RAMAII
    RAMA II
    by Arthur C Clarke and Gentry Lee
    Contents
    1 RAMA RETURNS.7
    2 TEST AND TRAINING..8
    3 CREW CONFERENCE.10
    4 THE GREAT CHAOS.14
    5 AFTER THE CRASH..17
    6 LA SIGNORA SABATINI20
    7 PUBLIC RELATIONS.25
    8 BIOMETRY..28
    9 DIASTOLIC IRREGULARITY..31
    10 THE COSMONAUT AND THE POPE.35
    11 ST. MICHAEL OF SIENA..39
    12 RAMANS AND ROMANS.42
    13 HAPPY NEW YEAR..46
    14 GOOD-BYE HENRY..51
    15 ENCOUNTER..55
    16 RAMA RAMA BURNING BRIGHT..60
    17 DEATH OF A SOLDIER..65
    18 POSTMORTEM...69
    19 RITE OF PASSAGE.73
    20 BLESSED SLUMBER..76
    21 PANDORA'S CUBE.79
    22 DAWN..84
    23 NIGHTFALL.88
    24 SOUNDS IN THE DARKNESS.92
    25 A FRIEND IN NEED..95
    26 SECOND SORTIE.98
    27 TO CATCH A BIOT..103
    28 EXTRAPOLATION..106
    29 THE HUNT..110
    30 POSTMORTEM II116
    31 ORVIETO PRODIGY..120
    32 NEW YORK EXPLORER..125
    33 MISSING PERSON..128
    34 STRANGE COMPANIONS.132
    35 INTO THE PIT..135
    36 IMPACT COURSE.139
    37 MAROONED..143
    38 VISITORS.148
    39 WATERS OF WISDOM...152
    40 ALIEN INVITATION..154
    41 A FRIEND INDEED..158
    42 TWO EXPLORERS.162
    43 EXOBIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY..166
    44 ANOTHER LAIR..169
    45 NIKKI173
    46 THE BETTER PART OF VALOR..177
    47 PROGRESSIVE MATRICES.182
    48 WELCOME EARTHLINGS.186
    49 INTERACTION..190
    50 HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL.194
    51 ESCAPE HARNESS.198
    52 FLIGHT 302.201
    53 TRINITY..205
    54 ONCE A HERO..209
    55 THE VOICE OF MICHAEL.213
    56 AN ANSWERED PRAYER..218
    57 THREE'S COMPANY..222
    58 HOBSON'S CHOICE.225
    59 DREAM OF DESTINY..228
    60 RETURN TO RAMA..231
    61 ENDANGERED SPACECRAFT..234
    62 THE FINAL HOUR..238
    ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.243
    RAMA REVISITED
    I never  imagined,  until a  few  years  ago, that  I  would  ever
collaborate with another writer on a work of fiction. Non-fiction  was
different: I've been  involved in no  less than fourteen  multi-author
projects (two  with  the  editors  ofLife,  and  you  don't  get  more
multiplex than that).  But fiction-no way!  I was quite  sure I  would
never let any outsider tamper with my unique brand of creativity. .  .
.
    Well, a funny  thing happened on  the way to  the word  processor.
Early in  1986  my  agent,  Scott Meredith,  called  me  in  his  most
persuasive  "Don't-say-no-until-I've-finished"  mode.  There  was,  it
seemed, this young genius  of a movie producer  who was determined  to
film something-anything-of  mine.  Though  I'd never  heard  of  Peter
Guber, as it happened I had  seen two of his movies(Midnight  Express,
The Deep), and been quite impressed by them. I was even more impressed
when Scott  told me  that Peter's  latest,The Color  Purple, had  been
nominated for half a dozen Oscars.
    However, I groaned inwardly when Scott  went on to say that  Peter
had a friend  with a brilliant  idea he'd  like me to  develop into  a
screenplay. I groaned, because there are  no new ideas in s.f, and  if
it really was brilliant I'd have thought of it already.
    Then Scott explained who the friend was, and I did a  double-take.
The project suddenly looked very exciting indeed, for reasons that had
nothing to do with Peter Guber, but a lot to do with Stanley Kubrick.
    Flashback.Twenty years earlier, in2001:  A Space Odyssey,  Stanley
and I had  visited the  moons of  Jupiter, never  dreaming that  these
completely unknown worlds would, in  fact, be reconnoitered by  robots
long before  the  date of  our  movie. In  March  and July  1979,  the
twoVoyager probes  revealed that  lo, Europa,  Ganymede, and  Callisto
were stranger places than we'd dared to imagine. The stunning views of
Jupiter's giant satellites made  it possible-no, imperative-for me  to
write 2070:Odyssey Two. This time  around, the Jovian sequences  could
be based on reality, not imagination; and when Peter Hyams filmed  the
book in  1984,  he was  able  to  use actual  images  from  theVoyager
spacecraft as backgrounds for much of the action.
    Spectacular though the results of  the 1979 missions were, it  was
confidently hoped that they would be quite surpassed within a  decade.
TheVoyager spacecraft  spent  only a  few  hours in  the  vicinity  of
Jupiter, hurtling past the  giant planet and its  moons on the way  to
Saturn. But in May 1986, NASA  planned to launchGalileo, an even  more
ambitious space  probe.  This  would  make not  a  brief  fly-by,  but
arendezvous; Galileo would spend two years, starting in December 1988,
on a detailed survey of Jupiter and  its major moons. By 1990, if  all
went well, there would be such a flood of new information about  these
exotic worlds that a third Space Odyssey would be inevitable.That  was
what I was  planning to  write; I'd  hitched my  wagon toGalileo,  and
could hardly care  less about  some amateur  science fiction  author's
ideas. How to turn him down politely? I was still pondering this  when
Scott continued:
    "Peter Guber wants to  fly out to Sri  Lanka, just for  thirty-six
hours, to introduce this guy to you.  His name is Gentry Lee, and  let
me explain who he is. He  works at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory,  and
he's the chief engineer on Project Galileo. Have you heard of that?"
    "Yes," I said faintly.
    "And  before  that,  he  was  director  of  mission  planning  for
theViking landers, that sent back those wonderful pictures from  Mars.
Because he felt  the public  didn't appreciate  what was  going on  in
space, he formed a company with your friend Carl Sagan to  makeCosmos-
he was manager of the whole TV series-"
    ''Enough!" I cried. "This  man I have to  meet. Tell Mr. Gabor  to
bring him here right away."
    "The name," said Scott, "isGuber. Peter Guber."
    Well, it was  agreed that the  two of  them would fly  out to  Sri
Lanka, and if I liked  Gentry's idea (and, equally important,  Gentry)
I'd develop  an  outline  -perhaps  a  dozen  pages-which  would  give
characters, locations, plot, and all the basic elements from which any
competent script writer could generate a screenplay.
    They arrived in Colombo on February 12, 1986-just two weeks  after
theChallenger disaster. 1986 was  going to bethe  Big Year for  Space,
but now the entire NASA program was in total disarray. In  particular,
Galileo would be  delayed for  years. It  would be  1995 before  there
could be any further  news from the moons  of Jupiter. I could  forget
aboutOdyssey Three- just as Gentry  could forget about doing  anything
withGalileo except getting  it back from  the Cape and  putting it  in
mothballs.
    Happily, the Guber-Lee-Clarke Summit went  well, and for the  next
few  weeks   I  filled   floppy  disks   with  concepts,   characters,
backgrounds, plots- anything which seemed even remotely useful to  the
story we'd decided to  callCradle. Gentry liked my  four-thousand-word
outline and flew out to Sri Lanka  again so that we could fill in  the
details. From  then onward,  we  were able  to collaborate  by  making
frequent phone calls and flying yards of printout across the Pacific.
    The writing took the best part of a year, though of course we were
both involved in other projects as well. When I discovered that Gentry
had a considerably better  background in Englishand French  literature
than I  did (by  now I  was  immune to  such surprises)  I  heroically
resisted all attempts to impose my  own style on him. This upset  some
longtime ACC readers,  who whenCradle appeared  under our joint  names
were put  out by  passages where  I  should have  done a  little  more
sanitizing. The  earthier  bits of  dialogue,  1 explained,  were  the
result  of  Gentry's  years  with  the  hairy-knuckled,  hard-drinking
engineers and mathematicians  of JPL's  Astrodynamics Division,  where
the Pasadena cops  often have to  be called in  to settle  bare-fisted
fights  over  Bessel  Functions  and  nonlinear  partial  differential
equations.
    Though I'd greatly enjoyed working with Gentry, when we'd finished
rockingCradle  I  had  no  plans  for  further   collaboration-because
Halley's Comet  was  now dominating  my  life,  as it  had  failed  to
dominate terrestrial skies.  I realized that  its next appearance,  in
2061, would provide a splendid opportunity for a third Space  Odyssey.
(If the much-delayedGalileo does  perform as hoped  in 1995 and  beams
back megabytes of new informationfrom the Jovian system, there may  be
a Final Odyssey. But I make no promises.)
    By the summer of 1987,2061: Odyssey Three was doing very nicely in
the bookstores, thank  you, and  I was  once again  beginning to  feel
those nagging guilt pains that assail an author when he's not  Working
On A Project. Suddenly,  I realized that one  was staring me right  in
the face.
    Fifteen years earlier,  the very last  sentence ofRendezvous  With
Rama had read: "The Ramans do everything in threes." Now, those  words
were a last-minute afterthought when I was doing the final revision. I
had not- cross my heart-any idea of  a sequel in mind; it just  seemed
the correct, open-ended way of finishing  the book. (In real life,  of
course, no story ever ends.)
    Many readers-and  reviewers-jumped to  the conclusion  that I  had
planned a  trilogy  from  the  beginning. Well,  I  hadn't-but  now  I
realized it was a splendid idea. And  Gentry was just the man for  the
job: He  had  all the  background  in celestial  mechanics  and  space
hardware to deal with the next appearance of the Ramans.
    I quickly outlined a spectrum of possibilities, very much as I had
done withCradle, and in a remarkably short time Scott had sold a whole
package to Bantam's Lou Aronica.Rama  II, The Garden of Rama,  andRama
Revealed would be written and delivered during the 1989-91 period.
