Arthur Clarke - 2061 - Odyssey Three

'The Ice Road is still there, of course, but only the tourists use it now. If they're sensible, they'll drive by night, as we used to do. It was pure magic, with the full Earth almost directly overhead, so brilliant that we seldom used our own lights. And although we could talk to our friends whenever we wanted to, we often switched off the radio and left it to the automatics to tell them we were OK. We just wanted to be alone, in that great shining emptiness – while it was still there, because we knew it wouldn't last.

'Now they're building the Teravolt quarksmasher, running right around the equator, and domes are going up all over Imbrium and Serenitatis. But we knew the real lunar wilderness, exactly as Armstrong and Aldrin saw it – before you could buy "Wish you were here" cards in the post office at Tranquillity Base.'

'... lucky you missed the Annual Ball: believe it or not, it was just as grisly as last year's. And once again our resident mastodon, dear Ms Wilkinson, managed to crush her partners' toes, even on the Half-gee Dance Floor.

'Now some business. Since you won't be back for months, instead of a couple of weeks, Admin is looking lustfully at your apartment – good neighbourhood, near downtown shopping area, splendid view of Earth on clear days, etc., etc. – and suggests a sublet until you return. Seems a good deal, and will save you a lot of money. We'll collect any personal effects you'd like stored.

'Now this Shaka business. We know you love pulling our legs, but frankly Jerry and I were horrified! I can see why Maggie M turned him down -yes, of course we've read her Olympic Lusts – very enjoyable, but too feminist for us.

'What a monster – I can understand why they've called a gang of African terrorists after him. Fancy executing his warriors if they got married! And killing all the poor cows in his wretched empire, just because they were female! Worst of all – those horrid spears he invented; shocking manners, jabbing them into people you've not been properly introduced to...

'And what a ghastly advertisement for us feys! Almost enough to make one want to switch. We've always claimed that we're gentle and kindhearted (as well as madly talented and artistic, of course) but now you've made us look into some of the so-called Great Warriors (as if there was anything great about killing people!) we're almost ashamed of the company we've been keeping.

'Yes, we did know about Hadrian and Alexander – but we certainly didn't know about Richard the Lion Heart and Saladin. Or Julius Caesar – though he was everything – ask Antony as well as Cleo. Or Frederick the Great, who does have some redeeming features; look how he treated old Bach.

'When I told Jerry that at least Napoleon is an exception – we don't have to be saddled with him – do you know what he said? "I bet Josephine was really a boy." Try that on Yva.

'You've ruined our morale, you rascal, tarring us with that blood-stained brush (sorry about the mixed metaphor). You should have left us in happy ignorance...

'Despite that, we send our love, and so does Sebastian. Say hello to any Europans you meet. Judging by the reports from Galaxy, some of them would make very good partners for Ms Wilkinson.'

Dr Heywood Floyd preferred not to talk about the first mission to Jupiter, and the second to Lucifer ten years later. It was all so long ago – and there was nothing he had not said a hundred times to Congressional Committees, Space Council boards and media persons like Victor Willis.

Nevertheless, he had a duty to his fellow passengers which could not be avoided. As the only living man to have witnessed the birth of a new sun – and a new solar system – they expected him to have some special understanding of the worlds they were now so swiftly approaching. It was a naïve assumption; he could tell them far less about the Galilean satellites than the scientists and engineers who had been working there for more than a generation. When he was asked 'What's it really like on Europa?' (or Ganymede, or Io, or Callisto...) he was liable to refer the enquirer, rather brusquely, to the voluminous reports available in the ship's library.

Yet there was one area where his experience was unique. Half a century later, he sometimes wondered if it had really happened, or whether he had been asleep aboard Discovery when David Bowman had appeared to him. Almost easier to believe that a spaceship could be haunted...

But he could not have been dreaming, when the floating dust motes assembled themselves into that ghostly image of a man who should have been dead for a dozen years. Without the warning it had given him (how clearly he remembered that its lips were motionless, and the voice had come from the console speaker) Leonov and all aboard would have been vaporized in the detonation of Jupiter.

'Why did he do it?' Floyd asked during one of the after-dinner sessions. 'I've puzzled over that for fifty years. Whatever he became, after he went out in Discovery's space pod to investigate the monolith, he must still have had some links with the human race; he was not completely alien. We know that he returned to Earth – briefly – because of that orbiting bomb incident. And there's strong evidence that he visited both his mother and his old girlfriend; that's not the action of – of an entity that had discarded all emotions.'

'What do you suppose he is now?' asked Willis. 'For that matter – where is he?'

'Perhaps that last question has no meaning – even for human beings. Do you know where your consciousness resides?'

'I've no use for metaphysics. Somewhere in the general area of my brain, anyway.'

'When I was a young man,' sighed Mihailovich, who had a talent for deflating the most serious discussions, 'mine was about a metre lower down.'

'Let's assume he's on Europa; we know there's a monolith there, and Bowman was certainly associated with it in some way – see how he relayed that warning.'

'Do you think he also relayed the second one, telling us to stay away?'

'Which we are now going to ignore -'

' in a good cause -' Captain Smith, who was usually content to let the discussion go where it wished, made one of his rare interjections.

'Dr Floyd,' he said thoughtfully, 'you're in a unique position, and we should take advantage of it. Bowman went out of his way to help you once. If he's still around, he may be willing to do so again. I worry a good deal about that ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS HERE order. If he could assure us that it was – temporarily suspended, let's say – I'd be much happier.'

There were several 'hear, hear's around the table before Floyd answered.

'Yes, I've been thinking along the same lines. I've already told Galaxy to watch out for any – let's say manifestations – in case he tries to make contact.'

'Of course,' said Yva, 'he may be dead by now – if ghosts can die.'

Not even Mihailovich had a suitable comment to this, but Yva obviously sensed that no-one thought much of her contribution.

Undeterred, she tried again.

'Woody, dear,' she said. 'Why don't you simply give him a call on the radio? That's what it's for, isn't it?'

The idea had occurred to Floyd, but it had somehow seemed too naïve to take seriously.

'I will,' he said. 'I don't suppose it will do any harm.'

This time, Floyd was quite sure he was dreaming...

He had never been able to sleep well in zero gravity, and Universe was now coasting, unpowered, at maximum velocity. In two days it would start almost a week of steady deceleration, throwing away its enormous excess speed until it was able to rendezvous with Europa.