The Secret
- The secret mission is to investigate possible alien life. You already know this. The novel is constructed in such a way that you already know all the big revelations, and then there's a buildup to the revelation, and then you're like, "I know that already."
- Shmoop doesn't know why the novel is set up like this. Maybe Clarke was afraid that if he surprised you, you'd be sad.
- Thanks Arthur C.
- Anyway, Heywood Floyd pops up again here—not in the middle of space, but on the viewscreen.
- He's still boring, but Bowman doesn't notice because Bowman is boring too.
- Also, Bowman is facing certain death, so he may be distracted from all the Floyd boringness. You can't really blame him.
- So Heywood babbles on about TMA-1 and how it came from aliens and etc.
- He says they think TMA-1 was buried and designed to go off when the sun hit it as a kind of alarm; to warn the aliens somewhere out there when someone dug it up.
- The signal was aimed at Saturn, so that's why Bowman is headed out to Saturn, and specifically to the moon Japetus—to see if there are superpowered aliens there.