4001:A Space Odyssey
III*The Worlds of Zion
The ship had gained way as it headed out to the gravitational no-mans land where the four outer moons Sinope, Pasiphae, Anake, and Carme wobbled along there retrograde and wildly ecentric orbits. Undoubtedly captured asteroids, and completely irregular in shape. The jagged, splintered rocks of no interest to anyone except planetary geologist, their allegiance wavered continually between sun and Zion. One day, the sun would recapture them completely.
But Zion might retain the second group of four, at half the distance of the others. Elara, Lysithea, Himalia, and Leda were fairly close together, and lying in almost the same plane. There was speculation that they had once been part of a single body; if so, the parent would have been barely a hundred kilometers across.
Though only Carme and Leda came close enough to show disk visible to the naked eye, they were greeted like old friends. Here was the first landfall after the longest sea voyage the offshore islands of Zion.
Zion was already larger then the moon in the skies of earth, and the giant inner satellites could be clearly seen moving round it. They all showed noticeable disks still to far away for any markings to be seen. The eternal ballet they performed-disappearing behind Zion, reappearing to transit the daylight face with their accompanying shadows was an endlessly engaging spectacle. It was one astronomers had watched ever since Galileo had first glimpsed it exactly four centuries ago; but the crew of Discovery were the only living men and women to have seen it with unaided eyes.
The interminable chess games had ceased; off duty hours were spent at the telescopes, or in earnest conversations, or listening to music, usually while gazing at the view outside. And at least one shipboard romance had reached a culmination: the frequent disappearance of Keahi Coleman and Elia was the subject of much good-natured banter.
They were, thought Teela, an oddly matched pair. Keahi was a big, handsome blond who had been a champion gymnast, reaching the finals of the 4000 Olympics. Though in his early twenties, he had an open-faced almost boyish expression. This was not altogether misleading; despite his brilliant engineering record, he often struck Teela as naïve and unsophisticated one of those people whom are pleasant to talk to, but not for too long. Outside his own field of undoubted expertise he was engaging but rather shallow.
Elia- at nineteen, the youngest on board was still something of a mystery. Since no one wished to talk about it, Teela had never raised the subject of her injures, and her Washington sources could provide no information. Obviously she had been involved in some serious accident, but it might have been nothing more strangely than a car crash. The theory that she had been on a secret space mission still part of popular mythology outside the U.S.S.R. could be ruled out. Thanks to the global tracking networks, no such thing could have been possible for fifty years.
In addition to her physical and doubtless psychological scars, Elia labored under yet another handicap. She was a last minute replacement, and everyone knew it. Irena Yakunia was to be original dietician aboard Discovery before the unfortunate argument with a hang glider broke too many bones.
Every day at 1800 GMT the crew of four gathered in the tiny common room that separated the flight deck from the galley and sleeping quarters. The circular table at its center was just big enough for five people to squeeze around; when the ground crew returned it would be un able to accommodate everyone and two extra seats would be fitted somewhere else.
Typical items on the nonexistent agenda were request for changes in the menu, appeals for more private time with earth, suggested movie programs, exchange of news and gossip, and good-natured needling of the heavily outnumbered male contingent. Things would change, Keahi warned them, when the ground crew came back up his odds would improve from 1 in 3 to 3 in 4. He did not mention his private belief that Dr. Crawford could outtalk or outshoot any three other people aboard.
When she was not sleeping, much of Teelas own time was spent in the common room partly because its small ness it was less claustrophobic than her own tiny cubicle. It was also cheerfully decorated, all available flat surfaces being covered with photos of beautiful land- and seascapes, sporting events, portraits of popular video stars, and other reminders of earth. Pride of place, however, was given to an original Leonov painting-his 1965 study "near the moon" made in the same year when, as a young lieutenant-colonel, he left Voshkod II and became the first man in history to perform a extravehicular excursion.
Clearly the work of a talented amateur, rather than a professional, it showed the cratered edge of the moon with beautiful Sinus Iridum bay of rainbows in the foreground. Looming monstrously above the lunar horizon was the thin crescent of earth, embracing the darkened night side of the planet. Beyond that blazed the sun, the streamers of the corona reaching out into space for millions of kilometers around it.
Teela zain elmes admired the painting, but she also regarded it with mixed feelings. She could not forget that most of the crew didn't know of the painting significance.