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"Fishing once more? "crayola watercolor pencils crayola watercolor pencilstcrayola watercolor pencilse 128 .In using this system, absentee voters werecrayola watercolor pencils instructed to mark their ballots with number two pencils. The optical scanner rejected ballots which were marked withcrayola waterco 'Hercules, of course - by holding Antaeus in the air, so Ma couldn't recharge his batteries.'

'Well, I'm sure it won't take me long to recharge mine. And I've learned one lesson. If I don't get more exercise, I may have to move up to Lunar Gravity level.'

Poole's good resolution lasted a full month: every morning he went for a brisk five-kilometre walk, choosing a different level of the Africa Tower each day. Some floors were still vast, echoing deserts of metal which would probably never be occupied, but others had been landscaped and developed over the centuries in a bewildering variety of architectural styles. Many were borrowings from past ages and cultures; others hinted at futures which Poole would not care to visit. At least there was no danger of boredom, and on many of his walks he was accompanied, at a respectful distance, by small groups of friendly children. They were seldom able to keep up with him for long.

One day, as Poole was striding down a convincing - though sparsely populated - imitation of the Champs Elysees, he suddenly spotted a familiar face.

'Danil!' he called.

The other man took not the slightest notice, even when Poole called again, more loudly.

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'Don't you remember me?'

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Danil - and now that he had caught up with him, Poole did not have the slightest doubt of his identity - looked genuinely baffled.

'I'm sorry,' he said. 'You're Commander Poole, of course. But I'm sure we've never met before.'

Now it was Poole's turn to be embarrassed.

'Stupid of me,' he apologized. 'Must have mistaken you for someone else. Have a good day.'

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He was glad of the encounter, and was pleased to know that Danil was back in normal society. Whether his original crime had been axe-murders or overdue library books should no longer be the concern of his one-time employer; the account had been settled, the books closed. Although Poole sometimes missed the cops-and-robbers dramas he had often enjoyed in his youth, he had grown to accept the current wisdom: excessive interest in pathological behaviour was itself pathological.

With the help of Miss Pringle, Mk III, Poole had been able to schedule his life so that there were even occasional blank moments when he could relax and set his Braincap on Random Search, scanning his areas of interest. Outside his immediate family, his chief concerns were still among the moons of Jupiter/Lucifer, not least because he was recognized as the leading expert on the subject, and a permanent member of the Europa Committee.

This had been set up almost a thousand years ago, to consider what, if anything, could and should be done about the mysterious satellite. Over the centuries, it had accumulated a vast amount of information, going all the way back to the Voyager flybys of 1979 and the first detailed surveys from the orbiting Galileo spacecraft of 1996.

Like most long-lived organizations, the Europa Committee had become slowly fossilized, and now met only when there was some new development. It had woken up with a start after Halman's reappearance, and appointed an energetic new chairperson whose first act had been to co-opt Poole.

Though there was little that he could contribute that was not already recorded, Poole was very happy to be on the Committee. It was obviously his duty to make himself available, and it also gave him an official position he would otherwise have lacked. Previously his status was what had once been called a 'national treasure', which he found faintly embarrassing. Although he was glad to be supported in luxury by a world wealthier than all the dreams of war-ravaged earlier ages could have imagined, he felt the need to justify his existence.

He also felt another need, which he seldom articulated even to himself. Halman had spoken to him, if only briefly, at their strange encounter two decades ago. Poole was certain that, if he wished, Halman could easily do so again. Were all human contacts no longer of interest to him? He hoped that was not the case; yet that might be one explanation of his silence.

He was frequently in touch with Theodore Khan - as active and acerbic as ever, and now the Europa Committee's representative on Ganymede. Ever since Poole had returned to Earth, Ted had been trying in vain to open a channel of communication with Bowman. He could not understand why long lists of important questions on subjects of vital philosophical and historic interest received not even brief acknowledgements.

'Does the Monolith keep your friend Halman so busy that he can't talk to me?' he complained to Poole. 'What does he do with his time, anyway?'

It was a very reasonable question; and the answer came, like a thunderbolt out of a cloudless sky, from Bowman himself - as a pecrayola watercolor pencilsrfectly commonplace vidphone call.

33
Contact

'Hello, Frank. This is Dave. I have a very important message for you. I assume that you are now in your suite in Africa Tower. If you are there, please identify yourself by giving the name of our instructor in orbital mechanics. I will wait for sixty seconds, and if there is no reply will try again in exactly one hour.'

That minute was hardly long enough for Poole to recover from the shock. He felt a brief surge of delight, as well as astonishment, before another emotion took over. Glad though he was to hear from Bowman again, that phrase 'a very important message' sounded distinctly ominous.

At least it was fortunate, Poole told himself, that he's asked for one of the few names I can remember. Yet who could forget a Scot with a Glasgow accent so thick it had taken them a week to master it? But he had been a brilliant lecturer - once you understood what he was saying.

'Dr Gregory McVitty.'

