In 2061, at the age of 103, Floyd is chosen as one of several "celebrity guests" to come aboard the privately-owned spaceliner
Universe for the first-ever human landing on the surface of
Halley's Comet, when it makes its periodic pass through the Solar System. Meanwhile, a team of scientists on
Ganymede is
terraforming the moon. Scientist Rolf van der Berg, a second-generation
Afrikaner refugee, studies pictures of Mount Zeus and determines that it is in fact one enormous diamond. He communicates his discovery to his uncle Paul Kreuger; the expedition planners invite van der Berg to join the crew of
Galaxy for its flyby of Europa.
As
Galaxy nears Europa, a stewardess attempts to single-handedly hijack
Galaxy, forcing it to crash into Europa's ocean. Her plan having failed (her motivation and loyalties are not explained, but she is assumed to be a militant anti-Afrikaner), she commits suicide. The crew is now stranded, but their sister ship
Universe is tasked to rescue her.
Van der Berg and Chris Floyd take the shuttle
William Tsung (nicknamed
Bill Tee) to study Mount Zeus; also the wreck of the Chinese spacecraft
Tsien, and the enormous monolith lying on its side at the border between the dayside and nightside, dubbed the 'Great Wall'. Near Mount Zeus, van der Berg relays the message "LUCY IS HERE" to his uncle Paul, verifying that Mount Zeus is indeed one large diamond. The code word "Lucy" was chosen both in reference to the mini-sun Lucifer and to an
article in the journal
Nature in 1981 hypothesizing that the cores of Uranus and Neptune were in fact diamonds the size of Earth (caused by the compression of carbon), with the hypothesis making a logical extension to Jupiter. The article was subtitled "
Diamonds in the Sky?" in reference to the
Beatles song "
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds". Mount Zeus is a fragment of Jupiter's core which survived the creation of Lucifer and later struck Europa.
On the
Universe, the celebrity guests discuss the mystery surrounding Bowman and the monoliths, and whether they would be allowed to land on Europa to rescue
Galaxy’s crew. Floyd follows a suggestion that he simply try to call Bowman on the radio, and that night has a strange dream in which he sees the monolith floating at the foot of his bed.
The
Bill Tee flies by
Tsien, which has been completely stripped of its metals (rare and thus valuable to the Europans), and on to the Great Wall. An image of his grandfather appears to Chris in the same way that Bowman appeared to Floyd in
2010, telling him that the
Universe was coming.
Universe rescues
Galaxy's crew; they are brought to Ganymede, where they watch as Mount Zeus, which has been steadily sinking, finally disappears beneath the Europan surface. Kreuger writes a follow-up article for
Nature, stating that Mount Zeus was a mere fragment of Jupiter's core and it is almost certain that many more such large pieces of diamond are currently in orbit around Lucifer, and proposing that a program be initiated immediately to collect these enormous quantities of diamond and put them to use.
Floyd and Chris become close again, and both become friends with van der Berg. They talk about how Floyd called Bowman on the radio, and Chris asks if Bowman ever replied. Floyd almost tells his grandson about the monolith in his cabin, but does not after rationalizing that it was probably a dream. It was not a dream. The monolith duplicated Floyd's consciousness; there are now two
Heywood Floyds, one an immortal being who resides with Bowman and HAL inside the Great Wall.
In 2061, at the age of 103, Floyd is chosen as one of several "celebrity guests" to come aboard the privately-owned spaceliner Universe for the first-ever human landing on the surface of Halley's Comet, when it makes its periodic pass through the Solar System. Meanwhile, a team of scientists on Ganymede is terraforming the moon. Scientist Rolf van der Berg, a second-generation Afrikaner refugee, studies pictures of Mount Zeus and determines that it is in fact one enormous diamond. He communicates his discovery to his uncle Paul Kreuger; the expedition planners invite van der Berg to join the crew of Galaxy for its flyby of Europa.