Te 8 ruscha indd

3 5

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HOME READING
The S ecret
b y A rthur C. Clarke
Henry Cooper was on his second visit to 
the moon, and sending back daily reports 
to the United Nations Space Adm inistration.
Cooper had already visited and written 
about the fam ous place where the first 
men had landed on the moon. But that 
now belonged to the past, like C olum bus’s 
voyage to America. What interested Cooper 
now was the future.
When he had come, everyone had been 
very glad to see him; he could go anywhere 
he liked and ask any questions he wanted. 
UNSA had always been friendly towards him 
because the reports he sent back to earth 
were accurate.
But now he had a kind of strange feeling 
that som ething was wrong somewhere, and 
he was going to find out what it was. He 
reached fo r the phone and said, “ Please get 
me to the Police Office. I want to speak to 
the Chief Inspector.”
He met Chief Inspector Chandra Cooma- 
raswamy next day. Cooper had known him 
fo r many years and fo r some tim e they talked 
about old friends and old times.
Then Cooper said, “You know everything 
th a t’s happening on the moon, Chandra. And 
you know that I’m here to write a num ber of 
reports fo r UNSA. So why are people trying 
to hide things from m e?”
It was im possible to hurry Chandra. He 
w ent on sm oking his pipe until he was ready 
to answer. “What people?” he asked at last.
“Well, 
I’ve noticed that the Medical 
Research Group is avoiding me. Last tim e 
I was here everybody was very friendly, 
and gave me some fine stories. But now I
can’t even meet the research boss. It really 
worries me. Is there some kind of new, killer 
disease?”
There was a long silence. Then Chandra 
said, “ I’ll start asking some questions. I d o n ’t 
like it e ith e r.”
The call came two weeks later. “ Henry? 
Chandra here. Can you meet me in half an 
hour at Airlock Five? Good. I’ll see you th e re .” 
Cooper knew Airlock Five meant that they 
were going outside the city. Chandra had 
found som ething.
As the moon car drove along the rough 
road from the city, Cooper could see the 
earth. It threw a bright blue-green light over 
the hard, ugly land of the moon. Cooper 
thought that it was d ifficult to see how the 
moon could ever be a nice place. But if 
humans want to know nature’s secrets, they 
must live and w ork in places like these.
The car turned off to another road and 
soon they came to a shining glass building. 
There was another moon car, with a red 
cross on its side, parked by the entrance.
Soon Cooper was following Chandra down 
a long hall, past laboratories and com puter 
rooms, all em pty on this Sunday m orning. At 
last they came into a large room, which had 
all kinds of plants and small animals from
earth. A short, grey-haired man was waiting 
there. He was looking very worried and very 
unhappy.
“ Dr Hastings,” said Coomaraswamy, “ Meet 
Mr C ooper.” He turned to Henry and added, 
“ I’ve asked the doctor to tell you everything.” 
The scientist was not interested in shak­
ing hands or making polite conversation. He 
walked over to one of the containers, took 
out a small brown animal, and held it out to ­
wards Cooper. “ Do you know what this is?” 
he asked unsmiling.
“Of course,” said Cooper. “A hamster -
scientists use them in laboratories every­
w here.”
“Yes,” said Hastings. “A perfectly normal 
hamster. But this one is five years o ld .” 
“Well? W hat’s strange about that?”
“Oh, nothing, nothing at all ... but usually 
hamsters live fo r only two years. And we 
have some here that are nearly ten years old.” 
For a m om ent no one spoke. Then Cooper 
whispered, “ My God - y o u ’ve found the way 
to make life longer!”

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