    So once  again Gentry  Lee  is commuting  across the  Pacific  for
brainstorming sessions in  the Sri  Lankan hills, and  the postman  is
complaining about  the  bulky  printouts  he has  to  balance  on  his
bicycle. This  time around,  however, technology  has speeded  up  our
intercontinental operations. The fax machine now allows us to exchange
ideas  almost  in  real  time;  it's  far  more  convenient  than  the
Electronic Mail  link  Peter Hyams  and  I used  when  scripting  20/0
(seeThe Odyssey File),
    There  is  much  to  be  said  for  this  kind  of   long-distance
collaboration; if they are too close together, co-authors may waste  a
lot of time  on trivia. Even  a solitary writer  can think of  endless
excuses for  not working;  with two,  the possibilities  are at  least
squared.
    However, there  is  no  way  of demonstrating  that  a  writer  is
neglecting his job; even if his snores are deafening, his subconscious
may be hard at work. And Gentry and I knew that our wildest excursions
into literature, science,  art, or  history might  yield useful  story
elements.
    For example, during the writing  ofRama II it became obvious  that
Gentry was  in love  with Eleanor  of Aquitaine-don't  worry,  Stacey,
she's been dead for 785 years-and I had to tactfully dissuade him from
devoting pages to her amazing career. (If you wonder how E of A  could
have the remotest  connection with interstellar  adventures, you  have
pleasures in store.)
    I certainly  learned a  lot  of French  and English  history  from
Gentry that they never  taught me at school.  The occasion when  Queen
Eleanor berated her  son, the intrepid  warrior-king Richard the  Lion
Heartin front of  his troops  for failing to  produce an  heir to  the
throne must  have been  one of  the more  piquant moments  in  British
military history. Alas, there was no way we could work in this gallant
but gay Corleone, who was often a godfather, never a father . . . very
unlike Gentry, whose fifth son arrived toward the end ofRama II.
    But  you  will   meet  Gentry's  most   cherished  creation,   the
yet-to-be-born St.  Michael  of Siena.  One  day, I  am  sure,  you'll
encounter him again, in books that  Gentry will publish under his  own
name, with the minimum of help or hindrance from me.
    As I write these words, we're  just coming up to the midway  point
of our four-volume  partnership. And  though we think  we know  what's
going to happen next, I'm sure  the Ramans have quite a few  surprises
in store for us. ...
    - Arthur C. Clarke
    1 RAMA RETURNS
    The great  radar pulse  generator  Excalibur, powered  by  nuclear
explosions, had been out of service for almost half a century. It  had
been designed  and developed  in a  frantic effort  during the  months
following the transit of  Rama through the solar  system. When it  was
first declared operational in 2132, Excalibur's announced purpose  was
to give  Earth ample  warning of  any future  alien visitors:  one  as
gigantic as Rama could be detected at interstellar distances-years, it
was hoped, before it could have any effect on human affairs.
    That original commitment  to build  Excalibur had  been made  even
before Rama  had  passed  perihelion. As  the  first  extraterrestrial
visitor rounded the  sun and headed  out toward the  stars, armies  of
scientists studied the data from the  only mission that had been  able
to rendezvous with the intruder.
    Rama, they announced, was an intelligent robot with absolutely  no
interest in our solar system  or its inhabitants. The official  report
offered no  explanations for  the many  mysteries encountered  by  the
investigators; however, the experts did convince themselves that  they
understood one basic principle of Raman engineering. Since most of the
major systems  and subsystems  encountered inside  Rama by  the  human
explorers had  two functional  backups, it  appeared that  the  aliens
engineered everything  in threes.  Therefore, since  the entire  giant
vehicle was assumed to be a  machine, it was considered highly  likely
that two more Rama spacecraft would be following the first visitor.
    But no  new spaceships  entered the  solar neighborhood  from  the
empty reaches of interstellar space. As the years passed the people on
Earth confronted more pressing problems. Concern about the Ramans,  or
whoever it was that  had created that  drab cylinder fifty  kilometers
long, abated  as the  lone alien  incursion passed  into history.  The
visit of Rama continued to intrigue many scholars, but most members of
the human species were forced to pay attention to other issues. By the
early 2140s the  world was in  the grip of  a severe economic  crisis.
There was  no money  left to  maintain Excalibur.  Its few  scientific
discoveries could not  justify the  enormous expense  of assuring  the
safety of  its  operation.  The  great  nuclear  pulse  generator  was
abandoned.
    Forty-five years  later  it  took thirty-three  months  to  return
Excalibur to  operational status.  The primary  justification for  the
refurbishment of  Excalibur  was scientific.  During  the  intervening
years radar science had  flourished and produced  new methods of  data
interpretation that had  greatly enhanced the  value of the  Excalibur
observations. As  the  generator  again took  images  of  the  distant
heavens, almost nobody on Earth  was expecting the arrival of  another
Rama spacecraft.
    The operations manager  at Excalibur Station  did not even  inform
his supervisor the first  time the strange blip  appeared on his  data
processing display. He thought it was an artifact, a bogey created  by
an anomalous processing algorithm. When the signature repeated several
times, however, he paid  closer attention. The  manager called in  the
chief Excalibur scientist, who analyzed  the data and decided the  new
object was a  long period comet.  It was another  two months before  a
graduate student proved that the  signature belonged to a smooth  body
at least forty kilometers in its longest dimension.
    By 2179 the world knew that the object hurtling through the  solar
system  toward  the  inner  planets  was  a  second   extraterrestrial
spacecraft. The  International  Space Agency  (ISA)  concentrated  its
resources to prepare a mission that would intercept the intruder  just
inside the orbit of Venus in late February of 2200. Again the eyes  of
humanity looked outward, toward the stars, and the deep  philosophical
questions raised by the first Rama were again debated by the  populace
on  Earth.  As  the   new  visitor  drew   nearer  and  its   physical
characteristics were more  carefully resolved by  the host of  sensors
aimed in its direction, it  was confirmed that this alien  spacecraft,
at least from the outside, was identical to its predecessor. Rama  had
returned. Mankind had a second appointment with destiny.
    2TEST AND TRAINING
    The bizarre metallic creature inched  along the wall, crawling  up
toward the  overhang. It  resembled a  skinny armadillo,  its  jointed
snail body  covered by  a thin  shell that  curled over  and around  a
compact grouping  of electronic  gadgetry astride  the middle  of  its
three sections. A helicopter  hovered about two  meters away from  the
wall. A long flexible arm with a  pincer on the end extended from  the
nose of the helicopter and just missed closing its jaws around the odd
creature.
    "Dammit," muttered Janos Tabori,  "this is almost impossible  with
the 'copter bouncing around. Even  in perfect conditions it's hard  to
do precision work with these claws at full extension." He glanced over
at the pilot. "And  why can't this fantastic  flying machine keep  its
altitude and attitude constant?"
    "Move the helicopter closer to the wall," ordered Dr. David Brown.
    Hiro Yamanaka looked  at Brown  without expression  and entered  a
command into the control console. The  screen in front of him  flashed
red and  printed out  the message,command  unacceptable.  insufficient
tolerances. Yamanaka said nothing.  The helicopter continued to  hover
in the same spot.
    "We have fifty centimeters, maybe seventy-five, between the blades
and the  wall," Brown  thought  out loud.  "In  another two  or  three
minutes the biot will be safe  under the overhang. Let's go to  manual
and grab it. Now. No mistakes this time, Tabori."
    For an  instant a  dubious Hire  Yamanaka stared  at the  balding,
bespectacled scientist sitting in the seat behind him. Then the  pilot
turned, entered another  command into  the console,  and switched  the
large black lever to the left position. The monitor flashed,in  manual
mode. no automatic protection. Yamanaka gingerly eased the  helicopter
closer to the wall.
    Engineer  Tabori  was  ready.  He   inserted  his  hands  in   the
instrumented gloves and practiced opening and closing the jaws at  the
end of the flexible arm. Again the arm extended and the two mechanical
mandibles deftly closed around  the jointed snail  and its shell.  The
feedback loops from the sensors on the claws told Tabori, through  his
gloves, that he had successfully captured his prey. "I've got it,"  he
shouted exultantly. He began the  slow process of bringing the  quarry
back into the helicopter.
    A sudden draft of wind rolled  the helicopter to the left and  the
arm with  the biot  banged  against the  wall.  Tabori felt  his  grip
loosening. "Straighten it  up," he  cried, continuing  to retract  the
arm. While Yamanaka was struggling to  null the rolling motion of  the
helicopter, he inadvertently tipped the  nose down just slightly.  The
three crew members heard the sickening sound of the metal rotor blades
crashing against the wall.
    The Japanese pilot immediately pushed the emergency button and the
craft returned to automatic control. In less than a second, a  whining
alarm sounded and  the cockpit monitor  flashed red.excessive  damage.
high probability of  failure. eject crew.  Yamanaka did not  hesitate.
Within moments he  blasted out of  the cockpit and  had his  parachute
deployed. Tabori and Brown followed. As soon as the Hungarian engineer
removed his hands from the special gloves, the claws at the end of the
mechanical arm relaxed  and the  armadillo creature  fell the  hundred
meters to  the  flat plain  below,  smashing into  thousands  of  tiny
pieces.
    The pilotless helicopter descended  erratically toward the  plain.
Even with  its  onboard  automatic landing  algorithm  active  and  in
complete control,  the  damaged flying  machine  bounced hard  on  its
struts when it hit  the ground and  tipped over on  its side. Not  far
from the  helicopter's  landing site,  aportly  man, wearing  a  brown
military suit covered with ribbons, jumped down from an open elevator.
He had just descended from the mission control center and was  clearly
agitated as he walked briskly to a waiting rover. He was followed by a
scrambling lithe  blond  woman  in  an ISA  flight  suit  with  camera
equipment hanging  over  both  her shoulders.  The  military  man  was
General Valeriy Borzov, commander-in-chief of Project Newton.  "Anyone
hurt?" he asked the occupant of the rover, electrical engineer Richard
Wakefield.
    "Janos apparently  banged  his  shoulder pretty  hard  during  the
ejection. But  Nicole just  radioed that  he had  no broken  bones  or
separations, only a lot of bruises."
    General Borzov climbed  into the  front seat of  the rover  beside
Wakefield, who was sitting behind the vehicle control panel. The blond
woman, video  journalist  Francesca Sabatini,  stopped  recording  the
scene and started to open the back door of the rover. Borzov  abruptly
waved her  away.  "Go check  on  des  Jardins and  Tabori,"  he  said,
pointing across the level plain. "Wilson's probably there already."
