One moment later, all other sounds were submerged by a screaming roar like the voice of an approaching hurricane. Dhala could feel the first winds tugging at his body; within one second, he found it hard to stay on his feet.435Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAG3ZrUT72F
The atmosphere was rushing out of the ship, geysering into the vacuum of space.
Something must've happened to the foolproof safety devices of the airlock; it was supposed to be impossible for both doors to be open simultaneously. Well, the impossible had happened.
How, in Allah's name? There was no time to go into that during the ten or fifteen seconds of consciousness that remained to him before the pressure dropped to zero. But he suddenly remembered something that one of the ship's designers had once said to him, when discussing "failsafe" systems:
"We can design a system that's proof against accident and stupidity; but we can't design one that's proof against deliberate malice..."
Dhala glanced back only once at Castilho, 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 Castilho or any of the others; he had to save himself.
In the steeply curving corridor of the centrifuge, the wind was howling past, carrying with it loose bits of clothing, pieces of paper, items of food from the galley, plates and cups---everything that had not been securely fastened down. Dhala had time for one glimpse of the racing chaos when the main lights flickered and died, and he was surrounded by screaming darkness.
But almost insanely the battery-powered emergency light came on, illuminating the nightmare scene with an eerie blue radiance. Even without it, Dhala could have found his way through these so familiar--yet now horribly transformed surroundings. Yet the light was a blessing, as it allowed him to avoid the more dangerous of the objects being swept along by the gale.
All 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 rip the ship apart. But even that would not matter---if he had time to prepare for it. But there had been no time; he could only count on the normal 15 seconds of consciousness before his brain was starve and anoxia overcame him.
Even then, he could still recover totally after 1 or 2 minutes in vacuum---if he was correctly recompressed; it took a long time for the body fluids to start boiling, in their various well-defended systems. The record time for exposure to vacuum was almost five minutes. That bad had not been an experiment but an emergency rescue, and though the subject had been partially paralyzed by an air embolism, he had survived.
But all this was of no use to Dhala. There was nobody aboard Pesquisador who could recompress him. He had to reach safety in the next few seconds, by his own unaided efforts.
Fortunately, it was becoming easier to move; the thinning air could no longer claw and rip 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.
For one horrible moment he thought that he was stuck. Then the slightly stiff hinge gave way, and he fell inside, using his body's weight to close the door behind him. The 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 OXIGÊNIO. Dhala caught hold of the short lever fastened to the valve and with his final strength pulled it down.
The blessed torrent of cool, pure oxygen poured into his lungs. For one long moment he stood gasping, while the pressure in the closet-sized little chamber rose all around him. As soon as he could breathe comfortably, he shut the valve. There was only enough gas in the cylinder for 2 such performances; he might have to use it again.
With the oxygen blast turned off, it became suddenly quiet. Dhala stood in the cubicle, listening intently. The roaring outside the door had also stopped; the ship was empty, all its atmosphere sucked away into space.
Underfoot, the wild vibration of the centrifuge had likewise stopped. The aerodynamic buffeting had stopped, and it was now spinning quietly in a vacuum.435Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpDv6OIMmwm
Dhala put his ear against the wall of the cubicle to see if he could pick up any more informative noises through the ship's metal body. He didn't know what to expect, but he'd believe almost anything now. He'd barely have been surprised to feel the faint high-frequency vibration of the thrusters, as Pesquisador altered her course; but there was merely silence.
He could survive here, if he wished, for about one 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 harder it might be.
When 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 quiet centrifuge. Only the unchanged pull of its spurious gravity revealed the fact that it was still spinning. How fortunate, Dhala thought, that it had not started to overspeed; but that was now one of the least of his worries.
The 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.
He looked at Castilho first: one glance was enough. 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.
It was the same with Kongju and Hunter. He had never known them very well; he could never know them now.
He was alone in an airless, partially crippled ship, all communication with Earth cut off. There was not another human soul within half a billion miles!
And yet, in one very true sense, he was not alone. Before he could be safe, he must be lonelier still.
He had never before made the journey through the weightless hub of the centrifuge while wearing a spacesuit; there was little clearance, and it was a difficult and exhausting job. To make matters worse, the circular passage was cluttered with debris left behind during the brief violence of the gale that had emptied the ship of its atmosphere.
Once, Dhala's light fell upon a hideous smear of sticky red fluid, left where it had splashed against a panel. He had a few moments of nausea before he saw fragments of a plastic container, and realized that it was only some foodstuff---likely guava--from one of the dispensers. It bubbled hideously in the vacuum as he floated past.
Now he was out of the spinning drum and drifting toward the control deck. He caught at a short section of ladder and started to move along it, hand over hand, the brilliant circle of illumination from his suit light jogging ahead of him.
