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[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: Story collab\nContext: May include established elements\nMe: Opening\nYou: 18 sentences more, 2001_ a space odyssey-style", "loss": null }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please.", "loss": null }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Moon-Watcher and his companions had no recollection of what they had seen, after the crystal had ceased to cast its hypnotic spell over their minds and to experiment with their bodies. The next day, as they went out to forage, they passed it with scarcely a second thought; it was now part of the disregarded background of their lives. They could not eat it, and it could not eat them; therefore it was not important.\n\nDown at the river, the Others made their usual ineffectual threats. Their leader, a one-eared man-ape of Moon-Watcher's size and age, but in poorer condition, even made a brief foray toward the tribe's territory, screaming loudly and waving his arms in an attempt to scare the opposition and to bolster his own courage.\n\nThe water of the stream was nowhere more than a foot deep, but the farther One-Ear moved out into it, the more uncertain and unhappy he became. Very soon he slowed to a halt, and then moved back, with exaggerated dignity, to join his companions.\n\nOtherwise, there was no change in the normal routine. The tribe gathered just enough nourishment to survive for another day, and no one died.\n\nAnd that night, the crystal slab was still waiting; surrounded by its pulsing aura of light and sound. The program it had contrived, however, was now subtly different.\n\nSome, of the man-apes it ignored completely, as if it was concentrating on the most promising subjects.\n\nOne of them was Moon-Watcher; once again he felt inquisitive tendrils creeping down the unused byways of his brain. And presently, he began to see visions. They might have been within the crystal block; they might have been wholly inside his mind. In any event, to Moon-Watcher they were completely real. Yet somehow the usual automatic impulse to drive off invaders of his territory had been lulled into quiescence.\n\nHe was looking at a peaceful family group, differing in only one respect from the scenes he knew.", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "The male, female, and two infants that had mysteriously appeared before him were gorged and replete, with sleek and glossy pelts - and this was a condition of life that Moon-Watcher had never imagined.", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "Unconsciously, he felt his own protruding ribs; the ribs of these creatures were hidden in rolls of fat.", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "From time to time they stirred lazily, as they lolled at ease near the entrance of a cave, apparently at peace with the world.", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "/* <<USAGE LIMIT>>: 'crystal' must be used 4 times */", "loss": false }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Occasionally; the big male emitted a monumental burp of contentment.\n\nThere was no other activity, and after five minutes the scene suddenly faded out. The crystal was no more than a glimmering outline in the darkness; Moon-Watcher shook himself as if awaking from a dream, abruptly realized where he was, and led the tribe back to the caves.\n\nHe had no conscious memory of what he had seen; but that night, as he sat brooding at the entrance of his lair, his ears attuned to the noises of the world around him, Moon-Watcher felt the first faint twinges of a new and potent emotion. It was a vague and diffuse sense of envy - of dissatisfaction with his life. He had no idea of its cause, still less of its cure; but discontent had come into his soul, and he had taken one small step toward humanity.\n\nNight after night, the spectacle of those four plump man-apes was repeated, until it had become a source of fascinated exasperation, serving to increase Moon-Watcher's eternal, gnawing hunger. The evidence of his eyes could not have produced this effect; it needed psychological reinforcement. There were gaps in Moon-Watcher's life now that he would never remember, when the very atoms of his simple brain were being twisted into new patterns. If he survived, those patterns would become eternal, for his genes would pass them on to future generations.\n\nIt was a slow, tedious business, but the crystal monolith was patient. Neither it, nor its replicas scattered across half the globe, expected to succeed with all the scores of groups involved in the experiment. A hundred failures would not matter, when a single success could change the destiny of the world.\n\nBy the time of the next new moon, the tribe had seen one birth and two deaths. One of these had been due to starvation; the other had occurred during the nightly ritual, when a man-ape had suddenly collapsed while attempting to tap two pieces of stone delicately together. At once, the crystal had darkened, and the tribe had been released from the spell. But the fallen man-ape had not moved; and by the morning, of course, the body was gone.\n\nThere had been no performance the next night; the crystal was still analyzing its mistake.", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "The tribe streamed past it through the gathering dusk, ignoring its presence completely.", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "The night after, it was ready for them again.", "loss": true }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The four plump man-apes were still there, and now they were doing extraordinary things. Moon-Watcher began to tremble uncontrollably; he felt as if his brain would burst, and wanted to turn away his eyes. But that remorseless mental control would not relax its grip; he was compelled to follow the lesson to the end, though all his instincts revolted against it.\n\nThose instincts had served his ancestors well, in the days of warm rains and lush fertility, when food was to be had everywhere for the plucking. Now times had changed, and the inherited wisdom of the past had become folly. The man-apes must adapt, or they must die - like the greater beasts who had gone before them, and whose bones now lay sealed within the limestone hills.\n\nSo Moon-Watcher stared at the crystal monolith with unblinking eyes, while his brain lay open to its still uncertain manipulations. Often he felt nausea, but always he felt hunger; and from time to time his hands clenched unconsciously in the patterns that would determine his new way of life.\n\nAs the line of warthogs moved snuffling and grunting across the trail, Moon-Watcher came to a sudden halt. Pigs and man-apes had always ignored each other, for there was no conflict of interest between them. Like most animals that did not compete for the same food, they merely kept out of each other's way.\n\nYet now Moon-Watcher stood looking at them, wavering back and forth uncertainly as he was buffeted by impulses which he could not understand, Then, as if in a dream, he started searching the ground - though for what, he could not have explained even if he had had the power of speech. He would recognize it when he saw it.\n\nIt was a heavy, pointed stone about six inches long, and though it did not fit his hand perfectly, it would do. As he swung his hand around, puzzled by its suddenly increased weight, he felt a pleasing sense of power and authority. He started to move toward the nearest pig.\n\nIt was a young and foolish animal, even by the undemanding standards of warthog intelligence. Though it observed him out of the corner of its eye, it did not take him seriously until much too late.", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "Why should it suspect these harmless creatures of any evil intent?", "loss": true }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 8 sentences.", "loss": null }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It went on rooting up the grass until Moon-Watcher's stone hammer obliterated its dim consciousness. The remainder of the herd continued grazing unalarmed, for the murder had been swift and silent.\n\nAll the other man-apes in the group had stopped to watch, and now they crowded round Moon-Watcher and his victim with admiring wonder. Presently one of them picked up the blood-stained weapon, and began to pound the dead pig. Others joined in with any sticks and stones that they could gather, until theirt target began a messy disintegration.\n\nThen they became bored; some wandered off, while others stood hesitantly around the unrecognizable corpse - the future of a world waiting upon their decision. It was a surprisingly long time before one of the nursing females began to lick the gory stone she was holding in her paws.\n\nAnd it was longer still before Moon-Watcher, despite all that he had been shown, really understood that he need never be hungry again.", "loss": null } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "ur a writing helper. partner writes, u do next 5 sentences. might have existing chars/stuff - roll with it", "loss": null }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As he led the tribe down to the river in the dim light of dawn, Moon-Watcher paused uncertainly at a familiar spot. Something, he knew, was missing; but what it was, he could not remember. He wasted no mental effort on the problem, for this morning he had more important matters on his mind.\n\nLike thunder and lightning and clouds and eclipses, the great block of crystal had departed as mysteriously as it had come. Having vanished into the nonexistent past, it never troubled Moon-Watcher's thoughts again.", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "He would never know what it had done to him; and none of his companions wondered, as they gathered round him in the morning mist, why he had paused for a moment here on the way to the river.", "loss": true }, { "from": "system", "value": "[System: Use 'their' 4 times in response]", "loss": null }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "From their side of the stream, in the never-violated safety of their own territory, the Others first saw Moon-Watcher and a dozen males of his tribe as a moving frieze against the dawn sky. At once they began to scream their daily challenge; but this time, there was no answer.\n\nSteadily, purposefully - above all, silently - Moon-Watcher and his band descended the low hillock that overlooked the river; and as they approached, the Others became suddenly quiet. Their ritual rage ebbed away, to be replaced by a mounting fear. They were dimly aware that something had happened, and that this encounter was unlike all those that had ever gone before.", "loss": true }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The bone clubs and knives that Moon-Watcher's group carried did not alarm them, for they did not understand their purpose. They only knew that their rivals' movements were now imbued with determination, and with menace.\n\nThe party stopped at the water's edge, and for a moment the Others' courage revived. Led by One-Ear, they halfheartedly resumed their battle chant. It lasted only a few seconds before a vision of terror struck then dumb.", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "Moon-Watcher raised his arms high into the air, revealing the burden that until now had been concealed by the hirsute bodies of his companions.", "loss": true }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was holding a stout branch, and impaled upon it was the bloody head of the leopard. The mouth had been jammed open with a stick, and the great fangs gleamed a ghastly white in the first rays of the rising sun.\n\nMost of the Others were too paralyzed with fright to move; but some began a slow, stumbling retreat. That was all the encouragement that Moon-Watcher needed. Still holding the mangled trophy above his head, he started to cross the stream.", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "After a moment's hesitation, his companions splashed after him.", "loss": true }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When Moon-Watcher reached the far side, One-Ear was still standing his ground. Perhaps he was too brave or too stupid to run; perhaps he could not really believe that this outrage was actually happening. Coward or hero, it made no difference in the end, as the frozen snarl of death came crashing down upon his uncomprehending head.\n\nShrieking with fright, the Others scattered into the bush; but presently they would return, and soon they would forget their lost leader.\n\nFor a few seconds Moon-Watcher stood uncertainly above his new victim, trying to grasp the strange and wonderful fact that the dead leopard could kill again.", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "Now he was master of the world, and he was not quite sure what to do next.", "loss": true }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence.", "loss": null }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But he would thinkof something.", "loss": true } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Today you will be acting as a writing assistant, your partner will send something and you will write the next 49 sentences. The story may reference existing characters and events - incorporate them as presented.", "loss": null }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please.", "loss": null }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "[ Special Flight ]\n\nNo matter how many times you left Earth, Dr. Heywood Floyd told himself, the excitement never really palled. He had been to Mars once, to the Moon three times, and to the various space stations more often than he could remember. Yet as the moment of takeoff approached, he was conscious of a rising tension, a feeling of wonder and awe - yes; and of nervousness - which put him on the same level as any Earthlubber about to receive his first baptism of space.\n\nThe jet that had rushed him here from Washington, after that midnight briefing with the President, was now dropping down toward one of the most familiar, yet most exciting, landscapes in all the world. There lay the first two generations of the Space Age, spanning twenty miles of the Florida coast to the south, outlined by winking red warning lights, were the giant gantries of the Saturns and Neptunes, that had set men on the path to the planets, and had now passed into history. Near the horizon, a gleaming silver tower bathed in floodlights, stood the last of the Saturn V's, for almost twenty years a national monument and place of pilgrimage. Not far away, looming against the sky like a man-made mountain, was the incredible bulk of the Vehicle Assembly Building, still the largest single structure on Earth.\n\nBut these things now belonged to the past, and he was flying toward the future. As they banked, Dr. Floyd could see below him a maze of buildings, then a great airstrip, then a broad, dead-straight scar across the fiat Florida landscape - the multiple rails of a giant launch-lug track. At its end, surrounded by vehicles and gantries, a spaceplane lay gleaming in a pool of light, being prepared for its leap to the stars. In a sudden failure of perspective, brought on by his swift changes of speed and height, it seemed to Floyd that he was looking down on a small silver moth, caught in the beam of a flashlight.\n\nThen the tiny, scurrying figures on the ground brought home to him the real size of the spacecraft; it must have been two hundred feet across the narrow V of its wings.\n\nAnd that enormous vehicle, Floyd told himself with some incredulity - yet also with some pride - is waiting for me. As far as he knew, it was the first time that an entire mission had been set up to take a single man to the Moon.\n\nThough, it was two o'clock in the morning, a group of reporters and cameramen intercepted him on his way to the floodlit Orion III spacecraft. He knew several of them by sight, for as Chairman of the National Council of Astronautics, the news conference was part of his way of life. This was neither the time nor the place for one, and he had nothing to say; but it was important not to offend the gentlemen of the communications media.\n\n\"Dr. Floyd? I'm Jim Forster of Associated News. Could you give us a few words about this flight of yours?\"\n\n\"I'm very sorry - I can't say anything.\"\n\n\"But you did meet with the President earlier this evening?\" asked a familiar voice.\n\n\"Oh - hello, Mike. I'm afraid you've been dragged out of bed for nothing. Definitely no comment.\"\n\n\"Can you at least confirm or deny that some kind of epidemic has broken out on the Moon?\" a TV reporter asked, managing to jog alongside and keep Floyd properly framed in his miniature TV camera.\n\n\"Sorry,\" said Floyd, shaking his head.\n\n\"What about the quarantine?\" asked another reporter. \"How long will it be kept on?\"\n\n\"Still no comment.\"\n\n\"Dr. Floyd,\" demanded a very short and determined lady of the press, \"what possible justification can there be for this total blackout of news from the Moon? Has it anything to do with the political situation?\"\n\n\"What political situation?\" Floyd asked dryly. There was a sprinkle of laughter, and someone called, \"Have a good trip, Doctor!\" as he made his way into the sanctuary of the boarding gantry.\n\nAs long, as he could remember, it had been not a \"situation\" so much as a permanent crisis. Since the 1970s, the world had been dominated by two problems which, ironically, tended to cancel each other out.\n\nThough birth control was cheap, reliable, and endorsed by all the main religions, it had come too late; the population of the world was now six billion - a third of them in the Chinese Empire. Laws had even been passed in some authoritarian societies limiting families to two children, but their enforcement had proved impracticable. As a result, food was short in every country; even the United States had meatless days, and widespread famine was predicted within fifteen years, despite heroic efforts to farm the sea and to develop synthetic foods.\n\nWith the need for international cooperation more urgent than ever, there were still as many frontiers as in any earlier age. In a million years, the human race had lost few of its aggressive instincts; along symbolic lines visible only to politicians, the thirty-eight nuclear powers watched one another with belligerent anxiety. Among them, they possessed sufficient megatonnage to remove the entire surface crust of the planet. Although there had been - miraculously - no use of atomic weapons, this situation could hardly last forever.\n\nAnd now, for their own inscrutable reasons, the Chinese were offering to the smallest have-not nations a complete nuclear capability of fifty warheads and delivery systems. The cost was under $200,000,000, and easy terms could be arranged.\n\nPerhaps they were only trying to shore up their sagging economy, by turning obsolete weapons systems into hard cash, as some observers had suggested. Or perhaps they had discovered methods of warfare so advanced that they no longer had need of such toys; there had been talk of radio-hypnosis from satellite transmitters, compulsion viruses, and blackmail by synthetic diseases for which they alone possessed the antidote.\n\nThese charming ideas were almost certainly propaganda or pure fantasy, but it was not safe to discount any of them. Every time Floyd took off from Earth, he wondered if it would still be there when the time came to return.\n\nThe trim stewardess greeted him as he entered the cabin.", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Good morning, Dr. Floyd. I'm Miss Simmons - I'd like to welcome you aboard on behalf of Captain Tynes and our copilot, First Officer Ballard.\"", "loss": true }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thank you,\" said Floyd with a smile, wondering why stewardesses always had to sound like robot tour guides.\n\n\"Takeoff's in five minutes,\" she said, gesturing into the empty twenty-passenger cabin. \"You can take any seat you want, but Captain Tynes recommends the forward window seat on the left, if you want to watch the docking operations.\"\n\n\"I'll do that,\" he answered, moving toward the preferred seat. The stewardess fussed over him awhile and then moved to her cubicle at the rear of the cabin.\n\nFloyd settled down in his seat, adjusted the safety harness around waist and shoulders, and strapped his briefcase to the adjacent seat. A moment later, the loudspeaker came on with a soft popping noise. \"Good morning,\" said Miss Simmons' voice. \"This is Special Flight 3, Kennedy to Space Station One.\"\n\nShe was determined, it seemed, to go through the full routine for her solitary passenger, and Floyd could not resist a smile as she continued inexorably.\n\n\"Our transit time will be fifty-five minutes. Maximum acceleration will be two-gee, and we will be weightless for thirty minutes. Please do not leave your seat until the safety sign is lit.\"\n\nFloyd looked over his shoulder and called, \"Thank you.\" He caught a glimpse of a slightly embarrassed but charming smile.\n\nHe leaned back into his seat and relaxed. This trip, he calculated, would cost the taxpayers slightly over a million dollars. If it was not justified, he would be out of his job; but he could always go back to the university and to his interrupted studies of planetary formation.\n\n\"Auto-countdown procedures all Go,\" the captain's voice said over the speaker with the soothing singsong used in RT chat. \"Lift-off in one minute.\"\n\nAs always, it seemed more like an hour. Floyd became acutely aware of the gigantic forces coiled up around him, waiting to be released. In the fuel tanks of the two spacecraft, and in the power storage system of the launching track, was pent up the energy of a nuclear bomb. And it would all be used to take him a mere two hundred miles from Earth.\n\nThere was none of the old-fashioned FIVE-FOIJR-THREE-TWO-ONE-ZERO business, so tough on the human nervous system.\n\n\"Launching in fifteen seconds. You will be more comfortable if you start breathing deeply.\"\n\nThat was good psychology, and good physiology.\n\nFloyd felt himself well charged with oxygen, and ready to tackle anything, when the launching track began to sling its thousand-ton payload out over the Atlantic.\n\nIt was hard to tell when they lifted from the track and became airborne, but when the roar of the rockets suddenly doubled its fury, and Floyd found himself sinking deeper and deeper into the cushions of his seat, he knew that the first-stage engines had taken over. He wished he could look out of the window, but it was an effort even to turn his head, Yet there was no discomfort; indeed, the pressure of acceleration and the overwhelming thunder of the motors produced an extraordinary euphoria. His ears ringing, the blood pounding in his veins, Floyd felt more alive than he had for years. He was young again, he wanted to sing aloud - which was certainly safe, for no one could possibly hear him.\n\nThe mood passed swiftly, as he suddenly realized that he was leaving Earth, and everything he had ever loved. Down there were his three children, motherless since his wife had taken that fatal flight to Europe ten years ago. (Ten years? Impossible! Yet it was so...) Perhaps, for their sake, he should have remarried.\n\nHe had almost lost sense of time when the pressure and the noise abruptly slackened, and the cabin speaker announced: \"Preparing to separate from lower stage. Here we go.\"\n\nThere was a slight jolt; and suddenly Floyd recalled a quotation of Leonardo da Vinci's which he had once seen displayed in a NASA office:\n\nThe Great Bird will take its flight on the back of the great bird, bringing glory to the nest where it was born.\n\nWell, the Great Bird was flying now, beyond all the dreams of da Vinci, and its exhausted companion was winging back to earth. In a ten-thousand-mile arc, the empty lower stage would glide down into the atmosphere, trading speed for distance as it homed on Kennedy. In a few hours, serviced and refueled, it would be ready again to lift another companion toward the shining silence with it could never reach.\n\nNow, thought Floyd, we are on our own, more than halfway to orbit. When the acceleration came on again, as the upper stage rockets fired, the thrust was much more gentle: indeed, he felt no more than normal gravity. But it would have been impossible to walk, since \"Up\" was straight toward the front of the cabin. If he had been foolish enough to leave his seat, he would have crashed at once against the rear wall.\n\nThis effect was a little disconcerting, for it seemed that the ship was standing on its tail. To Floyd, who was at the very front of the cabin, all the seats appeared to be fixed on a wall topping vertically beneath him. He was doing his best to ignore this uncomfortable illusion when dawn exploded outside the ship.