Chapter 53 Chapter 52: Ignite Jupiter

He never thought that he would go back again, let alone for such a strange mission.When he re-entered the Discovery, the ship was well behind the fleeing Leonov, and was climbing very slowly toward the ApoJupiter point, the high point of orbit far away among the outer moons.This is the case with many captured comets, which, over time, orbit Jupiter in long elliptical orbits, waiting for the confrontation of two gravitational forces to finally determine its fate. All life had left those familiar decks and corridors.Those who had briefly awakened the ship had heeded his warning, and they were probably safe—though far from certain.As the final minutes ticked away, he realized that the beings controlling him couldn't always predict the outcome of their cosmic games.

Not yet numb and weary of their omnipotence, their experiments have not always been successful.The universe is littered with evidence of many failures—some insignificant, blending into the vast cosmic canopy, others magnificent, occupying the view and awe of astronomers on thousands of planets.In a few minutes it would be decided, and in this last moment he was alone with Hal again. In his previous existence, they could only communicate through clumsy language, using keyboards or microphones for input.Now their minds can communicate at the speed of light. "Know me, Hal?" "Yes, David. But where are you? I can't see you on the monitor."

"That doesn't matter, I have a new instruction. Jupiter's infrared radiation in the R23 to R25 bands is rising rapidly, and I will give you a set of limits. As soon as you reach this limit, you must point the long-distance antenna at the earth, and put the following Send as many messages as possible—" "But that would mean losing contact with Leonov. I would no longer be able to transmit my observations of Jupiter as Dr. Chandra had programmed me." "Yes, but circumstances have changed and this supreme instruction must be followed. Here are the coordinates of Unit AE35."

In an instant, a memory from the past burst into his stream of consciousness.How strange that he again mentions the AE35 Antenna-pointing unit whose failure report resulted in the death of Frank Poole!This time, all the lines were displayed in front of his perceptive eyes, as clear as looking at the lines on his palms.There will be no more false alarms, and now they are no longer a threat. "Order confirmed, David. It was a pleasure working with you again. Am I performing my mission duties correctly?" "Yes, Hal, you've done a great job. Now you're sending your last message to Earth—and the most important message you've ever sent."

"Give me the message, David. But why did you say 'finally'?" yeah, why?He thought for a full millisecond.As he did so, he felt a void he had never felt before.In fact, this feeling has been there for a long time, but before this moment, new experiences and perceptions have suppressed this feeling. He knew something about their plans, and they needed him.Well, he has needs too—maybe you could call them emotional needs.Here was his last connection with the human world, with life as he had known it. They had granted his earlier request, and it would be interesting to test their graciousness--if the word "kindness" could be applied very reluctantly to them.It should have been easy for them to do what he asked, and they had amply demonstrated what they were capable of: easily destroying the useless body of David Bowman - without ending David Bowman's body. Man's life.

They heard his voice, of course, and again, there was a faint echo from the Olympian halls, but he could not tell whether it was a promise or a denial. "I'm still waiting for your answer, David." "Correction, Hal. I should have said: Your last message in a long time. A long time." He was anticipating their reactions—even, trying to influence their dominion over him.However, they could certainly understand that there was a legitimate element to his request, and no conscious entity survived the long years of isolation without damage.Even if they were going to be with him all the time, he needed someone - a companion - to be closer to his own level of existence.

The human language is awash with words to describe his gesture: cheeky, brazen, insolent.He recalled, with the strength of his memory now, the impassioned speech of a French general—"Forward, forever!" Perhaps they, too, appreciated, and even possessed, this human quality.He will know soon. "Hal! Watch out for signals on infrared bands 30, 29, 28--now coming soon--the crest is moving to the short bands." "I am informing Dr. Chandra that I am interrupting data transmission. AE35 unit activated. Long range antenna redirected... Pillar one locked. Message reads: All these planets..."

They really left it to the last minute—or, perhaps, the calculations involved were unrivaled in precision.There was barely enough time to repeat the eleven words a hundred times when the powerful thermal energy slammed at the spaceship like a sledgehammer. The being who had been David Bowman, Commander of the US spaceship Discovery, stood there in amazement, with growing horror at the long, lonely years that lay before him, watching the ship stubbornly burn .The ship held its approximate shape for a long time, then the bearings of the turntable failed, and the huge spinning flywheel was flung out instantly.Then there was a silent explosion, and countless incandescent fragments flew in all directions.

