From the Ocean from teh Stars

Arthur C. Clarke

FROM THE OCEAN,
FROM THE STARS

Introduction by the author

In the three books in this volume—two novels and a collection of twenty-four short stories — Arthur C. Clarke demonstrates the excitement, entertainment, and exhilarating imagination that have made him widely regarded as the master of contemporary science fiction.

The City and the Stars
reveals the distant future, when human existence on earth is confined to only one city, from which an adventurous young man sets out to explore the remote reaches of the universe.

The Deep Range
explores the hidden caverns of the ocean with Walter Franklin, a permanently grounded astronaut, assigned to herding whales, upon whose products man subsists, a century from now.

The Other Side of the Sky
offers twenty-four stories, dramatic, humorous, and exciting, ranging from the earth of our day, to the moon some decades hence, to the planets and galaxies millennia from now.

"Arthur C. Clarke belongs to (and possibly leads) that exceedingly small group of science fiction writers who are truly literate —lettered in science as well as in language, and capable of moving the reader as much by the beauty of accurate and original thought as by the subtleties of prose and character."—
N. Y. Herald Tribune Books

BOOK CLUB
EDITION

FROM THE OCEAN, FROM THE STARS

^{FROM THE OCEAN, EMI THE STARS}

An omnibus containing the complete novels

THE DEEP RANGE
and
THE CITY AND THE STARS

and twenty-four short stories by ARTHUR C. CLARKE

Copyright 1953,
©
1956, 1957, 1958 by Arthur C. Clarke; "The Nine Billion
Names of God" copyright 1953 by Ballantine Books, Inc.; "Refugee" (originally
published as "?") copyright 1955 by Fantasy House, Inc.; "The Other Side of the
Sky" copyright 1957 by Royal Publications, Inc.; "Wall of Darkness" copyright 1949 by Fictioneers, Inc.; "Security Check" copyright 1957 by Fantasy House, Inc.; "No Morning After
⁷⁷
copyright 1954 by August Derleth; "Venture to the
Moon" copyright 1956, 1957 by Fantasy House, Inc.; "Publicity Campaign" copy
right 1956 by Renown Publications, Inc.; "All the Time in the World" copyright 1952 by Better Publications, Inc.; "The Star" copyright 1955 by Royal Publica
tions, Inc.; "Transience" copyright 1949 by Better Publications, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any mechanical means, including mimeograph and tape recorder, without permission in writing from the publisher,

Printed in the United States of America

TO FRANCES AND DENVER

CONTENTS

Introduction
ix I THE DEEP RANGE 1 II THE OTHER SIDE OF THE SKY 167

THE NINE BILLION NAMES OF GOD 169

REFUGEE 176

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE SKY:

Special Delivery
187
Feathered Friend
190
Take a Deep Breath
193
Freedom of Space
195
Passer-by
198
The Call of the Stars
201

THE WALL OF DARKNESS 205 SECURITY CHECK 221 NO MORNING AFTER 226 VENTURE TO THE MOON:

The Starting Line
232

Robin Hood, F.R.S.
235

Green Fingers
239

All That Glitters
243

Watch This Space
247

A Question of Residence
250

PUBLICITY CAMPAIGN 255

ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD 259

COSMIC CASANOVA 270

THE STAR 276

viii
Contents

OUT OF THE SUN 282

TRANSIENCE 289

THE SONGS OF DISTANT EARTH 295

III THE CITY AND THE STARS 321

INTRODUCTION

Although their themes and settings differ so widely, the two novels in this volume owe their existence to the same somewhat improbable episode in my life—an expedition to the Great Barrier Reef of Australia which occupied my partner, Mike Wilson, and myself during most of 1955. For an account of Heron Island as it is today, seventy years before the opening of
The Deep Range,
I therefore refer any interested reader to
The Coast of Coral
Perhaps I had better warn hopeful marine biologists that the University of Queensland's existing facilities on the island still have a long way to go before they match those in the novel.

The City and the Stars
was written while I was on the way to the Great Barrier Reef—much of it, indeed, aboard S.S.
Himalaya.
The knowledge that I was about to spend some months diving amid sharks of doubtful docility was the chief spur to action, for the novel represented unfinished business that had bothered me for some years. It may or may not be true, as Dr. Johnson stated, that nothing settles a man's mind so much as the knowledge that he will be hanged in the morning, but for my part I can testify that the thought of not returning from the Reef was the main reason why
The City and the Stars
was completed at this particular time.

The first draft, however, was begun some eighteen years earlier, in 1937. After numerous revisions during and after the war, it was published in 1948 under the title
Against the Fall of Night.
Although this work was well received, it had most of the defects of a first novel, and my dissatisfaction with it increased steadily through the years. Moreover, the progress of science during the two decades since the story was first conceived made many of the original ideas naive, and opened up vistas and possibilities quite unimagined when the book was originally planned. In particular, certain developments in information theory suggested profound changes in the human way of life, and I wished to incorporate these into the book I had attempted, but so far failed, to write.