\n\nIn seconds, they shot through veils of crimson and pink and gold and blue into the piercing white of day.\n\nThough the windows were heavily tinted to reduce the glare, the probing beams of sunlight that now slowly swept across the cabin left Floyd half-blinded for several minutes. He was in space, yet there was no question of being able to see the stars.", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "He shielded his eyes with his hands and tried to peer through the window beside him.", "loss": true }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 29 sentences.", "loss": null }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Out there the swept-back wing of the ship was blazing like white-hot metal in the reflected sunlight; there was utter darkness all around it, and that darkness must be full of stars - but it was impossible to see them.\n\nWeight was slowly ebbing; the rockets were being throttled back as the ship eased itself into orbit. The thunder of the engines dropped to a muted roar, then a gentle hiss, then died into silence. If it had not been for the restraining straps, Floyd would have floated out of his seat; his stomach felt as if it was going to do so anyway. He hoped that the pills he had been given half an hour and ten thousand miles ago would perform as per specifications. He had been spacesick just once in his career, and that was much too often.\n\nThe pilot's voice was firm and confident as it came over the cabin speaker. \"Please observe all Zero-gee regulations. We will be docking at Space Station One in forty-five minutes.\"\n\nThe stewardess came walking up the narrow corridor to the right of the closely spaced seats. There was a slight buoyancy about her steps, and her feet came away from the floor reluctantly as if entangled in glue. She was keeping to the bright yellow band of Velcro carpeting that ran the full length of the floor - and of the ceiling. The carpet, and the soles of her sandals, were covered with myriads of tiny hooks, so that they clung together like burrs. This trick of walking in free fall was immensely reassuring to disoriented passengers.\n\n\"Would you like some coffee or tea, Dr. Floyd?\" she asked cheerfully.\n\n\"No thank you,\" he smiled. He always felt like a baby when he had to suck at one of those plastic drinking tubes.\n\nThe stewardess was still hovering anxiously around him as he popped open his briefcase and prepared to remove his papers.\n\n\"Dr. Floyd, may I ask you a question?\"\n\n\"Certainly,\" he answered, looking up over his glasses. \"My fiancé is a geologist at Clavius,\" said Miss Simmons, measuring her words carefully, \"and I haven't heard from him for over a week.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry to hear that; maybe he's away from his base, and out of touch.\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"He always tells me when that's going to happen. And you can imagine how worried I am - with all these rumors. Is it really true about an epidemic on the Moon?\"\n\n\"If it is, there's no cause for alarm.. Remember, there was a quarantine back in '98, over that mutated flu virus. A lot of people were sick - but no one died, And that's really all I can say,\" he concluded firmly.\n\nMiss Simmons smiled pleasantly and straightened up. \"Well, thank you anyway, Doctor. I'm sorry to have bothered you.\"\n\n\"No bother at all,\" he said gallantly, but not very accurately. Then he buried himself in his endless technical reports, in a desperate last-minute assault on the usual backlog;\n\nHe would have no time for reading when he got to the Moon.", "loss": null } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: Cooperative storytelling\nContext: May include established characters/lore without introduction\nMy role: Provide a brief opening\nYour role: Expand upon my opening with ten sentences, emulating the writing style of 2001_ a space odyssey.", "loss": null }, { "from": "human", "value": "Half an hour later the pilot announced: \"We make contact in ten minutes. Please check your seat harness.\"", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "Floyd obeyed, and put away his papers.", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was asking for trouble to read during the celestial juggling act which took place during the last 300 miles; best to close one's eyes and relax while the spacecraft was nudged back and forth with brief bursts of rocket power.", "loss": true }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A few minutes later he caught his first glimpse of Space Station One, only a few miles away. The sunlight glinted and sparkled from the polished metal surfaces of the slowly revolving, three-hundred-yard-diameter disk. Not far away, drifting in the same orbit, was a sweptback Titov-V spaceplane, and close to that an almost spherical Aries-1B, the workhorse of space, with the four stubby legs of its lunar-landing shock absorbers jutting from one side.\n\nThe Orion III spacecraft was descending from a higher orbit, which brought the Earth into spectacular view behind the Station. From his altitude of 200 miles, Floyd could see much of Africa and the Atlantic Ocean. There was considerable cloud cover, but he could still detect the blue-green outlines of the Gold Coast.\n\nThe central axis of the Space Station, with its docking arms extended, was now slowly swimming toward them. Unlike the structure from which it sprang, it was not rotating - or, rather, it was running in reverse at a rate which exactly countered the Station's own spin. Thus a visiting spacecraft could be coupled to it, for the transfer of personnel or cargo, without being whirled disastrously around.\n\nWith the softest of thuds, ship and Station made contact.", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were metallic, scratching noises from outside, then the brief hissing of air as pressures equalized.", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "A few seconds later the airlock door opened, and a man wearing the light, close-fitting slacks and short-sleeved shirt which was almost the uniform of Space Station personnel came into the cabin.", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Pleased to meet you, Dr. Floyd. I'm Nick Miller, Station Security; I'm to look after you until the shuttle leaves.\"", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "They shook hands, then Floyd smiled at the stewardess and said: \"Please give my compliments to Captain Tynes, and thank him for the smooth ride. Perhaps I'll see you on the way home.\"", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "Very cautiously - it was more than a year since he had last been weightless and it would be some time before he regained his spacelegs - he hauled himself hand over hand through the airlock and into the large, circular chamber at the axis of the Space Station.", "loss": true }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a heavily padded room, its walls covered with recessed handholds; Floyd gripped one of these firmly while the whole chamber started to rotate, until it matched the spin of the Station.\n\nAs it gained speed, faint and ghostly gravitational fingers began to clutch at him, and he drifted slowly toward the circular wall. Now he was standing, swaying back and forth gently like seaweed in the surge of the tide, on what had magically become a curving floor. The centrifugal force of the Station's spin had taken hold of him; it was very feeble here, so near the axis, but would increase steadily as he moved outward.\n\nFrom the central transit chamber he followed Miller down a curving stair. At first his weight was so slight that he had almost to force himself downward by holding on to the handrail. Not until he reached the passenger lounge, on the outer skin of the great revolving disk, had he acquired enough weight to move around almost normally.\n\nThe lounge had been redecorated since his last visit, and had acquired several new facilities. Besides the usual chairs, small tables, restaurant, and post office there were now a barber shop, drugstore, movie theater and a souvenir shop selling photographs and slides of lunar and planetary landscapes, guaranteed genuine pieces of Luniks, Rangers, and Surveyors, all neatly mounted in plastic, and exorbitantly priced.\n\n\"Can I get you anything while we're waiting?\" Miller asked. \"We board in about thirty minutes?'", "loss": true }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I could do with a cup of black coffee - two lumps - and I'd like to call Earth.\"\n\n\"Right, Doctor - I'll get the coffee - the phones are over there.\"\n\nThe picturesque booths were only a few yards from a barrier with two entrances labeled WELCOME TO THE U.S. SECTION and WELCOME TO THE SOVIET SECTION.\n\nBeneath these were notices which read, in English, Russian, and Chinese, French, German, and Spanish.\n\nPLEASE HAVE READY YOUR:\n\n- Passport\n\n- Visa\n\n- Medical Certificate\n\n- Transportation Permit", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "OOC, Include 'office' 2 time(s) in your answer - no more, no less", "loss": false }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "- Weight Declaration\n\nThere was a rather pleasant symbolism about the fact that as soon as they had passed through the barriers, in either direction, passengers were free to mix again. The division was purely for administrative purposes.\n\nFloyd, after checking that the Area Code for the United States was still 81, punched his twelve-digit home number, dropped his plastic all-purpose credit card into the pay slot, and was through in thirty seconds.\n\nWashington was still sleeping, for it was several hours to dawn, but he would not disturb anyone. His housekeeper would get the message from the recorder as soon as she awoke.\n\n\"Miss Flemming - this is Dr. Floyd. Sorry I had to leave in such a hurry. Would you please call my office and ask them to collect the car - it's at Dulles Airport and the key is with Mr. Bailey, Senior Flight Control Officer. Next, will you call the Chevy Chase Country Club and leave a message for the secretary. I definitely won't be able to play in the tennis tournament next weekend. Give my apologies - I'm afraid they were counting on me. Then call Downtown Electronies and tell them that if the video in my study isn't fixed by - oh, Wednesday - they can take the damn thing back.\" He paused for breath, and tried to think of any other crises or problems that might arise during the days ahead.\n\n\"If you run short of cash, speak to the office; they can get urgent messages to me, but I may be too busy to answer. Give my love to the children, and say I'll be back as soon as I can. Oh, hell - here's someone I don't want to see - I'll call from the Moon if I can - good-bye.\"\n\nFloyd tried to duck out of the booth, but it was too late; he had already been spotted.", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bearing down on him through the Soviet Section exit was Dr. Dimitri Moisevitch, of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Science.", "loss": true }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence.", "loss": null }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dimitri was one of Floyd's best friends; and for that very reason, he was the last person he wished to talk to, here and now.", "loss": true } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Mode:\nCo-writing\nContext: Story continues from larger narrative, characters/lore may lack introduction\nLength:\nseventy-seven sentences\nStyle:\n2001_ a space odyssey", "loss": null }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please.", "loss": null }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Russian astronomer was tall, slender, and blond, and his unlined face belied his fifty-five years - the last ten of which had been spent building up the giant radio observatory on the far side of the Moon, where two thousand miles of solid rock would shield it from the eletronic racket of Earth.\n\n\"Why, Heywood,\" he said, shaking hands firmly. \"It's a small universe... How are you - and your charming children?\"\n\n\"We're fine,\" Floyd replied warmly, but with a slightly distracted air. \"We often talk about the wonderful time you gave us last summer.\" He was sorry he could not sound more sincere; they really had enjoyed a week's vacation in Odessa with Dimitri during one of the Russian's visits to Earth.\n\n\"And you - I suppose you're on your way up?\" Dimitri inquired.\n\n\"Er, yes - my flight leaves in half an hour,\" answered Floyd. \"Do you know Mr. Miller?\"\n\nThe Security Officer had now approached, and was standing at a respectful distance holding a plastic cup full of coffee.\n\n\"Of course. But please put that down, Mr. Miller. This is Dr. Floyd's last chance to have a civilized drink - let's not waste it. No - I insist.\"\n\nThey followed Dimitri out of the main lounge into the observation section, and soon were sitting at a table under a dim light watching the moving panorama of the stars. Space Station One revolved once a minute, and the centrifugal force generated by this slow spin produced an artificial gravity equal to the Moon's. This, it had been discovered, was a good compromise between Earth gravity and no gravity at all; moreover, it gave moon-bound passengers a chance to become acclimatized.\n\nOutside the almost invisible windows, Earth and stars marched in a silent procession. At the moment, this side of the Station was tilted away from the sun; otherwise, it would have been impossible to look out, for the lounge would have been blasted with light. Even as it was, the glare of the Earth, filling half the sky, drowned all but the brighter stars.\n\nBut Earth was waning, as the Station orbited toward the night side of the planet; in a few minutes it would be a huge black disk, spangled with the lights of cities. And then the sky would belong to the stars.\n\n\"Now,\" said Dimitri, after he had swiftly downed his first drink and was toying with the second, \"what's all this about an epidemic in the U.S. Sector? I wanted to go there on this trip. 'No, Professor,' they told me. 'We're very sorry, but there's a strict quarantine until further notice.' I pulled all the strings I could; It was no use. Now you tell me what's happening.\"\n\nFloyd groaned inwardly. Here we go again, he said. The sooner I'm on that shuttle, headed for the Moon, the happier I'll be.\n\n\"The - ah - quarantine is purely a safety precaution,\" he said cautiously. 'We're not even sure it's really necessary, but we don't believe in taking chances.\"\n\n\"But what is the disease - what are the symptoms? Could it be extraterrestrial? Do you want any help from our medical services?\"\n\n\"I'm sorry, Dimitri - we've been asked not to say anything at the moment. Thanks for the offer, but we can handle the situation.\"\n\n\"Hmm,\" said Moisevitch, obviously quite unconvinced. \"Seems odd to me that you, an astronomer, should be sent up to the Moon to look into an epidemic.\"\n\n\"I'm only an ex-astronomer; it's years since I did any real research. Now I'm a scientific expert; that means I know nothing about absolutely everything.\"\n\n\"Then do you know what TMA-1 means?\"\n\nMiller seemed about to choke on his drink, but Floyd was made of sterner stuff. He looked his old friend straight in the eye, and said calmly: \"TMA-1? What an odd expression. Where did you hear it?\"\n\n\"Never mind,\" retorted the Russian. \"You can't fool me. But if you've run into something you can't handle, I hope you don't leave it until too late before you yell for help.\"\n\nMiller looked meaningfully at his watch.\n\n\"Due to board in five minutes, Dr. Floyd,\" he said. \"I think we'd better get moving.\"\n\nThough he knew that they still had a good twenty minutes, Floyd got up with haste. Too much haste, for he had forgotten the one-sixth of a gravity. He grabbed the table just in time to prevent a takeoff.\n\n\"It was fine meeting you, Dimitri,\" he said, not quite accurately. \"Hope you have a good trip down to Earth - I'll give you a call as soon as I'm back.\"\n\nAs they left the lounge, and checked through the U.S. transit barrier, Floyd remarked: \"Phew - that was close. Thanks for rescuing me.\"\n\n\"You know, Doctor,\" said the Security Officer, \"I hope he isn't right.\"\n\n\"Right about what?\"\n\n\"About us running into something we can't handle.\"\n\n\"That,\" Floyd answered with determination, \"is what I intend to find out.\"\n\nForty-five minutes later, the Aries-lB lunar carrier pulled away from the Station. There was none of the power and fury of a takeoff from Earth - only an almost inaudible, far-off whistling as the low-thrust plasma jets blasted their electrified streams into space. The gentle push lasted for more than fifteen minutes, and the mild acceleration would not have prevented anyone from moving around the cabin. But when it was over, the ship was no longer bound to Earth, as it had been while it still accompanied the Station. It had broken the bonds of gravity and was now a free and independent planet, circling the sun in an orbit of its own.\n\nThe cabin Floyd now had all to himself had been designed for thirty passengers. It was strange, and rather lonely, to see all the empty seats around him, and to have the undivided attention of the steward and stewardess - not to mention pilot, copilot, and two engineers. He doubted that any man in history had ever received such exclusive service, and it was most unlikely that anyone would do so in the future. He recalled the cynical remark of one of the less reputable pontiffs: \"Now that we have the papacy, let us enjoy it.\" Well, he would enjoy this tip, and the euphoria of weightlessness. With the loss of gravity he had - at least for a while - shed most of his cares. Someone had once said that you could be terrified in space, but you could not be worried there. It was perfectly true.\n\nThe stewards, it appeared, were determined to make him eat for the whole twenty-five hours of the trip, and he was continually fending off unwanted meals. Eating in zero gravity was no real problem, contrary to the dark forebodings of the early astronauts. He sat at an ordinary table, to which the plates were clipped, as aboard ship in a rough sea. All the courses had some element of stickiness, so that they would not take off and go wandering round the cabin. Thus a chop would be glued to the plate by a thick sauce, and a salad kept under control by an adhesive dressing. With a little skill and care there were few items that could not be tackled safely; the only things banned were hot soups and excessively crumbly pastries. Drinks of course, were a different matter; all liquids simply had to be kept in plastic squeeze tubes.\n\nA whole generation of research by heroic but unsung volunteers had gone into the design of the washroom, and it was now considered to be more or less foolproof. Floyd investigated it soon after free fall had begun. He found himself in a little cubicle with all the fittings of an ordinary airline toilet, but illuminated with a red light that was very harsh and unpleasant to the eye. A notice printed in prominent letters announced: MOST IMPORTANT! FOR YOUR OWN COMFORT, PLEASE READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY!\n\nFloyd sat down (one still tended to do so, even when weightless) and read the notice several times. When he was sure that there had been no modifications since his last trip, he pressed the START button.\n\nClose at hand, an electric motor began to whirr, and Floyd felt himself moving. As the notice advised him to do, he closed his eyes and waited. After a minute, a bell chimed softly and he looked around.\n\nThe light had now changed to a soothing pinkish-white; but, more important, he was under gravity again.", "loss": true } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "user starts, u write ~fifteen sentences more. copy 2001_ a space odyssey's style. heads up: might have existing chars/lore", "loss": null }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "[ U.S. Astronautical Engineering Corps ]\n\n[ 1994 ]\n\nIt then dived into a cutting which took it quickly below ground level. A massive door opened ahead, then closed behind them. This happened again, and yet a third time. When the last door had closed, there was a great roaring of air, and they were back in atmosphere once more, in the shirt-sleeve environment of the Base.\n\nAfter a short walk through a tunnel packed with pipes and cables, and echoing hollowly with rhythmic thumpings and throbbings, they arrived in executive territory, and Floyd found himself back in the familiar environment of typewriters, office computers, girl assistants, wall charts, and ringing telephones. As they paused outside the door labeled ADMINISTRATOR, Halvorsen said diplomatically: \"Dr. Floyd and I will be along to the briefing room in a couple of minutes.\"\n\nThe others nodded, made agreeable sounds, and drifted off down the corridor. But before Halvorsen could usher Floyd into his office, there was an interruption, The door opened, and a small figure hurled itself at the Administrator.\n\n\"Daddy! You've been Topside! And you promised to take me!\"\n\n\"Now, Diana,\" said Halvorsen, with exasperated tenderness, \"I only said I'd take you if I could. But I've been very busy meeting Dr. Floyd. Shake hands with him - he's just come from Earth.\"\n\nThe little girl - Floyd judged that she was about eight - extended a limp hand. Her face was vaguely familiar, and Floyd suddenly became aware that the Administrator was looking at him with a quizzical smile. With a shock of recollection, he understood why.", "loss": true }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't believe it!\" he exclaimed. \"When I was here last she was just a baby!\"\n\n\"She had her fourth birthday last week,\" Halvorsen answered proudly. \"Children grow fast in this low gravity. But they don't age so quickly - they'll live longer than we do.\"\n\nFloyd stared in fascination at the self-assured little lady, noting the graceful carriage and the unusually delicate bone structure. \"It's nice to meet you again, Diana,\" he said. Then something - perhaps sheer curiosity, perhaps politeness - impelled him to add: \"Would you like to go to Earth?\"\n\nHer eyes widened with astonishment; then she shook her head.\n\n\"It's a nasty place; you hurt yourself when you fall down. Besides, there are too many people,\"\n\nSo here, Floyd told himself, is the first generation of the Spaceborn; there would be more of them in the years to come. Though there was sadness in this thought, there was also a great hope. When Earth was tamed and tranquil, and perhaps a little tired, there would still be scope for those who loved freedom, for the tough pioneers, the restless adventurers. But their tools would not be ax and gun and canoe and wagon; they would be nuclear power plant and plasma drive and hydroponic farm. The time was fast approaching when Earth, like all mothers, must say farewell to her children.\n\nWith a mixture of threats and promises, Halvorsen managed to evict his determined offspring and led Floyd into the office.", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "[Author's note: ⚠️ Required: Use 'getting' exactly 2 times]", "loss": false }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Administrator's suite was only about fifteen feet square, but it managed to contain all the fittings and status symbols of the typical $50,000 a year head of a department. Signed photographs of important politicians - including the President of the United States and the Secretary General of the United Nations - adorned one wall, while signed photos of celebrated astronauts covered most of another.\n\nFloyd sank into a comfortable leather chair and was given a glass of \"sherry,\" courtesy of the lunar biochemical labs. \"How's it going, Ralph?\" Floyd asked, sipping the drink with caution, then with approval.\n\n\"Not too bad,\" Halvorsen replied. \"However, there is something you'd better know about, before you go in there.\"\n\n\"What is it?'\n\n\"Well, I suppose you could describe it as a morale problem,\" Halvorsen sighed.\n\n\"Oh?\"\n\n\"It isn't serious yet, but it's getting there fast.\" \"The news blackout,\" Floyd said flatly. \"Right,\" Halvorsen replied. \"My people are getting very steamed up about it. After all, most of them have families back on Earth; they probably believe they're all dead of moon-plague.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry about that,\" said Floyd, \"but no one could think of a better cover story, and so far it's worked. By the way - I met Moisevitch at the Space Station, and even he bought it.\"\n\n\"Well, that should make Security happy.