The Wind from the Sun

Arthur C. Clarke
The Wind from the Sun (1972)

The Wind from the Sun contém 18 contos de Arthur C. Clarke, datados entre 1961 e 1971. O autor escreveu, no Prefácio, que esta era a sua sexta compilação de contos, e não esperava fazer uma sétima, uma vez que a sua produção nesta área estava quase estancada. De facto, segundo a sua bibliografia, as suas «curtas», após 1972, são apenas oito quando, até então, se contavam por dezenas.
Com o subtítulo, na edição original, Stories of The Space Age, as histórias têm cenários muito diversificados, passadas no espaço, no fundo do oceano, na Lua, no topo dos Himalaias, algumas visões apocalípticas, ou recorrendo à inversão do ponto de vista, por vezes irónicas ou divertidas, por vezes meditativas e inquietantes. De destacar o conto que dá o título ao livro, uma narração acerca de uma corrida de escunas espaciais, da Terra à Lua, impelidas por velas que captam a força do vento solar, que acaba prematuramente devido a uma ejecção de massa coronal, ou "A Meeting with Medusa", prémio Nebula para melhor novela em 1971, que encerra o livro e descreve uma exploração de Júpiter a bordo de uma cápsula suspensa de um balão, tripulada por um piloto transumano.

The next casualty came when they were passing the line between Earth and Sun, and were just beginning the powered half of the orbit. Aboard Diana, Merton saw the great sail stiffen as it tilted to catch the rays that drove it. The acceleration began to climb up from the microgravities, though it would be hours yet before it would reach its maximum value.
It would never reach it for Gossamer. The moment when power came on again was always critical, and she failed to survive it.
Blair’s radio commentary, which Merton had left running at low volume, alerted him with the news: “Hello, Gossamer has the wriggles!” He hurried to the periscope, but at first could see nothing wrong with the great circular disc of Gossamer’s, sail. It was difficult to study it because it was almost edge-on to him and so appeared as a thin ellipse; but presently he saw that it was twisting back and forth in slow, irresistible oscillations. Unless the crew could damp out these waves, by properly timed but gentle tugs on the shroud lines, the sail would tear itself to pieces.
They did their best, and after twenty minutes it seemed that they had succeeded. Then, somewhere near the center of the sail, the plastic film began to rip. It was slowly driven outward by the radiation pressure, like smoke coiling upward from a fire. Within a quarter of an hour, nothing was left but the delicate tracery of the radial spars that had supported the great web. Once again there was a flare of rockets, as a launch moved in to retrieve the Gossamer’s capsule and her dejected crew.
“Getting rather lonely up here, isn’t it?” said a conversational voice over the ship-to-ship radio.
“Not for you, Dimitri,” retorted Merton. “You’ve still got company back there at the end of the field. I’m the one who’s lonely, up here in front.”
It was not an idle boast; by this time Diana was three hundred miles ahead of the next competitor, and her lead should increase still more rapidly in the hours to come.
Aboard Lebedev, Dimitri Markoff gave a good-natured chuckle. He did not sound, Merton thought, at all like a man who had resigned himself to defeat.
“Remember the legend of the tortoise and the hare,” answered the Russian. “A lot can happen in the next quarter-million miles.”

Li anteriormente:
Tales of Ten Worlds (1962)
Rendezvous with Rama (1973)
Os Náufragos do Selene (1961)