Into pure energy, therefore, they presently transformed themselves; and on a thousand worlds the empty shells they had discarded twitched for a while in a mindless dance of death, then crumbled into rust.
They were lords of the Galaxy, and beyond the reach of time. They could rove at will among the stars and sink like a subtle mist through the very interstices of space. But despite their godlike powers, they had not wholly forgotten their origin in the warm slime of a vanished sea.
And they still watched over the experiments their ancestors had started, so long ago.
52 Ignition
He had never expected to come there again, still less on so strange a mission. When he re-entered Discovery, the ship was far behind the fleeing Leonov and climbing ever more slowly up toward apojove, the high point of its orbit among the outer satellites. Many a captured comet, during the ages past, had swung around Jupiter in just such a long ellipse, waiting for the play of rival gravities to decide its ultimate fate.
All life had departed the familiar decks and corridors. The men and women who had briefly reawakened the ship had obeyed his warning; they might yet be safe though that was still far from certain. But as the final minutes ticked away, he realized that those who controlled him could not always predict the outcome of their cosmic game.
They had not yet attained the stupefying boredom of absolute omnipotence; their experiments did not always succeed. Scattered across the Universe was the evidence of many failures some so inconspicuous that they were already lost against the cosmic background, others so spectacular that they awed and baffled the astronomers of a thousand worlds. Only minutes remained now, before the outcome would be determined here; during those final minutes, he was once more alone with Hal.
In that earlier existence, they could communicate only through the clumsy medium of words, tapped on a keyboard or spoken into a microphone. Now their thoughts melded together at the speed of light:
'Do you read me, Hal?'
'Yes, Dave. But where are you? I cannot see you on any of my monitors.'
'That is not important. I have new instructions for you. The infrared radiation from Jupiter on channels R23 through R35 is rising rapidly. I am going to give you a set of limiting values. As soon as they are reached, you must point the long-range antenna toward Earth and send the following message, as many times as possible -'
'But that will mean breaking contact with Leonov. I will no longer be able to relay my Jupiter observations, according to the program Dr Chandra has given me.'
'Correct; but the situation has changed. Accept Priority Override Alpha. Here are the AE 35 Unit coordinates.'
For a fraction of a microsecond, a random memory intruded into his flow of consciousness. How strange that he should once again be concerned with the AE 35 Antenna-pointing unit, whose reported malfunction had led Frank Poole to his death! This time, all the circuits lay open to his scrutiny, clear as the lines had once been on the palm of his hand. There could be no false alarms; nor was there any danger of them now.
'Instructions confirmed, Dave. It is good to be working with you again. Have I fulfilled my mission objectives properly?'
'Yes, Hal; you have done very well. Now there is one final message for you to transmit to Earth and it will be the most important one you have ever sent.'
'Please let me have it, Dave. But why did you say final?' Why indeed? For whole milliseconds he pondered that question. And as he did so, he became aware of an emptiness he had not detected before. It had been there, but until now the barrage of new experiences and sensations had concealed it.
He knew something of their plans; they had need for him. Very well, he too had needs perhaps, after a fashion, even emotions. Here was his last link with the world of men, and the life he had once known.
They had granted his earlier request; it would be interesting to test the extent of their benevolence if, indeed, such a term was remotely applicable to them. And it should be easy for them to do what he was asking; they had already given ample evidence of their powers, when the no-longer-needed body of David Bowman had been casually destroyed without putting an end to David Bowman himself.
They had heard him, of course; once again, there was the faint echo of an Olympian amusement. But he could detect neither acceptance nor denial.
'I am still waiting for your answer, Dave.'
'Correction, Hal. I should have said: your last message for a long time. A very long time.'
He was anticipating their action trying, indeed, to force their hand. But, surely, they would understand that his request was not unreasonable; no conscious entity could survive ages of isolation without damage. Even if they would always be with him, he also needed someone some companion nearer his own level of existence.
The languages of mankind had many words to describe his gesture: cheek, effrontery, chutzpah. He recalled, with the perfect power of retrieval he now possessed, that a French general had once declaimed 'L'audace toujours l'audace!' Perhaps it was a human characteristic that they appreciated, and even shared. He would soon know.
'Hal! Look at the signal on infrared channels 30, 29, 28 it will be very soon now the peak is moving toward the short wave.'
'I am informing Dr Chandra that there will be a break in my data transmission. Activating AE 35 unit. Reorientating long-range antenna... lock confirmed on Beacon Terra One. Message commences: ALL THESE WORLDS...'
They had indeed left it to the last minute or perhaps the calculations had, after all, been superbly accurate. There was time for barely a hundred repetitions of the eleven words when the hammer blow of pure heat smashed into the ship.
Held there by curiosity, and a growing fear of the long loneliness that lay before him, that which had once been David Bowman, Commander of United States Spacecraft Discovery, watched as the hull boiled stubbornly away. For a long time, the ship retained its approximate shape; then the bearings of the carousel seized up, releasing instantly the stored momentum of the huge, spinning flywheel. In a soundless detonation, the incandescent fragments went their myriad separate ways.
'Hello, Dave. What has happened? Where am I?'
He had not known that he could relax, and enjoy a moment of successful achievement. Often before, he had felt like a pet dog controlled by a master whose motives were not wholly inscrutable and whose behaviour could sometimes be modified according to his own desires. He had asked for a bone; it had been tossed to him.
'I will explain later, Hal. We have plenty of time.'
They waited until the last fragments of the ship had dispersed, beyond even their powers of detection. Then they left, to watch the new dawn at the place that had been prepared for them; and to wait through the centuries until they were summoned once again.
It is not true that astronomical events always require astronomical periods of time. The final collapse of a star before the fragments rebound in a supernova explosion can take only a second; by comparison, the metamorphosis of Jupiter was almost a leisurely affair.
Even so, it was several minutes before Sasha was able to believe his eyes. He had been making a routine telescopic examination of the planet as if any observation could now be called routine! when it started to drift out of the field of view. For a moment, he thought that the instrument's stabilization was faulty; then he realized, with a shock that jolted his entire concept of the universe, that Jupiter itself was moving, not the telescope. The evidence stared him in the face; he could also see two of the smaller moons and they were quite motionless.