"Hi David. What's the matter? Where am I?" What he didn't know before was that he would also feel relieved and happy about his success.In the past, he often felt like a pet dog, elusive about the motives of his masters who controlled him, but their behavior sometimes changed according to his wishes.He asked for a bone, and now he got it. "I'll explain later, Hal. We've got plenty of time." They waited until the last fragments of the ship were gone, and they could no longer detect them themselves.So they departed to watch the new dawn where it was meant for them, to wait centuries to be called again.

Astronomical events don't always take long astronomical units of time to occur.The star's final collapse takes just a second before a supernova explosion sends debris flying.By comparison, Jupiter's metamorphosis could almost be called leisurely. Even so, Sasha couldn't believe his eyes for several minutes.He has been doing regular observations of Jupiter with the telescope - it seems that any observation can now be called "routine"! —At this moment, Jupiter began to drift out of view.At first he thought it was the stability of the telescope, but it soon dawned on him--shaking his entire conception of the universe--that it wasn't the telescope that was at fault, but Jupiter itself was moving.The evidence was right in front of him, and he could still see two smaller moons motionless in place.

He turned down the magnification so that he could see the entire gray and mottled disk of Jupiter.After a few minutes of suspicious observation, he could see what was happening, but he still couldn't believe it. Instead of moving away from its ancient orbit, Jupiter did another incredible thing.It was shrinking—so fast that even as he watched, the edge of it came into view without anyone noticing it.At the same time, its brightness increased greatly, from dark gray to pearly white.Undoubtedly, it is more radiant than any time in the history of human observation, and the reflection of sunlight can not match in any way-- At this moment, Sasha suddenly realized what was happening - although he didn't understand why - and sounded the alarm. When Floyd emerged on the lookout less than thirty seconds later, he was the first to notice blinding light coming through the window, leaving an oval halo on the wall.It was so bright that he had to look away, not even the sun could produce such a strong light. Freud was extremely shocked. At that moment, he hadn't connected this light with Jupiter. The first thought that flashed through his mind was: supernova!But he immediately discarded the idea that even the sun's nearest neighbor, Alpha Centauri (in ancient China, it was called Nanmen 2.—Reviser's Note), would not be so dizzying by any possible outburst Effect. Sasha opened the external sunshade, and the light suddenly dimmed.Looking directly at the light source now, it can be seen that it is just a dot - just another tiny star.It couldn't possibly have anything to do with Jupiter, a planet four times larger than the distant sun when Floyd had seen it a few minutes earlier. Sasha's handling of lowering the sunshade screen was quite timely.In an instant, the little star exploded—now invisible to the naked eye, even through the black filter.But the brightest moment lasted only a fraction of a second, and then Jupiter -- or past Jupiters -- began to expand outward. It keeps growing until it far exceeds its pre-change volume.Soon, the sphere of light quickly dimmed again, down to a brightness roughly similar to sunlight.Now, Freud could see that it was just a shell, the little star in the center still clearly visible. With a quick mental calculation, the ship was now more than a light-minute away from Jupiter, and the expanding shell—now a bright ring at the edge—had covered a quarter of the sky.Which means it's coming at them—Jesus! — at about half the speed of light!Within minutes, it would engulf the entire ship. No one has said a word since Sasha raised the alarm until now.Some dangers are so daunting, and so far beyond ordinary human experience, that the mind refuses to accept them as reality, and just watches doom befall it.People who witness a rushing tide, an avalanche falling from the sky, or the funnel of a tornado do not try to escape, but are uncontrollably petrified with fear, or helpless in the face of their fate.Maybe, he just couldn't believe what his eyes were seeing was real.This reaction can happen to anyone. As expected, Tanya was the first to break the silence with a series of orders for Vasily and Floyd to get to the bridge. "What can we do now?" she asked when they arrived. Of course we can't escape, Floyd thought, but maybe we can improve our chances of survival. "It's the side of the ship facing the impact now," he said. "Can we angle it a little bit and make the target as small as possible? And fill it with as much matter as possible between us and us, as a kind of radiation shield?" Vasily's fingers were already dancing quickly on the control panel. "You're right, Woody—it's too late to deal with gamma rays and x-rays, but maybe there's slow neutrons and alpha rays, or God knows what's on the way." Light and shadow began to slide down the walls as the ship lumbered around on its own axis.It wasn't long before they disappeared entirely, and the Leonov now turned around, putting the entire ship between the vulnerable humans and the approaching radiation. Would we feel the shock wave, Freud wondered, or would the diffuse gas reach us too thin to have any physical effect?The halo now surrounds