2061: Odyssey Three (19 page)

‘When I was studying at Flagstaff,’ began van der Berg, ‘I came across an old astronomy book that said: “The Solar System consists of the Sun, Jupiter - and assorted debris.” Puts Earth in its place, doesn’t it? And hardly fair to Saturn, Uranus and Neptune - the other three gas giants come to almost half as much as Jupiter.

‘But I’d better start with Europa. As you know, it was flat ice before Lucifer started warming it up - greatest elevation only a couple of hundred metres - and it wasn’t much different after the ice had melted and a lot of the water had migrated and frozen out on Farside. From 2015 - when our detailed observations began - until ‘38, there was only one high point on the whole moon - and we know what that was.’

‘We certainly do. But even though I’ve seen it with my own eyes, I still can’t picture the Monolith as a wall! I always visualize it as standing upright - or floating freely in space.’

‘I think we’ve learned that it can do anything it wants to - anything we can imagine - and a lot more.

‘Well, something happened to Europa in ‘37, between one observation and the next. Mount Zeus - all of ten kilometres high! - suddenly appeared.

‘Volcanoes that big don’t pop up in a couple of weeks; besides, Europa’s nothing like as active as Io.’

‘It’s active enough for me,’ Floyd grumbled. ‘Did you feel that one?’

‘Besides, if it had been a volcano, it would have spewed enormous amounts of gas into the atmosphere; there were some changes, but nothing like enough to account for that explanation. It was all a complete mystery, and because we were scared of getting too close - and were busy on our own projects - we didn’t do much except spin fantastic theories. None of them, as it turned out, as fantastic as the truth.

‘I first suspected it from some chance observations in ‘57, but didn’t really take them seriously for a couple of years. Then the evidence became stronger; for anything less bizarre, it would have been completely convincing.

‘But before I could believe that Mount Zeus was made of diamond, I had to find an explanation. To a good scientist - and I think I’m a good one - no fact is really respectable until there’s a theory to account for it. The theory may turn out to be wrong - it usually is, in some details at least - but it must provide a working hypothesis.

‘And as you pointed out, a million-million-ton diamond on a world of ice and sulphur takes a little explaining. Of course, now it’s perfectly obvious and I feel a damn fool not to have seen the answer years ago. Might have saved a lot of trouble - and at least one life - if I had.’

He paused thoughtfully, then suddenly asked Floyd:

‘Anyone mention Dr Paul Kreuger to you?’

‘No. Why should they? I’ve heard of him, of course.

‘I just wondered. A lot of strange things have been going on, and I doubt if we’ll ever know all the answers.

‘Anyway, it’s no secret now, so it doesn’t matter. Two years ago I sent a confidential message to Paul - oh, sorry, I should have mentioned - he’s my uncle - with a summary of my findings. I asked if he could explain them - or refute them.

‘Didn’t take him long, with all the byte-bashing he’s got at his fingertips. Unfortunately, he was careless, or someone was monitoring his network - I’m sure your friends, whoever they are, must have a good idea by now.

‘In a couple of days, he dug up an eighty-year-old paper in the scientific journal Nature - yes, it was still printed on paper back then! - which explained everything. Well, almost everything.

‘It was written by a man working in one of the big labs in the United States - of America, of course - the USSA didn’t exist then. It was a place where they designed nuclear weapons, so they knew a few things about high temperatures and pressures.

‘I don’t know if Dr Ross - that was his name -had anything to do with bombs, but his background must have started him thinking about conditions deep down inside the giant planets. In his 1984 - sorry, 1981 - paper - it’s less than a page long, by the way - he made some very interesting suggestions…

‘He pointed out that there were gigantic quantities of carbon - in the form of methane, CH4 - in the gas giants. Up to seventeen per cent of the total mass! He calculated that at the pressures and temperatures in the cores - millions of atmospheres - the carbon would separate out, sink down towards the centres and - you’ve guessed it - crystallize. It was a lovely theory: I don’t suppose he ever dreamed that there would be a hope of testing it.

‘So that’s part one of the story. In some ways, part two is even more interesting. What about some more of that coffee?’

‘Here you are; and I think I’ve already guessed part two. Obviously something to do with the explosion of Jupiter.’

‘Not explosion - implosion - Jupiter just collapsed on itself, then ignited. In some ways, it was like the detonation of a nuclear bomb, except that the new state was a stable one - in fact, a minisun.

‘Now, very strange things happen during implosions; it’s almost as if pieces can go through each other, and come out on the other side. Whatever the mechanism, a mountain-sized piece of the diamond core was shot into orbit.