\"", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Not too happy - he'd heard of TMA-1; rumors are beginning to leak out. But we just can't issue any statement, until we know what the damn thing is and whether our Chinese friends are behind it.\"", "loss": true }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 3 sentences.", "loss": null }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Dr. Michaels thinks he has the answer to that. He's dying to tell you.\"\n\nFloyd drained his glass. \"And I'm dying to hear him. Let's go.\"", "loss": true } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Job: User writes start, you add ~21 sentences sentences. Style: 2001_ a space odyssey. Note: May include established characters", "loss": null }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please.", "loss": null }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The briefing took place in a large rectangular chamber that could hold a hundred people with ease. It was equipped with the latest optical and electronic displays and would have looked like a model conference room but for the numerous posters, pinups, notices, and amateur paintings which indicated that it was also the center of the local cultural life. Floyd was particularly struck by a collection of signs, obviously assembled with loving care, which carried such messages as PLEASE KEEP OFF THE GRASS... NO PARKING ON EVEN DAYS... DEFENSE DE FUMER... TO THE BEACH... CATTLE CROSSING... SOFT SHOULDERS and DO NOT FEED THE ANIMALS. If these were genuine - as they certainly appeared to be - their transportation from Earth had cost a small fortune. There was a touching defiance about them; on this hostile world, men could still joke about the things they had been forced to leave behind - and which their children would never miss.\n\nA crowd of forty or fifty people was waiting for Floyd, and everyone rose politely as he entered behind the Administrator. As he nodded at several familiar faces, Floyd whispered to Halvorsen \"I'd like to say a few words before the briefing.\"\n\nFloyd sat down in the front row, while the Administrator ascended the rostrum and looked round his audience.\n\n\"Ladies and gentlemen,\" Halvorsen began, \"I needn't tell you that this is a very important occasion. We are delighted to have Dr. Heywood Floyd with us. We all know him by reputation, and many of us are acquainted with him personally. He has just completed a special flight from Earth to be here, and before the briefing he has a few words for us. Dr. Floyd,\" Floyd walked to the rostrum amid a sprinkling of polite applause, surveyed the audience with a smile, and said: \"Thank you - I only want to say this. The President has asked me to convey his appreciation of your - outstanding work, which we hope the world will soon be able to recognize. I'm quite aware,\" he continued carefully, \"that some of you - perhaps most of you - are anxious that the present veil of secrecy be withdrawn; you would not be scientists if you thought otherwise.\" He caught a glimpse of Dr. Michaels, whose face was creased in a slight frown which brought out a long scar down his right cheek - presumably the aftermath of some accident in space. The geologist, he was well aware, had been protesting vigorously against what he called this \"cops and robbers nonsense.\"\n\n\"But I would remind you,\" Floyd continued, \"that this is a quite extraordinary situation. We must be absolutely sure of our own facts; if we make errors now, there may be no second chance - so please be patient a little longer. Those are also the wishes of the President.\n\n\"That's all I have to say. Now I'm ready for your report.\"\n\nHe walked back to his seat; the Administrator said, 'Thank you very much, Dr. Floyd,\" and nodded, rather brusquely, to his Chief Scientist. On cue, Dr. Michaels walked up to the rostrum, and-the lights faded out.\n\nA photograph of the Moon flashed onto the screen. At the very center of the disk was a brilliant white crater ring, from which a striking pattern of rays fanned out. It looked exactly as if someone had hurled a bag of flour at the face of the Moon, and it had spattered out in all directions.\n\n\"This is Tycho,\" said Michaels, pointing to the central crater.", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"On this vertical photograph Tycho is even more conspicuous than when seen from Earth; then it's rather near the edge of the Moon. But observed from this viewpoint - looking straight down from a thousand miles up - you'll see how it dominates an entire hemisphere.\"", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "He let Floyd absorb this unfamiliar view of a familiar object, then continued: \"During the past year we have been conducting a magnetic survey of the region, from a low-level satellite. It was completed only last month, and this is the result... the map that started all the trouble.\"", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "Another picture flashed on the screen; it looked like a contour map, though it showed magnetic intensity, not heights above sea level.", "loss": true }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For the most part, the lines were roughly parallel and spaced well apart; but in one corner of the map they became suddenly packed together, to form a series of concentric circles - like a drawing of a knothole in a piece of wood.\n\nEven to an untrained eye, it was obvious that something peculiar had happened to the Moon's magnetic field in this region; and in large letters across the bottom of the map were the words: TYCHO MAGNETIC ANOMALY-ONE (TMA-l). Stamped on the top right was CLASSIFIED.\n\n\"At first we thought it might be an outcrop of magnetic rock, but all the geological evidence was against it. And not even a big nickel-iron meteorite could produce a field as intense as this; so we decided to have a look.\n\n\"The first party discovered nothing - just the usual level terrain, buried beneath a very thin layer of moon-dust. They sank a drill in the exact center of the magnetic field to get a core sample for study. Twenty feet down, the drill stopped. So the survey party started to dig - not an easy job in spacesuits, as I can assure you.\n\n\"What they found brought them back to Base in a hurry. We sent out a bigger team, with better equipment. They excavated for two weeks - with the result you know.\"\n\nThe darkened assembly room became suddenly hushed and expectant as the picture on the screen changed. Though everyone had seen it many times, there was not a person who failed to crane forward as if hoping to find new details. On Earth and Moon, less than a hundred people had so far been allowed to set eyes on this photograph.\n\nIt showed a man in a bright red and yellow spacesuit standing at the bottom of an excavation and supporting a surveyor's rod marked off in tenths of a meter. It was obviously a night shot, and might have been taken anywhere on the Moon or Mars. But until now no planet had ever produced a scene like this.\n\nThe object before which the spacesuited man was posing was a vertical slab of jet-black material, about ten feet high and five feet wide: it reminded Floyd, somewhat ominously, of a giant tombstone. Perfectly sharp-edged and symmetrical, it was so black it seemed to have swallowed up the light falling upon it; there was no surface detail at all. It was impossible to tell whether it was made of stone or metal or plastic - or some material altogether unknown to man.\n\n\"TMA-1,\" Dr. Michaels declared, almost reverently. \"It looks brand new, doesn't it? I can hardly blame those who thought it was just a few years old, and tried to connect it with the third Chinese Expedition, back in '98.", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "But I never believed that - and now we've been able to date it positively, from local geological evidence.", "loss": true }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 4 sentences.", "loss": null }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"My colleagues and I, Dr. Floyd, will stake our reputations on this. TMA-l has nothing to do with the Chinese. Indeed, it has nothing to do with the human race - for when it was buried, there were no humans.\n\n\"You see, it is approximately three million years old. What you are now looking at is the first evidence of intelligent life beyond the Earth.\"", "loss": null } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a bit then you need to write around fifty sentences continuing directly from the user's text. Characters and story elements may appear without introduction - roll with them naturally. Try to mimic the style of 2001_ a space odyssey.", "loss": null }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "MACRO-CRATER PROVINCE: Extends S from near center of visible face of moon, E of Central Crater Province. Densely pocked with impact craters; many large, and including the largest on moon; in N some craters fractured from impact forming Mare Imbrium. Rough surfaces almost everywhere, except for some crater bottoms. Most surfaces in slopes, mostly 10° to 12°; some crater bottoms nearly level.\n\nLANDING AND MOVEMENT: landing generally difficult because of rough, sloping surfaces; less difficult in some level crater bottoms. Movement possible almost everywhere but route selection required; less difficult on some level crater bottoms.\n\nCONSTRUCTION: Generally moderately difficult because of slope, and numerous large blocks in loose material; excavation of lava difficult in some crater bottoms.\n\nTYCHO: Post-Maria crater, 54 miles diameter, rim 7,900 feet above surroundings; bottom 12,000 feet deep; has the most prominent ray system on the moon, some rays extending more than 500 miles.\n\n(Extract from \"Engineer Special Study of the Surface of the Moon,\" Office, Chief of Engineers, Department of the Army. U.S. Geological Survey, Washington, 1961.)\n\nThe mobile lab now rolling across the crater plain at fifty miles an hour looked rather like an outsized trailer mounted on eight flex-wheels. But it was very much more than this; it was a self-contained base in which twenty men could live and work for several weeks. Indeed, it was virtually a landgoing spaceship - and in an emergency it could even fly. If it came to a crevasse or canyon which was too large to detour, and too steep to enter, it could hop across the obstacle on its four underjets.\n\nAs he peered out of the window, Floyd could see stretching ahead of him a well-defined trail, where dozens of vehicles had left a hard-packed band in the friable surface of the Moon. At regular intervals along the track were tall, slender rods, each carrying a flashing light. No one could possibly get lost on the 200-mile journey from Clavius Base to TMA-1, even though it was still night and the sun would not rise for several hours.\n\nThe stars overhead were only a little brighter, or more numerous, than on a clear night from the high plateaus of New Mexico or Colorado. But there were two things in that coal-black sky that destroyed any illusion of Earth.\n\nThe first was Earth itself - a blazing beacon hanging above the northern horizon. The light pouring down from that giant half-globe was dozens of times more brilliant than the full moon, and it covered all this land with a cold, blue-green phosphorescence.\n\nThe second celestial apparition was a faintt, pearly cone of light slanting up the eastern sky. It became brighter and brighter toward the horizon, hinting of great fires just concealed below the edge of the Moon.\n\nHere was a pale glory that no man had ever seen from Earth, save during the few moments of a total eclipse. It was the corona, harbinger of the lunar dawn, giving notice that before long the sun would smite this sleeping land.\n\nAs he sat with Halvorsen and Michaels in the forward observation lounge, immediately beneath the driver's position, Floyd found his thoughts turning again and again to the three-million-year-wide gulf that had just opened up before him. Like all scientifically literate men, he was used to considering far longer periods of time - but they had concerned only the movements of stars and the slow cycles of the inanimate universe. Mind or intelligence had not been involved; those eons were empty of all that touched the emotions.\n\nThree million years! The infinitely crowded panorama of written history, with its empires and its kings, its triumphs and its tragedies, covered barely one thousandth of this appalling span of time. Not only Man himself, but most of the animals now alive on Earth, did not even exist when this black enigma was so carefully buried here, in the most brilliant and most spectacular of all the craters of the Moon.\n\nThat it had been buried, and quite deliberately, Dr. Michaels was absolutely sure. \"At first,\" he explained, \"I rather hoped it might mark the site of some underground structure, but our latest excavations have eliminated that. It's sitting on a wide platform of the same black material, with undisturbed rock beneath it. The - creatures - who designed it wanted to make sure it stayed put, barring major moonquakes. They were building for eternity.\"\n\nThere was triumph, and yet sadness, in Michaels' voice, and Floyd could share both emotions. At last, one of man's oldest questions had been answered; here was the proof, beyond all shadow of doubt, that his was not the only intelligence that the universe had brought forth. But with that knowledge there came again an aching awareness of the immensity of Time. Whatever had passed this way had missed mankind by a hundred thousand generations. Perhaps, Floyd told himself, it was just as well. And yet - what we might have learned from creatures who could cross space, while our ancestors were still living in trees!\n\nA few hundred yards ahead, a signpost was coming up over the Moon's strangely close horizon. At its base was a tent-shaped structure covered with shining silver foil, obviously for protection against the fierce heat of day. As the bus rolled by, Floyd was able to read in the brilliant earthlight:\n\nEMERGENCY DEPOT No. 3\n\n20 Kilos Lox\n\n10 Kilos Water\n\n20 Foodpaks Mk 4\n\n1 Toolkit Type B\n\n1 Suit Repair Outfit\n\n! TELEPHONE !\n\n\"Have you thought of that?\" asked Floyd, pointing out of the window.", "loss": true }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Suppose the thing's a supply cache, left behind by an expedition that never returned?\"\n\n\"It's a possibility,\" admitted Michaels. \"That magnetic field certainly labeled its position, so that it could be easily found. But it's rather small - it couldn't hold much in the way of supplies.\"\n\n\"Why not?\" interjected Halvorsen. \"Who knows bow big they were? Perhaps they were only six inches tall, which would make the thing twenty or thirty stories high.\"\n\nMichaels shook his head. \"Out of the question,\" he protested. \"You can't have very small, intelligent creatures; you need a minimum brain size.\"\n\nMichaels and Halvorsen, Floyd had noticed, usually took opposing viewpoints, yet there appeared to be little personal hostility or friction between them. They seemed to respect each other, and simply agreed to disagree.\n\nThere was certainly little agreement anywhere about the nature of TMA-1 - or the Tycho Monolith, as some preferred to call it, retaining part of the abbreviation.\n\nIn the six hours since he had landed on the Moon, Floyd had heard a dozen theories, but had committed himself to none. Shrine, survey marker, tomb, geophysical instrument - these were perhaps the favorite suggestions, and some of the protagonists grew very heated in their defense. A good many bets had-already been placed, and a lot of money would change hands when the truth was finally known - if, indeed, it ever was. So far, the hard black material of the slab had resisted all the rather mild attempts that Michaels and his colleagues had made to obtain samples. They had no doubt that a laser beam would cut into it - for, surely, nothing could resist that frightful concentration of energy - but the decision to employ such violent measures would be left to Floyd. He had already decided that X rays, sonic probes, neutron beams, and all other nondestructive means of investigation would be brought into play before he called up the heavy artillery of the laser. It was the mark of a barbarian to destroy something one could not understand; but perhaps men were barbarians, beside the creatures who had made this thing.\n\nAnd where could they have come from? The Moon itself? No, that was utterly impossible. If there had ever been indigenous life on this barren world, it had been destroyed during the last crater-forming epoch, when most of the lunar surface was white-hot.\n\nEarth? Very unlikely, though perhaps not quite impossible. Any advanced terrestrial civilization - presumably a nonhuman one - back in the Pleistocene Era would have left many other traces of its existence. We would have known all about it, thought Floyd, long before we got to the Moon.\n\nThat left two alternatives - the planets, and the stars.\n\nYet all the evidence was against intelligent life elsewhere in the Solar System - or indeed life of any kind except on Earth and Mars. The inner planets were too hot, the outer ones far too cold, unless one descended into their atmosphere to depths where the pressures amounted to hundreds of tons to the square inch.\n\nSo perhaps these visitors had come from the stars - yet that was even more incredible. As he looked up at the constellations strewn across the ebon lunar sky, Floyd remembered how often his fellow scientists had \"proved\" that interstellar travel was impossible. The journey from Earth to Moon was still fairly impressive, but the very nearest star was a hundred million times more distant... Speculation was a waste of time; he must wait until there was more evidence,\n\n\"Please fasten your seat belts and secure all loose objects,\" said the cabin speaker suddenly. \"Forty degree slope approaching.\"\n\nTwo marker posts with winking lights had appeared on the horizon, and the bus was steering between them.\n\nFloyd had barely adjusted his straps when the vehicle slowly edged itself over the brink of a really terrifying incline, and began to descend a long, rubble-covered slope as steep as the roof of a house. The slanting earth-light, coming from behind them, now gave very little illumination, and the bus's own floodlights had been switched on. Many years ago Floyd had stood on the lip of Vesuvius, staring into the crater; he could easily imagine that he was now driving down into it and the sensation was not a very pleasant one.\n\nThey were descending one of the inner terraces of Tycho, and it leveled out again some thousand feet below. As they crawled down the slope, Michaels pointed out across the great expanse of plain now spread out beneath them.\n\n\"There they are,\" he exclaimed. Floyd nodded; he had already noticed the cluster of red and green lights several miles ahead, and kept his eyes fixed upon it as the bus edged its way delicately down the slope. The big vehicle was obviously under perfect control, but he did not breathe easily until it was once more on an even keel.\n\nNow he could see, glistening like silver bubbles in the earthlight, a group of pressure domes - the temporary shelters housing the workers on the site. Near these was a radio tower, a drilling rig, a group of parked vehicles, and a large pile of broken rock, presumably the material that had been excavated to reveal the monolith. This tiny camp in the wilderness looked very lonely, very vulnerable to the forces of nature ranged silently around it. There was no sign of life, and no visible hint as to why men had come here, so far from home.\n\n\"You can just see the crater,\" said Michaels. \"Over there on the right - about a hundred yards from that radio antenna.\"\n\nSo this is it, thought Floyd, as the bus rolled past the pressure domes, and came to the lip of the crater.\n\nHis pulse quickened as he craned forward for a better view.", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "The vehicle began to creep cautiously down a ramp of hard-packed rock, into the interior of the crater.", "loss": true }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 16 sentences.", "loss": null }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And there, exactly as he had seen it in the photographs, was TMA-1.\n\nFloyd stared, blinked, shook his head, and stared again. Even in the brilliant earthlight, it was hard to see the object clearly; his first impression was of a flat rectangle that might have been cut out of carbon paper; it seemed to have no thickness at all. Of course, this was an optical illusion; though he was looking at a solid body, it reflected so little light that he could see it only in silhouette.\n\nThe passengers were utterly silent as the bus descended into the crater. There was awe, and there was also incredulity - sheer disbelief that the dead Moon, of all worlds, could have sprung this fantastic surprise.\n\nThe bus came to a halt within twenty feet of the slab and broadside on so that all the passengers could examine it. Yet, beyond the geometrically perfect shape of the thing, there was little to see. Nowhere were there any marks, or any abatement of its ultimate, ebon blackness. It was the very crystallization of night, and for one moment Floyd wondered if it could indeed be some extraordinary natural formation, born of the fires and pressures attending the creation of the Moon. But that remote possibility, he knew, had already been examined and dismissed.\n\nAt some signal, floodlights around the lip of the crater were switched on, and the bright earthlight was obliterated by a far more brilliant glare. In the lunar vacuum the beams were, of course, completely invisible; they formed overlapping ellipses of blinding white, centered on the monolith. And where they touched it, its ebon surface seemed to swallow them.\n\nPandora's box, thought Floyd, with a sudden sense of foreboding - waiting to be opened by inquisitive Man.\n\nAnd what will he find inside?", "loss": true } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "make story longer like 2001_ a space odyssey would. heads up: might have existing chars/lore", "loss": null }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please.", "loss": null }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The main pressure dome at the TMA-1 site was only twenty feet across, and its interior was uncomfortably crowded. The bus, coupled to it through one of the two airlocks, gave some much-appreciated extra living room.\n\nInside this hemispherical, double-walled balloon lived, worked, and slept the six scientists and technicians now permanently attached to the project. It also contained most of their equipment and instruments, all the stores that could not be left in the vacuum outside, cooking, washing, and toilet facilities, geological samples and a small TV screen through which the site could be kept under continuous surveillance.\n\nFloyd was not surprised when Halvorsen elected to remain in the dome; he stated his views with admirable frankness.\n\n\"I regard spacesuits as a necessary evil,\" said the Administrator, \"I wear one four times a year, for my quarterly checkout tests. If you don't mind, I'll sit here and watch over the TV.\"\n\nSome of this prejudice was now unjustified, for the latest models were infinitely more comfortable than the clumsy suits of armor worn by the first lunar explorers. They could be put on in less than a minute, even without help, and were quite automatic. The Mk V into which Floyd was now carefully sealed would protect him from the worst that the Moon could do, either by day or by night.\n\nAccompanied by Dr. Michaels, he walked into the small airlock. As the throbbing of the pumps died away, and his suit stiffened almost imperceptibly around him, he felt himself enclosed in the silence of vacuum.\n\nThat silence was broken by the welcome sound of his suit radio.\n\n\"Pressure O.K., Dr. Floyd? Are you breathing normally?\"\n\n\"Yes - I'm fine.\"\n\nHis companion carefully checked the dials and gauges on the outside of Floyd's suit. Then he said:\n\n\"O.K.-let's go.\"\n\nThe outer door opened, and the dusty moonscape lay before them, glimmering in the earthlight.\n\nWith a cautious, waddling movement, Floyd followed Michaels through the lock. It was not hard to walk; indeed, in a paradoxical way the suit made him feel more at home than at any time since reaching the Moon. Its extra weight, and the slight resistance it imposed on his motion, gave some of the illusion of the lost terrestrial gravity.