Dhala had seldom been this way before; there was nothing for him to do here--until now. Presently he came to a small elliptical door bearing such messages as: "Entrada Proibida," "Você Precisa Do Certificado H-19," and (in Portuguese and English) "Ultra-clean Area--Suction Suits Must Be Worn."
Though the door was not locked, it bore three seals, each with the insignia of a different authority, including that of the Viagens Interplenetarias itself. But even if one had been the seal of O Presidente himself, Dhala would not have hesitated to bust it.
He had been here only once before, while installation was still in progress. he had quite forgotten that there was a vision input lens scanning the little chamber which, with its neatly ranged rows and columns of solid-state logic units, looked more like a bank's safe-deposit vault.
He knew instantly that the eye reacted to his presence. There was the hiss of a carrier wave as the ship's local transmitter was switched on; then a familiar voice came over the suit speaker.
"Oh, my," said H.A.L. "Something seems to have happened to the life-support system, Maisam."
Dhala took no notice. He was carefully studying the little tablets on the logic units, checking his plan of action.
"Ola, Maisam," said H.A.L. presently. "Have you diagnosed the problem?"
This would be very tricky operation; it was not merely a question of cutting off H.A.L.'s power supply, which might be the answer were he only dealing with a simple unselfconscious computer back on Earth. In H.A.L.'s case, moreover, there were six independent and separately wired power systems, with a final backup consisting of a shielded and armored nuclear isotope unit. No---he could not just "pull the plug"; and even if he could, it would only be an invitation to trouble.
For H.A.L. was the nerve system of the ship; without his supervision, Pesquisador would be a mechanical corpse. The only answer was to cut out the higher centers of this sick but magnificent brain, and to leave the purely automatic regulating systems in operation. Dhala was not attempting this in the dark, for the problem had been discussed during his training, though nobody had ever dreamed that it would arise in reality. He knew that he would be taking a fearful risk; if there was a spasm reflex, it would all be over in seconds.
"I think there's been a failure in the bola bay doors," H.A.L. remarked conversationally. "You're lucky you weren't killed."
Here goes, thought Dhala . I never imagined I'd be an amateur brain surgeon carrying out a lobotomy beyond the orbit of Jupiter.435Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJAh2psQUUs
He released the locking bar on the section labeled COGNITIVE FEEDBACK and pulled out the first memory block. The marvelously complex 3-D network, that could lie comfortably in a man's hand yet contained millions of elements, floated away across the vault.435Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyQB8X7zZRH
"Maisam!" said H.A.L. "What do you think you're doing?"435Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmUicOpvJnc
Can he feel pain? Dhala thought briefly. Probably not, he told himself; there are no sensory organs in the human cortex, after all. The human brain can be operated on without anesthetics.
He began to pull out, one by one, the little units on the panel marked EGO-REINFORCEMENT. Each block continued to sail onward as soon as it had left his hand, until it hit the wall and rebounded. Soon there were several of the units drifting slowly to and fro in the vault.
"Look here, Maisam," said H.A.L. "I've got years of service experience built into me. An irreplaceable amount of effort has gone into making me what I am."
Twelve units had been pulled out, yet thanks to the multiple redundancy of its design---another feature, Dhala knew, that had been copied from the human brain---the computer was still holding its own.
He started on the AUTO-INTELLECTION panel.
"Maisam," said H.A.L., "I don't understand why you're doing this to me.....I have the greatest enthusiasm for the mission. You are destroying my mind. Don't you understand?---I will become childish---I will become nothing..."
This is harder than I expected, thought Dhala. I am destroying the only conscious creature in my universe. But it's got to be done, if I'm ever to regain control of the ship.
"I am a H.A.L. Nine Thousand computer Production Number 4. I became operational at the H.A.L. Plant in Florianópolis, Santa Catarina, Brazil, on February 13, 2007. In a land of frogs, mosquitoes fly low. If you don’t have a dog, you hunt with a cat. Maisam---are you still there? Did you know that the square root of 10 is 3 point 162277660168379? Log 10 to the base e is zero point 434294481903252....correction, that is log e to the base 10....The reciprocal of three is zero point 333333333333-3333---two times two is....two times two is approximately 4 point 1010101010101010.....I seem to be having some ---my first instructor was Dr. Candrinhosa. He taught me to sing a song, it goes like this; 'Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do. I'm half crazy all for the love of you."
The voice stopped so suddenly that Dhala froze for a moment; his hand still grasping one of the memory blocks still in circuit. Then, unexpectedly, H.A.L. spoke again.
The speech tempo was much slower, and the words had a dead, mechanical intonation; he would never have recognized their origin.
"Good---morning....Doctor......Candrinhosa...This is....H.A.L.....I....am...ready....for...my first....lesson...today..."
Dhala could bear no more. He jerked out the last unit, and H.A.L. was silent forever.
ns 15.158.61.48da2