‘It must have made hundreds of revolutions - been perturbed by the gravitational fields of all the satellites - before it ended up on Europa. And conditions must have been exactly right - one body must have overtaken the other, so the impact velocity was only a couple of kilometres a second. If they’d met head-on - well, there might not be a Europa now, let alone Mount Zeus! And I sometimes have nightmares, thinking that it could very well have come down on us…

‘The new atmosphere may also have buffered the impact; even so, the shock must have been appalling - I wonder what it did to our Europan friends? - it certainly triggered a whole series of tectonic disturbances, which are still continuing.’

‘And,’ said Floyd, ‘political ones. I’m just beginning to appreciate some of them. No wonder the USSA was worried.’

‘Amongst others.’

‘But would anyone seriously imagine they could get at these diamonds?’

‘We’ve not done so badly,’ answered van der Berg, gesturing towards the back of the shuttle. ‘In any case, the mere psychological effect on the industry would be enormous. That’s why so many people were anxious to know whether it was true or not.’

‘And now they know. What next?’

‘That’s not my problem, thank God. But I hope I’ve made a sizeable contribution to Ganymede’s science budget.’

As well as my own, he added to himself.

‘Whatever made you think I was dead?’ cried Heywood Floyd. ‘I’ve not felt better for years!’

Paralysed with astonishment, Chris Floyd stared at the speaker grille. He felt a great lifting of his spirits - yet also a sense of indignation. Someone - something - had played a cruel practical joke on him; but for what conceivable reason?

Fifty million kilometres away - and coming closer by several hundred every second - Heywood Floyd also sounded slightly indignant. But he also sounded vigorous and cheerful, and his voice radiated the happiness he obviously felt at knowing that Chris was safe.

‘And I’ve got some more good news for you; the shuttle will pick you up first. It will drop some urgent medical supplies at Galaxy, then hop over to you, and bring you up to rendezvous with us on the next orbit. Universe will go down five orbits later; you’ll be able to greet your friends when they come aboard.

‘No more now - except to say how much I’m looking forward to making up for lost time. Waiting for your answer in - let’s see - about three minutes…’

For a moment, there was complete silence aboard Bill Tee; van der Berg dared not look at his companion. Then Floyd keyed the microphone and said slowly: ‘Grandad - what a wonderful surprise - I’m still in a state of shock. But I know I met you here on Europa - I know you said goodbye to me. I’m as certain of that, as I’m sure you were speaking to me just now…

‘Well, we’ll have plenty of time to talk about it later. But remember how Dave Bowman spoke to you, aboard Discovery? Perhaps it was something like that.

‘Now we’ll just sit and wait here until the shuttle comes for us. We’re quite comfortable - there’s an occasional quake, but nothing to worry about. Until we meet, all my love.’

He could not remember when he had last used that word to his grandfather.

After the first day, the shuttle cabin began to smell. After the second, they didn’t notice - but agreed that the food was no longer quite so tasty. They also found it hard to sleep, and there were even accusations of snoring.

On day three, despite frequent bulletins from Universe, Galaxy and Earth itself, boredom was beginning to set in, and they had exhausted their supply of dirty stories.

But that was the last day. Before it was over, Lady Jasmine descended, seeking her lost child.

‘Baas,’ said the apartment’s master comset, ‘I accessed that special programme from Ganymede while you were sleeping. Do you wish to see it now?’

‘Yes,’ answered Dr Paul Kreuger. ‘Speed ten times. No sound.’

There would, he knew, be a lot of introductory material he could jump, and view later if he wished. He wanted to get to the action as quickly as possible.

Credits flashed up, and there on the monitor was Victor Willis, somewhere on Ganymede, gesticulating wildly in total silence. Dr Paul Kreuger, like many working scientists, took a somewhat jaundiced view of Willis, though he admitted that he performed a useful function.

Willis abruptly vanished, to be replaced by a less agitated subject - Mount Zeus. But that was much more active than any well-behaved mountain should be; Dr Kreuger was astonished to see how much it had changed since the last transmission from Europa.

‘Real time,’ he ordered. ‘Sound.’

‘…almost a hundred metres a day, and the tilt has increased fifteen degrees. Tectonic activity now violent - extensive lava flows around the base - I have Dr van der Berg with me - Van, what do you think?’

My nephew looks in remarkably good shape, thought Dr Kreuger, considering what he’s been through. Good stock, of course.

‘The crust obviously never recovered from the original impact, and it’s giving way under the accumulated stresses. Mount Zeus has been slowly sinking ever since we discovered it, but the rate has speeded up enormously in the last few weeks. You can see the movement from day to day.’

‘How long before it disappears completely?’