    Borzov and  Wakefield  headed in  the  opposite direction  in  the
rover. They  traveled about  four hundred  meters before  they  pulled
alongside a slight man, about fifty, in a new flight suit. David Brown
was busy folding  up his parachute  and replacing it  in a stuff  bag.
General Borzov stepped down from the rover and approached the American
scientist.
    "Are you  all  right, Dr.  Brown?"  the general  asked,  obviously
impatient to dispense with the preliminaries.
    Brown nodded but  did not  reply. "In that  case," General  Borzov
continued in a measured tone, "perhaps you could tell me what you were
thinking about when you ordered Yamanaka to go to manual. It might  be
better if we discussed it here, away from the rest of the crew."
    "Did you  even  see the  warning  lights?" Borzov  added  after  a
lengthy silence. "Did you consider, even for a moment, that the safety
of the other cosmonauts might be jeopardized by the maneuver?"
    Dr. David Brown eventually  looked over at  Borzov with a  sullen,
baleful stare. When he  finally spoke in his  own defense, his  speech
was clipped and strained, belying the emotion he was suppressing.  "It
seemed reasonable to move the helicopter  just a little closer to  the
target. We had some  clearance left and  it was the  only way that  we
could have captured  the biot.  Our mission,  after all,  is to  bring
home-"
    "You  don't  need  to  tell  me  what  our  mission  is,"   Borzov
interrupted with  passion.  "Remember,  I helped  write  the  policies
myself. And I will  remind you again that  the number one  priority,at
all times,  is  the  safety  of  the  crew.  Especially  during  these
simulations. ... I must tell you that I am absolutelyflabbergasted  by
this crazy  stunt  of yours.  The  helicopter is  damaged,  Tabori  is
injured, you're lucky that nobody was killed."
    David Brown was no longer  paying attention to General Borzov.  He
had  turned  around  to  finish   stuffing  his  parachute  into   its
transparent package. From the set of  his shoulders and the energy  he
was expending on this  routine task, it was  obvious that he was  very
angry.
    Borzov returned to the rover. After waiting for several seconds he
offered Dr. Brown a ride back to the base. The American shook his head
without saying anything, hoisted  his pack onto  his back, and  walked
off in the direction of the helicopter and the elevator.
    3CREW CONFERENCE
    Outside the meeting  room in the  training facility, Janos  Tabori
was sitting on an  auditorium chair underneath an  array of small  but
powerful portable lights. "The distance  to the simulated biot was  at
the limit of  the reach of  the mechanical arm,"  he explained to  the
tiny camera that  Francesca Sabatini  was holding. "Twice  I tried  to
grab it and failed.  Dr. Brown then decided  to put the helicopter  on
manual and take it a little closer to the wall. We caught some wind  .
.
    The door from the conference room opened and a smiling, ruddy face
appeared. "We're  all  here waiting  for  you/' said  General  O’Toole
pleasantly. "I think Borzov's becoming a little impatient."
    Francesca switched off the lights and put her video camera back in
the pocket «>f her  flight suit. "All right,  my Hungarian hero,"  she
said with alaugh, "we'd better stop  for now. You know how our  leader
dislikes waiting." She walked over and put her arms gently around  the
small man. She patted him on his bandaged shoulder. "But we're  really
glad you're all right."
    A handsome black man  in his early forties  had been sitting  just
out of the camera frame during the interview, taking notes on a  flat,
rectangular keyboard about  a foot square.  He followed Francesca  and
Janos into the conference room. "I want  to do a feature this week  on
the new  design concepts  in  the teleoperation  of  the arm  and  the
glove," Reggie Wilson whispered to Tabori as they sat down. "There are
a bunch  of my  readers out  there who  find all  this technical  crap
absolutely fascinating."
    "I'm glad that the three of you could join us," Borzov's sarcastic
voice boomed across the conference room. "I was starting to think that
perhaps a crew meeting  was an imposition on  all of you, an  activity
that interrupted  the  far  more  important  tasks  of  reporting  our
misadventures or writing erudite  scientific and engineering  papers."
He pointed at Reggie Wilson, whose ubiquitous flat keyboard was on the
table in front of him. "Wilson, believe it or not, you're supposed  to
be a member of this crew first and a journalist second. Just one  time
do you think you can put that damn thing away and listen? I have a few
things to say and I want them to be off the record."
    Wilson removed the keyboard  and put it  in his briefcase.  Borzov
stood up and walked  around the room  as he talked.  The table in  the
crew conference room was  a long oval about  two meters across at  its
widest point. There were  twelve places around  the table (guests  and
observers, when they attended,  sat in the  extra chairs over  against
the walls), each  one equipped  with a computer  keyboard and  monitor
slightly inset into the surface and covered, when not being used, by a
polished grain top that matched the quality simulated wood on the rest
of the table. As always, the other two military men on the expedition,
European admiral Otto Heilmann (the hero of the Council of Governments
intercession in the  Caracas crisis)  and American  air force  general
Michael Ryan O’Toole, flanked Borzov at one end of the oval. The other
nine Newton crew members did not always sit in the same seats, a  fact
that particularly frustrated the compulsively orderly Admiral Heilmann
and, to a lesser extent, his commanding officer Borzov.
    Sometimes the four  "nonprofessionals" in the  crew would  cluster
together around  the  other  end  of the  table,  leaving  the  "space
cadets," as the  five cosmonaut  graduates of the  Space Academy  were
known, to create a buffer zone in  the middle. After almost a year  of
constant media attention, the public had relegated each member of  the
Newton dozen to one of three subgroups-the nonpros, consisting of  the
two scientists and two journalists; the military troika; and the  five
cosmonauts who did most of the skilled work during the mission.
    On this particular day, however,  the two nonmilitary groups  were
thoroughly  mixed.  The  famed  Japanese  interdisciplinary  scientist
Shigeru Takagishi, widely regarded as the foremost expert in the world
on the  first Raman  expedition seventy  years earlier  (and also  the
author of theAtlas of  Rama that was required  reading for all of  the
crew), was sitting  in the  middle of  the oval  between Soviet  pilot
Irina  Turgenyev   and   the   brilliant  but   often   zany   British
cosmonaut/electrical engineer  Richard Wakefield.  Opposite them  were
life science officer  Nicole des  Jardins, a  statuesque copper  brown
woman with a fascinating French and African lineage, the quiet, almost
mechanical Japanese pilot Yamanaka, and the stunning Signora Sabatini.
The final three positions at the  "south" end of the oval, facing  the
large maps and diagrams of Rama on the opposite wall, were occupied by
American journalist  Wilson, the  inimitable and  garrulous Tabori  (a
Soviet cosmonaut from  Budapest), and  Dr. David  Brown. Brown  looked
very businesslike and serious;  he had a set  of papers spread out  in
front of him as the meeting began.
    "It is inconceivable  to me,"  Borzov was saying  while he  strode
purposefully around the room, "that any of you could ever forget, even
for a moment, that you have been  selected to go on what could be  the
most important human  mission of all  time. But on  the basis of  this
last set of simulations, I must admit  that I am beginning to have  my
doubts about some of you.
    "There are those who believe that  this Rama craft will be a  copy
of its predecessor," Borzov  continued, "and that  it will be  equally
disinterested and uninvolved with whatever trifling creatures come  to
survey it. I admit it certainly appears  to be at least the same  size
and same configuration,  based on  the radar  data that  we have  been
processing for the past three years. But  even if it does turn out  to
be another dead ship built by aliens that vanished thousands of  years
ago, this mission is still the most important one of our lifetime. And
I would think that it demands the very best effort from each of you."
    The Soviet general  paused to collect  his thoughts. Janos  Tabori
started to  ask a  question but  Borzov interrupted  him and  launched
again into his monologue. "Our performance as a crew on this last  set
of training exercises has been absolutely abominable. Some of you have
been outstanding-you know  who you are-but  just as many  of you  have
acted as  if  you had  no  idea what  this  mission was  about.  I  am
convinced that  two or  three of  you do  not even  read the  relevant
procedures or  the protocol  listings before  the exercises  begin.  I
grant you  that  they are  dull  and  sometimes tedious,  but  all  of
youagreed, when  you accepted  your appointments  ten months  ago,  to
learn the procedures and to follow the protocols and project policies.
Even those of you with no prior flight experience."
    Borzov had stopped in front of one of the large maps on the  wall,
this one an inset view of one corner of the city of "New York"  inside
the first Raman spaceship. The area of tall thin buildings  resembling
Manhattan skyscrapers, all huddled together on an island in the middle
of the Cylindrical Sea, had been partially mapped during the  previous
human encounter.  "In six  weeks we  will rendezvous  with an  unknown
space vehicle, perhaps  one containing a  city like this,  and all  of
mankind will depend on us to represent them. We have no way of knowing
what we will find. Whatever preparation we will have completed  before
then  may  well  be  not  enough.  Our  knowledge  of  our  preplanned
procedures must be perfect and automatic, so that our brains are  free
to deal with any new conditions we may encounter."
    The commander sat down at the head of the table. "Today's exercise
was nearly  a  complete disaster.  We  could easily  have  lost  three
valuable members of  our team  as well as  one of  the most  expensive
helicopters ever built. I  want to remind you  all, one more time,  of
the priorities of this mission as agreed to by the International Space
Agency and the Council of Governments. The top priority is the  safety
of the crew. Second priority  is the analysis and/or determination  of
any threat,  if it  exists,  to the  human  population of  the  planet
Earth." Borzov was now looking directly  down the table at Brown,  who
returned the commander's challenging  look with a  stony stare of  his
own. "Only  after those  two priorities  are satisfied  and the  Raman
craft is adjudged harmless  does the capturing of  one or more of  the
biots have any significance."
    "I would like to remind  General Borzov," David Brown said  almost
immediately in his sonorous voice, "that some of us do not believe the
priorities  should  be  blindly  applied  in  a  serial  fashion.  The
importance  of  the  biots  to  the  scientific  community  cannot  be
overstated. As I have said repeatedly, both in cosmonaut meetings  and
on my many television news appearances,  if this second Rama craft  is
just like  the first-which  means that  it will  ignore our  existence
completely-and we proceed  so slowly that  we fail even  to capture  a
single biot before we must abandon the alien ship and return to Earth,
then an  absolutely  unique opportunity  for  science will  have  been
sacrificed  to  assuage   the  collective  anxiety   of  the   world's
politicians."
