2061: Odyssey Three by Arthur C. Clarke Read Free Book Online Page A

completely black, yet van der Berg could imagine the frozen landscape rolling past beneath its blanket of clouds a thousand kilometres below. In a few hours the distant Sun would be shining there, for Europa revolved on its axis once in every seven Earth-days. ‘Nightside’ should really be called ‘Twilight-side’, for half the time it had ample light - but no heat. Yet the inaccurate name had stuck, because it had emotional validity: Europa knew Sunrise, but never Lucifer-rise.
    And the Sunrise was coming now, speeded up a thousandfold by the racing probe. A faintly luminous band bisected the screen, as the horizon emerged from darkness.
    The explosion of light was so sudden that van der Berg could almost imagine he was looking into the glare of an atomic bomb. In a fraction of a second, it ran through all the colours of the rainbow, then became pure white as the Sun leapt above the mountain - then vanished as the automatic filters cut into the circuit.
    ‘That’s all; pity there was no operator on duty at the time - he could have panned the camera down and had a good view of the mountain as we went over. But I knew you’d like to see it - even though it disproves your theory.’
    ‘How?’ said van der Berg, more puzzled than annoyed.
    ‘When you go through it in slow motion, you’ll see what I mean. Those beautiful rainbow effects - they’re not atmospheric - they’re caused by the mountain itself. Only ice could do that. Or glass - which doesn’t seem very likely.’
    ‘Not impossible - volcanoes can produce natural glass - but it’s usually black… of course!’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘Er - I won’t commit myself until I’ve been through the data. But my guess would be rock crystal - transparent quartz. You can make beautiful prisms and lenses out of it. Any chance of some more observations?’
    ‘I’m afraid not - that was pure luck - Sun, mountain, camera all lined up at the right time. It won’t happen again in a thousand years.’
    ‘Thanks, anyway - can you send me over a copy? No hurry - I’m just leaving on a field trip to Perrine, and won’t be able to look at it until I get back.’
    Van der Berg gave a short, rather apologetic laugh.
    ‘You know, if that really is rock crystal, it would be worth a fortune. Might even help solve our balance of payments problem…’
    But that, of course, was utter fantasy. Whatever wonders - or treasures - Europa might conceal, the human race had been forbidden access to them, by that last message from Discovery. Fifty years later, there was no sign that the interdiction would ever be lifted.

2061: Odissey Three
    10

2061: Odissey Three
    Ship of Fools
    For the first forty-eight hours of the voyage, Heywood Floyd could not really believe the comfort, the spaciousness - the sheer extravagance of Universe’s living arrangements. Yet most of his fellow passengers took them for granted; those who had never left Earth before assumed that all spaceships must be like this.
    He had to look back at the history of aeronautics to put matters in the right perspective. In his own lifetime, he had witnessed - indeed, experienced - the revolution that had occurred in the skies of the planet now dwindling behind him. Between the clumsy old Leonov and the sophisticated Universe lay exactly fifty years. (Emotionally, he couldn’t really believe that - but it was useless arguing about arithmetic.)
    And just fifty years had separated the Wright Brothers from the first jet airliners. At the beginning of that half-century, intrepid aviators had hopped from field to field, begoggled and windswept on open chairs; at its end, grandmothers had slumbered peacefully between continents at a thousand kilometres an hour.
    So he should not, perhaps, have been astonished at the luxury and elegant decor of his stateroom, or even the fact that he had a steward to keep it tidy. The generously sized window was the most startling feature of his suite, and at first he felt quite uncomfortable