'Accepted. Now please switch on your Braincap receiver. It will take three minutes to download this message. Do not attempt to mcrayola watercolor pencilsonitor: I am using ten-to-one compression. I will wait two minutes before starting.'

How is he managing to do this? Poole wondered. Jupiter/Lucifer was now over fifty light-minutes away, so this message must have left almost an hour ago. It must have been sent with an intelligent agent in a properly addressed package on the Ganymede-Earth beam - but that would have been a trivial feat to Halman, with the resources he had apparently been able to tap inside the Monolith.

The indicator light on the Brainbox was flickering. The message was coming through.

At the compression Halman was using, it would take half an hour for Poole to absorb the message in real-time. But he needed only ten minutes to know that his peaceful life-style had come to an abrupt end

34
Judgement

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In a world of universal and instantaneous communication, it was very difficult to keep secrets. This was a matter, Poole decided immediately, for face-to-face discussion.

The Europa Committee had grumbled, but all its members had assembled in his apartment. There were seven of them - the lucky number, doubtless suggested by the phases of the Moon, that had always fascinated Mankind. It was the first time Poole had met three of the Committee's members, though by now he knew them all more thoroughly than he could possibly have done in a pre-Braincapped lifetime.

'Chairperson Oconnor, members of the Committee - I'd like to say a few words - only a few, I promise! - before you download the message I've received from Europa. And this is something I prefer to do verbally; that's more natural for me - I'm afraid I'll never be quite at ease with direct mental transfer.'

'As you all know, Dave Bowman and Hal have been stored as emulations in the Monolith on Europa. Apparently it never discards a tool it once found useful, and from time to time it activates Halman, to monitor our affairs - when they begin to concern it. As I suspect my arrival may have done - though perhaps I flatter myself.'

'But Halman isn't just a passive tool. The Dave component still retains something of its human origins - even emotions. And because we were trained together - shared almost everything for years - he apparently finds it much easier to communicate with me than with anyone else. I would like to think he enjoys doing it, but perhaps that's too strong a word.'

'He's also curious - inquisitive - and perhaps a little resentful of the way he's been collected, like a specimen of wildlife. Though that's probably what we are, from the viewpoint of the intelligence that created the Monolith.'

'And where is that intelligence now? Halman apparently knows the answer, and it's a chilling one.'

'As we always suspected, the Monolith is part of a galactic network of some kind. And the nearest node - the Monolith's controller, or immediate superior - is 450 light-years away.'

'Much too close for comfort! This means that the report on us and our affairs that was transmitted early in the twenty-first crayola watercolor pencils was received half a millennium ago. If the Monolith's - let's say Supervisor - replied at once, any further instructions should be arriving just about now.'

'And that's exactly what seems to be happening. During the last few days, the Monolith has been receiving a continuous string of messages, and has been setting up new programs, presumably in accordance with these.'

'Unfortunately, Halman can only make guesses about the nature of those instructions. As you'll gather when you've downloaded this tablet, he has some limited access to many of the Monolith's circuits and memory banks, and can even carry on a kind of dialogue with it. If that's the right word - since you need two people for that! I still can't really grasp the idea that the Monolith, for all its powers, doesn't possess consciousness - doesn't even know that it exists!'

'Halman's been brooding over the problem for a thousand years - on and off - and has come to the same answer that most of us have done. But his conclusion must surely carry far more weight, because of his inside knowledge.'

'Sorry! I wasn't intending to make a joke - but what else could you call it?'

'Whatever went to the trouble of creating us - or at least tinkering with our ancestors' minds and genes - is deciding what to do next. And Halman is pessimistic. No - that's an exaggeration. Let's say he doesn't think much of our chances, but is now too detached an observer to be unduly worried. The future - the survival! - of the human race isn't much more than an interesting problem to him, but he's willing to help.'

Poole suddenly stopped talking, to the surprise of his intent audience.

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'That's strange. I've just had an amazing flashback... I'm sure it explains what's happening. Please bear with me.'

'Dave and I were walking together one day, along the beach at the Cape, a few weeks before launch, when we noticed a large beetle lying on the sand. As often happens, it had fallen on its back and was waving its legs in the air, struggling to get right-way-up.'

'I ignored it - we were engaged in some complicated technical discussion - but not Dave. He stepped aside, and carefully flipped it over with his shoe. As it flew away I commented, "Are you sure that was a good idea? Now it will go off and chomp somebody's prize chrysanthemums." And he answered, "Maybe you're right. But I'd like to give it the benefit of the doubt."

'My apologies - I'd promised to say only a few words! But I'm very glad I remembered that incident: I really believe it puts Halman's message in the right perspective. He's giving the human race the benefit of the doubt...'

'Now please check your Braincaps. This is a high-density recording - top of the u.v. band, Channel 110. Make yourselves comfortable, but be sure you're free line of sight. Here we go...'

35
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No one asked for a replay. Once was sufficient.

There was a brief silence when the playback finished; then Chairperson Dr Oconnor removed her Braincap, massaged her shining scalp, and said slowly:

'You taught me a phrase from your period that seems very appropriate now. This is a can of worms.'