    Borzov  started  to  reply  but   Brown  stood  up  and   gestured
emphatically  with  his  hands.  "No,  no,  hear  me  out.  You   have
essentially accused  me  of  incompetence in  my  conduct  of  today's
exercise and I  have a  right to respond."  He held  up some  computer
printout and waved it at Borzov. "Here are the initial conditions  for
today's simulation, as  posted and  defined byyour  engineers. Let  me
refresh your memory  with a few  of the more  salient points, in  case
you've forgotten. Background condition number one: It is near the  end
of the mission and it has already been firmly established that Rama II
is totally  passive and  represents  no threat  to the  planet  Earth.
Background condition number two: During the expedition biots have only
been seen sporadically, and never in groups."
    Brown could tell from  the body language of  the rest of the  crew
that his presentation had had a successful beginning. He drew a breath
and continued. "1 assumed, after reading those background  conditions,
that this  particular  exercise might  represent  the last  chance  to
capture a biot. During the test I kept thinking what it would mean  if
we could bring one  or several of  them back to  the Earth-in all  the
history of  humanity,  the only  absolutely  certain contact  with  an
extraterrestrial culture  took  place  in  2130  when  our  cosmonauts
boarded that first Rama spaceship.
    "Yet the long-term scientific benefit from that encounter was less
than it might have been. Granted, we have reams of remote sensing data
from that  first investigation,  including  the information  from  the
detailed dissection of the  spider biot done by  Dr. Laura Ernst.  But
the cosmonauts brought home  only one artifact, a  tiny piece of  some
kind  of  biomechanical  flower  whose  physical  characteristics  had
already irreversibly  changed before  any of  its mysteries  could  be
understood, We have  nothing else in  the way of  souvenirs from  that
first  excursion.  No  ashtrays,  no  drinking  glasses,  not  even  a
transistor from a  piece of  equipment that would  teach us  something
about Raman engineering. Now we have a second chance."
    Brown looked up at the circular  ceiling above him. His voice  was
full of  power. "If  we could  somehow find  and return  two or  three
different biots  to the  Earth, and  if we  could then  analyze  these
creatures to unlock  their secrets,  then this  mission would  without
doubt be the  most significant historical  event of all  time. For  in
understanding in depth the engineering minds of the Ramans, we  would,
in a real sense, achieve a first contact."
    Even Borzov was impressed. As he  often did, David Brown had  used
his eloquence to  turn a  defeat into  a partial  victory. The  Soviet
general decided  to  alter his  tactics,  "Still," Borzov  said  in  a
subdued tone  during the  pause in  Brown's rhetoric,  "we must  never
forget that human lives are at stake on this mission and that we  must
do nothing to jeopardize their safety." He looked around the table  at
the rest of the crew.  "I want to bring  back biots and other  samples
from Rama as much as  any of you," he  continued, "but 1 must  confess
that this blithe assumption that the second craft will be exactly like
the first disturbs me a great deal. What evidence do we have from  the
first encounter that the Ramans, or whoever they are, are  benevolent?
None at all. It could be dangerous to seize a biot too soon."
    "But there's no way of ever  being certain, Commander, one way  or
the other." Richard Wakefield spoke from the side of the table between
Borzov and Brown. "Even  if we verify that  this spaceship is  exactly
like the  first  one  almost  seventy years  ago,  we  still  have  no
information about what will happen once we make a concerted effort  to
capture a biot. I mean,  suppose for a moment  that the two ships  are
just supersophisticated robots engineered millions  of years ago by  a
now vanished race from the opposite  side of the galaxy, as Dr.  Brown
has suggested  in his  articles.  How can  we  predict what  kinds  of
subroutines might be programmed into those biots to deal with  hostile
acts? What if the biots are integral  parts, in some way that we  have
not been able to  discern, of the fundamental  operation of the  ship?
Then it would  be natural, even  though they are  machines, that  they
would be programmed to defend  themselves. And it is conceivable  that
what might look like an initial hostile  act on our part could be  the
trigger that changes  the way  the entire ship  functions. I  remember
reading about the  robot lander that  crashed into the  ethane sea  on
Titan in 2012-it had stored entirely different sequences depending  on
what it-"
    "Halt," Janos  Tabori  interrupted  with a  friendly  smile.  "The
arcana of the early robotic exploration of the solar system is not  on
the agenda  for  today's postmortem."  He  looked down  the  table  at
Borzov. "Skipper, my shoulder is hurting, my stomach is empty, and the
excitement of today's exercise has left me exhausted. All this talk is
wonderful, but if there's no more specific business would it be out of
line to suggest  an early end  to this  meeting so that  we will  have
adequate time, for once, to pack our bags?"
    Admiral Heilmann leaned forward  on the table. "Cosmonaut  Tabori,
General Borzov is in charge of the  crew meetings. It is up to him  to
determine-
    The Soviet commander waved his  arm at Heilmann. "Enough, Otto,  I
think that Janos is  right. It has been  a long day at  the end of  an
extremely busy seventeen days of  activity. This conversation will  be
better when we are all fresh."
    Borzov stood up. "All right, we  will break for now. The  shuttles
will leave  for the  airport  right after  dinner." The  crew  started
preparing to leave. "During your short rest period," Borzov said as an
afterthought, "I want all of  you to think about  where we are in  the
schedule. We have left only two more weeks of simulations here at  the
training center  before the  break  for the  end-of-the-year  holiday.
Immediately thereafter we  begin the  intensive prelaunch  activities.
This next set  of exercises  is our  last chance  to get  it right.  I
expect each of you  to return fully prepared  for the remaining  work-
and recommitted to the importance of this mission."
    4 THE GREAT CHAOS
    The intrusion of the first  Raman spacecraft into the inner  solar
system in early 2130 had a powerful impact on human history.  Although
there were no immediate changes in everyday life after the crew headed
by Commander Norton returned from  encountering Rama I, the clear  and
unambiguous proof that a vastly superior intelligence existed (or,  as
a minimum,had  existed)  somewhere  else  in  the  universe  forced  a
rethinking of the place of homo  sapiens in the overall scheme of  the
cosmos. It  was  now apparent  that  other chemicals,  doubtless  also
fabricated in the great stellar  cataclysms of the heavens, had  risen
to consciousness in  some other place,  at some other  time. Who  were
these Ramans? Why had they built a giant sophisticated spacecraft  and
sent it on  an excursion  into our  neighborhood? Both  in public  and
private conversation, the Ramans were the number one topic of interest
for many months.
    For well over  a year mankind  waited more or  less patiently  for
another  sign  of  the  Ramans'  presence  in  the  universe.  Intense
telescopic investigations were conducted at all wavelengths to see  if
any  additional  information  associated  with  the  retreating  alien
spaceship could be  identified. Nothing  was found.  The heavens  were
quiet. The Ramans were departing  as swiftly and inexplicably as  they
had arrived.
    Once Excalibur  was  operational and  its  initial search  of  the
heavens turned up nothing  new, there was a  noticeable change in  the
collective  human  attitude  toward  that  first  contact  with  Rama.
Overnight the encounter became  a historical event, something  thathad
happened and was now  completed. The tenor  of newspaper and  magazine
articles that had  earlier begun  with phrases like  "when the  Ramans
return . . ." changed to "if there is ever another encounter with  the
creatures who built the huge spaceship discovered in 2130 . . ."  What
had been  a  perceived threat,  a  lien in  a  sense on  future  human
behavior, was quickly reduced to a historical curiosity. There was  no
longer an urgency to deal with  such fundamental issues as the  return
of the Ramans or the destiny of  the human race in a universe  peopled
by intelligent creatures. Mankind relaxed, at least for a moment. Then
it exploded  in a  paroxysm  of narcissistic  behavior that  made  all
previous  historical  periods  of   individual  selfishness  pale   by
comparison.
    The surge of unabashed self-indulgence on a global scale was  easy
to understand. Something fundamental in  the human psyche had  changed
as a  result of  the encounter  with Rama  I. Prior  to that  contact,
humanity  stood  alone   as  the  only   known  example  of   advanced
intelligence in the universe. The idea that humans could, as a  group,
control their  destiny far  into  the future  had been  a  significant
linchpin in almost every working  philosophy of life. That the  Ramans
existed (or had existed-whatever the tense, the philosophic logic came
to the same  conclusion) changed everything.  Mankind was not  unique,
maybe not even  special. It  was just a  question of  time before  the
prevailing homocentric notion  of the universe  was to be  irrevocably
shattered by clearer  awareness of  the Others.  Thus it  was easy  to
comprehend why the life patterns of most human beings suddenly  veered
toward self-gratification, reminding  literary scholars  of a  similar
time almost exactly  five centuries earlier,  when Robert Herrick  had
exhorted the virgins to make the most of their fleeting time in a poem
that began,  "Gather ye  rosebuds  while ye  may/  Old time  is  still
a-flying. . . ."
    An unrestrained burst of conspicuous consumption and global  greed
lasted for just under two years. Frantic acquisition of everything the
human  mind  could  create  was   superimposed  on  a  weak   economic
infrastructure that had been  already poised for  a downturn in  early
2130, when  the first  Raman spaceship  flew through  the inner  solar
system. The looming recession was first postponed throughout 2130  and
2131 by the combined manipulative efforts of governments and financial
institutions, even  though the  fundamental economic  weaknesses  were
never addressed. With the renewed burst  of buying in early 2132,  the
world jumped directly into another period of rapid growth.  Production
capacities were expanded,  stock markets exploded,  and both  consumer
confidence  and  total  employment  hit  all-time  highs.  There   was
unprecedented prosperity  and  the net  result  was a  short-term  but
significant improvement  in  the standard  of  living for  almost  all
humans.
    By the end of the year in  2133, it had become obvious to some  of
the more experienced observers of human history that the "Raman  Boom"
was leading  mankind  toward  disaster.  Dire  warnings  of  impending
economic doom started  being heard  above the euphoric  shouts of  the
millions who had recently vaulted  into the middle and upper  classes.
