Arthur Clarke - Imperial Earth

He stared thoughtfully a that little box on the table, with its multitudinous studs and its now darkened read-out panel. There lay a device of a complexity beyond all the dreams of earlier ages—a virtual microsimulacrum of a human brain. Within it were billions of bits of information, stored in endless atomic arrays, awaiting to be recalled by the right signal—or obliterated by the wrong one. At the moment it was lifeless, inert, like a consciousness itself in the profoundest depths of sleep. No—not quite inert; the clock and calendar would still be operating, ticking off the seconds and minutes and days that now were no concern of Karl’s.

Another voice broke in, this time from the right.

“We have asked Mr. Armand Helmer if his son left any code words with him, as is usual in such cases. You may be hearing more on the matter shortly. Meanwhile, no attempt will be made to obtain any read-outs. With your permission, we would like to retain the Minisec for the present.”

Duncan was getting a little tired of having decisions made for him—and the Helmers had apparently stated that he was to take possession of Karl’s effects. But there was no point in objecting; and if he did, some legal formality would undoubtedly materialize out of the same thin air as these mysterious voices.

Mr. Smith was digging into his case again.

“Now there is a second matter—I’m sure you also recognize this.”

“Yes. Karl usually carried a sketchbook. Is this the one he had with him when—”

“It is. Would you like to go through it, and see if there is anything that strikes you as unusual—noteworthy—of any possible value to this investigation? Even if it seems utterly trivial or irrelevant, please don’t hesitate to speak.”

What a technological gulf, thought Duncan, between these two objects! The Minisec was a triumph of the Neoelectronic Age; the sketchbook had existed virtually unchanged for at least a thousand years—and so had the pencil tucked into it. It was very true, as some philosopher of history had once said, that mankind never completely abandons any of its ancient tools. Yet Karl’s sketchbooks had always been something of an affectation; he could make competent engineering drawings, but had never shown any genuine sign of artistic talent.

As Duncan slowly turned the leaves, he was acutely conscious of the hidden eyes all around him. Without the slightest doubt, every page here had been carefully recorded, using all the techniques that could bring out invisible marks and erasures. It was hard to believe that he could add much to in the investigations that had already been made.

Karl apparently used his sketchbooks to make notes of anything that interested him, to conduct a sort of dialogue with himself, and to express his emotions. There were cryptic words and numbers in small, precise handwriting, fragments of calculations and equations, mathematical sketches...

And there were spacescapes, obviously rough drawings of scenes on the outer moons, with the formalized circle-and-ellipse of Saturn hanging in the sky...

... circuit diagrams, with more calculations full of lambdas and omegas, and vector notations that Duncan could recognize, but could not understand... and then suddenly, bursting out of the pages of impersonal notes and rather inept sketches, something that breathed life, something that might have been the work of a real artist—a portrait of Calindy, drawn with obvious, loving care.

It should have been instantly recognizable; yet strangely enough, for a fraction of a second, Duncan stared at it blankly. This was not the Calindy he now knew, for the real woman was already obliterating the image from the past. Here was Calindy as they had both remembered her—the girl frozen forever in the bubble stereo, beyond the reach of Time.

Duncan looked at this picture for long minutes before turning the page. It was really excellent—quite unlike all the other sketches. But then, how many times had Karl drawn it, over and over again, during the intervening years?

No one spoke from the air around him or interrupted his thoughts. And presently he moved on.

... more calculations... patterns of hexagons, dwindling away into the distance—why, of course!

“That’s the titanite lattice—but the number written against it means nothing to me. It looks like a Terran viddy coding.”

“You are correct. It happens to be the number of a gem expert here in Washington. Not Ivor Mandel’stahm, in case you’re wondering. The person concerned assures us that Mr. Helmer never contacted him, and we believe him. It’s probably a number he acquired somehow, jotted down, but never used.”

... more calculations, now with lots of frequencies and phase angles. Doubtless communications stuff—part of Karl’s regular work...

... geometrical doodles, many of them based on the hexagon motive...

...Calindy again—only an outline sketch this time, showing none of the living care of the earlier drawing...

... a honeycomb pattern of little circles, seen in plan and elevation. Only a few were drawn in detail, but it was obvious that there must be hundreds. The interpretation was equally obvious...

“The CYCLOPS array—yes, he’s written in the number of elements and over-all dimensions.”

“Why do you think he was so interested?”

“That’s quite natural—it’s the biggest and most famous radio telescope on Earth. He often discussed it with me.”

“Did he ever speak of visiting it?”

“Very likely—but I don’t remember. After all, this was some years ago.”

The drawings on the next few pages, though very rough and diagrammatic, were clearly details of CYCLOPS—antenna feeds, tracking mechanisms, obscure bits of circuitry, interspersed with yet more calculations. One sketch had been started and never finished. Duncan looked at it sadly, then turned the page. As he had expected, the next sheet was blank.

“I’m sorry to disappoint you,” he said, closing the book, “but I get nothing at all from this. Kar—Mr. Helmer’s field was communications science; he helped design the Titan-Inner Planets Link. This is all part of his work. His interest is completely understandable, and I see nothing unusual about it.”

“Perhaps so, Mr. Makenzie. But you haven’t finished.”

Duncan looked in surprise at the empty air. Then Under Secretary Smith gestured toward the sketchbook.

“Never take anything for granted,” he said mildly. “Start at the other end.”

Feeling slightly foolish, Duncan reopened the sketchbook, then flipped it over as he realized Karl had used it from both directions. (But he had been too badly shaken by those last drawings, and was not thinking too clearly...)

The inside back cover was blank, but the facing page bore the single enigmatic word ARGUS. It meant nothing to Duncan, though it did arouse some faint and unidentifiable association from history. He turned the page—and had one of the biggest shocks of his life.

As he stared incredulously at the drawing that occupied the entire area of the paper, he was suddenly transported back to Golden Reef. There could be no misinterpretation; yet as far as he knew, Karl had never shown the slightest interest in the minutiae of terrestrial zoology. The very idea that any Titanian might be fascinated by marine biology was faintly incongruous.

Yet here was a detailed study, with the perspective meticulously worked out around the faintly limned x- , y- , and z- axes of the spiny sea urchin. Diadema . Only a dozen of its thin, radiating needles were shown but it was clear that there were hundreds, occupying the entire sphere around it.

That was astonishing enough, but there was something even more remarkable. This drawing must have required hours of devoted labor. Karl had dedicated to an unprepossessing little invertebrate—which surely he could never have seen in his life!—all the love and skill he had applied to the portrait of Calindy.