arrived during the night.

The concrete-lined channel that brought seawater into the freezing plant was a hundred metres long and ended in a circular pool holding just enough water for one snowflake. Since pure ice was an indifferent building material, it was necessary to strengthen it, and the long strands of kelp from the Great Eastern Prairie made a cheap and convenient reinforcement. The frozen composite had been nicknamed icecrete and was guaranteed not to flow, glacierlike, during the weeks and months of Magellan’s acceleration.

“There it is.’ Loren stood with Brant Falconer at the edge of the pool, looking down through a break in the matted raft of marine vegetation. The creature eating the kelp was built on the same general plan as a terrestrial lobster — but was more than twice the size of a man.

“Have you ever seen anything like that before?”

“No,” Brant answered fervently, “and I’m not at all sorry. What a monster! How did you catch it?”

“We didn’t. It swam — or crawled — in from the sea, along the channel. Then it found the kelp and decided to have a free lunch.”

“No wonder it has pinchers like that; those stems are really tough.”

“Well, at least it’s a vegetarian.”

“I’m not sure I’d care to put that to the test.”