Suggestions to balance budgets and limit  credit at all levels of  the
economy were ignored. Instead, creative effort was expended to come up
with one way after another of putting more spending power in the hands
of a populace that  had forgotten how  to say wait,  much less no,  to
itself.
    The global stock market  began to sputter in  January of 2134  and
there were predictions of  a coming crash. But  to most humans  spread
around the Earth and  throughout the scattered  colonies in the  solar
system, the concept of  such a crash  was beyond comprehension.  After
all, the world  economy had been  expanding for over  nine years,  the
last two years at a rate  unparalleled in the previous two  centuries.
World leaders insisted that they had finally found the mechanisms that
could truly inhibit the downturns of the capitalistic cycles. And  the
people believed them-until early May of 2134.
    During the first three months of the year the global stock markets
went inexorably down, slowly at first, then in significant drops. Many
people, reflecting the superstitious attitude toward cometary visitors
that had been prevalent for two thousand years, somehow associated the
stock market's difficulties  with the  return of  Halley's Comet.  Its
apparition starting in March turned out to be far brighter than anyone
expected. For weeks scientists all over the world were competing  with
each other  to  explain  why  it  was  so  much  more  brilliant  than
originally predicted. After it swooped  past perihelion in late  March
and began to appear in the evening sky in mid-April, its enormous tail
dominated the heavens.
    In contrast, terrestrial  affairs were dominated  by the  emerging
world  economic  crisis.  On  May  1,  2134,  three  of  the   largest
international banks announced that they were insolvent because of  bad
loans. Within two days a panic  had spread around the world. The  more
than one billion home  terminals with access  to the global  financial
markets were used to dump  individual portfolios of stocks and  bonds.
The communications  load  on  the  Global  Network  System  (GNS)  was
immense. The data  transfer machines were  stretched far beyond  their
capabilities  and   design  specifications.   Data  gridlock   delayed
transactions for minutes, then hours, contributing additional momentum
to the panic.
    By the end of  a week two things  were apparent-that over half  of
the  world's  stock   value  had  been   obliterated  and  that   many
individuals, large  and  small investors  alike,  who had  used  their
credit options  to  the maximum,  were  now virtually  penniless.  The
supporting data bases that  kept track of  personal bank accounts  and
automatically transferred money  to cover margin  calls were  flashing
disaster messages in almost 20 percent of the houses in the world.
    In truth, however, the situation was much much worse. Only a small
percentage of the transactions were actually clearing through all  the
supporting computers because the data rates in all directions were far
beyond anything that had ever been anticipated. In computer  language,
the entire global financial  system went into  the "cycle slip"  mode.
Billions and  billions of  information transfers  at lower  priorities
were postponed by the network  of computers while the higher  priority
tasks were being serviced first.
    The net  result  of these  data  delays  was that  in  most  cases
individual electronic  bank accounts  were not  properly debited,  for
hours or even days, to account  for the mounting stock market  losses,
Once the individual investors realized what was occurring, they rushed
to spend  whatever was  still  showing in  their balances  before  the
computers completed all the transactions. By the time governments  and
financial institutions understood fully what was going on and acted to
stop all this frenetic activity, it was too late. The confused  system
had crashed  completely. To  reconstruct  what had  happened  required
carefully dumping and interleaving the backup checkpoint files  stored
at a hundred or so remote centers around the world.
    For over three  weeks the electronic  financial management  system
that governed all  money transactions was  inaccessible to  everybody.
Nobody knew how much money he  had-or how much anyone else had.  Since
cash had long ago become obsolete, only eccentrics and collectors  had
enough bank notes  to buy  even a  week's groceries.  People began  to
barter for  necessities.  Pledges  based on  friendship  and  personal
acquaintance enabled many people to survive temporarily. But the  pain
had only begun. Every  time the international management  organization
that oversaw the global financial system would announce that they were
going to try to come back on-line and would plead with people to  stay
off their  terminals  except for  emergencies,  their pleas  would  be
ignored, processing requests would flood the system, and the computers
would crash again.
    It was only  two more  weeks before  the scientists  of the  world
agreed  on  an  explanation  for  the  additional  brightness  in  the
apparition of  Halley's Comet.  But  it was  over four  months  before
people could count again  on reliable data  base information from  the
GNS. The cost to human society of the enduring chaos was incalculable.
By the time normal electronic economic activity had been restored, the
world was in a violent financial  down-spin that would not bottom  out
until twelve years later. It would be well over fifty years before the
Gross World Product  would return  to the heights  reached before  the
Crash of 2134.
    5AFTER THE CRASH
    There is  unanimous  agreement  that The  Great  Chaos  profoundly
altered human civilization  in every  way. No segment  of society  was
immune. The catalyst for the relatively rapid collapse of the existing
institutional infrastructure  was  the  market  crash  and  subsequent
breakdown of the global financial system; however, these events  would
not have been sufficient, by themselves,  to project the world into  a
period of unprecedented  depression. What followed  the initial  crash
would have been only a comedy of errors if so many lives had not  been
lost as a result of the  poor planning. Inept world political  leaders
first  denied  or  ignored   the  existing  economic  problems,   then
overreacted with a  suite of  individual measures  that were  baffling
and/or inconsistent, and finally threw up their arms in despair as the
global  crisis   deepened   and   spread.   Attempts   to   coordinate
international solutions were doomed to failure by the increasing  need
of each of the sovereign nations to respond to its own constituency.
    In hindsight, it was obvious  that the intemationalization of  the
world that had taken  place during the  twenty-first century had  been
flawed   in   at   least   one   significant   way.   Although    many
activities-communications, trade,  transportation  (including  space),
currency   regulation,   peacekeeping,   information   exchange,   and
environmental protection, to name the most important-had indeed become
international (even interplanetary,  considering the space  colonies),
most  of   the  agreements   that  established   these   international
institutions contained codicils that allowed the individual nations to
withdraw, upon relatively  short notice, if  the policies  promulgated
under the accords  no longer served  the interests of  the country  in
question. In short, each of the nations participating in the  creation
of an  international  body had  the  right to  abrogate  its  national
involvement, unilaterally, when  it was no  longer satisfied with  the
actions of the group.
    The years preceding the rendezvous with the first Raman  spaceship
in early 2130 had been an extraordinarily stable and prosperous  time.
After the world  recovered from the  devastating cometary impact  near
Padua, Italy, in 2077,  there was an entire  half century of  moderate
growth. Except  for  a  few  relatively short,  and  not  too  severe,
economic recessions, living  conditions improved  in a  wide range  of
countries  throughout  the  time  period.  Isolated  wars  and   civil
disturbances did erupt from time to time, primarily in the undeveloped
nations, but the concerted efforts  of the global peacekeeping  forces
always contained these problems before they became too serious.  There
were  no  major  crises   that  tested  the   stability  of  the   new
international mechanisms.
    Immediately following the  encounter with Rama  I, however,  there
were rapid changes in the basic governing apparatus. First,  emergency
appropriations  to  handle  Excalibur  and  other  large  Rama-related
projects drained revenues from established programs. Then, starting in
2132, a loud clamor for tax cuts (to put more money into the hands  of
the individuals)  reduced  even  further the  allocations  for  needed
services. By late 2133, most  of the newer international  institutions
had become understaffed and inefficient. Thus the global market  crash
took place in an environment where there was already growing doubt  in
the minds of the populace about the efficacy of the entire network  of
international organizations. As the financial chaos continued, it  was
an easy step for the individual nations to stop contributing funds  to
the very global organizations that might  have been able, if they  had
been used properly, to turn the tide of disaster.
    The horrors of The Great  Chaos have been chronicled in  thousands
of history  texts. In  the first  two years  the major  problems  were
skyrocketing  unemployment   and  bankruptcies,   both  personal   and
corporate, but these financial difficulties seemed unimportant as  the
ranks of the homeless  and starving continued to  swell. Tent and  box
communities appeared in the public parks of all the big cities by  the
winter of 2136-37 and the municipal governments responded by  striving
valiantly to find  ways to  provide services to  them. These  services
were intended  to limit  the difficulties  created by  the  supposedly
temporary presence of these hordes  of idle and underfed  individuals.
But when the economy did not recover, the squalid tent cities did  not
disappear. Instead  they  became  permanent fixtures  of  urban  life,
growing cancers that were worlds unto themselves with an entire set of
activities and interests fundamentally different from the host  cities
that  were  supporting  them.  As  more  time  passed  and  the   tent
communities turned into hopeless, restless caldrons of despair,  these
new enclaves in  the middle  of the metropolitan  areas threatened  to
boil over and  destroy the very  entities that were  allowing them  to
exist. Despite the anxiety caused by this constant Damocles' sword  of
urban anarchy, the world squeaked through the brutally cold winter  of
2137-38 with the basic fabric of modem civilization still more or less
intact.
    In early 2138  a remarkable  series of events  occurred in  Italy.
These  events,  focused  around  a  single  individual  named  Michael
Balatresi, a young Franciscan novitiate  who would later become  known
everywhere as St. Michael of Siena, occupied much of the attention  of
the world  and  temporarily  forestalled  the  disintegration  of  the
society.  Michael   was  a   brilliant  combination   of  genius   and
spirituality and political skills, a charismatic polyglot speaker with
an unerring sense of purpose and  timing. He suddenly appeared on  the
world stage  in  Tuscany, coming  seemingly  out of  nowhere,  with  a
passionate religious message that appealed to the hearts and minds  of
many of the  world's frightened and/or  disenfranchised citizens.  His
following  grew  rapidly  and  spontaneously  and  paid  no  heed   to
international boundaries. He became a  potential threat to almost  all
the identified leadership  coteries of the  world with his  unwavering
call for a collective response to the problems besetting the  species.
When he was martyred  under appalling circumstances  in June of  2138,
mankind's last spark of optimism seemed to perish. The civilized world
that had been held together for many months by a flicker of hope and a
slim thread of tradition abruptly crumbled into pieces.
    The four years from 2138 to 2142 were not good years to be  alive.
The litany  of human  woes was  almost endless.  Famine, disease,  and
lawlessness were  everywhere.  Small  wars and  revolutions  were  too
numerous to count. There was an almost total breakdown in the standard
institutions of modern  civilization, creating  a phantasmagoric  life
for everyone in the world except the privileged few in their protected
retreats. It was a world gone wrong, theultimate in entropy.  Attempts
to solve the  problems by  well-meaning groups of  citizens could  not
work because the solutions they conceived could only be local in scope
and the problems were global.