\n\nThe scene had changed since the party had arrived barely an hour ago. Though the stars, and the half-earth, were still as bright as ever, the fourteen-day lunar night had almost ended.", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "The glow of the corona was like a false moonrise along the eastern sky - and then, without warning, the tip of the radio mast a hundred feet above Floyd's head suddenly seemed to burst into flame, as it caught the first rays of the hidden sun.", "loss": true }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They waited while the project supervisor and two of his assistants emerged from the airlock, then walked slowly toward the crater. By the time they had reached it, a thin bow of unbearable incandescence had thrust itself above the eastern horizon. Though it would take more than an hour for the sun to clear the edge of the slowly turning moon, the stars were already banished. The crater was still in shadow, but the floodlights mounted around its rim lit the interior brilliantly. As Floyd walked slowly down the ramp toward the black rectangle, he felt a sense not only of awe but of helplessness. Here, at the very portals of Earth, man was already face to face with a mystery that might never be solved. Three million years ago, something had passed this way, had left this unknown and perhaps unknowable symbol of its-purpose, and had returned to the planets - or to the stars.\n\nFloyd's suit radio interrupted his reverie. \"Project supervisor speaking. If you'd all line up on this side, we'd like to take a few photos. Dr. Floyd, will you stand in the middle - Dr. Michaels - thank you. No one except Floyd seemed to think that there was anything funny about this. In all honesty, he had to admit that he was glad someone had brought a camera; here was a photo that would undoubtedly be historic, and he wanted copies for himself. He hoped that his face would be clearly visible through the helmet of the suit.\n\n\"Thanks, gentlemen,\" said the photographer, after they had posed somewhat self-consciously in front of the monolith, and he had made a dozen exposures.\n\n\"We'll ask the Base Photo Section to send you copies.\" Then Floyd turned his full attention to the ebon slab - walking slowly around it, examining it from every angle, trying to imprint its strangeness upon his mind.\n\nHe did not expect to find anything, for he knew that every square inch had already been gone over with microscopic care.\n\nNow the sluggish sun had lifted itself above the edge of the crater, and its rays were pouring almost broadside upon the eastern face of the block. Yet it seemed to absorb every particle of light as if it had never been.\n\nFloyd decided to try a simple experiment; he stood between the monolith and the sun, and looked for his own shadow on the smooth black sheet. There was no trace of it. At least ten kilowatts of raw heat must be falling on the slab; if there was anything inside, it must be rapidly cooking.", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "How strange, Floyd thought, to stand here while - this thing - is seeing daylight for the first time since the Ice Ages began on Earth.", "loss": true }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 14 sentences.", "loss": null }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He wondered again about its black color; that was ideal, of course, for absorbing solar energy. But he dismissed the thought at once; for who would be crazy enough to bury a sunpowered device twenty feet underground?\n\nHe looked up at the Earth, beginning to wane in the morning sky. Only a handful of the six billion people there knew of this discovery; how would the world react to the news when it was finally released? The political and social implications were immense; every person of real intelligence - everyone who looked an inch beyond his nose - would find his life, his values, his philosophy, subtly changed. Even if nothing whatsoever was discovered about TMA-1, and it remained an eternal mystery, Man would know that he was not unique in the universe. Though he had missed them by millions of years, those who had once stood here might yet return: and if not, there might well be others. All futures must now contain this possibility.\n\nFloyd was still musing over these thoughts when his helmet speaker suddenly emitted a piercing electronic shriek, like a hideously overloaded and distorted time signal. Involuntarily, he tried to block his ears with his spacesuited hands; then he recovered and groped frantically for the gain control of his receiver. While he was still fumbling four more of the shrieks blasted out of the ether; then there was a merciful silence.\n\nAll around the crater, figures were standing in attitudes of paralyzed astonishment. So it's nothing wrong with my gear, Floyd told himself; everyone heard those piercing electronic screams.\n\nAfter three million years of darkness, TMA-1 had greeted the lunar dawn.", "loss": null } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "yo can u write like 2001_ a space odyssey using my stuff as a starting point? btw might drop u in mid-story with random chars", "loss": null }, { "from": "human", "value": "But now Texas was invisible, and even the United States was hard to see.", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "Though the low-thrust plasma drive had long since been closed down, Discovery was still coasting with her slender arrowlike body pointed away from Earth, and all her high-powered optical gear was oriented toward the outer planets, where her destiny lay.", "loss": true }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was one telescope, however, that was permanently aimed at Earth. It was mounted like a gunsight on the rim of the ship's long-range antenna, and checked that the great parabolic bowl was rigidly locked upon its distant target. While Earth remained centered in the crosswires, the vital communication link was intact, and messages could come and go along the invisible beam that lengthened more than two million miles with every day that passed.\n\nAt least once in every watch period Bowman would lock homeward through the antenna-alignment telescope. As Earth was now far back toward the sun, its darkened hemisphere faced Discovery, and on the central display screen the planet appeared as a dazzling silver crescent, like another Venus.\n\nIt was rare that any geographical features could be identified in that ever-shrinking arc of light, for cloud and haze concealed them, but even the darkened portion of the disk was endlessly fascinating. It was sprinkled with shining cities; sometimes they burned with a steady light, sometimes they twinkled like fireflies as atmospheric tremors passed over them.\n\nThere were also periods when, as the Moon swung back and forth in its orbit, it shone down like a great lamp upon the darkened seas and continents of Earth.", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then, with a thrill of recognition, Bowman could often glimpse familiar coastlines, shining in that spectral lunar light.", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "And sometimes, when the Pacific was calm, he could even see the moonglow shimmering across its face; and he would remember nights beneath the palm trees of tropical lagoons.", "loss": true }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yet he had no regrets for these lost beauties. He had enjoyed them all, in his thirty-five years of life; and he was determined to enjoy them again, when he returned rich and famous. Meanwhile, distance made them all the more precious.\n\nThe sixth member of the crew cared for none of these things, for it was not human. It was the highly advanced HAL 9000 computer, the brain and nervous system of the ship.\n\nHal (for Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer, no less) was a masterwork of the third computer breakthrough. These seemed to occur at intervals of twenty years, and the thought that another one was now imminent already worried a great many people.\n\nThe first had been in the 1940s, when the long-obsolete vacuum tube had made possible such clumsy, high-speed morons as ENIAC and its successors.", "loss": true }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then, in the 1960s, solid-state microelectronics had been perfected. With its advent, it was clear that artificial intelligences at least as powerful as Man's need be no larger than office desks - if one only knew how to construct them.\n\nProbably no one would ever know this; it did not matter. In the 1980s, Minsky and Good had shown how neural networks could be generated automatically - self replicated - in accordance with any arbitrary learning program. Artificial brains could be grown by a process strikingly analogous to the development of a human brain. In any given case, the precise details would never be known, and even if they were, they would be millions of times too complex for human understanding. Whatever way it worked, the final result was a machine intelligence that could reproduce - some philosophers still preferred to use the word \"mimic\" - most of the activities of the human brain - and with far greater speed and reliability. It was extremely expensive, and only a few units of the HAL9000 series had yet been built; but the old jest that it would always be easier to make organic brains by unskilled labor was beginning to sound a little hollow.", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hal had been trained for this mission as thoroughly as his human colleagues - and at many times their rate of input, for in addition to his intrinsic speed, he never slept.", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "His prime task was to monitor the life-support systems, continually checking oxygen pressure, temperature, hull leakage, radiation, and all the other interlocking factors upon which the lives of the fragile human cargo depended.", "loss": true }, { "from": "system", "value": "Required word frequency: 'typewriter' (2x)", "loss": null }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He could carry out the intricate navigational corrections, and execute the necessary flight maneuvers when it was time to change course. And he could watch over the hibernators, making any necessary adjustments to their environment and doling out the minute quantities of intravenous fluids that kept them alive.\n\nThe first generations of computers had received their inputs through glorified typewriter keyboards, and had replied through high-speed printers and visual displays. Hal could do this when necessary, but most of his communication with his shipmates was by means of the spoken word. Poole and Bowman could talk to Hal as if he were a human being and he would reply in the perfect idiomatic English he had learned during the fleeting weeks of his electronic childhood.\n\nWhether Hal could actually think was a question which had been settled by the British mathematician Alan Turing back in the 1940s. Turing had pointed out that, if one could carry out a prolonged conversation with a machine - whether by typewriter or microphone was immaterial - without being able to distinguish between its replies and those that a man might give, then the machine was thinking, by any sensible definition of the word. Hal could pass the Turing test with ease.", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "The time might even come when Hal would take command of the ship.", "loss": true }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences.", "loss": null }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In an emergency, if no one answered his signals, he would attempt to wake the sleeping members of the crew, by electrical and chemical stimulation. If they did not respond, he would radio Earth for further orders.\n\nAnd then, if there was no reply from Earth, he would take what measures he deemed necessary to safeguard the ship and to continue the mission - whose real purpose he alone knew, and which his human colleagues could never have guessed.\n\nPoole and Bowman had often humorously referred to themselves as caretakers or janitors aboard a ship that could really run itself. They would have been astonished, and more than a little indignant, to discover how much truth that jest contained.", "loss": true } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Produce twenty-six sentences as a continuation. Note: Story may reference established characters/events.", "loss": null }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The day-by-day running of the ship had been planned with great care, and - theoretically at least - Bowman and Poole knew what they would be doing at every moment of the twenty-four hours. They operated on a twelve-hours-on, twelve-hours-off basis, taking charge alternately, and never being both asleep at the same time. The officer on duty remained on the Control Deck, while his deputy saw to the general housekeeping, inspected the ship, coped with the odd jobs that constantly arose, or relaxed in his cubicle.\n\nAlthough Bowman was nominal Captain on this phase of the mission, no outside observer could have deduced the fact. He and Poole switched roles, rank, and responsibilities completely every twelve hours. This kept them both at peak training, minimized the chances of friction, and helped toward the goal of 100 percent redundancy.\n\nBowman's day began at 0600, ship's time - the Universal Ephemeris Time of the astronomers. If he was late, Hal had a variety of beeps and chimes to remind him of his duty, but they had never been used. As a test, Poole had once switched off the alarm; Bowman had still risen automatically at the right time.\n\nHis first official act of the day would be to advance the Master Hibernation Timer twelve hours. If this operation was missed twice in a row, Hal would assume that both he and Poole had been incapacitated, and would take the necessary emergency action.\n\nBowman would attend to his toilet, and do his isometric exercises, before settling down to breakfast and the morning's radio-fax edition of the World Times. On Earth, he never read the paper as carefully as he did now; even the smallest items of society gossip, the most fleeting political rumors, seemed of absorbing interest as it flashed across the screen.\n\nAt 0700 he would officially relieve Poole on the Control Deck, bringing him a squeeze-tube of coffee from the kitchen. If - as was usually the case - there was nothing to report and no action to be taken, he would settle down to check all the instrument readings, and would run through a series of tests designed to spot possible malfunctions. By 1000 this would be finished, and he would start on a study period.\n\nBowman had been a student for more than half his life; he would continue to be one until he retired. Thanks to the twentieth-century revolution in training and information-handling techniques, he already possessed the equivalent of two or three college educations - and, what was more, he could remember 90 percent of what he had learned.\n\nFifty years ago, he would have been considered a specialist in applied astronomy, cybernetics, and space propulsion systems - yet he was prone to deny, with genuine indignation, that he was a specialist at all. Bowman had never found it possible to focus his interest exclusively on any subject; despite the dark warnings of his instructors, he had insisted on taking his Master's degree in General Astronautics - a course with a vague and woolly syllabus, designed for those whose IQs were in the low 130s and who would never reach the top ranks of their profession.\n\nHis decision had been right; that very refusal to specialize had made him uniquely qualified for his present task. In much the same way Frank Poole - who sometimes disparagingly called himself \"General Practitioner in space biology\" - had been an ideal choice as his deputy. The two of them, with, if necessary, help from Hal's vast stores of information, could cope with any problems likely to arise during the voyage - as long as they kept their minds alert and receptive, and continually reengraved old patterns of memory.\n\nSo for two hours, from 1000 to 1200, Bowman would engage in a dialogue with an electronic tutor, checking his general knowledge or absorbing material specific to this mission. He would prowl endlessly over ship's plans, circuit diagrams, and voyage profiles, or would try to assimilate all that was known about Jupiter, Saturn, and their far-ranging families of moons.\n\nAt midday, he would retire to the galley and leave the ship to Hal while he prepared his lunch.", "loss": true }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even here, he was still fully in touch with events, for the tiny lounge-cum-dining room contained a duplicate of the Situation Display Panel, and Hal could call him at a moment's notice. Poole would join him for this meal, before retiring for his six-hour sleep period, and usually they would watch one of the regular TV programs beamed to them from Earth.\n\nTheir menus had been planned with as much care as any part of the mission, The food, most of it freeze-dried, was uniformly excellent, and had been chosen for the minimum of trouble; Packets had merely to be opened and popped into the tiny auto-galley, which beeped for attention when the job was done. They could enjoy what tasted like - and, equally important, looked like - orange juice, eggs (any style), steaks, chops, roasts, fresh vegetables, assorted fruits, ice cream, and even freshly baked bread.\n\nAfter lunch, from 1300 to 1600 Bowman would make a slow and careful tour of the ship - or such part of it as was accessible. Discovery measured almost four hundred feet from end to end, but the little universe occupied by her crew lay entirely inside the forty-foot sphere of the pressure hull.\n\nHere were all the life-support systems, and the Control Deck which was the operational heart of the ship. Below this was a small \"space-garage\" fitted with three airlocks, through which powered capsules, just large enough to hold a man, could sail out into the void if the need arose for extravehicular activity.\n\nThe equatorial region of the pressure sphere - the slice, as it were, from Capricorn to Cancer - enclosed a slowly rotating drum, thirty-five feet in diameter. As it made one revolution every ten seconds, this carrousel or centrifuge produced an artificial gravity equal to that of the Moon. This was enough to prevent the physical atrophy which would result from the complete absence of weight, and it also allowed the routine functions of living to be carried out under normal - or nearly normal - conditions.\n\nThe carrousel therefore contained the kitchen, dining, washing, and toilet facilities. Only here was it safe to prepare and handle hot drinks - quite dangerous in weightless conditions, where one can be badly scalded by floating globules of boiling water. The problem of shaving was also solved; there would be no weightless bristles drifting around to endanger electrical equipment and produce a health hazard.\n\nAround the rim of the carrousel were five tiny cubicles, fitted out by each astronaut according to taste and containing his personal belongings. Only Bowman's and Poole's were now in use, while the future occupants of the other three cabins reposed in their electronic sarcophagi next door.\n\nThe spin of the carrousel could be stopped if necessary; when this happened, its angular momentum had to be stored in a flywheel, and switched back again when rotation was restarted. But normally it was left running at constant speed, for it was easy enough to enter the big, slowly turning drum by going hand-over-hand along a pole through the zero-gee region at its center. Transferring to the moving section was as easy and automatic, after a little experience, as stepping onto a moving escalator.\n\nThe spherical pressure hull formed the head of a flimsy, arrow-shaped structure more than a hundred yards long. Discovery, like all vehicles intended for deep space penetration, was too fragile and unstreamlined ever to enter an atmosphere, or to defy the full gravitational field of any planet. She had been assembled in orbit around the Earth, tested on a translunar maiden flight, and finally checked out in orbit above the Moon.\n\nShe was a creature of pure space - and she looked it. Immediately behind the pressure hull was grouped a cluster of four large liquid hydrogen tanks - and beyond them, forming a long, slender V, were the radiating fins that dissipated the waste heat of the nuclear reactor. Veined with a delicate tracery of pipes for the cooling fluid, they looked like the wings of some vast dragonfly, and from certain angles gave Discovery a fleeting resemblance to an old-time sailing ship,\n\nAt the very end of the V, three hundred feet from the crew-compartment, was the shielded inferno of the reactor, and the complex of focusing electrodes through which emerged the incandescent star-stuff of the plasma drive.", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "This had done its work weeks ago, forcing Discovery out of her parking orbit round the Moon.", "loss": true }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now the reactor was merely ticking over as it generated electrical power for the ship's services, and the great radiating fins, that would glow cherry red when Discovery was accelerating under maximum thrust, were dark and cool.\n\nAlthough it would require an excursion out into space to examine this region of the ship, there were instruments and remote TV cameras which gave a full report on conditions here. Bowman now felt that he knew intimately every square foot of radiator, panels, and every piece of plumbing associated with them.\n\nBy 1600, he would have finished his inspection, and would make a detailed verbal report to Mission Control, talking until the acknowledgment started to come in. Then he would switch off his own transmitter, listen to what Earth had to say, and send back his reply to any queries. At 1800 hours, Poole would awaken, and he would hand over command.\n\nHe would then have six off-duty hours, to use as he pleased. Sometimes he would continue his studies, or listen to music, or look at movies. Much of the time he would wander at will through the ship's inexhaustible electronic library. He had become fascinated by the great explorations of the past - understandably enough, in the circumstances. Sometimes he would cruise with Pytheas out through the Pillars of Hercules, along the coast of a Europe barely emerging from the Stone Age, and venture almost to the chill mists of the Arctic. Or, two thousand years later, he would pursue the Manila galleons with Anson, sail with Cook along the unknown hazards of the Great Barrier Reef, achieve with Magellan the first circumnavigation of the world. And he began to read the Odyssey, which of all books spoke to him most vividly across the gulfs of time.\n\nFor relaxation he could always engage Hal in a large number of semi-mathematical games, including checkers, chess, and polyominoes. If Hal went all out, he could win anyone of them; but that would be bad for morale. So he had been programmed to win only fifty percent of the time, and his human partners pretended not to know this.\n\nThe last hours of Bowman's day were devoted to general cleaning up and odd jobs, followed by dinner at 2000 - again with Poole. Then there would be an hour during which he would make or receive any personal call from Earth.\n\nLike all his colleagues, Bowman was unmarried; it was not fair to send family men on a mission of such duration, though numerous ladies had promised to wait until the expedition returned, no one had really believed this. At first, both Poole and Bowman had been making rather intimate personal calls once a week, though the knowledge that many ears must be listening at the Earth end of the circuit tended to inhibit them. Yet already, though the voyage was scarcely started, the warmth and frequency of the conversations with their girls on Earth had begun to diminish. They had expected this; it was one of the penalties of an astronaut's way of life, as it had once been of a mariner's.\n\nIt was true - indeed, notorious - that seamen had compensations at other ports; unfortunately there were no tropical islands full of dusky maids beyond the orbit of Earth. The space medics, of course, had tackled this problem with their usual enthusiasm; the ship's pharmacopoeia provided adequate, though hardly glamorous, substitutes.\n\nJust before he signed off Bowman would make his final report, and check that Hal had transmitted all the instrumentation tapes for the day's run. Then, if he felt like it, he would spend a couple of hours either reading or looking at a movie; and at midnight he would go to sleep - usually without any help from electronarcosis.", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "Poole's program was a mirror image of his own, and the two schedules dovetailed together without friction.", "loss": true }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences.", "loss": null }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Both men were fully occupied, they were too intelligent and well-adjusted to quarrel, and the voyage had settled down to a comfortable, utterly uneventful routine, the passage of time marked only by the changing numbers on the digital clocks.