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

thinking of the tons of air pressure it was holding in check against the implacable, and never for a moment relaxing, vacuum of space.
    The biggest surprise, even though the advance literature should have prepared him for it, was the presence of gravity. Universe was the first spaceship ever built to cruise under continuous acceleration, except for the few hours of the mid-course ‘turnaround’. When her huge propellant tanks were fully loaded with their five thousand tons of water, she could manage a tenth of a gee - not much, but enough to keep loose objects from drifting around. This was particularly convenient at mealtimes - though it took a few days for the passengers to learn not to stir their soup too vigorously.
    Forty-eight hours out from Earth, the population of Universe had already stratified itself into four distinct classes.
    The aristocracy consisted of Captain Smith and his officers. Next came the passengers; then crew - non-commissioned and stewards. And then steerage…
    That was the description that the five young space scientists had adopted for themselves, first as a joke but later with a certain amount of bitterness. When Hoyd compared their cramped and jury-rigged quarters with his own luxurious cabin, he could see their point of view, and soon became the conduit of their complaints to the Captain.
    Yet all things considered, they had little to grumble about; in the rush to get the ship ready, it had been touch and go as to whether there would be any accommodation for them and their equipment. Now they could look forward to deploying instruments around - and on - the comet during the critical days before it rounded the Sun, and departed once more to the outer reaches of the Solar System. The members of the science team would establish their reputations on this voyage, and knew it. Only in moments of exhaustion, or fury with misbehaving instrumentation, did they start complaining about the noisy ventilating system, the claustrophobic cabins, and occasional strange smells of unknown origin.
    But never the food, which everyone agreed was excellent. ‘Much better,’ Captain Smith assured them, ‘than Darwin had on the Beagle.’
    To which Victor Willis had promptly retorted:
    ‘How does he know? And by the way, Beagle’s commander cut his throat when he got back to England.’
    That was rather typical of Victor, perhaps the planet’s best-known science communicator - to his fans - or ‘pop-scientist’ - to his equally numerous detractors. It would be unfair to call them enemies; admiration for his talents was universal, if occasionally grudging. His soft, mid-Pacific accent and expansive gestures on camera were widely parodied, and he had been credited (or blamed) for the revival of full-length beards. ‘A man who grows that much hair,’ critics were fond of saying, ‘must have a lot to hide.’
    He was certainly the most instantly recognizable of the six VIPs - though Floyd, who no longer regarded himself as a celebrity, always referred to them ironically as ‘The Famous Five’. Yva Merlin could often walk unrecognized on Park Avenue, on the rare occasions when she emerged from her apartment. Dimitri Mihailovich, to his considerable annoyance, was a good ten centimetres below average height; this might help to explain his fondness for thousand-piece orchestras - real or synthesized -but did not enhance his public image.
    Clifford Greenburg and Margaret M’Bala also fell into the category of ‘famous unknowns’ - though this would certainly change when they got back to Earth. The first man to land on Mercury had one of those pleasant, unremarkable faces that are very hard to remember; moreover the days when he had dominated the news were now thirty years in the past. And like most authors who are not addicted to talk shows and autographing sessions, Ms M’Bala would be unrecognized by the vast majority of her millions of readers.
    Her literary fame had been one of the sensations of the