Chapter 54 Chapter 53 Planet Gift

The radio message to Earth must have left Discovery minutes before the radiation storm engulfed the spacecraft.It was a text message, played over and over again: All of these planets belong to you - except Europa. Don't try to log in there. This was repeated about a hundred times, after which the letters began to distort, and the transmission was interrupted. "I'm starting to understand," Floyd said as the awed and anxious mission center relayed the message to the spacecraft. "That was the gift of a whole planetary system—a new sun, and the planets around it."

"But why only three?" Tanya asked. "We can't be too greedy," Floyd replied. "I can think of a good reason. We know there's life on Europa, and Bowman—or his friends, whatever they are— Let's hope we don't bother them." "It makes sense from another point of view," Vasily said. "I've done some calculations, and assuming the Sun 2 stabilizes and continues to shine at its current level, then there will be a pleasant tropical climate on Europa - after the ice melts. Now, this process is already underway. " "What about the other moons?"

"Garyo will become very comfortable—the climate on the bright side will be mild. Callisto will become very cold, and the exhaust will increase, and the new atmosphere will make it habitable. But I expect that Callisto will It's going to get worse than it is now." "It's not a loss, it's been hell before that." "Don't just write it off," Curnow said. "I know a lot of Texas oilmen who'd take it easy. There's gotta be something to like in a place that bad. I just had an annoying idea, by the way." "It's got to be serious problems that bother you," Vasily said. "what is it then?"

"Why did Hal send the message back to Earth instead of us? We're closer to him." There was a rather long silence, and then Floyd said thoughtfully, "I see what you mean. Maybe he wants Earth to be sure of the message." "But he knew we'd be retweeting—oh!" Tanya's eyes widened, as if she'd just thought of something unpleasant. "Don't talk about it for yourselves," Vasily complained. "I think that's what Walter was trying to convey," Floyd said. "Bowman is fully to be thanked -- or whoever sent the warning, but that's all they've done. We could get killed too. .”

"But we didn't die," Tanya replied, "we saved ourselves—by our own efforts. Maybe that's all there was to it. If we didn't—we didn't deserve to be saved. You know, survival of the fittest , that is, Darwin's evolutionary selection to eliminate those stupid genes." "I have a bad feeling -- you're right," Curnow said. "If we stubbornly stick to the launch date and don't use Discovery as a first stage, will it—or they—do anything to save us? That's a pretty big deal for a higher intelligence capable of igniting Jupiter. It doesn’t take much effort.”

There was another uneasy silence, which was finally broken by Heywood Floyd. "Basically," he said. "I'm glad that's a question we'll never have an answer to."