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'But only Bowman - Halman - has opened it,' said one of the Committee members. 'Does he really understand the operation of something as complex as the Monolith? Or is this whole scenario a figment of his imagination?'

'I don't think he has much imagination,' Dr Oconnor answered. 'And everything checks perfectly. Especially the reference to Nova Scorpio. We assumed that was an accident; apparently it was a - judgement.'

'First Jupiter - now Scorpio,' said Dr Kraussman, the distinguished physicist who was popularly regarded as a reincarnation of the legendary Einstein. A little plastic surgery, it was rumoured, had also helped. 'Who will be next in line?'

'We always guessed,' said the Chair, 'that the TMAs were monitoring us.' She paused for a moment, then added ruefully: 'What bad - what incredibly bad! - luck that the fmal report went off, just after the very worst period in human history!'

There was another silence. Everyone knew that the twentieth century had often been branded 'The Century of Torture'

Poole listened without interrupting, while he waited for some consensus to emerge. Not for the first time, he was impressed by the quality of the Committee No one was trying to prove a pet theory, score debating points, or inflate an ego: he could not help drawing a contrast with the often bad-tempered arguments he had heard in own time, between Space Agency engineers and administrators, Congressional staffs, and industrial executives.

Yes, the human race had undoubtedly improved. The Braincap had not only helped to weed out misfits, but had enormously increased the efficiency of education. Yet there had also been a loss; there were very few memorable characters in this society. Offhand he could think of only four - Indra, Captain Chandler, Dr Khan and the Dragon Lady of wistful memory.

The Chairperson let the discussion flow smoothly back and forth until everyone had had a say, then began her summing up.

'The obvious first question - how seriously should we take this threat - isn't worth wasting time on. Even if it's a false alarm, or a misunderstanding, it's potentially so grave that we must assume it's real, until we have absolute proof to the contrary. Agreed?'

'Good. And we don't know how much time we have. So we must assume that the danger is immediate. Perhaps Halman may be able to give us some further warning, but by then it may be too late.'

'So the only thing we have to decide is: how can we protect ourselves, against something as powerful as the Monolith? Look what happened to Jupiter! And, apparently, Nova Scorpio...'

'I'm sure that brute force would be useless, though perhaps we should explore that option. Dr Kraussman - how long would it tcrayola watercolor pencilsake to build a super-bomb?'

'Assuming that the designs still exist, so that no research is necessary - oh, perhaps two weeks. Thermonuclear weapons are rather simple, and use common materials - after all, they made them back in the Second Millennium! But if you wanted something sophisticated - say an antimatter bomb, or a mini-black-hole - well, that might take a few months.'

'Thank you: could you start looking into it? But as I've said, I don't believe it would work; surely something that can handle such powers must also be able to protect itself against them. So - any other suggestions?'

'Can we negotiate?' one councillor asked, not very hopefully.

'With what... or whom?' Kraussman answered. 'As we've discovered, the Monolith is essentially a pure mechanism, doing just what it's been programmed to do. Perhaps that program is flexible enough to allow of changes, but there's no way we can tell. And we certainly can't appeal to Head Office - that's half a thousand light-years away!'

Poole listened without interrupting; there was nothing he could contribute to the discussion, and indeed much of it was completely over his head. He began to feel an insidious sense of depression, would it have been better, he wondered, not to pass on this information? Then, if it was a false alarm, no one would be any the worse. And if it was not - well, humanity would still have peace of mind, before whatever inescapable doom awaited it.

He was still mulling over these gloomy thoughts when he was suddenly alerted by a familiar phrase.

A quiet little member of the Committee, with a name so long and difficult that Poole had never been able to remember, still less pronounce it, had abruptly dropped just two words into the discussion.

'Trojan Horse!'

There was one of those silences generally described as 'pregnant', then a chorus of 'Why didn't I think of that!' 'Of course!' 'Very good idea!' until the Chairperson, for the first time in the session, had to call for order.

'Thank you, Professor Thirugnanasampanthamoorthy,' said Dr Oconnor, without missing a beat. 'Would you like to be more specific?'

'Certainly. If the Monolith is indeed, as everyone seems to think, essentially a machine without consciousness - and hence with only limited self-monitoring ability - we may already have the weapons that can defeat it. Locked up in the Vault.'

'And a delivery system - Halman!'

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'Precisely.'

'Just a minute, Dr T. We know nothing - absolutely nothing - about the Monolith's architecture. How can we be sure that anything our primitive species ever designed would be effective against it?'

'We can't - but remember this. However sophisticated it is, the Monolith has to obey exactly the same universal laws of logic that Aristotle and Boole formulated, centuries ago. That's why it may - no, should! - be vulnerable to the things locked up in the Vault. We have to assemble them in such a way that at least one of them will work. It's our only hope - unless anybody can suggest a better alternative.'

'Excuse me,' said Poole, finally losing patience. 'Will someone kindly tell me - what and where is this famous Vault you're talking about?'

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