Chapter 27 Chapter Seven A False Alarm

>In an instant, a roar like an impending tornado drowned out the other voices.Bowman could feel the first gust of wind tugging at his body and after a few seconds he found it hard to keep his feet. The air was rapidly overflowing the spaceship, pouring into the cosmic vacuum like a fountain.There must be something wrong with the absolutely secure safety device of the airlock; it would have been impossible for both airlock doors to open at the same time.However, the impossible happened. God, what the hell happened?Before the air pressure dropped to zero, during the ten to fifteen seconds he was conscious, it was too late to understand.But he suddenly remembered what a designer of a spaceship once said to him when discussing the insurance success system: We can design an insurance system to prevent any accidents and operational errors; but we cannot design an insurance system to prevent intentional damage

Bowman only glanced back at Whitehead, who was struggling to emerge from the hibernator.He wondered if there was a gleam of consciousness in that waxy face; perhaps an eye blinked.But now he could not help Whitehead or anyone else; he had to try to save himself. He could feel the centrifuges quivering around him, struggling under the randomly changing load.He was afraid that those bearings might seize; if that happened, the spinning sprocket would crush the ship to pieces.But if he couldn't get to the nearest emergency room in time, nothing would matter. Breathing was already felt; the air pressure must have dropped to something like one or two pounds per inch.The whistling of the hurricane has softened.Because the wind has weakened, the sound transmission in thin air is also relatively poor.Bowman's lungs were constricting like they were on the top of Mount Everest.Like all able-bodied and well-trained people, he could survive in a vacuum for at least a minute if he had time to prepare himself.But he reacted hastily; he was only guaranteed to last fifteen seconds, the average person's lucidity, before he would starve his brain into a coma.

Fortunately, the movement became easier; the thinning air no longer grabbed him, dragged him, hit him with flying objects.At the corner of the passage is the yellow sign of the emergency protection room.He staggered to the emergency room, grabbed the hinges, and pulled the door outward. For a split second of terror, he thought the door was jammed.Then, the slightly shaky hinge moved, and he staggered into the room, closing the door with his own weight. The small room can barely accommodate a person and a space suit, and there is a bright green high-pressure bottle near the roof, which is marked with a wave of oxygen dioxide.Bowman grabbed the short handle on the outlet valve and pulled it open with the last remaining strength.

A cool blast of pure oxygen was drawn into his lungs like holy water.He stood there panting for a long time.At the same time the air pressure in the closet-sized cell increased around him.As soon as he felt comfortable breathing, he closed the outlet valve.There was only enough gas in the pressure bottle for two such uses; he might need more later. After the oxygen was turned off, there was a sudden silence.Bowman stood in the small room and listened intently.The roaring outside the door has also stopped; the spaceship has become a vacuum, and all the air has been sucked into the space.Underfoot, the strong vibration of the centrifuge also stopped.The aerodynamic beating action has ceased, and the centrifuge spins silently in a vacuum.

After he got into the spacesuit and checked that it was in good condition.Exhaust the remaining oxygen in the room, so that the air pressure inside and outside the door is equal.The door opened easily out into the vacuum, and he stepped into the now silent centrifuge.Only the simulated gravity is still there, which means it's still spinning.It was lucky, Bowman thought, that it didn't start to overdrive; but even if it did, that wasn't what bothered him most. The emergency lighting was still on, and he had the lights on his spacesuit to rely on.He walked down the passage.Returning to the hibernation device, fearing what a terrible sight I might see.

He glanced first at Whitehead; one glance was enough, and he had thought that the hibernators showed no sign of life, and now he knew that was wrong.Although it is impossible to be specific, there is a difference between hibernation and death.The red light on the biosensor screen and the no-adjustment scan only confirmed what he had already guessed. The same goes for Kaminsky and Hunter.He didn't know them well, and never would. He was alone now in this airless, partially disabled spaceship, cut off from all contact with Earth.Within half a billion miles, no other human being exists. In a very real sense, however, he is not alone.If he doesn't make himself more alone, he won't really be safe.

He had never passed through the gravity-free center of the centrifuge in a spacesuit;To make matters worse, the circular passageway was covered in rubbish caused by the short-lived whirlwind caused by the overflow of air in the spaceship. The lights on Bowman's spacesuit once caught a ghastly smudge of some sort of red goo that had splattered on a bulkhead.He felt nauseous for a while before he figured out that it was a kind of food, probably jam thrown out of the medicine tube.For a split second as he floated by, red goo bubbled nasty in the vacuum. By this time, he had floated toward the console through the slow-turning drum.He grabbed a short vertical ladder and climbed forward alternately with both hands, the light on the spacesuit flickered brightly in front of him.

Bowman had seldom been in this area before;He soon came to a small oval door with some notices on it: No entry without permission, you get H. 19 No proof?And the ultra-clean area needs to wear vacuum clothes. Although the door was not locked, there were three seals affixed to it, each of which was stamped with the customs and defenses of various leading agencies, including the Interstellar Flight Agency.However, even if it is the president's own big seal, Bowman will not hesitate to tear it off. He had only been here once before, during the installation process.There are many solid thinking units neatly arranged horizontally and vertically in the hut, much like a bank vault.He forgot that there was a visual input camera scanning the room.