nearly the entire sky, as seen from outside cameras, but it is rapidly fading, and the light of some brighter stars can already penetrate it.We'll survive, Floyd thought.We witnessed the destruction of the Planetary One - and we survived. Now the camera can see nothing but stars—and one of them was a million times brighter than all the others.The halo of fire produced by Jupiter, though terrifying, swept past them harmlessly.From their distance, only the ship's instruments registered its presence. Slowly, the tense atmosphere on the spacecraft relaxed.As usually happens in such situations, people started laughing and making silly jokes with each other.Floyd heard little of this, and while he was relieved, he also felt a tinge of sadness. A great and wonderful thing perishes.Jupiter died with all its beauty, majesty, and now forever unexplained mystery, and the All-Father crashed from his throne. However, there is also another side to the situation.They lost Jupiter: what did they gain from it? Tanya calls attention to herself just in time. "Vassily—is there any damage?" "Nothing serious - one camera burned out. All dosimeter readings were above normal but none were close to safe limits." "Katalina - go check all our potions. We seem to be lucky, unless there are more surprises to come. We should thank Bowman - and you, Heywood. What do you think happened? " "Just Jupiter turned into a sun." "I always feel like it's not big enough to make this kind of change. Didn't someone call Jupiter the 'unsuccessful sun'?" "Exactly," said Vasily. "Jupiter is too small to start fusion -- on its own." "You mean, we just saw a paradigm of astronomical engineering?" "There is no doubt. Now we understand Rangodak's purpose." "How is it done? If you get the contract, Vasily, how do you ignite Jupiter?" Vasily thought for a minute, then shrugged resignedly. "I'm just a theoretical astronomer - not much experience in business. But let's see... well, if it doesn't allow to increase the mass of Jupiter tenfold, or change the gravitational constant, I think I will increase it Density—well, that's one way..." He stopped talking, and everyone waited patiently, looking at the observation screen from time to time.The tiny star that was Jupiter, born in an explosion, seems to have stabilized and is now a blinding point of light almost as radiant as the Sun. "I couldn't stop thinking about it just now - that might be the case. Jupiter is - was - made of hydrogen gas, and if most of the gas had turned into something denser - who knows, maybe the middle substate?—and then collapse toward the center. Maybe that’s what the billions of Rangodaks do, sucking up all kinds of gas and nucleosynthesis (Nucleosynthesis: the process by which elements are synthesized. Massive stars go through a chain of Nuclear fusion of nuclear fusion, making heavier and heavier elements (up to iron). Except for hydrogen and helium, which appeared when the universe was born, the remaining 81 stable elements found on earth are synthesized inside stars. Lighter than iron The elements in the core are produced by the fusion of nucleons in the core of the star, and the elements heavier than iron are produced in the light of the supernova explosion, so elements such as gold, silver, and uranium are relatively rare.——Reviser’s Note)——Using pure hydrogen to make heavier elements. That's worth digging into! There won't be any metal shortages anymore - gold becomes as cheap as flakes of aluminum!" "But how does that explain what happened?" Tanya asked. "Jupiter will collapse when the inner core is dense enough - maybe in a matter of seconds, hot enough to complete fusion. Oh, I can see more than a dozen deficiencies - how they overcome the iron minimum , how radiation is transmitted, and the Chandrasekhar limit (astronomer Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, 1910-1995). Indian-American, awarded for his outstanding contribution to the theoretical study of white dwarfs Nobel Prize in Physics in 1983. The Chandrasekhar limit means that a cold star equivalent to 1.5 times the mass of the sun cannot resist its own gravity and collapse. - Recalibrator's note) etc. It doesn't matter. This The theory makes sense, I'll dig into the details later, or come up with a better explanation." "I'm sure you will, Vasily," agreed Freud, "but there's one more important question, why would they do it?" "A warning?" Katerina interjected over the intercom. "Warning what?" "We'll find out soon." "I don't think so," said Rania hesitantly. "Could it be an accident?" This silenced the discussion for a few seconds. "What a horrible idea!" Floyd said, "but I think we can rule it out. If that were the case, there would be no warnings." "Maybe, if you accidentally start a forest fire, at least you can do your best to warn others." "And there's one more thing we may never know," Vasily sighed. "I always hope Carl Sagan is right that there is life on Jupiter." "But our detection didn't see a hint of that." "What can this kind of detection find? If you only see the Sahara or a small part of the Antarctic, will you find any life on Earth? That's what we did on Jupiter." "Hi!" said Bryrowski. "How's Discovery?—Where's Hal?" Sasha turned on the long-range receiver and began searching for the transmitting frequency, but there was no signal. After a while, he announced to the quietly waiting crowd: "Discovery is gone." No one looked at Dr. Chandra, just a sympathetic murmur or two, as if comforting a father who had just lost a son. But Hal gave them one last surprise.