Arthur Clarke - 2061 - Odyssey Three

'Perfect. Go down.'

'Forty... thirty... twenty... Sure you don't want to change your mind?... Ten... Kicking up a little dust, as Neil said once – or was it Buzz?... Five... Contact! Easy, wasn't it? Don't know why they bother to pay me.'

'Hello, Gany Central – we've made a perfect landing – I mean Chris has – on a flat surface of some metamorphic rock – probably the same pseudogranite we've called Havenite. The base of the mountain is only two kilometres away, but already I can tell there's no real need to go any closer.

'We're putting on our top-suits now, and will start unloading in five minutes. Will leave the monitors running, of course, and will call on every quarter-hour. Van out.'

'What did you mean by that "no need to go any closer"?' asked Floyd.

Van der Berg grinned. In the last few minutes he seemed to have shed years, and almost to have become a carefree boy.

'Circumspice,' he said happily. 'Latin for "look around you". Let's get the big camera out first – wow!'

The Bill Tee gave a sudden lurch, and for a moment heaved up and down on its landing-gear shock absorbers with a motion that, if it had continued for more than a few seconds, would have been a recipe for instant sea sickness.

'Ganymede was right about those quakes,' said Floyd, when they had recovered. 'Is there any serious danger?'

'Probably not; it's still thirty hours to conjunction, and this looks a solid slab of rock. But we won't waste any time here – luckily we won't need to. Is my mask straight? It doesn't feel right.'

'Let me tighten the strap. That's better. Breathe in hard – good, now it fits fine. I'll go first.'

Van der Berg wished that his could be the first small step, but Floyd was the commander and it was his duty to check that the Bill Tee was in good shape – and ready for an immediate take-off.

He walked once around the little spacecraft, examining the landing gear, then gave the thumbs-up signal to van der Berg, who started down the ladder to join him. Although he had worn the same lightweight breathing equipment on his exploration of Haven, he felt a little awkward with it, and paused at the landing pad to make some adjustments. Then he glanced up – and saw what Floyd was doing.

'Don't touch it!' he cried. 'It's dangerous!'

Floyd jumped a good metre away from the shards of vitreous rock he was examining. To his untrained eye, they looked rather like an unsuccessful melt from a large glass furnace.

'It's not radioactive, is it?' he asked anxiously. 'No. But stay away until I've got there.'

To his surprise, Floyd realized that van der Berg was wearing heavy gloves. As a space officer, it had taken him a long time to grow accustomed to the fact that, here on Europa, it was safe to expose one's bare skin to the atmosphere. Nowhere else in the Solar System – even on Mars – was that possible.

Very cautiously, van der Berg reached down and picked up a long splinter of the glassy material. Even in this diffused light, it glittered strangely, and Floyd could see that it had a vicious edge.

'The sharpest knife in the known universe,' said van der Berg happily.

'We've been through all this to find a knife!'

Van der Berg started to laugh, then found it wasn't easy inside his mask.

'So you still don't know what this is about?'

'I'm beginning to feel I'm the only one who doesn't.'

Van der Berg took his companion by the shoulder, and turned him to face the looming mass of Mount Zeus. From this distance, it filled half the sky – not merely the greatest, but the only mountain on this whole world.

'Admire the view just for one minute. I have an important call to make.'

He punched a code sequence on his comset, waited for the READY light to flash, and said: 'Ganymede Central 109 – this is Van. Do you receive?'

After no more than the minimum timelag, an obviously electronic voice answered:

'Hello, Van. This is Ganymede Central 109. Ready to receive.'

Van der Berg paused, savouring the moment he would remember for the rest of his life.

'Contact Earth Ident Uncle 737. Relay following message. LUCY IS HERE. LUCY IS HERE. End message. Please repeat.'

Perhaps I should have stopped him saying that, whatever it means, thought Floyd, as Ganymede repeated the message. But it's too late now. It will reach Earth within the hour.

'Sorry about that, Chris,' grinned van der Berg. 'I wanted to establish priority – amongst other things.'

'Unless you start talking soon, I'll begin carving you up with one of these patent glass knives.'

'Glass, indeed! Well, the explanation can wait – it's absolutely fascinating, but quite complicated. So I'll give you the straight facts.

'Mount Zeus is a single diamond, approximate mass one million million tons. Or, if you prefer it that way, about two times ten to the seventeenth carats. But I can't guarantee that it's all gem quality.'

As they unloaded the equipment from Bill Tee and set it up on their little granite landing-pad, Chris Floyd found it hard to tear his eyes away from the mountain looming above them. A single diamond – bigger than Everest! Why, the scattered fragments lying round the shuttle must be worth billions, rather than millions.

On the other hand, they might be worth no more than – well, scraps of broken glass. The value of diamonds had always been controlled by the dealers and producers, but if a literal gem-mountain came suddenly on the market, prices would obviously collapse completely. Now Floyd began to understand why so many interested parties had focused their attention upon Europa; the political and economic ramifications were endless.

Now that he had at last proved his theory, van der Berg had become again the dedicated and single-minded scientist, anxious to complete his experiment with no further distraction. With Floyd's help – it was not easy to get some of the bulkier pieces of equipment out of Bill Tee's cramped cabin – they first drilled a metre-long core with a portable electric drill, and carried it carefully back to the shuttle.

Floyd would have had a different set of priorities, but he recognized that it made sense to do the harder tasks first. Not until they had laid out a seismograph array and erected a panoramic TV camera on a low, heavy tripod did van der Berg condescend to collect some of the incomputable riches lying all around them.

'At the very least,' he said, as he carefully selected some of the less lethal fragments, 'they'll make good souvenirs.'

'Unless Rosie's friends murder us to get them.'

Van der Berg looked sharply at his companion; he wondered how much Chris really knew – and how much, like all of them, he was guessing.

'Not worth their while, now that the secret's out. In about an hour's time, the Stock Exchange computers will be going crazy.'

'You bastard!' said Floyd, with admiration rather than rancour. 'So that's what your messsage was about.'

'There's no law that says a scientist shouldn't make a little profit on the side – but I'm leaving the sordid details to my friends on Earth. Honestly, I'm much more interested in the job we're doing here. Let me have that wrench, please...'

Three times before they had finished establishing Zeus Station they were almost knocked off their feet by quakes. They could feel them first as a vibration underfoot, then everything would start shaking – then there would be a horrible, long-drawn-out groaning sound that seemed to come from every direction. It was even air-borne, which to Floyd seemed strangest of all. He could not quite get used to the fact that there was enough atmosphere around them to allow short-range conversations without radio.