    The Great Chaos also extended to  the human colonies in space  and
brought a  sudden  end  to  a  glorious  chapter  in  the  history  of
exploration. As the economic disaster  spread on the home planet,  the
scattered colonies  around the  solar system,  which could  not  exist
without regular infusions of  money, supplies, and personnel,  quickly
became the forgotten stepchildren of the people on Earth. As a  result
almost half of the residents of  the colonies had left to return  home
by  2140,  the  living  conditions  in  their  adopted  homes   having
deteriorated  to  the  point  where  even  the  twin  difficulties  of
readjustment to Earth's  gravity and the  terrible poverty  throughout
the world were preferred over continuing to stay (most likely to  die)
in the colonies. The emigration process accelerated in 2141 and  2142,
years  characterized  by  mechanical  breakdowns  in  the   artificial
ecosystems at the colonies and the beginning of a disastrous  shortage
of spare parts for the entire fleet of robot vehicles used to  sustain
the new settlements.
    By 2143 only a very few  hard core colonists remained on the  Moon
and Mars. Communications  between Earth  and the  colonies had  become
intermittent and erratic. Monies to maintain even the radio links with
the outlying settlements were no longer available. The United  Planets
had ceased to exist two years previously. There was no all-human forum
addressing the problems  of the  species; the  Council of  Governments
(COG) would  not be  formed  for 6ve  more  years. The  two  remaining
colonies struggled vainly to avoid death.
    In the following  year, 2144,  the last  significant manned  space
mission of the time period took place. The mission was a rescue sortie
piloted by  an amazing  Mexican  woman named  Benita Garcia.  Using  a
jerryrigged spacecraft thrown together from old parts, Ms. Garcia  and
her three-man crew somehow managed  to reach the geosynchronous  orbit
of the lame  cruiserJames Martin, the  final interplanetary  transport
vehicle in service, and  save twenty-four members from  the crew of  a
hundred women and children being repatriated from Mars. In every space
historian's mind,  the rescue  of the  passengers on  theJames  Martin
marked the end  of an era.  Within six more  months the two  remaining
space stations were abandoned and no human lifted off the Earth, bound
for orbit, until almost forty years later.
    By 2145 the struggling world had managed to see the importance  of
some of the international organizations neglected and maligned at  the
beginning of The Great  Chaos. The most  talented members of  mankind,
after having eschewed personal political involvement during the benign
early decades of the century, began  to understand that it would  only
be through the  collective skills  of the brightest  and most  capable
humans that any semblance of civilized life could ever be restored. At
first the  monumental  cooperative  efforts that  resulted  were  only
modestly successful; but  they rekindled the  fundamental optimism  of
the human  spirit  and started  the  renewal process-Slowly,  ever  so
slowly, the elements of human civilization were put back into place.
    It was still another two years before the general recovery finally
showed up in economic statistics. By 2147 the Gross World Product  had
dwindled to 7 percent of its level six years earlier. Unemployment  in
the developed nations averaged 3 5 percent; in some of the undeveloped
nations the combination of unemployed and underemployed amounted to 90
percent of the population-It is estimated that as many as one  hundred
million people starved to death during the awful summer of 2142 alone,
when a great drought and concomitant  famine girdled the world in  the
tropical regions. The combination of  an astronomical death rate  from
many causes and a minuscule birthrate (for who wanted to bring a child
into such a hopeless world?) caused the world's population to drop  by
almost a billion in the decade ending in 2150.
    The experience of  The Great  Chaos left  a permanent  scar on  an
entire generation. As the  years passed, and  the children born  after
its conclusion reached  adolescence, they were  confronted by  parents
who were cautious to the  point of phobia. Life  as a teenager in  the
2160s and even the 2170s was very strict. The memories of the terrible
traumas of their youth during  The Chaos haunted the adult  generation
and made  them  extremely  rigid  in  their  application  of  parental
discipline. To them life  was not a joyride  at an amusement park.  It
was a deadly serious  affair and only through  a combination of  solid
values, self-control, and a steady commitment to a worthwhile goal was
there a chance to achieve happiness.
    The society that emerged in  the 2170s was therefore  dramatically
different  from  the  freewheeling  laissez-faireism  of  fifty  years
earlier. Many  very  old,  established institutions,  among  them  the
nation-state, the Roman Catholic church, and the English monarchy, had
enjoyed  a  renaissance  during   the  half  century  interim.   These
institutions had prospered because they had adapted quickly and  taken
leadership positions in the restructuring that followed The Chaos.
    By the late 2170s, when a  semblance of stability had returned  to
the planet, interest in space began  to build again. A new  generation
of observation  and  communication  satellites  was  launched  by  the
reconstituted International Space  Agency, one  of the  administrative
arms of the  COG. At  first the space  activity was  cautious and  the
budgets were  very  small.  Only the  developed  nations  participated
actively. When  piloted flights  recommenced  and were  successful,  a
modest schedule of missions was planned for thedecade of the 2190s.  A
new Space Academy  to train  cosmonauts for those  missions opened  in
2188 and had its first graduates four years later.
    On Earth growth was achingly slow but regular and predictable  for
most of the twenty years preceding  the discovery of the second  Raman
spaceship  in  2196.  In  a   technological  sense,  mankind  was   at
approximately the same overall level of development in 2196 as it  had
been, sixty-six years earlier,  when the first extraterrestrial  craft
had appeared.  Recent  spaceBight  experience was  much  less,  to  be
certain, at  the time  of the  second encounter;  however, in  certain
critical technical areas like medicine and information management, the
human society  of the  last decade  of the  twenty-second century  was
considerably more advanced  than it  had been  in 2130.  In one  other
component the civilizations  encountered by the  two Raman  spacecraft
were markedly  different: Many  of  the human  beings alive  in  2196,
especially those who were older  and held the policy-making  positions
in the governing structure, had lived through some of the very painful
years of The Great  Chaos. They knew the  meaning of the word  "fear."
And that powerful word shaped their deliberations as they debated  the
priorities that would guide  a human mission  to rendezvous with  Rama
II.
    6LA SIGNORA SABATINI
    So you were working on your doctorate in physics at SMU when  your
husband made his famous prediction about supernova 2191a?"
    Elaine Brown was sitting in a large soft chair in her living room.
She was dressed  in a stark  brown suit, sexless,  with a  high-collar
blouse. She looked  stiff and anxious,  as if she  were ready for  the
interview to be completed.
    "I was in my second year  and David was my dissertation  adviser,"
she said carefully, her eyes glancing furtively at her husband. He was
across the room,  watching the  proceedings from  behind the  cameras.
"David worked very closely with his graduate students. Everybody  knew
that. It was  one of  the reasons  why I  choose SMU  for my  graduate
work."
    Francesca Sabatini  looked  beautiful.  Her long  blond  hair  was
flowing freely over her shoulders. She was wearing an expensive  white
silk blouse,trimmed by  a royal  blue scarf neatly  folded around  her
neck. Her lounging  pants were the  same color as  the scarf. She  was
sitting in a second chair next to Elaine. Two coffee cups were on  the
small table between them.
    "Dr. Brown was married at the  time, wasn't he? I mean during  the
period when he was your adviser."
    Elaine reddened perceptibly  as Francesca  finished her  question.
The Italian  journalist  continued  to smile  at  her,  a  disarmingly
ingenuous smile, as if the question  she had just asked was as  simple
and straightforward  as two  plus two.  Mrs. Brown  hesitated, drew  a
breath, and then stammered  slightly in giving  her response. "In  the
beginning, yes, I believe that he  still was," she answered. "But  his
divorce was final before I finished my degree." She stopped again  and
then her  face  brightened. "He  gave  me  an engagement  ring  for  a
graduation present,'' she said awkwardly.
    Francesca Sabatini  studied her  subject. /could  easily tear  you
apart on  that reply,  she  thought rapidly.With  just a  couple  more
questions. But that would not serve my purpose.
    "Okay,cut" Francesca blurted out  suddenly. "That's a wrap.  Let's
take a look and then you can put all the equipment back in the truck."
The lead cameraman walked over to the side of robot camera number one,
which had been  programmed to  in stay  a close-up  on Francesca,  and
entered three commands into the miniature keyboard on the side of  the
camera housing. Meanwhile,  because Elaine  had risen  from her  seat,
robot camera number two was  automatically backing away on its  tripod
legs and  retracting  its zoom  lens.  Another cameraman  motioned  to
Elaine to  stand still  until he  was able  to disconnect  the  second
camera.
    Within  seconds  the   director  had   programmed  the   automatic
monitoring equipment to replay the last five minutes of the interview.
The output  of  all  three cameras  was  shown  simultaneously,  split
screen, the composite picture of  both Francesca and Elaine  occupying
the center of the monitor with the tapes from the two close-up cameras
on either side.  Francesca was  a consummate  professional. She  could
tell quickly that she had the material she needed for this portion  of
the show.  Dr. David  Brown's wife,  Elaine, was  young,  intelligent,
earnest, plain, and not comfortable  with the attention being  focused
on her. And it was all clearly there in the camera memory.
    While Francesca  was wrapping  up the  details with  her crew  and
arranging to have the annotated  interview composite delivered to  her
hotel at the Dallas  Transportation Complex before  her flight in  the
morning, Elaine Brown came back into  the living room with a  standard
robot server, two  different kinds of  cheese, a bottle  of wine,  and
plenty of glasses for  everyone. Francesca glimpsed  a frown on  David
Brown's face as  Elaine announced  that there  would now  be "a  small
party" to celebrate the end of the interview.
    The crew and Elaine gathered around the robot and the wine.  David
excused himself and walked out of  the living room into the long  hall
that connected the  back of the  house, where all  the bedrooms  were,
with the living quarters in the front. Francesca followed him.
    "Excuse me, David,"  she said.  He turned  around, his  impatience
clear. "Don't forget that  we still have  some unfinished business.  I
promised an answer to Schmidt and  Hagenest upon my return to  Europe.
They are anxious to proceed with the project."
    "I haven't forgotten," he  replied. "I just  want to make  certain
first that your friend Reggie  is finished interviewing my  children."
He heaved a sigh. "There are times  when I wish I was a total  unknown
in the world."