About a quarter of the present work appears in
Against the Fall of
Night;
I believe that even those who have read the earlier book (which
stubbornly refuses to go out of print) will find that this is virtually a new
novel.

And thereby hangs a tale. Not long ago a certain psychiatrist and one of her patients discovered a mutual interest in my work (no conclusions,
please, should be drawn from this). They thought they were talking
about the same novel, but in fact the psychiatrist had read
The City and
the Stars
and the patient
Against the Fall of Night
—and neither knew
that the other book existed. By the time the two readers had compared
their memories, finding obvious similarities of name and incident yet
total differences of plot, each was convinced that the other was suffering
from hallucinations. I dread to think what might have happened, to doc
tor and patient, had the psychiatrist not made contact with me (ex of
ficio), before the situation got too complicated. Perhaps I had better
make one categorical promise here and now:
The City and the Stars
is
the final, definitive version.

The stories in
The Other Side of the Sky
were written during 1947-57,
and with the three earlier collections,
Expedition to Earth, Reach for
Tomorrow,
and
Tales from the "White Hart"
all my shorter works of fiction that I think worth preserving are now in volume form.

I have thrice—to my knowledge, that is—written stories based on ideas provided by someone else. My friends will testify that I am too
sober a person to have imagined "No Morning After," which is due to
A. H. Smith, while "All the Time in the World" springs from the dubious
talents of Mike Wilson. In 1953,1 turned the latter tale into a television
play, which went out over the American Broadcasting Company net
work. Since then I have successfully avoided any entanglements with TV,
though a purely social contact with "Captain Video" was undoubtedly
responsible for "Security Check."

"The Nine Billion Names of God" was the product of a rainy after
noon in New York; the screen rights were bought by a Hollywood movie
company in a moment of mental aberration, and I am still awaiting the
result with mixed feelings.

"Refugee," to the utter confusion of indexers, was first published by
Anthony Boucher in
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
as "?" since he found my original title unsatisfactory and promptly started
a competition to find a better one, finally settling upon "This Earth of
Majesty." To add to the chaos, Ted Carnell, in the British magazine
New Worlds,
called it "Royal Prerogative."

"The Star" has a very unusual history. In 1954, Carl Biemiller of

Holiday
magazine asked me to write an astronomical article, which I tackled with some reluctance because it involved a considerable amount of research
{i.e.,
work). It proved well worth it, however, because after publication in
Holiday
the piece concerned—whose title I won't mention because it would give away the plot—was picked by
Reader's Digest.
Then the London
Observer
announced a short-story competition on the subject "2500
ad,"
and I realized that I had a theme already to hand. The story was written in a state of unusually intense emotion; needless to say, it wasn't even placed among the "also rans." (The winners were later published in book form under the title
2,500 AD,
and readers may amuse themselves by making their own judgments.) As some compensation, however, on its eventual magazine appearance "The Star" was voted the best science-fiction story of 1956.

"Venture to the Moon" also has an unusual genesis. It was written as a series of six independent but linked stories for the London
Evening Standard,
and when the commission was first proposed I turned it down. It appeared impossible to write stories in only 1,500 words which would be understandable to a mass readership despite being set in a totally alien environment, but on second thought this seemed such an interesting challenge that I decided to tackle it. The resulting series was successful enough to demand a second, "The Other Side of the Sky," which by good luck appeared on the London newsstands just when Sputnik I appeared in the sky.

Arthur
C.
Clarke
Colombo 1961

THE
DEEP RANGE

Part I
The Apprentice

☆
CHAPTER ONE

I here was a killer loose on the range. The South Pacific air patrol had seen the great corpse staining the sea crimson as it wallowed in the waves. Within seconds, the intricate warning system had been alerted; from San Francisco to Brisbane, men were moving counters and drawing range circles on the charts. And Don Burley, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes, was hunched over the control board of Scoutsub 5 as it dropped down to the twenty-fathom line.

He was glad that the alert was in his area; it was the first real excitement for months. Even as he watched the instruments on which his life depended, his mind was ranging far ahead. What could have happened? The brief message had given no details; it had merely reported a freshly killed right whale lying on the surface about ten miles behind the main herd, which was still proceeding north in panic-stricken flight. The obvious assumption was that, somehow, a pack of killer whales had managed to penetrate the barriers protecting the range. If that was so, Don and all his fellow wardens were in for a busy time.

The pattern of green lights on the telltale board was a glowing symbol of security. As long as that pattern was unchanged, as long as none of those emerald stars winked to red, all was well with Don and his tiny craft. Air—fuel—power—this was the triumvirate that ruled his life. If any one of these failed, he would be sinking in a steel cofiin down toward the pelagic ooze, as Johnnie Tyndall had done the season before last. But there was no reason why they should fail, and the accidents one foresaw, Don told himself reassuringly, were never those that happened.

He leaned across the tiny control board and spoke into the mike. Sub 5 was still close enough to the mother ship for radio to work, but before long he'd have to switch to the ultrasonics.

"Setting course 255, speed 50 knots, depth 20 fathoms, full sonar