'I believe I was on the verge of doing that, when they located me.'

'Lucky for you – and for us. You may be able to throw light on many things we don't know.'

'Frankly, I doubt it – but I'll do my best. I don't remember a thing after that runaway space-pod charged me. Though I still find it hard to believe, I've been told that Hal was responsible.'

'That's true, but it's a complicated story. Everything we've been able to learn is in this recording – about twenty hours, but you can probably Fast most of it.'

'You know, of course, that Dave Bowman went out in the Number 2 Pod to rescue you – but was then locked outside the ship because Hal refused to open the pod-bay doors.'

'Why, for God's sake?'

Dr Kim winced slightly. It was not the first time Poole had noticed such a reaction.

(Must watch my language, he thought. 'God' seems to be a dirty word in this culture – must ask Indra about it.)

'There was a major programming error in Hal's instructions – he'd been given control of aspects of the mission you and Bowman didn't know about, it's all in the recording...

'Anyway, he also cut off the life-support systems to the three hybernauts – the Alpha Crew – and Bowman had to jettison their bodies as well.'

(So Dave and I were the Beta Crew – something else I didn't know...)

'What happened to them?' Poole asked. 'Couldn't they have been rescued, just as I was?'

'I'm afraid not: we've looked into it, of course. Bowman ejected them several hours after he'd taken back control from Hal, so their orbits were slightly different from yours. Just enough for them to burn up in Jupiter – while you skimmed by, and got a gravity boost that would have taken you to the Orion Nebula in a few thousand more years...'