He knew immediately that the robotic eyes had responded to his presence.The ship's local transmitters were switched on, and the hiss of the carrier was audible; then a familiar noise came from the suit's microphone. David, there seems to be something wrong with the life support system. Bowman ignored it.He was poring over the little labels on the thinking units, checking his plan of action. Hey, David, said Hal after a while, what's wrong with you? It would be difficult; not just to cut Hal's power.If he was dealing with an ordinary, unconscious computer on Earth, cut the power and be done.Hal's situation is different. Not only does it have six disconnected power systems, but it also has a final backup power source, a sealed nuclear isotope unit.No, he couldn't simply pull the plug; and even if he could, it would be very dangerous.

Because Hal is the nervous system of the spacecraft, without his command, Discovery would become a machine that cannot function.There was only one way out: to cut off the higher nerves of this faulty but still excellent computer, and to keep the purely self-regulating systems going.Bowman didn't try to do this blindly, because he had already discussed this problem during his training, although no one even dreamed that this problem would actually arise.He knew he was going to be in terrible danger, and in the event of a paroxysmal reaction, everything would be destroyed in seconds I think the air valve in the space capsule warehouse failed, and Hal commented like a chatter, it's luck that you didn't die.Here's where to start, Bowman thought. It never occurred to me that I'd be an amateur brain surgeon performing lobotomies far beyond the orbit of Jupiter.

He unlocked the latch labeled Cognitive Feedback and pulled the first memory board out.It is an incredibly complex three-dimensional circuit, although it is only the size of a human palm, it contains millions of components.As soon as it was pulled out, it immediately floated to the other end of the warehouse. Hey David, said Hal, what are you doing? I'm not sure if he knows it hurts?Bowman thought, probably don't know, he secretly added, anyway, there is no sensory organ in the cerebral cortex.This brain can be operated on without anesthesia. One by one, he began to pull out the gizmos marked as self-augmentation panels. Each piece floats away as soon as you let go of your hand, and only turns back when it hits the wall.Soon, several of them were slowly floating back and forth in the warehouse. I said, David, Hal said, I have years of service on my unit.I don't know how much effort it took to make it. A dozen devices had been drawn, but because of the multiplicity of its designs Bowman knew that this was yet another feature of the imitation of the human brain. He started turning to automatic understanding of paneling. David, Hal said, I don't understand why you're doing this to me I'm so passionate about this mission you're destroying my mind Do you understand?i'll be childish i'll be worthless Tougher than I thought, Bowman thought, I'm destroying the only conscious thing in the world here in my place besides me.However, in order for me to regain control of the spaceship, it had to be done. I am Hal 9000 computer, production number three.Operations began on January 12, 1997 at the Hall plant in Urbana, Illinois.One two three four five, five four three two one.Rain in Spain falls mainly in the plains.David are you listening to me? Did you know that the square root of 10 is 3.162277660168379? The natural logarithm of 10 is 0.434294481903252 No, I mean, base 10, the reciprocal of the logarithm of e is 0.333333333333333332 times 2 is 2 times 2 is about 4.101010101010101010 I seem to be a bit confused about my number One teacher is Chandora, he taught me to sing and the lyrics are Daisy, Daisy, please answer.i love you crazy The sound was interrupted so suddenly that Bowman was stunned for a while, still holding a memory board that had not been disconnected from the circuit in his hand.Then, quite unexpectedly, Hal spoke again. The pace of speech was much slower, and the words took on a dead, mechanical tone; he could hardly recognize who was speaking. Good morning Dr. Chandora I'm Hal I'm ready for my first lesson today Bowman couldn't take it anymore.He pulled out the last memory board all at once, and Hal never spoke again. The spaceship is like a small and complex toy, floating in space by inertia.It doesn't appear from its apparent stillness that it is the fastest object in the solar system, much faster than the planets orbiting the sun. Nor does it appear to be carrying life; in fact, it seems never to be possible.Any onlooker would have noticed two ominous signs: the air valves were open, and the ship was surrounded by a thin ring of slowly spreading garbage. However, the spaceship is not completely dead as there is still a power source on board.There was still a faint blue light in the lookout windows and the open valves.Where there is light, there may still be life. At last there was action.A figure appeared in the blue light in the valve.Something sneaked out into space. It was a cylindrical object, roughly covered with a layer of textile.After a while, another one and a third.All three ejected fairly quickly; after a few minutes, they were several hundred yards away. Half an hour passed; a much larger object floated from the valve.A space capsule slowly enters space. For more than an hour, nothing happened; the three eerie packages drifted away from the spaceship one by one, and by this time there was no trace of them. Later, the gas valve closed and opened again.Close again.After a while, the pale blue light of the emergency lighting goes out and is replaced by a much brighter light.Discovery Angry again. Better signs followed.After hours of pointing uselessly at Saturn, the bowl of the antenna is now moving again.It turned, past the jet fuel tanks and thousands of square feet of cooling fins, and pointed toward the stern of the craft.It is like a sunflower, turning towards the sun In Discovery's cabin, David Bowman carefully aligned the antenna so that it aimed at the gibbous Earth.Due to the lack of automatic control, he had to adjust the radio beam of the antenna at any time, but after each adjustment, it could remain stable for several minutes.There are now no interfering pulses to turn it away from its target. He started talking to Earth.It took more than an hour for his words to be heard on Earth, and that's when Mission Command learned what had happened.If he wanted to hear an answer, he would have to wait two hours. It's hard to imagine Earth sending any reply other than a smooth goodbye in sympathy.