    Francesca walked up  close to  him. "I  don't believe  that for  a
minute," she said, her eyes fixed  on his. "You're just nervous  today
because you can't control  what your wife and  children are saying  to
Reggie and me. And nothing is more important to you than control."
    Dr. Brown  started  to  reply  but was  interrupted  by  a  shriek
of"Mommeee" reverberating down the hall  from its origin in a  distant
bedroom. Within seconds  a small boy,  six or seven  years old,  swept
past David and  Francesca and  raced pell-mell  into the  arms of  his
mother, who was now  standing in the doorway  connecting the hall  and
the living room. Some of Elaine's  wine sloshed out of her glass  from
the force of the collision with  her son; she unconsciously licked  it
off her hand as she sought to comfort the little boy.
    "What is it, Justin?" she asked.
    "That black man  broke my  dog," Justin whined  between sobs.  "He
kicked it in the butt and now I can't make it work."
    The little boy  pointed back down  the hall. Reggie  Wilson and  a
teenage girl-tall, thin, very serious-were walking toward the rest  of
the group. "Dad," said  the girl, her eyes  imploring David for  help,
"Mr. Wilson was talking to me about my pin collection when that damned
robot dog came in and bit him  on the leg. After peeing on him  first.
Justin had programmed him to make mischief-"
    "She's lying," the crying little boy interrupted her with a shout.
"She doesn't like Wally. She's never liked Wally."
    Elaine had one hand on the  back of her nearly hysterical son  and
the other firmly around the stem of her wineglass. She would have been
unsettled by the scene even if she hadn't noticed the disapproval  she
was receiving from her husband. She quaffed the wine and put the glass
on a  nearby  bookshelf. "There,  there,  Justin," she  said,  looking
embarrassed, "calm down and tell Mom what happened."
    "That black man doesn't like me. And I don't like him. Wally  knew
it, so he bit him. Wally always protects me."
    The girl, Angela,  became more  agitated. "I  knew something  like
this would happen.  When Mr.  Wilson was  talking to  me, Justin  kept
coming into my room and interrupting us, showing Mr. Wilson his games,
his pets, his trophies,  and even his  clothes, Eventually Mr.  Wilson
had to speak sharply to him. Next thing we know Wally is running  wild
and Mr. Wilson has to defend himself."
    "She's a liar, Mom. A big liar. Tell her to stop-"
    Dr. David  Brown had  had enough  of this  commotion."Elaine,"  he
shouted angrily above the din,  "get . . .him .  . . out of here."  He
turned to  his daughter  as his  wife pulled  the weeping  little  boy
through the door into the living  room. "Angela/^7 he said, his  anger
now raw  and unconcealed,  "I thought  I told  you not  to fight  with
Justin today under any circumstances."
    The girl recoiled from her father's attack. Tears welled up in her
eyes. She started to  say something but  Reggie Wilson walked  between
her and  her father.  "Excuse me7Dr.  Brown," he  interceded,  "Angela
really didn't do anything. Her story is basically correct. She-"
    "Look, Wilson," David Brown  said sharply, "if  you don't mind,  I
can handle my own family." He paused a moment to calm his anger.  "I'm
terribly sorry  for all  this confusion,"  he continued  in a  subdued
tone, "but it will all be finished in another minute or so." The  look
he gave  his daughter  was cold  and unkind.  "Go back  to your  room,
Angela. I'll talk to you later. Call  your mother and tell her that  I
want her to pick you up before dinner."
    Francesca Sabatini watched with great interest as the entire scene
unfolded.  She  saw  David  Brown's  frustration,  Elaine's  lack   of
self-confidence.This is perfect, Francesca thought,even better than  I
might have hoped. He will be very easy.
    The sleek silver train cruised the North Texas countryside at  two
hundred and fifty kilometers per hour. Within minutes the lights  from
the Dallas Transportation  Complex appeared  on the  horizon. The  DTC
covered a mammoth area, almost  twenty-five square kilometers. It  was
part  airport,  part  train  station,  part  small  city.   Originally
constructed in 2185  both to handle  the burgeoning long-distance  air
traffic and to provide  an easy nexus  for transferring passengers  to
the  high-speed  train  system,  it  had  grown,  like  other  similar
transportation centers  around the  world, into  an entire  community.
More than a thousand people, most of whom worked at the DTC and  found
life easier when there  was no commute, lived  in the apartments  that
formed a  semicircle around  the  shopping center  south of  the  main
terminal. The  terminal itself  housed  four major  hotels,  seventeen
restaurants, and over a hundred different shops, including a branch of
the chic Donatelli fashion chain.
    "I was  nineteen  at  the  time," the  young  man  was  saying  to
Francesca as the  train approached the  station, "and had  had a  very
sheltered upbringing. I learned  more about love and  sex in that  ten
weeks, watching your series  on television, than I  had learned in  my
whole life before. I just wanted to thank you for that program."
    Francesca accepted the compliments gracefully. She was  accustomed
to being recognized when  she was in public.  Wlien the train  stopped
and she descended  onto the  platform, Francesca smiled  again at  the
young man and  his date.  Reggie Wilson  offered to  carry her  camera
equipment as they walked toward the people mover that would take  them
to the hotel. "Does it ever bother  you?" he asked. She looked at  him
quizzically. "All the attention, being  a public figure?" he added  in
explanation.
    "No," she answered,  "of course not."  She smiled to  herself.Even
after six  months this  man does  not understand  me. Maybe  he's  too
engrossed with himself to figure out that some women are as  ambitious
as men.
    "I knew that your two television series had been popular,"  Reggie
was  saying,  "before  I  met  you  during  the  personnel   screening
exercises. But I had no idea that it would be impossible to go out  to
a restaurant or to be seen in a public place without running into  one
of your fans."
    Reggie continued to  chat as  the people  mover eased  out of  the
train station and into the shopping center. Near the track at one  end
of the  enclosed mall  a large  group of  people were  milling  around
outside a theater. The marquee  proclaimed that the production  inside
wasIn Any Weather, by the American playwright Linzey Olsen.
    "Did you ever see that play?" Reggie idly asked Francesca. "1  saw
the movie when it  first came out," he  continued without waiting  for
her to answer, "about five years ago. Helen Caudill and Jeremy Temple.
Before she was really  big. It was a  strange story, about two  people
who had to share a hotel  room during a snowstorm in Chicago.  They're
both married.  They fall  in  love while  talking about  their  failed
expectations. As I said, it was a weird play."
    Francesca was not listening. A boy who reminded her of her  cousin
Roberto had climbed into the  car just in front  of them at the  first
stop in the shopping center. His  skin and hair were dark, his  facial
features handsomely chiseled.How long  has it been  since I have  seen
Roberto? she wondered.Must be three years now. It was down in Positano
with his wife,  Maria. Francesca sighed  and remembered earlier  days,
from long  ago. She  could see  herself laughing  and running  on  the
streets of Orvieto. She was nine or ten, still innocent and unspoiled.
Roberto was  fourteen. They  were  playing with  asoccer ball  in  the
piazza in front of II Duomo. She had loved to tease her cousin, He was
so gentle, so  unaffected. Roberto was  the only good  thing from  her
childhood.
    The people mover stopped outside the hotel. Reggie was looking  at
her with a fixed stare. Francesca realized that he had just asked  her
a question. "Well?" he said, as they descended from their car.
    "I'm sorry, dear,"  she answered. "I  was daydreaming again.  What
did you ask?"
    "I didn't know I was that  boring," Reggie said without humor.  He
turned dramatically to  ensure that  she was  paying attention.  "What
choice did you  make for  dinner tonight? I  had narrowed  it down  to
Chinese or Cajun,"
    At that particular moment the thought of having dinner with Reggie
did not appeal to  Francesca. "I'm very tired  tonight," she said.  "I
think I'll  just eat  by  myself in  the room  and  do a  little  work
afterward." She could have  predicted the hurt look  on his face.  She
reached up and kissed  him lightly on  the lips. "You  can come by  my
room for a nightcap about ten."
    Once inside  her  hotel suite,  Francesca's  first action  was  to
activate her computer terminal  and check for  messages. She had  four
altogether. The printed menu told her the originator of each  message,
the time of  its transmission, the  duration of the  message, and  its
urgency priority.  The  Urgency  Priority  Network  (UPN)  was  a  new
innovation of  International Communications,  Inc., one  of the  three
surviving communications companies that were finally flourishing again
after massive consolidation during the middle years of the century.  A
UPN  user  entered  his  daily  schedule  early  in  the  morning  and
identified what priority  messages could  interrupt which  activities.
Francesca had chosen to accept forwarding of only Priority One  (Acute
Emergency) messages to the terminal at David Brown's house; the taping
of David and his family had to be accomplished in one day and she  had
wanted to minimize the chances of an interruption and delay, The  rest
of her messages had been retained at the hotel.
    She had a single  Priority Two message,  three minutes long,  from
Carlo Bianchi. Francesca  frowned, entered the  proper codes into  the
terminal, and turned on the video monitor. A suave middle-aged Italian
dressed in  apres-ski  clothes, sitting  on  a couch  with  a  burning
fireplace behind him,  came into view."Buon  giomo, cara," he  greeted
her. After allowing the video camera to pan around the living room  at
his new villa in Cortina d'Ampezzo,  Signor Bianchi came right to  the
point. Why was she  refusing to appear in  the advertisements for  his
summer line of sportswear? His  company had offered her an  incredible
amount of money and had even tailored the advertising campaign to pick
up on the space theme.  The spots would not  be shown until after  the
Newton mission would be  over, so there was  no conflict with her  ISA
agreements. Carlo acknowledged that they  had had some differences  in
the past, but according to him they were many years ago. He needed  an
answer in a week.
    Screw you, Carlo,Francesca thought, surprised at the intensity  of
her reactions. There  were few  people in  the world  who could  upset
Francesca, but  Carlo  Bianchi  was  one  of  them.  She  entered  the
necessary commands to record a  message to her agent, Darrell  Bowman,
in London. "Hi  Darrell. It's  Francesca in Dallas.  Tell that  weasel
Bianchi I wouldn't do his ads even if he offered me ten million marks.
And by the  way, since I  understand that his  main competition  these
days is  Donatelli, why  don't you  find their  advertising  director,
Gabriela something or  other, I met  her once in  Milano, and let  her
know that I  would be  happy to do  something for  them after  Project
Newton is over. April  or May." She paused  for a moment. "That's  it.