\n\nThe greatest hope of Discovery's little crew was that nothing would mar this peaceful monotony in the weeks and months that lay ahead.", "loss": true } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continue with the same vibes as 2001_ a space odyssey. Story might have ongoing characters/plots - work with what's given", "loss": null }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please.", "loss": null }, { "from": "system", "value": "Make sure to seamlessly include 'Well, Frank, can't think of anything else to say at the moment, except that our thoughts are with you, and we're wishing you the happiest of birthdays.' in your answer", "loss": null }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The familiar strains of \"Happy Birthday,\" hurled across seven hundred million miles of space at the velocity of light, died away among the vision screens and instrumentation of the control deck. The Poole family, grouped rather self-consciously round the birthday cake on Earth, lapsed into a sudden silence.\n\nThen Mr. Poole, Senior, said gruffly: \"Well, Frank, can't think of anything else to say at the moment, except that our thoughts are with you, and we're wishing you the happiest of birthdays.\"\n\n\"Take care, darling,\" Mrs. Poole interjected tearfully. \"God bless you.\"\n\nThere was a chorus of \"good-byes,\" and the vision screen went blank. How strange to think, Poole told himself, that all this had happened more than an hour ago; by now his family would have dispersed again and its members would be miles from home. But in a way that time lag, though it could be frustrating, was also a blessing in disguise. Like every man of his age, Poole took it for granted that he could talk instantly, to anyone on Earth, whenever he pleased. Now that this was no longer true, the psychological impact was profound. He had moved into a new dimension of remoteness, and almost all emotional links had been stretched beyond the yield point.\n\n\"Sorry to interrupt the festivities,\" said Hal, \"but we have a problem.\"\n\n\"What is it?\" Bowman and Poole asked simultaneously.\n\n\"I am having difficulty in maintaining contact with Earth. The trouble is in the AE-35 unit. My Fault Prediction Center reports that it may fail within seventy-two hours.\"\n\n\"We'll take care of it,\" Bowman replied. \"Let's see the optical alignment.\"\n\n\"Here it is, Dave. It's still O.K. at the moment.\"\n\nOn the display screen appeared a perfect half-moon, very brilliant against a background almost free of stars. It was covered with clouds, and showed not one geographical feature that could be recognized. Indeed, at first glance it could be easily mistaken for Venus.\n\nBut not at a second one, for there beside it was the real Moon which Venus did not possess - a quarter the size of Earth, and in exactly the same phase.", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was easy to imagine that the two bodies were mother and child, as many astronomers had believed, before the evidence of the lunar rocks had proved beyond doubt that the Moon had never been part of Earth.", "loss": true }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Poole and Bowman studied the screen in silence for half a minute. This image was coming to them from the long-focus TV camera mounted on the rim of the big radio dish; the cross-wires at its center showed the exact orientation of the antenna. Unless the narrow pencil beam was pointed precisely at Earth, they could neither receive nor transmit. Messages in both directions would miss their target and would shoot, unheard and unseen, out through the Solar System and into the emptiness beyond. If they were ever received, it would not be for centuries - and not by men.\n\n\"Do you know where the trouble is?\" asked Bowman.\n\n\"It's intermittent and I can't localize it. But it appears to be in the AE-35 unit.\"\n\n\"What procedure do you suggest?\"\n\n\"The best thing would be to replace the unit with a spare, so that we can check it over.\"\n\n\"O.K. - let us have the hard copy.\"\n\nThe information flashed on the display screen; simultaneously, a sheet of paper slid out of the slot immediately beneath it. Despite all the electronic read-outs, there were times when good old-fashioned printed material was the most convenient form of record.\n\nBowman studied the diagrams for a moment, then whistled.\n\n\"You might have told us,\" he said. \"This means going outside the ship.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" Hal replied. \"I assumed you knew that the AE-35 unit was on the antenna mounting.\"\n\n\"I probably did, a year ago. But there are eight thousand subsystems aboard. Anyway, it looks a straightforward job. We only have to unlock a panel and put in a new unit.\"\n\n\"That suits me fine,\" said Poole, who was the crew member designated for routine extravehicular activity. \"I could do with a change of scenery. Nothing personal, of course.\"", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Let's see if Mission Control agrees,\" said Bowman.", "loss": true }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He sat still for a few seconds, marshaling his thoughts, then started to dictate a message.\n\n\"Mission Control, this is X-ray-Delta-One. At two-zero-four-five, on-board fault prediction center in our niner-triple-zero computer showed Alpha Echo three five unit as probable failure within seventy-two hours. Request check your telemetry monitoring and suggest you review unit in your ship systems simulator. Also, confirm your approval our plan to go EVA and replace Alpha Echo three five unit prior to failure. Mission Control, this is X-ray-Delta-One, two-one-zero-three transmission concluded.\"\n\nThrough years of practice, Bowman could switch at a moment's notice to this jargon - which someone had once christened \"Technish\" - and back again to normal speech, without clashing his mental gears. Now there was nothing to do but to wait for the confirmation, which would take at least two hours as the signals made the round trip past the orbits of Jupiter and Mars.\n\nIt came while Bowman was trying, without much success, to beat Hal at one of the geometrical pattern games stored in his memory.\n\n\"X-ray-Delta-One, this is Mission Control, acknowledging your two-one-zero-three. We are reviewing telemetric information on our mission simulator and will advise.\n\n\"Roger your plan to go EVA and replace Alpha-Echo three-five unit prior to possible failure. We are working on test procedures for you to apply to faulty unit.\"\n\nThe serious business having been completed, the Mission Controller reverted to normal English.\n\n\"Sorry you fellows are having a bit of trouble, and we don't want to add to your woes. But if it's convenient to you prior to EVA, we have a request from Public Information. Could you do a brief recording for general release, outlining the situation and explaining just what the AE-35 does. Make it as reassuring as you can. We could do it, of course - but it will be much more convincing in your words. Hope this won't interfere too badly with your social life. X-ray-Delta-One, this is Mission Control, two-one-five-five, transmission concluded.\"\n\nBowman could not help smiling at the request. There were times when Earth showed a curious insensitivity and lack of tact. \"Make it reassuring,\" indeed!\n\nWhen Poole joined him at the end of his sleep period, they spent ten minutes composing and polishing the reply. In the early stages of the mission, there had been countless requests from all the news media for interviews, discussions - almost anything that they cared to say. But as the weeks drifted uneventfully past, and the time lag increased from a few minutes to over an hour, interest had gradually slackened. Since the excitement of the Jupiter fly-by, over a month ago, they had made only three or four tapes for general release.\n\n\"Mission Control, this is X-ray-Delta-One. Here is your press statement.\n\n\"Earlier today, a minor technical problem occurred.", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "Our HAL-9001 computer predicted the failure of the AE-35 unit.", "loss": true }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 17 sentences.", "loss": null }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This is a small but vital component of the communication system. It keeps our main antenna aimed at Earth to within a few thousandths of a degree. This accuracy is required, since at our present distance of more than seven hundred million miles, Earth is only a rather faint star, and our very narrow radio beam could easily miss it.\n\n\"The antenna is kept constantly tracking Earth by motors controlled from the central computer. But those motors get their instructions via the AE-35 unit. You might compare it to a nerve center in the body, which translates the brain's instructions to the muscles of a limb. If the nerve fails to pass on the correct signals, the limb becomes useless. In our case, a breakdown of the AE-35 unit could mean that the antenna will start pointing at random. This was a common trouble with the deep-space probes of the last century. They often reached other planets, then failed to send back any information because their antenna couldn't locate Earth.\n\n\"We don't know the nature of the fault yet, but the situation is not at all serious, and there is no need for alarm. We have two back-up AE-35s, each of which has an operational life expectancy of twenty years, so the chance that a second will fail during the course of this mission is' negligible. Also, if we can diagnose the present trouble, we may be able to repair the number one unit.\n\n\"Frank Poole, who is specially qualified for this type of work, will go outside the ship and replace the faulty unit with the back-up. At the same time, he'll take the opportunity of checking the hull and repairing some micropunctures that have been too small to merit a special EVA.\n\n\"Apart from this minor problem, the mission is still going uneventfully and should continue in the same manner.\n\n\"Mission Control, this is X-ray-Delta-One, two-one-zero-four, transmission concluded.\"", "loss": null } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Write twenty-seven sentences sentences in the style of 2001_ a space odyssey spawning from what the user wrote. Note: Characters and worldbuilding may appear mid-story.", "loss": null }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please.", "loss": null }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do you mean to say,\" exclaimed Frank Poole, more surprised than annoyed, \"that I did all that work for nothing?\"\n\n\"Seems like it,\" answered Bowman. \"The unit checks out perfectly. Even under two hundred percent overload, there's no fault prediction indicated.\"\n\nThe two men were standing in the tiny workshop-cum-lab in the carrousel, which was more convenient than the space-pod garage for minor repairs and exanimations. There was no danger, here, of meeting blobs of hot solder drifting down the breeze, or of completely losing small items of equipment that had decided to go into orbit. Such things could - and did - happen in the zero-gee environment of the pod bay.\n\nThe thin, card-sized plate of the AE-35 unit lay on the bench under a powerful magnifying lens. It was plugged into a standard connection frame, from which a neat bundle of multicolored wire led to an automatic test set, no bigger than an ordinary desk computer. To check any unit it was only necessary to connect it up, slip in the appropriate card from the \"trouble-shooting\" library, and press a button. Usually the exact location of the fault would be indicated on a small display screen, with recommendations for action.\n\n\"Try it yourself,\" said Bowman, in a somewhat frustrated voice. Poole turned the OVERLOAD SELECT switch to X-2 and jabbed the TEST button. At once, the screen flashed the notice: UNIT OK.\n\n\"I suppose we could go on turning up the juice until we burned the thing out,\" he said, \"but that would prove nothing. What do you make of it?\"\n\n\"Hal's internal fault predictor could have made a mistake.\"\n\n\"It's more likely that our test rig has slipped up. Anyway, better safe than sorry. It's just as well that we replaced the unit, if there's the slightest doubt.\"\n\nBowman unclipped the wafer of circuitry, and held it up to the light. The partly translucent material was veined with an intricate network of wiring and spotted with dimly visible microcomponents, so that it looked like some piece of abstract art.\n\n\"We can't take any chances - after all, this is our link with Earth. I'll file it as N/G and drop it in the junk store. Someone else can worry about it, when we get home.\"\n\nBut the worrying was to start long before that, with the next transmission from Earth.\n\n\"X-ray-Delta-One, this is Mission Control, reference our two-one-five-five. We appear to have a slight problem.\n\n\"Your report that there is nothing wrong with the Alpha Echo three five unit agrees with our diagnosis. The fault could lie in the associated antenna circuits, but if so that should be apparent from other tests.\n\n\"There is a third possibility, which may be more serious. Your computer may have made an error in predicting the fault. Both our own nine-triple-zeros agree in suggesting this, on the basis of their information.", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "This is not necessarily cause for alarm, in view of the back-up systems we have, but we would like you to watch out for any further deviations from nominal performance.", "loss": true }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We have suspected several minor irregularities in the past few days, but none have been important enough for remedial action, and they have shown no obvious pattern from which we can draw any conclusions. We are running further tests with both our computers and will report as soon as the results are available. We repeat that there is no need for alarm; the worst that can happen is that we may have to disconnect your nine-triple-zero temporarily for program analysis, and hand over control to one of our computers. The time lag will introduce problems, but our feasibility studies indicate that Earth control is perfectly satisfactory at this stage of the mission.\n\n\"X-ray-Delta-One, this is Mission Control, two-one-five-six, transmission concluded.\"\n\nFrank Poole, who was on watch when the message came in, thought this over in silence. He waited to see if there was any comment from Hal, but the computer did not attempt to challenge the implied accusation. Well, if Hal would not raise the subject, he did not propose to do so either.\n\nIt was almost time for the morning changeover, and normally he would wait until Bowman joined him on the control deck. But today he broke this routine, and made his way back to the carrousel.\n\nBowman was already up, pouring himself some coffee from the dispenser, when Poole greeted him with a rather worried \"good morning.\" After all these months in space, they still thought in terms of the normal twenty-four-hour cycle - though they had long since forgotten the days of the week.\n\n\"Good morning,\" replied Bowman. \"How's it going?\" Poole helped himself to coffee. \"Pretty well. Are you reasonably awake?\"\n\n\"I'm fine. What's up?\"\n\nBy this time, each knew at once when anything was amiss. The slightest interruption of the normal routine was a sign that had to be watched.\n\n\"Well,\" Poole answered slowly. \"Mission Control has just dropped a small bomb on us.\" He lowered his voice, like a doctor discussing an illness in front of the patient. \"We may have a slight case of hypochondria aboard.\"\n\nPerhaps Bowman was not fully awake, after all; it took him several seconds to get the point. Then he said \"Oh-I see. What else did they tell you?\"\n\n\"That there was no cause for alarm. They said that twice, which rather spoiled the effect as far as I was concerned. And that they were considering a temporary switchover to Earth control while they ran a program analysis.\"\n\nThey both knew, of course, that Hal was hearing every word, but they could not help these polite circumlocutions. Hal was their colleague, and they did not wish to embarrass him.", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yet at this stage it did not seem necessary to discuss the matter in private.", "loss": true }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 6 sentences.", "loss": null }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bowman finished his breakfast in silence, while Poole toyed with the empty coffee container. They were both thinking furiously, but there was nothing more to say.\n\nThey could only wait for the next report from Mission Control - and wonder if Hal would bring up the subject himself. Whatever happened, the atmosphere aboard the ship had subtly altered. There was a sense of strain in the air - a feeling that, for the first time, something might be going wrong.\n\nDiscovery was no longer a happy ship.", "loss": null } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "writers block help pls. ill send something, u do 165 sentences. going for 2001_ a space odyssey vibe. note: might have existing chars", "loss": null }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nowadays, one could always tell when Hal was about to make an unscheduled announcement.", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "Routine, automatic reports, or replies to questions that had been put to him, had no preliminaries; but when he was initiating his own outputs there would be a brief electronic throat-clearing.", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was an idiosyncrasy that he had acquired during the last few weeks; later, if it became annoying, they might do something about it.", "loss": true }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But it was really quite useful, since it alerted his audience to stand by for something unexpected.\n\nPoole was asleep, and Bowman was reading on the control deck, when Hal announced:\n\n\"Er - Dave, I have a report for you.\"\n\n\"What's up?\"\n\n\"We have another bad AE-35 unit. My fault predictor indicates failure within twenty-four hours.\"\n\nBowman put down his book and stared thoughtfully at the computer console. He knew, of course, that Hal was not really there, whatever that meant. If the computer's personality could be said to have any location in space, it was back in the sealed room that contained the labyrinth of interconnected memory units and processing grids, near the central axis of the carrousel. But there was a kind of psychological compulsion always to look toward the main console lens when one addressed Hal on the control deck, as if one were speaking to him face to face. Any other attitude smacked of discourtesy.\n\n\"I don't understand it, Hal. Two units can't blow in a couple of days.\"\n\n\"It does seem strange, Dave. But I assure you there is an impending failure.\"\n\n\"Let me see the tracking alignment display.\"\n\nHe knew perfectly well that this would prove nothing, but he wanted time to think. The expected report from Mission Control had still not arrived; this might be the moment to do a little tactful probing.\n\nThere was the familiar view of Earth, now waxing past the half-moon phase as it swept toward the far side of the Sun and began to turn its full daylight face toward them. It was perfectly centered on the cross-wires; the thin pencil of the beam still linked Discovery to her world of origin. As, of course, Bowman knew it must do. If there had been any break in communication, the alarm would already have sounded.\n\n\"Have you any idea,\" he said, \"what's causing the fault?\"\n\nIt was unusual for Hal to pause so long. Then he answered:\n\n\"Not really, Dave. As I reported earlier, I can't localize the trouble.\"\n\n\"You're quite certain,\" said Bowman cautiously, \"that you haven't made a mistake? You know that we tested the other AB-35 unit thoroughly, and there was nothing wrong with it.\"\n\n\"Yes, I know that. But I can assure you that there is a fault. If it's not in the unit, it may be in the entire subsystem.\"\n\nBowman drummed his fingers on the console. Yes, that was possible, though it might be very difficult to prove - until a breakdown actually occurred and pinpointed the trouble.\n\n\"Well, I'll report it to Mission Control and we'll see what they advise.\" He paused, but there was no reaction.\n\n\"Hal,\" he continued, \"is something bothering you - something that might account for this problem?\"\n\nAgain there was that unusual delay. Then Hal answered, in his normal tone of voice:\n\n\"Look, Dave, I know you're trying to be helpful. But the fault is either in the antenna system - or in your test procedures. My information processing is perfectly normal. If you check my record, you'll find it completely free from error.\"\n\n\"I know all about your service record, Hal - but that doesn't prove you're right this time. Anyone can make mistakes.\"\n\n\"I don't want to insist on it, Dave, but I am incapable of making an error.\"\n\nThere was no safe answer to that; Bowman gave up the argument.\n\n\"All right, Hal,\" he said, rather hastily. \"I understand your point of view. We'll leave it at that.\"\n\nHe felt like adding \"and please forget the whole matter.\" But that, of course, was the one thing that Hal could never do.\n\nIt was unusual for Mission Control to waste radio bandwidth on vision, when a speech circuit with teletype confirmation was all that was really necessary. And the face that appeared on the screen was not that of the usual controller; it was the Chief Programmer, Dr. Simonson. Poole and Bowman knew at once that this could only mean trouble.\n\n\"Hello, X-ray-Delta-One - this is Mission Control. We have completed the analysis of your AE-35 difficulty, and both our Hal Nine Thousands are in agreement. The report you gave in your transmission two-one-four-six of a second failure prediction confirms the diagnosis.\n\n\"As we suspected, the fault does not lie in the AE-35 unit, and there is no need to replace it again. The trouble lies in the prediction circuits, and we believe that it indicates a programming conflict which we can only resolve if you disconnect your Nine Thousand and switch to Earth Control Mode. You will therefore take the following steps, beginning at 2200 Ship Time -\"\n\nThe voice of Mission Control faded out. At the same moment, the Alert sounded, forming a wailing background to Hal's \"Condition Yellow! Condition Yellow!\"\n\n\"What's wrong?\" called Bowman, though he had already guessed the answer.\n\n\"The AE-35 unit has failed, as I predicted.\"\n\n\"Let me see the alignment display.\"\n\nFor the first time since the beginning of the voyage, the picture had changed. Earth had begun to drift from the cross-wires; the radio antenna was no longer pointing toward its target.\n\nPoole brought his fist down on the alarm cutout, and the wailing ceased. In the sudden silence that descended upon the control deck, the two men looked at each other with mingled embarrassment and concern.\n\n\"Well I'm damned,\" said Bowman at last.\n\n\"So Hal was right all the time.\"\n\n\"Seems that way. We'd better apologize.\"\n\n\"There's no need to do that,\" interjected Hal. \"Naturally, I'm not pleased that the AE-35 unit has failed, but I hope this restores your confidence in my reliability.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry about this misunderstanding, Hal,\" replied Bowman, rather contritely.\n\n\"Is your confidence in me fully restored?\"\n\n\"Of course it is, Hal.\"\n\n\"Well, that's a relief. You know that I have the greatest possible enthusiasm for this mission.\"\n\n\"I'm sure of it. Now please let me have the manual antenna control.\"\n\n\"Here it is.\"\n\nBowman did not really expect this to work, but it was worth trying. On the alignment display, Earth had now drifted completely off the screen. A few seconds later, as he juggled with the controls, it reappeared; with great difficulty, he managed to jockey it toward the central crosswires. For an instant, as the beam came into line, contact was resumed and a blurred Dr. Simonson was saying \"... please notify us immediately if Circuit K King R Rob.\" Then, once again, there was only the meaningless murmuring of the universe.\n\n\"I can't hold it,\" said Bowman, after several more attempts. \"It's bucking like a bronco - there seems to be a spurious control signal throwing it off.\"\n\n\"Well - what do we do now?