"CLARKE, Arthur C. - Odyssey 3 - 2061 Odyssey Three" - читать интересную книгу автора (Clarke Arthur C)

'I think I can claim some credit for that. Her father was an astronomer - he worked for me at one time - and she's always been quite interested in science. So I made a few video calls.'

Heywood Floyd did not feel it necessary to add that, like a substantial fraction of the human race, he had fallen in love with Yva ever since the appearance of GWTW Mark II.

'Of course,' he continued, 'Sir Lawrence was delighted - but I had to convince him that she had more than a casual interest in astronomy. Otherwise the voyage could be a social disaster.'

'Which reminds me,' said George, producing a small package he had been not very successfully hiding behind his back. 'We have a little present for you.'

'Can I open it now?'

'Do you think he should?' Jerry wondered anxiously.

'In that case, I certainly will,' said Floyd, untying the bright green ribbon and unwrapping the paper.

Inside was a nicely framed painting. Although Floyd knew little of art, he had seen it before; indeed, who could ever forget it?

The makeshift raft tossing on the waves was crowded with half-naked castaways, some already moribund, others waving desperately at a ship on the horizon. Beneath it was the caption:



THE RAFT OF THE MEDUSA
(Theodore Gщricault, 1791-1824)



And underneath that was the message, signed by George and Jerry: 'Getting there is half the fun.'

'You're a pair of bastards, and I love you dearly,' said Floyd, embracing them both. The ATTENTION light on Archie's keyboard was flashing briskly; it was time to go.

His friends left in a silence more eloquent than words. For the last time, Heywood Floyd looked around the little room that had been his universe for almost half his life.

And suddenly he remembered how that poem ended:



'I have been happy: happy now I go.'



8
Starfleet



Sir Lawrence Tsung was not a sentimental man, and was far too cosmopolitan to take patriotism seriously - though as an undergraduate he had briefly sported one of the artificial pigtails worn during the Third Cultural Revolution. Yet the planetarium re-enactment of the Tsien disaster moved him deeply, and caused him to focus much of his enormous influence and energy upon space.

Before long, he was taking weekend trips to the Moon, and had appointed his son Charles (the thirty-two-million-so! one) as Vice-President of Tsung Astrofreight. The new corporation had only two catapult-launched, hydrogen-fuelled ramrockets of less than a thousand tons empty mass; they would soon be obsolete, but they could provide Charles with the experience that, Sir Lawrence was quite certain, would be needed in the decades ahead. For at long last, the Space Age was truly about to begin.

Little more than half a century had separated the Wright Brothers and the coming of cheap, mass air transportation; it had taken twice as long to meet the far greater challenge of the Solar System.