Dr Heywood Floyd preferred not to talk about the first mission to Jupiter, and the second to Lucifer ten
years later. It was all so long ago - and there was nothing he had not said a hundred times to
Congressional Committees, Space Council boards and media persons like Victor Willis. Nevertheless, he had a duty to his
fellow passengers which could not be avoided. As the only living
man to have witnessed the birth of a new sun - and a new solar system - they expected him to have
some special understanding of the worlds they were now so swiftly approaching. It was a naïve
assumption; he could tell them far less about the Galilean satellites than the scientists and engineers who
had been working there for more than a generation. When he was asked 'What's it really like on Europa?'
(or Ganymede, or Io, or Callisto...) he was liable to refer the enquirer, rather brusquely, to the
voluminous reports available in the ship's library.
Yet there was one area where his experience was unique. Half a century later, he sometimes wondered
if it had really happened, or whether he had been asleep aboard Discovery when David Bowman had
appeared to him. Almost easier to believe that a spaceship could be haunted...
But he could not have been dreaming, when the floating dust motes assembled themselves into that
ghostly image of a man who should have been dead for a dozen years. Without the warning it had given
him (how clearly he remembered that its lips were motionless, and the voice had come from the console
speaker) Leonov and all aboard would have been vaporized in the detonation of Jupiter.
'Why did he do it?' Floyd asked during one of the after-dinner sessions. 'I've puzzled over that for fifty
years. Whatever he became, after he went out in Discovery's space pod to investigate the monolith, he
must still have had some links with the human race; he was not completely alien. We know that he
returned to Earth - briefly - because of that orbiting bomb incident. And there's strong evidence that he
visited both his mother and his old girlfriend; that's not the action of - of an entity that had discarded all
emotions.'
'What do you suppose he is now?' asked Willis. 'For that matter - where is he?'
'Perhaps that last question has no meaning - even for human beings. Do you know where your
consciousness resides?'
'I've no use for metaphysics. Somewhere in the general area of my brain, anyway.'
'When I was a young man,' sighed Mihailovich, who had a talent for deflating the most serious
discussions, 'mine was about a metre lower down.'
'Let's assume he's on Europa; we know there's a monolith there, and Bowman was certainly associated
with it in some way - see how he relayed that warning.'
'Do you think he also relayed the second one, telling us to stay away?'
'Which we are now going to ignore -'
' in a good cause -' Captain Smith, who was usually content to let the discussion go where it wished,
made one of his rare interjections.
'Dr Floyd,' he said thoughtfully, 'you're in a unique position, and we should take advantage of it.
Bowman went out of his way to help you once. If he's still around, he may be willing to do so again. I
worry a good deal about that ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS HERE order. If he could assure us that it was -
temporarily suspended, let's say - I'd be much happier.'
There were several 'hear, hear's around the table before Floyd answered.
'Yes, I've been thinking along the same lines. I've already told Galaxy to watch out for any - let's say
manifestations - in case he tries to make contact.'
'Of course,' said Yva, 'he may be dead by now - if ghosts can die.'
Not even Mihailovich had a suitable comment to this, but Yva obviously sensed that no-one thought
much of her contribution. Undeterred, she tried again.
'Woody, dear,' she said. 'Why don't you simply give him a call on the radio? That's what it's for, isn't
it?'
The idea had occurred to Floyd, but it had somehow seemed too naïve to take seriously.
'I will,' he said. 'I don't suppose it will do any harm.'
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