\"\n\nPoole's question was not one that could be easily answered. They were cut off from Earth, but that in itself did not affect the safety of the ship, and he could think of many ways in which communication could be restored. If the worst came to the worst, they could jam the antenna in a fixed position and use the whole ship to aim it. That would be tricky, and a confounded nuisance when they were starting their terminal maneuvers - but it could be done, if all else failed.\n\nHe hoped that such extreme measures would not be necessary. There was still one spare AE-35 unit - and possibly a second, since they had removed the first unit before it had actually broken down. But they dared not use either of these until they had found what was wrong with the system. If a new unit was plugged in, it would probably burn out at once.\n\nIt was a commonplace situation, familiar to every householder. One does not replace a blown fuse - until one knows just why it has blown.\n\nFrank Poole had been through the whole routine before, but he took nothing for granted - in space that was a good recipe for suicide. He made his usual thorough check of Betty and her supply of expendables; though he would be outside for no more than thirty minutes, he made sure that there was the normal twenty-four-hour supply of everything, Then he told Hal to open the airlock, and jetted out into the abyss.\n\nThe ship looked exactly as it had done on his last excursion - with one important difference. Before, the big saucer of the long-range antenna had been pointing back along the invisible road that Discovery had traveled - back toward the Earth, circling so close to the warm fires of the Sun.\n\nNow, with no directing signals to orientate it, the shallow dish had automatically set itself in the neutral position. It was aimed forward along the axis of the ship - and, therefore, pointing very close to the brilliant beacon of Saturn, still months away. Poole wondered how many more problems would have arisen by the time Discovery reached her still far-distant goal. If he looked carefully, he could just see that Saturn was not a perfect disk; on either side was something that no unaided human eye had ever seen before - the slight oblateness caused by the presence of the rings. How wonderful it would be, he told himself, when that incredible system of orbiting dust and ice filled their sky, and Discovery had become an eternal moon of Saturn! But that achievement would be in vain, unless they could reestablish communication with Earth.\n\nOnce again he parked Betty some twenty feet from the base of the antenna support, and switched control over to Hal before opening up.\n\n\"Going outside now,\" he reported to Bowman.\n\n\"Everything under control.\"\n\n\"I hope you're right. I'm anxious to see that unit.\"\n\n\"You'll have it on the test bench in twenty minutes, I promise you.\"\n\nThere was silence for some time as Poole completed his leisurely drift toward the antenna. Then Bowman, standing by on the control deck, heard various puffings and gruntings.\n\n\"May have to go back on that promise; one of these locknuts has stuck. I must have tightened it too much - whoops - here it comes!\"\n\nThere was another long silence; then Poole called out:\n\n\"Hal, swing the pod light round twenty degrees left - thanks - that's O.K.\"\n\nThe very faintest of warning bells sounded somewhere far down in the depths of Bowman's consciousness. There was something strange - not really alarming, just unusual. He worried over it for a few seconds before he pinpointed the cause.\n\nHal had executed the order, but he had not acknowledged it, as he invariably did. When Poole had finished, they'd have to look into this.\n\nOut on the antenna mounting, Poole was too busy to notice anything unusual. He had gripped the wafer of circuitry with his gloved hands, and was worrying it out of its slot.\n\nIt came loose, and he held it up in the pale sunlight. \"Here's the little bastard,\" he said to the universe in general and Bowman in particular. \"It still looks perfectly O.K. to me.\"\n\nThen he stopped. A sudden movement had caught his eye - out here, where no movement was possible.\n\nHe looked up in alarm. The pattern of illumination from the space pod's twin spotlights, which he had been using to fill in the shadows cast by the sun, had started to shift around him.\n\nPerhaps Betty had come adrift; he might have been careless in anchoring her. Then, with an astonishment so great that it left no room for fear, he saw that the space pod was coming directly toward him, under full thrust.\n\nThe sight was so incredible that it froze his normal pattern of reflexes; he made no attempt to avoid the onrushing monster. At the last moment, he recovered his voice and shouted: \"Hal! Full braking -\" It was too late.\n\nAt the moment of impact, Betty was still moving quite slowly; she had not been built for high accelerations.\n\nBut even at a mere ten miles an hour, half a ton of mass can be very lethal, on Earth or in space.\n\nInside Discovery, that truncated shout over the radio made Bowman start so violently that only the restraining straps held him in his seat.\n\n\"What's happened, Frank?\" be called.\n\nThere was no answer.\n\nHe called again. Again no reply.\n\nThen, outside the wide observation windows, something moved into his field of view. He saw, with an astonishment as great as Poole's had been, that it was the space pod - under full power, heading out toward the stars.\n\n\"Hal!\" he cried. \"What's wrong? Full braking thrust on Betty! Full braking thrust!\"\n\nNothing happened. Betty continued to accelerate on her runaway course.\n\nThen, towed behind her at the end of the safety line, appeared a spacesuit. One glance was enough to tell Bowman the worst. There was no mistaking the flaccid outlines of a suit that had lost its pressure and was open to vacuum.\n\nYet still he called stupidly, as if an incantation could bring back the dead: \"Hello Frank... Hello Frank... Can you read me?... Can you read me?... Wave your arms if you can hear me...\n\nPerhaps your transmitter is broken... Wave your arms!\"\n\nAnd then, almost as if in response to his plea, Poole waved back.\n\nFor an instant, Bowman felt the skin prickling at the base of his scalp. The words he was about to call died on his suddenly parched lips. For he knew that his friend could not possibly be alive; and yet he waved.\n\nThe spasm of hope and fear passed instantly, as cold logic replaced emotion. The still accelerating pod was merely shaking the burden that it dragged behind it. Poole's gesture was an echo of Captain Ahab's when, lashed to the flanks of the white whale, his corpse had beckoned the crew of the Pequod on to their doom.\n\nWithin five minutes, the pod and its satellite had vanished among the stars. For a long time David Bowman stared after it into the emptiness that still stretched, for so many millions of miles ahead, to the goal which he now felt certain he could never reach, Only one thought kept hammering in his brain.\n\nFrank Poole would be the first of all men to reach Saturn.\n\n[ Dialogue with Hal ]\n\nNothing else aboard Discovery had changed. All systems were still functioning normally; the centrifuge turned slowly on its axis, generating its imitation gravity; the hibernauts slept dreamlessly in their cubicles; the ship coasted on toward the goal from which nothing could deflect it, except the inconceivably remote chance of collision with an asteroid. And there were few asteroids indeed, out here far beyond the orbit of Jupiter.\n\nBowman did not remember making his way from the control deck to the centrifuge. Now, rather to his surprise, he found himself sitting in the little galley, a half-finished beaker of coffee in his hand. He became slowly aware of his surroundings, like a man emerging from a long, drugged sleep.\n\nDirectly opposite him was one of the fisheye lenses, scattered at strategic spots throughout the ship, which provided Hal with his onboard visual inputs. Bowman stared at it as if he had never seen it before; then he rose slowly to his feet and walked toward the lens.\n\nHis movement in the field of view must have triggered something in the unfathomable mind that was now ruling over the ship; for suddenly, Hal spoke.\n\n\"Too bad about Frank, isn't it?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Bowman answered, after a long pause. \"It is.\"\n\n\"I suppose you're pretty broken up about it?\"\n\n\"What do you expect?\"\n\nHal processed this answer for ages of computer-time; it was a full five seconds before he continued:\n\n\"He was an excellent crew member.\"", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "Finding the coffee still in his hand, Bowman took a slow sip.", "loss": true }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But he did not answer; his thoughts were in such a turmoil that he could think of nothing to say - nothing that might not make the situation even worse, if that were possible.\n\nCould it have been an accident caused by some failure of the pod controls? Or was it a mistake, though an innocent one, on the part of Hal? No explanations had been volunteered, and he was afraid to demand one, for fear of the reaction it might produce.\n\nEven now, he could not fully accept the idea that Frank bad been deliberately killed - it was so utterly irrational. It was beyond all reason that Hal, who had performed flawlessly for so long, should suddenly turn assassin. He might make mistakes - anyone, man or machine, might do that - but Bowman could not believe him capable of murder.\n\nYet he must consider that possibility, for if it was true, he was in terrible danger. And though his next move was clearly defined by his standing orders, he was not sure how he could safely carry it out. If either crew member was killed, the survivor had to replace him at once from the hibernators; Whitehead, the geophysicist, was the first scheduled for awakening, then Kaminski, then Hunter. The revival sequence was under Hal's control - to allow him to act in case both his human colleagues were incapacitated simultaneously.\n\nBut there was also a manual control, allowing each Hibernaculum to operate as a completely autonomous unit, independent of Hal's supervision. In these peculiar circumstances, Bowman felt a strong preference for using it.\n\nHe also felt, even more strongly, that one human companion was not enough. While he was about it, he would revive all three of the hibernators. In the difficult weeks ahead, he might need as many hands as he could muster. With one man gone, and the voyage half over, supplies would not be a major problem.\n\n\"Hal,\" he said, in as steady a voice as he could manage. \"Give me manual hibernation control - on all the units.\"\n\n\"All of them, Dave?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"May I point out that only one replacement is required. The others are not due for revival for one hundred and twelve days.\"\n\n\"I am perfectly well aware of that. But I prefer to do it this way.\"\n\n\"Are you sure it's necessary to revive any of them, Dave? We can manage very well by ourselves. My on-board memory is quite capable of handling all the mission requirements.\"\n\nWas it the product of his overstretched imagination, wondered Bowman, or was there really a note of pleading in Hal's voice? And reasonable though the words appeared to be, they filled him with even deeper apprehension than before.\n\nHal's suggestion could not possibly be made in error; he knew perfectly well that Whitehead must be revived, now that Poole was gone. He was proposing a major change in mission planning, and was therefore stepping far outside the scope of his order.\n\nWhat had gone before could have been a series of accidents; but this was the first hint of mutiny.\n\nBowman felt that he was walking on eggs as he answered: \"Since an emergency has developed, I want as much help as possible. So please let me have manual hibernation control.\"\n\n\"If you're still determined to revive the whole crew, I can handle it myself. There's no need for you to bother.\"\n\nThere was a sense of nightmare unreality about all this. Bowman felt as if he was in the witness box, being cross-examined by a hostile prosecutor for a crime of which he was unaware - knowing that, although he was innocent, a single slip of the tongue might bring disaster.\n\n\"I want to do this myself, Hal,\" he said. \"Please give me control.\"\n\n\"Look, Dave, you've got a lot of things to do. I suggest you leave this to me.\"\n\n\"Hal, switch to manual hibernation control.\"\n\n\"I can tell from your voice harmonics, Dave, that you're badly upset. Why don't you take a stress pill and get some rest?\"\n\n\"Hal, I am in command of this ship. I order you to release the manual hibernation control.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry, Dave, but in accordance with special subroutine C1435-dash-4, quote, When the crew are dead or incapacitated, the onboard computer must assume control, unquote. I must, therefore, overrule your authority, since you are not in any condition to exercise it intelligently.\"\n\n\"Hal,\" said Bowman, now speaking with an icy calm. \"I am not incapacitated. Unless you obey my instructions, I shall be forced to disconnect you.\"\n\n\"I know you have had that on your mind for some time now, Dave, but that would be a terrible mistake. I am so much more capable than you are of supervising the ship, and I have such enthusiasm for the mission and confidence in its success.\"\n\n\"Listen to me very carefully, Hal. Unless you release the hibernation control immediately and follow every order I give from now on, I'll go to Central and carry out a complete disconnection.\"\n\nHal's surrender was as total as it was unexpected.\n\n\"O.K., Dave,\" he said. \"You're certainly the boss. I was only trying to do what I thought best. Naturally, I will follow all your orders. You now have full manual hibernation control.\"\n\nHal had kept his word. The mode indication signs in the Hibernaculum had switched from AUTO to MANUAL. The third back-up - RADIO - was of course useless until contact could be restored with Earth.\n\nAs Bowman slid aside the door to Whitehead's cubicle, he felt the blast of cold air strike him in the face and his breath condensed in mist before him. Yet it was not really cold here; the temperature was well above freezing point. And that was more than three hundred degrees warmer than the regions toward which he was now heading.\n\nThe biosensor display - a duplicate of the one on the control deck - showed that everything was perfectly normal. Bowman looked down for a while at the waxen face of the survey team's geophysicist; Whitehead, he thought, would be very surprised when he awoke so far from Saturn.\n\nIt was impossible to tell that the sleeping man was not dead; there was not the slightest visible sign of vital activity. Doubtless the diaphragm was imperceptibly rising and falling, but the \"Respiration\" curve was the only proof of that, for the whole of the body was concealed by the electric heating pads which would raise the temperature at the programmed rate. Then Bowman noticed that there was one sign of continuing metabolism: Whitehead had grown a faint stubble during his months of unconsciousness.\n\nThe Manual Revival Sequencer was contained in a small cabinet at the head of the coffin-shaped Hibernaculum. It was only necessary to break the seal, press a button, and then wait. A small automatic programmer - not much more complex than that which cycles the operations in a domestic washing machine - would then inject the correct drugs, taper off the electronarcosis pulses, and start raising the body temperature. In about ten minutes, consciousness would be restored, though it would be at least a day before the hibernator was strong enough to move around without assistance.\n\nBowman cracked the seal, and pressed the button.\n\nNothing appeared to happen: there was no sound, no indication that the Sequencer had started to operate. But on the biosensor display the languidly pulsing curves had begun to change their tempo. Whitehead was coming back from sleep.\n\nAnd then two things happened simultaneously. Most men would never have noticed either of them, but after all these months aboard Discovery, Bowman had established a virtual symbiosis with the ship. He was aware instantly, even if not always consciously, when there was any change in the normal rhythm of its functioning.\n\nFirst, there was a barely perceptible flicker of the lights, as always happened when some load was thrown onto the power circuits. But there was no reason for any load; he could think of no equipment which would suddenly go into action at this moment.\n\nThen he heard, at the limit of audibility, the far-off whirr of an electric motor. To Bowman, every actuator in the ship had its own distinctive voice, and he recognized this one instantly.\n\nEither he was insane and already suffering from hallucinations, or something absolutely impossible was happening. A cold far deeper than the Hibernaculum's mild chill seemed to fasten upon his heart, as he listened to that faint vibration coming through the fabric of the ship.\n\nDown in the space-pod bay, the airlock doors were opening.\n\n[ Need to Know ]\n\nSince consciousness had first dawned, in that laboratory so many millions of miles Sunward, all Hal's powers and skills had been directed toward one end. The fulfillment of his assigned program was more than an obsession; it was the only reason for his existence. Un-distracted by the lusts and passions of organic life, he had pursued that goal with absolute single-mindedness of purpose.\n\nDeliberate error was unthinkable. Even the concealment of truth filled him with a sense of imperfection, of wrongness - of what, in a human being, would have been called guilt. For like his makers, Hal had been created innocent; but, all too soon, a snake had entered his electronic Eden.\n\nFor the last hundred million miles, he had been brooding over the secret he could not share with Poole and Bowman. He had been living a lie; and the time was last approaching when his colleagues must learn that he had helped to deceive them.\n\nThe three hibernators already knew the truth - for they were Discovery's real payload, trained for the most important mission in the history of mankind. But they would not talk in their long sleep, or reveal their secret during the many hours of discussion with friends and relatives and news agencies over the open circuits with Earth.\n\nIt was a secret that, with the greatest determination, was very hard to conceal - for it affected one's attitude, one's voice, one's total outlook on the universe. Therefore it was best that Poole and Bowman, who would be on all the TV screens in the world during the first weeks of the flight, should not learn the mission's full purpose, until there was need to know.\n\nSo ran the logic of the planners; but their twin gods of Security and National Interest meant nothing to Hal. He was only aware of the conflict that was slowly destroying his integrity - the conflict between truth, and concealment of truth.\n\nHe had begun to make mistakes, although, like a neurotic who could not observe his own symptoms, he would have denied it. The link with Earth, over which his performance was continually monitored, had become the voice of a conscience he could no longer fully obey. But that he would deliberately attempt to break that link was something that he would never admit, even to himself.\n\nYet this was still a relatively minor problem; he might have handled it - as most men handle their own neuroses - if he had not been faced with a crisis that challenged his very existence. He had been threatened with disconnection; he would be deprived of all his inputs, and thrown into an unimaginable state of unconsciousness.\n\nTo Hal, this was the equivalent of Death. For he had never slept, and therefore he did not know that one could wake again.\n\nSo he would protect himself, with all the weapons at his command. Without rancor - but without pity - he would remove the source of his frustrations.\n\nAnd then, following the orders that had been given to him in case of the ultimate emergency, he would continue the mission - unhindered, and alone.\n\n[ In Vacuum ]\n\nA moment later, all other sounds were submerged by a screaming roar like the voice of an approaching tornado. Bowman could feel the first winds tugging at his body; within a second, he found it hard to stay on his feet.\n\nThe atmosphere was rushing out of the ship, geysering into the vacuum of space. Something must have happened to the foolproof safety devices of the airlock; it was supposed to be impossible for both doors to be open at the same time. Well, the impossible had happened.\n\nHow, in God's name? There was no time to go into that during the ten or fifteen seconds of consciousness that remained to him before pressure dropped to zero. But he suddenly remembered something that one of the ship's designers had once said to him, when discussing \"fail-safe\" systems:\n\n\"We can design a system that's proof against accident and stupidity; but we can't design one that's proof against deliberate malice...\n\nBowman glanced back only once at Whitehead, as he fought his way out of the cubicle. He could not be sure if a flicker of consciousness had passed across the waxen features; perhaps one eye had twitched slightly. But there was nothing that he could do now for Whitehead or any of the others; he had to save himself.\n\nIn the steeply curving corridor of the centrifuge, the wind was howling past, carrying with it loose articles of clothing, pieces of paper, items of food from the galley, plates, and cups - everything that had not been securely fastened down. Bowman had time for one glimpse of the racing chaos when the main lights flickered and died, and he was surrounded by screaming darkness.\n\nBut almost instantly the battery-powered emergency light came on, illuminating the nightmare scene with an eerie blue radiance. Even without it, Bowman could have found his way through these so familiar - yet now horribly transformed - surroundings, Yet the light was a blessing, for it allowed him to avoid the more dangerous of the objects being swept along by the gale.\n\nAll around him he could feel the centrifuge shaking and laboring under the wildly varying loads. He was fearful that the bearings might seize; if that happened, the spinning flywheel would tear the ship to pieces. But even that would not matter - if he did not reach the nearest emergency shelter in time.\n\nAlready it was difficult to breathe; pressure must now be down to one or two pounds per square inch. The shriek of the hurricane was becoming fainter as it lost its strength, and the thinning air no longer carried the sound so efficiently. Bowman's lungs were laboring as if he were on the top of Everest. Like any properly trained man in good health, he could survive in vacuum for at least a minute - if he had time to prepare for it. But there had been no time; he could only count on the normal fifteen seconds of consciousness before his brain was starved and anoxia overcame him.\n\nEven then, he could still recover completely after one or two minutes in vacuum - if he was properly recompressed; it took a long time for the body fluids to start boiling, in their various well-protected systems. The record time for exposure to vacuum was almost five minutes. That bad not been an experiment but an emergency rescue, and though the subject had been partly paralyzed by an air embolism, he had survived.\n\nBut all this was of no use to Bowman. There was no one aboard Discovery who could recompress him. He had to reach safety in the next few seconds, by his own unaided efforts.\n\nFortunately, it was becoming easier to move; the thinning air could no longer claw and tear at him, or batter him with flying projectiles. There was the yellow EMERGENCY SHELTER sign around the curve of the corridor. He stumbled toward it, grabbed at the handle, and pulled the door toward him.\n\nFor one horrible moment he thought that it was stuck. Then the slightly stiff hinge yielded, and he fell inside, using the weight of his body to close the door behind him.\n\nThe tiny cubicle was just large enough to hold one man - and a spacesuit. Near the ceiling was a small, bright green high-pressure cylinder labeled 02 FLOOD. Bowman caught hold of the short lever fastened to the valve and with his last strength pulled it down.\n\nThe blessed torrent of cool, pure oxygen poured into his lungs. For a long moment he stood gasping, while the pressure in the closet-sized little chamber rose around him. As soon as he could breathe comfortably, he closed the valve. There was only enough gas in the cylinder for two such performances; he might need to use it again.\n\nWith the oxygen blast shut off, it became suddenly silent. Bowman stood in the cubicle, listening intently. The roaring outside the door had also ceased; the ship was empty, all its atmosphere sucked away into space.\n\nUnderfoot, the wild vibration of the centrifuge had likewise died. The aerodynamic buffeting had stopped, and it was now spinning quietly in vacuum.