‘I can’t really believe that will happen…’

There was a quick cut to another view of the mountain, with Victor Willis speaking off camera.

‘That was what Dr van der Berg said two days ago. Any comment now, Van?’

‘Er - it looks as if I was mistaken. It’s going down - quite incredible - only half a kilometre left! I refuse to make any more predictions…’

‘Very wise of you, Van - well, that was only yesterday. Now we’ll give you a continuous time-lapse sequence, up to the moment we lost the camera…’

Dr Paul Kreuger leaned forward in his seat, watching the final act of the long drama in which he had played such a remote, yet vital role.

There was no need to speed up the replay: he was already seeing it at almost a hundred times normal. An hour was compressed into a minute - a man’s lifetime into that of a butterfly.

Before his eyes, Mount Zeus was sinking. Spurts of molten sulphur rocketed skywards around it at dazzling speed, forming parabolas of brilliant, electric blue. It was like a ship going down in a stormy sea, surrounded by St Elmo’s fire. Not even Io’s spectacular volcanoes could match this display of violence.

‘The greatest treasure ever discovered - vanishing from sight,’ said Willis in hushed and reverential tones: ‘Unfortunately, we can’t show the finale. You’ll soon see why.’

The action slowed down into real time. Only a few hundred metres of the mountain were left, and the eruptions around it now moved at a more leisurely speed.

Suddenly, the whole picture tilted; the camera’s image stabilizers, which had been holding their own valiantly against the continuous trembling of the ground, gave up the unequal battle. For a moment it seemed as if the mountain was rising again - but it was the camera tripod toppling over. The very last scene from Europa was a close-up of a glowing wave of molten sulphur, about to engulf the equipment.

‘Gone for ever!’ lamented Willis. ‘Riches infinitely greater than all the wealth that Golconda or Kimberley ever produced! What a tragic, heartbreaking loss!’

‘What a stupid idiot!’ spluttered Dr Kreuger. ‘Doesn’t he realize…’

It was time for another letter to Nature. And this secret would be much too big to hide.

From: Professor Paul Kreuger, FRS, etc.

To: The Editor, NATURE Data Bank (Public access)

Subject: MOUNT ZEUS AND JOVIAN DIAMONDS

As is now well understood, the Europan formation known as ‘Mount Zeus’ was originally part of Jupiter. The suggestion that the cores of the gas giants might consist of diamond was first made by Marvin Ross of the University of California’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in a classic paper ‘The ice layer in Uranus and Neptune - diamonds in the sky?’ (Nature, Vol 292, No. 5822, pp. 435-6, 30 July 1981). Surprisingly, Ross did not extend his calculations to Jupiter.

The sinking of Mount Zeus has produced a veritable chorus of lamentations, all of which are totally ridiculous - for the reasons given below.

Without going into details, which will be presented in a later communication, I estimate that the diamond core of Jupiter must have had an original mass of at least 10^28 grams. This is ten billion times that of Mount Zeus.

Although much of this material would doubtless have been destroyed in the detonation of the planet and the formation of the - apparently artificial - sun Lucifer, it is inconceivable that Mount Zeus was the only fragment to survive. Although much would have fallen back on to Lucifer, a substantial percentage must have gone into orbit - and must still be there. Elementary perturbation theory shows that it will return periodically to its point of origin. It is not, of course, possible to make an exact calculation, but I estimate that at least a million times the mass of Mount Zeus is still orbiting in the vicinity of Lucifer. The loss of one small fragment, in any case most inconveniently located on Europa, is therefore of virtually no importance. I propose the establishment, as soon as possible, of a dedicated space-radar system to search for this material.

Although extremely thin diamond film has been mass-produced since as long ago as 1982, it has never been possible to make diamond in bulk. Its availability in megaton quantities could totally transform many industries and create wholly new ones. In particular, as was pointed out by Isaacs et al almost a hundred years ago (see Science, 151, pp. 682-3, 1966) diamond is the only construction material which would make possible the so-called ‘Space elevator’, allowing transportation away from Earth at negligible cost. The diamond mountains now orbiting among the satellites of Jupiter may open up the entire Solar System; how trivial, by comparison, appear all the ancient uses of the quartic-crystallized form of carbon!

For completeness, I would like to mention another possible location for enormous quantities of diamond - a place, unfortunately, even more inaccessible than the core of a giant planet…

It has been suggested that the crusts of neutron stars may be largely composed of diamond. As the nearest known neutron star is fifteen light years away, and has a surface gravity seventy thousand million times that of Earth, this can hardly be regarded as a plausible source of supply.

But then - who could ever have imagined that one day we would be able to touch the core of Jupiter?