He lifted the telephone receiver and pressed it against the plastic of his helmet. If there had been a dialing sound he could have heard it through the conducting material. But, as he had expected, there was only silence. So – it was all a fake, though a fantastically careful one. And it was clearly not intended to deceive but rather – he hoped – to reassure. That was a very comforting thought; nevertheless he would not remove his suit until he had completed his voyage of exploration.
A feeling of foreboding, and, indeed, of physical as well as psychological discomfort, had come over him. He suddenly recalled – and this did nothing at all to help – a phrase he had once come across: “Someone is walking over your grave.
As to the nature of that drive, one thing was now certain, even though all else was mystery. There were no jets of gas, no beams of ions or plasma thrusting Rama into its new orbit. No one put it better than Sergeant Professor Myron, when he said, in shocked.
Many of the fundamental physical constants-which as far as one could see, God could have given any value He liked-are in fact very precised adjusted, or fine-tuned, to produce the only kind of Universe that makes our existence possible.
The outermost – Jupiter XXVII – moved backwards in an unstable path nineteen million miles from its temporary master. It was the prize in a perpetual tug-of-war between Jupiter and the Sun, for the planet was constantly capturing short-lived moons from the asteroid belt, and losing them again after a few million years. Only the inner satellites were its permanent property; the Sun could never wrest them from its grasp.
I hope you’re right. Apart from that, won’t there be trouble when he discovers what you’re trying to do? Because he will, you know.” “I’ll take that risk. Besides, we understand each other rather well.” The physicist toyed with his pencil and stared into space for a while. “It’s a very pretty problem. I like it,” he said simply. Then he dived into a drawer and produced an enormous writing pad, quite the biggest that Stormgren had ever seen.
How obvious, now, was that mathematical ratio of its sides, the quadratic sequence 1:4:9! And how naive to have imagined that the series ended there, in only three dimensions!
Much had been lost during the centuries, for men seldom bother to preserve the commonplace articles of everyday life.
Hello, Dave,” said Hal presently. “Have you found the trouble?” This.
There was little work left of a routine, mechanical nature. Men’s minds were too valuable to waste on tasks that a few thousand transistors, some photo-electric cells, and a cubic meter of printed circuits could perform.
First rule of government of the people, by the people, for the people: Never tell the people!
In my life I have found two things of priceless worth: learning and loving. Nothing else – not fame, not power, not achievement for its own sake – can possibly have the same lasting value.
That suggested two possibilities. It was either too unintelligent to understand him – or it was very intelligent indeed, with its own powers of choice and volition. In that case, he must treat it as an equal. Even then he might underestimate it – but it would bear him no resentment, for conceit was not a vice from which robots often suffered.
We’re particularly anxious to get our hands on Pioneer 10 – the first man-made object to escape from the Solar System.
On the placidly flowing river of time, he wished only to make a few ripples: he shrank from diverting its course.
The toolmakers had been remade by their own tools.
Do you believe in ghosts, Dim?” “Certainly not: but like every sensible man, I’m afraid of them. Why do you ask?
No group can survive, let alone thrive, unless what is good for the overall community is more important than individual freedom. Take, for example, resource allocation. How can anyone with any intelligence possibly justify, in terms of the overall community, the accumulation and hoarding of enormous material assets by a few individuals when others do not even have food, clothing, and other essentials?” In.
But there was no substitute for reality; one should beware of imitations.
No one worried except a few philosophers. The race was too intent upon savoring its new-found freedom to look beyond the pleasures of the present. Utopia was here at last: its novelty had not yet been assailed by the supreme enemy of all Utopias – boredom. Perhaps.