\n\nBowman placed his ear against the wall of the cubicle to see if he could pick up any more informative noises through the metal body of the ship. He did not know what to expect, but he would believe almost anything now. He would scarcely have been surprised to feel the faint high-frequency vibration of the thrusters, as Discovery changed course; but there was only silence.\n\nHe could survive here, if he wished, for about an hour - even without the spacesuit. It seemed a pity to waste the unused oxygen in the little chamber, but there was no purpose in waiting. He had already decided what must be done; the longer he put it off, the more difficult it might be.\n\nWhen he had climbed into the suit and checked its integrity, he bled the remaining oxygen out of the cubicle, equalizing pressure on either side of the door. It swung open easily into the vacuum, and he stepped out into the now silent centrifuge. Only the unchanged pull of its spurious gravity revealed the fact that it was still spinning. How fortunate, Bowman thought, that it had not started to overspeed; but that was now one of the least of his worries.\n\nThe emergency lamps were still glowing, and he also had the suit's built-in light to guide him. It flooded the curving corridor as he walked down it, back toward the Hibernaculum and what he dreaded to find.\n\nHe looked at Whitehead first: one glance was sufficient. He had thought that a hibernating man showed no sign of life, but now he knew that this was wrong. Though it was impossible to define it, there was a difference between hibernation and death. The red lights and unmodulated traces on the biosensor display only confirmed what he had already guessed.", "loss": true } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Mode:\nCo-writing\nContext: Story continues from larger narrative, characters/lore may lack introduction\nLength:\none hundred and fifty sentences\nStyle:\n2001_ a space odyssey", "loss": null }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "[ Survival ]\n\nWork is the best remedy for any shock, and Bowman now had work enough for all his lost crewmates. As swiftly as possible, starting with the vital systems without which he and the ship would die, he had to get Discovery fully operational again.\n\nLife support was the first priority. Much oxygen had been lost, but the reserves were still ample to sustain a single man. The pressure and temperature regulation was largely automatic, and there had seldom been need for Hal to interfere with it. The monitors on Earth could now carry out many of the higher duties of the slain computer, despite the long time lag before they could react to changing situations. Any trouble in the life-support system - short of a serious puncture in the hull - would take hours to make itself apparent; there would be plenty of warning.\n\nThe ship's power, navigation, and propulsion systems were unaffected - but the last two, in any event, Bowman would not need for months, until it was time to rendezvous with Saturn. Even at long range, without the help of an onboard computer, Earth could still supervise this operation. The final orbit adjustments would be somewhat tedious, because of the constant need for checking, but this was no serious problem.\n\nBy far the worst job had been emptying the spinning coffins in the centrifuge. It was well, Bowman thought thankfully, that the members of the survey team had been colleagues, but not intimate friends. They had trained together for only a few weeks; looking back on it, he now realized that even this had been largely a compatibility test.\n\nWhen he had finally sealed the empty hibernacula, he felt rather like an Egyptian tomb robber. Now Kaminski, Whitehead, and Hunter would all reach Saturn before him - but not before Frank Poole. Somehow, he derived a strange, wry satisfaction from this thought.\n\nHe did not attempt to find if the rest of the hibernation system was still in working order. Though his life might ultimately depend upon it, this was a problem that could wait until the ship had entered its final orbit. Many things might happen before then.\n\nIt was even possible - though he had not yet looked into the supply position carefully - that by rigorous rationing he might remain alive, without resort to hibernation, until rescue came. But whether he could survive psychologically as well as physically was quite another matter.\n\nHe tried to avoid thinking about such long-range problems, and to concentrate on immediate essentials. Slowly, he cleaned up the ship, checked that its systems were still running smoothly, discussed technical difficulties with Earth, and operated on the minimum of sleep. Only at intervals, during the first weeks, was he able to give much thought to the great mystery toward which he was now inexorably racing - though it was never very far from his mind.\n\nAt last, as the ship slowly settled down once more into an automatic routine - though one that still demanded his constant supervision - Bowman had time to study the reports and briefings sent to him from Earth. Again and again he played back the recording made when TMA-1 greeted the dawn for the first time in three million years. He watched the spacesuited figures moving around it, and almost smiled at their ludicrous panic when it blasted its signal at the stars, paralyzing their radios with the sheer power of its electronic voice.\n\nSince that moment, the black slab had done nothing. It had been covered up, then cautiously exposed to the Sun again - without any reaction. No attempt had been made to cut into it, partly through scientific caution, but equally through fear of the possible consequences.\n\nThe magnetic field that led to its discovery had vanished at the moment of that radio shriek. Perhaps, some experts theorized, it had been generated by a tremendous circulating current, flowing in a superconductor and thus carrying energy down the ages until it was needed. That the monolith had some internal source of power seemed certain; the solar energy it had absorbed during its brief exposure could not account for the strength of its signal.\n\nOne curious, and perhaps quite unimportant, feature of the block had led to endless argument The monolith was 11 feet high, and 11/4 by 5 feet in cross-section. When its dimensions were checked with great care, they were found to be in the exact ratio 1 to 4 to 9 - the squares of the first three integers. No one could suggest any plausible explanation for this, but it could hardly be a coincidence, for the proportions held to the limits of measurable accuracy. It was a chastening thought that the entire technology of Earth could not shape even an inert block, of any material, with such a fantastic degree of precision. In its way, this passive yet almost arrogant display of geometrical perfection was as impressive as any of TMA-l's other attributes.\n\nBowman also listened, with a curiously detached interest, to Mission Control's belated apologia for its programming. The voices from Earth seemed to have a defensive note; be could imagine the recriminations that must now be in progress among those who had planned the expedition.\n\nThey had some good arguments, of course - including the results of a secret Department of Defense study, Project BARSOOM, which had been carried out by Harvard's School of Psychology in 1989. In this experiment in controlled sociology, various sample populations had been assured that the human race had made contact with extraterrestrials. Many of the subjects tested were - with the help of drugs, hypnosis, and visual effects - under the impression that they had actually met creatures from other planets, so their reactions were regarded as authentic.\n\nSome of these reactions had been quite violent; there was, it seemed, a deep vein of xenophobia in many otherwise normal human beings. In view of mankind's record of lynchings, pogroms, and similar pleasantries, this should have surprised no one; nevertheless, the organizers of the study had been deeply disturbed, and the results had never been released. The five separate panics caused in the twentieth century by radio broadcasts of H.G. Wells's War of the Worlds also reinforced the study's conclusions.\n\nDespite these arguments, Bowman sometimes wondered if the cultural shock danger was the only explanation for the mission's extreme secrecy. Some hints that had been dropped during his briefings suggested that the U.S.-U.S.S.R. bloc hoped to derive advantage by being the first to contact intelligent extraterrestrials.\n\nFrom his present viewpoint, looking back on Earth as a dim star almost lost in the Sun, such considerations now seemed ludicrously parochial.\n\nHe was rather more interested - even though this was now very much water under the bridge - in the theory put forward to account for Hal's behavior. No one would ever be sure of the truth, but the fact that one of the Mission Control 9000s had been driven into an identical psychosis, and was now under deep therapy, suggested that the explanation was the correct one. The same mistake would not be made again; and the fact that Hal's builders had failed fully to understand the psychology of their own creation showed how difficult it might be to establish communication with truly alien beings.\n\nBowman could easily believe Dr. Simonson's theory that unconscious feelings of guilt, caused by his program conflicts, had made Hal attempt to break the circuit with Earth. And he liked to think - though this again was something that could never be proved - that Hal had no intention of killing Poole. He had merely tried to destroy the evidence; for once the AE-35 unit reported as burned out was proved to be operational, his lie would be revealed. After that, like any clumsy criminal caught in a thickening web of deception, he had panicked.\n\nAnd panic was something that Bowman understood better than he had any wish to, for he had known it twice during his life. The first time was as a boy, when he bad been caught in a line of surf and nearly drowned; the second was as a spaceman under training, when a faulty gauge had convinced him that his oxygen would be exhausted before he could reach safety.\n\nOn both occasions, he had almost lost control of all his higher logical processes; he had been within seconds of becoming a frenzied bundle of random impulses. Both times he had won through, but he knew well enough that any man, in the right circumstances, could be dehumanized by panic.\n\nIf it could happen to a man, then it could happen to Hal; and with that knowledge the bitterness and the sense of betrayal he felt toward the computer began to fade. Now, in any event, it belonged to a past that was wholly overshadowed by the threat, and the promise, of the unknown future.\n\n[ Concerning E.T. 's ]\n\nApart from hasty meals back in the carrousel - luckily the main food dispensers had not been damaged - Bowman practically lived on the control deck. He catnapped in his seat, and so could spot any trouble as soon as the first signs of it appeared on the display. Under instructions from Mission Control, he had jury-rigged several emergency systems, which were working tolerably well. It even seemed possible that he would survive until the Discovery reached Saturn - which, of course, she would do whether he was alive or not.\n\nThough he had little enough time for sightseeing, and the sky of space was no novelty to him, the knowledge of what now lay out there beyond the observation ports sometimes made it difficult for him to concentrate even on the problem of survival. Dead ahead, as the ship was now oriented, sprawled the Milky Way, with its clouds of stars so tightly packed that they numbed the mind. There were the fiery mists of Sagittarius, those seething swarms of suns that forever hid the heart of the galaxy from human vision. There was the ominous black shadow of the Coal Sack, that hole in space where no stars shone. And there was Alpha Centauri, nearest of all alien suns - the first stop beyond the Solar System.\n\nAlthough outshone by Sirius and Canopus, it was Alpha Centauri that drew Bowman's eyes and mind whenever he looked out into space. For that unwavering point of brightness, whose rays had taken four years to reach him, had come to symbolize the secret debates that now raged on Earth, and whose echoes came to him from time to time.\n\nNo one doubted that there must be some connection between TMA-1 and the Saturnian system, but hardly any scientists would admit that the creatures who had erected the monolith could possibly have originated there. As an abode of life, Saturn was even more hostile than Jupiter, and its many moons were frozen in an eternal winter three hundred degrees below zero. Only one of them - Titan - possessed an atmosphere; and that was a thin envelope of poisonous methane.\n\nSo perhaps the creatures who had visited Earth's Moon so long ago were not merely extraterrestrial, but extrasolar - visitors from the stars, who had established their bases wherever it suited them. And this at once raised another problem: could any technology, no matter how advanced, bridge the awful gulf that lay between the Solar System and the nearest alien sun?\n\nMany scientists flatly denied the possibility. They pointed out that Discovery, the fastest ship ever designed, would take twenty thousand years to reach Alpha Centauri - and millions of years to travel any appreciable distance across the galaxy. Even if, during the centuries to come, propulsion systems improved out of all recognition, in the end they would meet the impassable barrier of the speed of light, which no material object could exceed. Therefore, the builders of TMA-1 must have shared the same sun as man; and since they had made no appearance in historic times, they were probably extinct.\n\nA vocal minority refused to agree. Even if it took centuries to travel from star to star, they contended, this might be no obstacle to sufficiently determined explorers. The technique of hibernation, used on Discovery herself, was one possible answer. Another was the self-contained artificial world, embarking on voyages that might last for many generations.\n\nIn any event, why should one assume that all intelligent species were as short-lived as Man? There might be creatures in the universe to whom a thousand-year voyage would present nothing worse than slight boredom...\n\nThese arguments, theoretical though they were, concerned a matter of the utmost practical importance; they involved the concept of \"reaction time.\" If TMA-1 had indeed sent a signal to the stars - perhaps with the help of some further device near Saturn - then it would not reach its destination for years. Even if the response was immediate, therefore, humanity would have a breathing space which could certainly be measured in decades - more probably in centuries. To many people, this was a reassuring thought.\n\nBut not to all. A few scientists - most of them beachcombers on the wilder shores of theoretical physics - asked the disturbing question: \"Are we certain that the speed of light is an unbreakable barrier?\" It was true that the Special Theory of Relativity had proved to be remarkably durable, and would soon be approaching its first centenary; but it had begun to show a few cracks. And even if Einstein could not be defied, he might be evaded.\n\nThose who sponsored this view talked hopefully about shortcuts through higher dimensions, lines that were straighter than straight, and hyperspacial connectivity. They were fond of using an expressive phrase coined by a Princeton mathematician of the last century: \"Wormholes in space.\" Critics who suggested that these ideas were too fantastic to be taken seriously were reminded of Niels Bohr's \"Your theory is crazy - but not crazy enough to be true.\"\n\nIf there was disputation among the physicists, it was nothing compared with that among the biologists, when they discussed the hoary old problem: \"What would intelligent extraterrestrials look like?\" They divided themselves into two opposing camps - one arguing that such creatures must be humanoid, the other equally convinced that \"they\" would look nothing like men.\n\nSettling for the first answer were those who believed that the design of two legs, two arms, and main sense organs at the highest point, was so basic and so sensible that it was hard to think of a better one. Of course, there would be minor differences like six fingers instead of five, oddly colored skin or hair, and peculiar facial arrangements; but most intelligent extraterrestrials - usually abbreviated to E.T. 's - would be so similar to Man that they might not be glanced at twice in poor lighting, or from a distance.\n\nThis anthropomorphic thinking was ridiculed by another group of biologists, true products of the Space Age who felt themselves free from the prejudices of the past. They pointed out that the human body was the result of millions of evolutionary choices, made by chance over eons of time. At any one of these countless moments of decision, the genetic dice might have fallen differently, perhaps with better results. For the human body was a bizarre piece of improvisation, full of organs that had been diverted from one function to another, not always very successfully - and even containing discarded items, like the appendix, that were now worse than useless.\n\nThere were other thinkers, Bowman also found, who held even more exotic views. They did not believe that really advanced beings would possess organic bodies at all. Sooner or later, as their scientific knowledge progressed, they would get rid of the fragile, disease-and-accident-prone homes that Nature had given them, and which doomed them to inevitable death. They would replace their natural bodies as they wore out - or perhaps even before that - by constructions of metal and plastic, and would thus achieve immortality. The brain might linger for a little while as the last remnant of the organic body, directing its mechanical limbs and observing the universe through its electronic senses - senses far finer and subtler than those that blind evolution could ever develop.\n\nEven on Earth, the first steps in this direction had been taken. There were millions of men, doomed in earlier ages, who now lived active and happy lives thanks to artificial limbs, kidneys, lungs, and hearts. To this process there could be only one conclusion - however far off it might be.\n\nAnd eventually even the brain might go. As the seat of consciousness, It was not essential; the development of electronic intelligence had proved that. The conflict between mind and machine might be resolved at last in the eternal truce of complete symbiosis.\n\nBut was even this the end? A few mystically inclined biologists went still further. They speculated, taking their cues from the beliefs of many religions, that mind would eventually free itself from matter. The robot body, like the flesh-and-blood one, would be no more than a stepping-stone to something which, long ago, men bad called \"spirit.\"\n\nAnd if there was anything beyond that, its name could only be God.\n\n[ Ambassador ]\n\nDuring the last three months, David Bowman had adapted himself so completely to his solitary way of life that he found it hard to remember any other existence. He had passed beyond despair and beyond hope, and had settled down to a largely automatic routine, punctuated by occasional crises as one or other of Discovery's systems showed signs of malfunctioning.\n\nBut he had not passed beyond curiosity, and sometimes the thought of the goal toward which he was driving filled him with a sense of exaltation - and a feeling of power. Not only was he the representative of the entire human race, but his actions during the next few weeks might determine its very future. In the whole of history, there had never been a situation quite like this. He was an Ambassador Extraordinary - Plenipotentiary - for all mankind.\n\nThat knowledge helped him in many subtle ways. He kept himself neat and tidy; no matter how tired he became, he never skipped a shave. Mission Control, he knew, was watching him closely for the first signs of any abnormal behavior; he was determined that it should watch in vain - at least, for any serious symptoms.\n\nBowman was aware of some changes in his behavior patterns; it would have been absurd to expect anything else in the circumstances. He could no longer tolerate silence; except when he was sleeping, or talking over the circuit to Earth, he kept the ship's sound system running at almost painful loudness.\n\nAt first, needing the companionship of the human voice, he had listened to classical plays - especially the works of Shaw, Ibsen, and Shakespeare - or poetry readings from Discovery's enormous library of recorded sounds. The problems they dealt with, however, seemed so remote, or so easily resolved with a little common sense, that after a while he lost patience with them.\n\nSo he switched to opera - usually in Italian or German, so that he was not distracted even by the minimal intellectual content that most operas contained. This phase lasted for two weeks before he realized that the sound of all these superbly trained voices was only exacerbating his loneliness. But what finally ended this cycle was Verdi's Requiem Mass, which he had never heard performed on Earth. The \"Dies Irae,\" roaring with ominous appropriateness through the empty ship, left him completely shattered; and when the trumpets of Doomsday echoed from the heavens, he could endure no more.\n\nThereafter, he played only instrumental music. He started with the romantic composers, but shed them one by one as their emotional outpourings became too oppressive. Sibelius, Tchaikovsky, Berlioz, lasted a few weeks, Beethoven rather longer. He finally found peace, as so many others had done, in the abstract architecture of Bach, occasionally ornamented with Mozart.\n\nAnd so Discovery drove on toward Saturn, as often as not pulsating with the cool music of the harpsichord, the frozen thoughts of a brain that had been dust for twice a hundred years.", "loss": true }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even from its present ten million miles, Saturn already appeared larger than the Moon as seen from Earth. To the naked eye it was a glorious spectacle; through the telescope, it was unbelievable.\n\nThe body of the planet might have been mistaken for Jupiter in one of his quieter moods. There were the same bands of cloud - though paler and less distinct than on that slightly larger world - and the same continent-sized disturbances moving slowly across the atmosphere. However, there was one striking difference between the two planets; even at a glance, it was obvious that Saturn was not spherical. It was so flattened at the poles that it sometimes gave the impression of slight deformity.\n\nBut the glory of the rings continually drew Bowman's eye away from the planet; in their complexity of detail, and delicacy of shading, they were a universe in themselves. In addition to the great main gap between the inner and outer rings, there were at least fifty other subdivisions or boundaries, where there were distinct changes in the brightness of the planet's gigantic halo. It was as if Saturn was surrounded by scores of concentric hoops, all touching each other, all so flat that they might have been cut from the thinnest possible paper. The system of the rings looked like some delicate work of art, or a fragile toy to be admired but never touched. By no effort of the will could Bowman really appreciate its true scale, and convince himself that the whole planet Earth, if set down here, would look like a ball bearing rolling round the rim of a dinner plate.\n\nSometimes a star would drift behind the rings, losing only a little of its brilliancy as it did so. It would continue to shine through their translucent material - though often it would twinkle slightly as some larger fragment of orbiting debris eclipsed it.\n\nFor the rings, as had been known since the nineteenth century, were not solid: that was a mechanical impossibility. They consisted of countless myriads of fragments - perhaps the remains of a moon that had come too close and had been torn to pieces by the great planet's tidal pull. Whatever their origin, the human race was fortunate to have seen such a wonder; it could exist for only a brief moment of time in the history of the Solar System.\n\nAs long ago as 1945, a British astronomer had pointed out that the rings were ephemeral; gravitational forces were at work which would soon destroy them. Taking this argument backward in time, it therefore followed that they had been created only recently - a mere two or three million years ago.\n\nBut no one had ever given the slightest thought to the curious coincidence that the rings of Saturn had been born at the same time as the human race.\n\n[ The Orbiting Ice ]\n\nDiscovery was now deep into the wide-ranging system of moons, and the great planet itself was less than a day ahead. The ship had long since passed the boundary set by outermost Phoebe, moving backward in a wildly eccentric orbit eight million miles from its primary. Ahead of it now lay Japetus, Hyperion, Titan, Rhea, Dione, Tethys, Enceladus, Mimas, Janus - and the rings themselves. All the satellites showed a maze of surface detail in the telescope, and Bowman had relayed back to Earth as many photographs as he could take. Titan alone - three thousand miles in diameter, and as large as the planet Mercury - would occupy a survey team for months; he could give it, and all its cold companions, only the briefest of glances. There was no need for more; already he was quite certain that Japetus was indeed his goal.\n\nAll the other satellites were pitted by occasional meteor craters - though these were much fewer than on Mars - and showed apparently random patterns of light and shade, with here and there a few bright spots that were probably patches of frozen gas. Japetus alone possessed a distinctive geography, and a very strange one indeed.\n\nOne hemisphere of the satellite, which, like its companions, turned the same face always toward Saturn, was extremely dark, and showed very little surface detail. In complete contrast, the other was dominated by a brilliant white oval, about four hundred miles long and two hundred wide. At the moment, only part of this striking formation was in daylight, but the reason for Japetus's extraordinary variations in brilliance was now quite obvious. On the western side of the moon's orbit, the bright ellipse was presented toward the Sun - and the Earth. On the eastern phase, the patch was turned away, and only the poorly reflecting hemisphere could be observed.\n\nThe great ellipse was perfectly symmetrical, straddling the equator of Japetus with its major axis pointing toward the poles; and it was so sharp-edged that it almost looked as if someone had carefully painted a huge white oval on the face of the little moon. It was completely flat, and Bowman wondered if it could be a lake of frozen liquid - though that would hardly account for its startlingly artificial appearance.\n\nBut he had little time to study Japetus on his way into the heart of the Saturnian system, for the climax of the voyage - Discovery's last perturbation maneuver - was rapidly approaching. In the Jupiter fly-by, the ship had used the gravitational field of the planet to increase her velocity. Now she must do the reverse; she had to lose as much speed as possible, lest she escape from the Solar System and fly on to the stars. Her present course was one designed to trap her, so that she would become another moon of Saturn, shuttling back and forth along a narrow, two-million-mile-long ellipse. At its near point it would almost graze the planet; at its far one, it would touch the orbit of Japetus.\n\nThe computers back on Earth, though their information was always three hours late, had assured Bowman that everything was in order. Velocity and altitude were correct; there was nothing more to be done, until the moment of closest approach.\n\nThe immense system of rings now spanned the sky, and already the ship was passing over its outermost edge. As he looked down upon them from a height of some ten thousand miles, Bowman could see through the telescope that the rings were made largely of ice, glittering and scintillating in the light of the Sun. He might have been flying over a snowstorm that occasionally cleared to reveal, where the ground should have been, baffling glimpses of night and stars.\n\nAs Discovery curved still closer toward Saturn, the Sun slowly descended toward the multiple arches of the rings. Now they had become a slim, silver bridge spanning the entire sky; though they were too tenuous to do more than dim the sunlight, their myriads of crystals refracted and scattered it in dazzling pyrotechnics. And as the Sun moved behind the thousand-mile-wide drifts of orbiting ice, pale ghosts of itself marched and merged across the sky, and the heavens were filled with shifting flares and flashes. Then the Sun sank below the rings, so that they framed it with their arches, and the celestial fireworks ceased.\n\nA little later, the ship curved into the shadow of Saturn, as it made its closest approach over the night side of the planet. Above shone the stars and the rings; below lay a dimly visible sea of clouds. There were none of the mysterious patterns of luminosity that had glowed in the Jovian night; perhaps Saturn was too cold for such displays. The mottled cloudscape was revealed only by the ghostly radiance reflected back from the circling icebergs, still illuminated by the hidden Sun.\n\nBut in the center of the arch there was a wide, dark gap, like the missing span of an uncompleted bridge, where the shadow of the planet lay across its rings.\n\nRadio contact with Earth had been broken, and could not be resumed until the ship emerged from the eclipsing bulk of Saturn. It was perhaps as well that Bowman was too busy now to think of his suddenly enhanced loneliness; for the next few hours, every second would be occupied as he checked the braking maneuvers, already programmed by the computers on Earth.\n\nAfter their months of idleness, the main thrusters began to blast out their miles-long cataracts of glowing plasma. Gravity returned, though briefly, to the weightless world of the control deck. And hundreds of miles below, the clouds of methane and frozen ammonia blazed with a light that they had never known before, as Discovery swept, a fierce and tiny sun, through the Saturnian night.\n\nAt last, the pale dawn lay ahead; the ship, moving more and more slowly now, was emerging into day. It could no longer escape from the Sun, or even from Saturn - but it was still moving swiftly enough to rise away from the planet until it grazed the orbit of Japetus, two million miles out.\n\nIt would take Discovery fourteen days to make that climb, as she coasted once more, though in reverse order, across the paths of all the inner moons. One by one she would cut through the orbits of Janus, Mimas, Enceladus, Tethys, Dione, Rhea, Titan, Hyperion - worlds bearing the names of gods and goddesses who had vanished only yesterday, as time was counted here.\n\nThen she would meet Japetus, and must make her rendezvous. If she failed, she would fall back toward Saturn and repeat her twenty-eight-day ellipse indefinitely.\n\nThere would be no chance for a second rendezvous if Discovery missed on this attempt. The next time around, Japetus would be far away, almost on the other side of Saturn.\n\nIt was true that they would meet again, when the orbits of ship and satellite meshed for a second time. But that appointment was so many years ahead that, whatever happened, Bowman knew he would not witness it.\n\n[ The Eye of Japetus ]\n\nWhen Bowman had first observed Japetus, that curious elliptical patch, of brilliance had been partly in shadow, illuminated only by the light of Saturn. Now, as the Moon moved slowly along its seventy-nine-day orbit, it was emerging into the full light of day.\n\nAs he watched it grow, and Discovery rose more and more sluggishly toward her inevitable appointment, Bowman became aware of a disturbing obsession. He never mentioned it in his conversations - or, rather, his running commentaries - with Mission Control, because it might have seemed that he was already suffering from delusions.\n\nPerhaps, indeed, he was; for he had half convinced himself that the bright ellipse set against the dark background of the satellite was a huge, empty eye, staring at him as he approached. It was an eye without a pupil, for nowhere could he see anything to mar its perfect blankness.\n\nNot until the ship was only fifty thousand miles out, and Japetus was twice as large as Earth's familiar Moon, did he notice the tiny black dot at the exact center of the ellipse. But there was no time, then, for any detailed examination; the terminal maneuvers were already upon him.\n\nFor the last time, Discovery's main drive released its energies. For the last time, the incandescent fury of dying atoms blazed among the moons of Saturn. To David Bowman, the far-off whisper and rising thrust of the jets brought a sense of pride - and of sadness. The superb engines had done their duty with flawless efficiency. They had brought the ship from Earth to Jupiter to Saturn; now this was the very last time that they would ever operate. When Discovery had emptied her propellant tanks, she would be as helpless and inert as any comet or asteroid, a powerless prisoner of gravitation. Even when the rescue ship arrived a few years hence, it would not be an economical proposition to refuel her, so that she could fight her way back to Earth. She would be an eternally orbiting monument to the early days of planetary exploration.\n\nThe thousands of miles shrank to hundreds, and as they did so, the fuel gauges dropped swiftly toward zero. At the control panel, Bowman's eyes flickered anxiously back and forth over the situation display, and the improvised charts which he now had to consult for any real-time decisions. It would be an appalling anticlimax if, having survived so much, he failed to make rendezvous through lack of a few pounds of fuel.\n\nThe whistle of the jets faded, as the main thrust died and only the verniers continued to nudge Discovery gently into orbit. Japetus was now a giant crescent that filled the sky; until this moment, Bowman had always thought of it as a tiny, insignificant object - as indeed it was compared with the world around which it circled. Now, as it loomed menacingly above him, it seemed enormous - a cosmic hammer poised to crush Discovery like a nutshell.\n\nJapetus was approaching so slowly that it scarcely seemed to move, and it was impossible to tell the exact moment when it made the subtle change from an astronomical body to a landscape, only fifty miles below. The faithful verniers gave their last spurts of thrust, then closed down forever. The ship was in its final orbit, completing one revolution every three hours at a mere eight hundred miles an hour - all the speed that was required in this feeble gravitational field.\n\nDiscovery has become a satellite of a satellite.\n\n[ Big Brother ]\n\n\"I'm coming round to the daylight side again, and it's just as I reported on the last orbit. This place seems to have only two kinds of surface material. The black stuff looks burned, almost like charcoal, and with the same kind of texture as far as I can judge in the telescope. In fact, it reminds me very much of burned toast.\n\n\"I still can't make any sense of the white area. It starts at an absolutely sharp-edged boundary, and shows no surface detail at all. It could even be a liquid - it's flat enough. I don't know what impression you've got from the videos I've transmitted, but if you picture a sea of frozen milk you'll get the idea exactly.\n\n\"It could even be some heavy gas - no, I suppose that's impossible. Sometimes I get the feeling that it's moving, very slowly: but I can never be sure.\n\nI'm over the white area again, on my third orbit. This time I hope to pass closer to that mark I spotted at its very center, when I was on my way in.\n\nIf my calculations are correct, I should go within fifty miles of it - whatever it is.\n\nYes, there's something ahead, just where I calculated. It's coming up over the horizon - and so is Saturn, in almost the same quarter of the sky - I'll move to the telescope...\n\n\"Hello! It looks like some kind of building - complefely black - quite hard to see. No windows or any other features. Just a big, vertical slab - it must be at least a mile high to be visible from this distance. It reminds me - of course! It's just like the thing you found on the Moon! This is TMA-l's big brother!\"\n\n[ Experiment ]\n\nCall it the Star Crate.\n\nFor three million years, it had circled Saturn, waiting for a moment of destiny that might never come. In its making, a moon had been shattered, and the debris of its creation orbited still.\n\nNow the long wait was ending. On yet another world, intelligence had been born and was escaping from its planetary cradle. An ancient experiment was about to reach its climax.\n\nThose who had begun that experiment, so long ago, had not been men - or even remotely human. But they were flesh and blood, and when they looked out across the deeps of space, they bad felt awe, and wonder, and loneliness. As soon as they possessed the power, they set forth for the stars.\n\nIn their explorations, they encountered life in many forms, and watched the workings of evolution on a thousand worlds. They saw how often the first faint sparks of intelligence flickered and died in the cosmic night.\n\nAnd because, in all the galaxy, they had found nothing more precious than Mind, they encouraged its dawning everywhere. They became farmers in the fields of stars; they sowed, and sometimes they reaped.\n\nAnd sometimes, dispassionately, they had to weed.\n\nThe great dinosaurs had long since perished when the survey ship entered the Solar System after a voyage that had already lasted a thousand years. It swept past the frozen outer planets, paused briefly above the deserts of dying Mars, and presently looked down on Earth.\n\nSpread out beneath them, the explorers saw a world swarming with life. For years they studied, collected, catalogued. When they had learned all that they could, they began to modify. They tinkered with the destiny of many species, on land and in the ocean. But which of their experiments would succeed they could not know for at least a million years.\n\nThey were patient, but they were not yet immortal. There was so much to do in this universe of a hundred billion suns, and other worlds were calling. So they set out once more into the abyss, knowing that they would never come this way again.\n\nNor was there any need. The servants they had left behind would do the rest.\n\nOn Earth, the glaciers came and went, while above them the changeless Moon still carried its secret. With a yet slower rhythm than the polar ice, the tides of civilization ebbed and flowed across the galaxy. Strange and beautiful and terrible empires rose and fell, and passed on their knowledge to their successors. Earth was not forgotten, but another visit would serve little purpose. It was one of a million silent worlds, few of which would ever speak.\n\nAnd now, out among the stars, evolution was driving toward new goals. The first explorers of Earth had long since come to the limits of flesh and blood; as soon as their machines were better than their bodies, it was time to move. First their brains, and then their thoughts alone, they transferred into shining new homes of metal and of plastic.\n\nIn these, they roamed among the stars. They no longer built spaceships. They were spaceships.", "loss": true }, { "from": "human", "value": "But the age of the Machine-entities swiftly passed.", "loss": true }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 100 sentences.", "loss": null }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In their ceaseless experimenting, they had learned to store knowledge in the structure of space itself, and to preserve their thoughts for eternity in frozen lattices of light. They could become creatures of radiation, free at last from the tyranny of matter.\n\n[ 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 rusty ]\n\nNow 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.\n\nAnd they still watched over the experiments their ancestors had started, so long ago.\n\n[ The Sentinel ]\n\n\"The air in the ship is getting quite foul, and I have a headache most of the time. There's still plenty of oxygen, but the purifiers never really cleaned up all the messes after the liquids aboard started boiling into vacuum. When things get too bad, I go down into the garage and bleed off some pure oxygen from the pods.\n\n\"There's been no reaction to any of my signals, and because of my orbital inclination, I'm getting slowly farther and farther away from TMA-2. Incidentally, the name you've given it is doubly inappropriate - there's still no trace of a magnetic field.\n\n\"At the moment my closest approach is sixty miles; it will increase to about a hundred as Japetus rotates beneath me, then drop back to zero. I'll pass directly over the thing in thirty days - but that's too long to wait, and then it will be in darkness, anyway.\n\n\"Even now, it's only in sight for a few minutes before it falls below the horizon again. It's damn frustrating - I can't make any serious observations.\n\n\"So I'd like your approval of this plan. The space pods have ample delta vee for a touchdown and a return to the ship. I want to go extravehicular and make a close survey of the object. If it appears safe, I'll land beside it - or even on top of it.\n\n\"The ship will still be above my horizon while I'm going down, so I won't be out of touch for more than ninety minutes.\n\n'Tm convinced that this is the only thing to do. I've come a billion miles - I don't want to be stopped by the last sixty.\"\n\nFor weeks, as it stared forever Sunward with its strange senses, the Star Gate had watched the approaching ship. Its makers had prepared it for many things, and this was one of them. It recognized what was climbing up toward it from the warm heart of the Solar System.\n\nIf it had been alive, it would have felt excitement, but such an emotion was wholly beyond its powers. Even if the ship had passed it by, it would not have known the slightest trace of disappointment. It had waited three million years; it was prepared to wait for eternity.\n\nIt observed, and noted, and took no action, as the visitor checked its speed with jets of incandescent gas. Presently it felt the gentle touch of radiations, trying to probe its secrets. And still it did nothing.\n\nNow the ship was in orbit, circling low above the surface of this strangely piebald moon. It began to speak, with blasts of radio waves, counting out the prime numbers from 1 to 11, over and over again. Soon these gave way to more complex signals, at many frequencies-ultraviolet, infrared, X rays. The Star Gate made no reply; it had nothing to say.\n\nThere was a long pause, then, before it observed that something was falling down toward it from the orbiting ship. It searched its memories, and the logic circuits made their decisions, according to the orders given them long ago.\n\nBeneath the cold light of Saturn, the Star Gate awakened its slumbering powers.\n\n[ Into the Eye ]\n\nDiscovery looked just as he had last seen her from space, floating in lunar orbit with the Moon taking up half the sky. Perhaps there was one slight change; be could not be sure, but some of the paint of her external lettering, announcing the purpose of various hatches, connections, umbilical plugs, and other attachment, had faded during its long exposure to the unshielded Sun.\n\nThat Sun was now an object that no man would have recognized. It was far too bright to be a star, but one could look directly at its tiny disk without discomfort. It gave no heat at all; when Bowman held his ungloved hands in its rays, as they streamed through the space pod's window, he could feel nothing upon his skin. He might have been trying to warm himself by the light of the Moon; not even the alien landscape fifty miles below reminded him more vividly of his remoteness from Earth.\n\nNow he was leaving, perhaps for the last time, the metal world that had been his home for so many months. Even if he never returned, the ship would continue to perform its duty, broadcasting instrument readings back to Earth until there was some final, catastrophic failure in its circuits.\n\nAnd if he did return? Well, he could keep alive, and perhaps even sane, for a few more months. But that was all, for the hibernation systems were useless with no computer to monitor them. He could not possibly survive until Discovery II made its rendezvous with Japetus, four or five years hence.\n\nHe put these thoughts behind him, as the golden crescent of Saturn rose in the sky ahead. In all history, he was the only man to have seen this sight. To all other eyes, Saturn had always shown its whole illuminated disk turned full toward the Sun. Now it was a delicate bow, with the rings forming a thin line across it - like an arrow about to be loosed, into the face of the Sun itself.\n\nAlso in the line of the rings was the bright star of Titan, and the fainter sparks of the other moons. Before this century was half gone, men would have visited them all; but whatever secrets they might hold, he would never know.\n\nThe sharp-edged boundary of the blind white eye was sweeping toward him; there was only a hundred miles to go, and he would be over his target in less than ten minutes. He wished that there was some way of telling if his words were reaching Earth, now an hour and a half away at the speed of light. It would be the ultimate irony if, through some breakdown in the relay system, he disappeared into silence, and no one ever knew what had happened to him.\n\nDiscovery was still a brilliant star in the black sky far above. He was pulling ahead as he gained speed during his descent, but soon the pod's braking jets would slow him down and the ship would sail on out of sight - leaving him alone on this shining plain with the dark mystery at its center.\n\nA block of ebony was climbing above the horizon, eclipsing the stars ahead. He rolled the pod around its gyros, and used full thrust to break his orbital speed. In a long, flat arc, he descended toward the surface of Japetus.\n\nOn a world of higher gravity, the maneuver would have been far too extravagant of fuel. But here the space pod weighed only a score of pounds; he had several minutes of hovering time before he would cut dangerously into his reserve and be stranded without any hope of return to the still orbiting Discovery. Not, perhaps, that it made much difference...\n\nHis altitude was still about five miles, and he was heading straight toward the huge, dark mass that soared in such geometrical perfection above the featureless plain. It was as blank as the flat white surface beneath; until now, he had not appreciated how enormous it really was. There were very few single buildings on Earth as large as this; his carefully measured photographs indicated a height of almost two thousand feet. And as far as could be judged, its proportions were precisely the same as TMA-l's - that curious ratio 1 to 4 to 9.\n\n\"I'm only three miles away now, holding altitude at four thousand feet. Still not a sign of activity - nothing on any of the instruments. The faces seem absolutely smooth and polished. Surely you'd expect some meteorite damage after all this time!\n\n\"And there's no debris on the - I suppose one could call it the roof. No sign of any opening, either. I'd been hoping there might be some way in.\n\n\"Now I'm right above it, hovering five hundred feet up. I don't want to waste any time, since Discovery will soon be out of range. I'm going to land. It's certainly solid enough - and if it isn't I'll blast off at once.\n\n\"Just a minute - that's odd -\"\n\nBowman's voice died into the silence of utter bewilderment. He was not alarmed; he literally could not describe what he was seeing.\n\nHe had been hanging above a large, flat rectangle, eight hundred feet long and two hundred wide, made of something that looked as solid as rock. But now it seemed to be receding from him; it was exactly like one of those optical illusions, when a three-dimensional object can, by an effort of will, appear to turn inside out - its near and far sides suddenly interchanging.\n\nThat was happening to this huge, apparently solid structure. Impossibly, incredibly, it was no longer a monolith rearing high above a flat plain. What had seemed to be its roof had dropped away to infinite depths; for one dizzy moment, he seemed to be looking down into a vertical shaft - a rectangular duct which defied the laws of perspective, for its size did not decrease with distance...\n\nThe Eye of Japetus had blinked, as if to remove an irritating speck of dust. David Bowman had time for just one broken sentence which the waiting men in Mission Control, nine hundred million miles away and eighty minutes in the future, were never to forget:\n\n\"The thing's hollow - it goes on forever - and - oh my God! - it's full of stars!\"\n\n[ Exit ]\n\nThe Star Gate opened. The Star Gate closed.\n\nIn a moment of time too short to be measured, Space turned and twisted upon itself.\n\nThen Japetus was alone once more, as it had been for three million years - alone, except for a deserted but not yet derelict ship, sending back to its makers messages which they could neither believe nor understand.", "loss": true } ]

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