Back in Rome tomorrow night. My best to Heather."
    Francesca's longest message was from her husband, Alberto, a tall,
graying, distinguished executive almost  sixty years old. Alberto  ran
the Italian division  of Schmidt and  Hagenest, the multimedia  German
conglomerate that owned,  among other  things, over one  third of  the
free newspapers  and  magazines  in  Europe as  well  as  the  leading
commercial television  networks  in both  Germany  and Italy.  In  his
transmission Alberto was sitting in the  den in their home, wearing  a
rich charcoal suit and sipping a brandy. His tone was warm,  familiar,
but more like a father than a husband. He told Francesca that her long
interview with Admiral Otto Heilmann  Had been on the news  throughout
Europe that day,  that he  had enjoyed  her comments  and insights  as
always, but that he had thought  Otto came across as an  egomaniac.Not
surprising, Francesca had mused when she heard her husband's  comment,
since he absolutely is. But he is often useful to me.
    Alberto shared some good news about one of his children (Francesca
had three  stepchildren,  all of  whom  were older  than  she)  before
telling her that he missed her  and was looking forward to seeing  her
the next  night.Me too,  Francesca thought  before responding  to  his
message.It is comfortable  living with  you. I have  both freedom  and
security.
    Four hours later  Francesca was standing  outside on her  balcony,
smoking a cigarette in  the cold Texas December  air. She was  wrapped
tightly in the thick robe supplied to the rooms by the hotel.At  least
it's not like California, she thought to herself as she pulled a  deep
drag into  her lungs.At  least in  Texas some  of the  hotels do  have
smoking balconies. Those zealots on the American West Coast would make
smoking a felony if they could.
    She walked over to the side of the railing so that she would  have
a betterview of a supersonic airliner approaching the airport from the
west. In her mind's eye she was inside the plane, as she would be  the
next day on her flight home to Rome. She imagined that this particular
flight had come  from Tokyo,  the undisputed economic  capital of  the
world before The Great Chaos. After being devastated by their lack  of
raw materials during the lean years in the middle of the century,  the
Japanese were now  prosperous again as  the world returned  to a  free
market. Francesca watched the plane land and then looked up at the sky
full of stars above  her. She took another  pull on her cigarette  and
then followed the  exhaled smoke as  it drifted slowly  away from  her
into the air.
    And  so,  Francesca,she  reflected,now  comes  what  may  be  your
greatest assignment. A chance to become immortal? At least I should be
remembered a long time as one of  the Newton crew. Her mind turned  to
the Newton mission itself and briefly conjured up images of  fantastic
creatures who might have created the pair of gargantuan spaceships and
sent them to  visit the  solar system.  But her  thoughts jumped  back
quickly to  the real  world, to  the contracts  that David  Brown  had
signed just before she had left his home that afternoon.
    That makes us partners, my  esteemed Dr. Brown. And completes  the
first phase of my plan. And unless  I miss my guess, that was a  gleam
of interest in your eyes today.Francesca had given David a perfunctory
kiss when they had finished discussing and signing the contracts. They
had been alone together in his study. For a moment she had thought  he
was going to return the kiss with a more meaningful one.
    Francesca finished her cigarette, stubbed  it out in the  ashtray,
and went back into her hotel room. As soon as she opened the door  she
could hear the  sound of  heavy breathing.  The oversized  bed was  in
disarray and a naked  Reggie Wilson was lying  across it on his  back,
his regular snores disturbing the silence of the suite.You have  great
equipment, my friend,  she commented  silently,both for  life and  for
lovemaking. But  neither is  an athletic  contest. You  would be  more
interesting if there was some subtlety, perhaps even a little finesse.
    7PUBLIC RELATIONS
    The solitary  eagle soared  high above  the marshes  in the  early
morning light. It banked on a gust  of wind coming from the ocean  and
turned north along  the coast. Far  below the eagle,  starting at  the
light brown and white  sands beside the  ocean and continuing  through
the collection of islands and rivers and bays that stretched for miles
toward  the  western  horizon,  an  intermittent  complex  of  diverse
buildings connected by paved roads  broke up the grassland and  swamp.
Seventy-five years earlier, the  Kennedy Spaceport had  been one of  a
half dozen locations on the Earth where travelers could disembark from
their high-speed trains and airplanes to catch a shuttle flight up  to
one of the LEO (Low Earth  Orbit) space stations. But The Great  Chaos
had  changed  the  spaceport  into  a  ghostly  reminder  of  a   once
flourishing culture. Its portals and fancy connecting passageways were
abandoned for  years  to the  grasses,  water birds,  alligators,  and
ubiquitous insects of Central Florida.
    In  the  2160s,  after  twenty  years  of  complete  atrophy,  the
reactivation of the spaceport had begun. It had been used first as  an
airport and  then  had evolved  again  into a  general  transportation
center serving  the Florida  Atlantic coast.  When launches  to  space
recommenced in  the mid-217Qs,  it was  natural that  the old  Kennedy
launch pads would  be recommissioned.  By December of  2199 more  than
half of the old spaceport had been refurbished to handle the  steadily
growing traffic between Earth and space.
    From one of  the windows  of his temporary  office Valeriy  Borzov
watched the magnificent eagle glide  gracefully back to its nest  high
in one of the few tall trees within the center. He loved birds. He had
been fascinated by them for years,  beginning in his early boyhood  in
China. In his  most vivid  recurring dream General  Borzov was  always
living on  an  amazing planet  where  the skies  swarmed  with  flying
creatures, He could still remember asking his father if there had been
any flying  biots inside  the  first Rama  spacecraft and  then  being
acutely disappointed with the reply.
    General Borzov heard the  sound of a  large transport vehicle  and
looked out his  west-facing window. Across  the way, in  front of  the
test facility, the propulsion module that would be used by both Newton
vehicles was  emerging  from  its  test complex,  carried  on  a  huge
platform moving on multiple tracks. The repaired module, sent back  to
the subsystem test area because of a problem with its ion  controller,
would be placed that afternoon inside a cargo shuttle and  transferred
to the spacecraft assembly facility  at space station LEO-2, where  it
would be retrofitted prior to the final integrated vehicle tests  just
before Christmas.  Both  of  the two  Newton  flight  spacecraft  were
currently undergoing  final checkout  and test  at LEO-2.  All of  the
simulation exercises for the cosmonauts, however, were conducted  over
at LEO-3 with the backup equipment. The cosmonauts would only use  the
actual flight systems at LEO-2 during the last week before launch.
    On the south  side of the  building, an electric  bus pulled to  a
stop outside  the office  complex and  discharged a  small handful  of
people. One of the passengers was a blond woman wearing a long-sleeved
yellow blouse with  vertical black stripes  and a pair  of black  silk
pants. She  walked  with an  effortless  grace over  to  the  building
entrance. General  Borzov  admired  her  from  a  distance,  reminding
himself that Francesca had been  a successful model before becoming  a
television journalist- He wondered what it was that she wanted and why
she had insisted on seeing  him privately before the medical  briefing
this morning. A minute later he greeted her at the door to his office.
"Good morning,
    Signora Sabatini," he said.
    "Still so  formal, General?"  she  replied, laughing,  "even  when
there's only the two of us? You and the two Japanese men are the  only
members of the team who refuse to call me Francesca." She noticed that
he was staring strangely  at her. She looked  down at her clothing  to
see if something was wrong. "What's the matter?" she asked him after a
momentary hesitation.
    "It must be your  blouse," General Borzov  answered with a  start-
"For just a moment I had the distinct impression that you were a tiger
poised to pounce on a hapless antelope or gazelle. Maybe it's old age.
Or mind has started playing tricks on me," He invited her to come into
his office.
    "I have had men tell me before that I resemble a cat. But never  a
tiger." Francesca sat down in the chair beside the general's desk. She
meowed with a mischievous smile. "I'm just a harmless tabby housecat"
    "I don't believe that for a  moment," Borzov said with a  chuckle.
"Many adjectives can be used to describe you, Francesca, but  harmless
would never be  one of  them." He suddenly  became very  businesslike.
"Now, what can  I do for  you? You  said that you  had something  very
important to discuss with me that absolutely could not wait."
    Francesca pulled a large sheet of paper out of her soft  briefcase
and handed it to General Borzov.  "This is the press schedule for  the
project," she said. "I reviewed it in detail only yesterday with  both
the public  information  office  and the  world  television  networks.
Notice that of the in-depth  personal interviews with the  cosmonauts,
only five  have  already been  completed.  Four more  were  originally
scheduled for this  month. But notice  also that when  you added  that
extra three-day simulation to this coming set of exercises, you  wiped
out the  time  that had  been  allotted to  interview  Wake-field  and
Turgenyev."
    She paused for a moment to make sure he was following her. "We can
still catch  Takagishi next  Saturday and  will tape  the O’Tooles  on
Christmas Eve in Boston. But both Richard and Irina say that they  now
have no time for their interviews.  In addition, we still have an  old
problem: Neither you nor Nicole is scheduled at all-"
    "You insisted on a meeting at seven-thirty this morning to discuss
thispress schedule," Borzov interrupted,  his voice clearly  conveying
the relative importance that he assigned to such activities.
    "Among other things," Francesca answered nonchalantly. She ignored
the implied criticism in his comment. "Of the people on this mission,"
she continued,  "the  polls show  that  the public  has  the  greatest
interest in you, me,  Nicole des Jardins, and  David Brown. So far,  I
have been unable to pin you down on a date for your personal interview
and Madame des Jardins says  that she does not  intend to have one  at
all. The networks are  unhappy. My prelaunch coverage  is going to  be
incomplete. I need some help from you."
    Francesca looked directly at General  Borzov. "I am asking you  to
cancel the  additional simulation,  to set  a definite  time for  your
personal interview, and to talk to Nicole on my behalf."
    He  frowned.  The  general  was   both  angered  and  annoyed   by
Francesca's presumption. He was going to tell her that the  scheduling
of personal publicity interviews  was not high  on his priority  list.
But something held him  back. Both his sixth  sense and a lifetime  of
experience in dealing with people told him to hesitate, that there was
more to  this discussion  than  he had  yet  heard. He  temporized  by
changing the subject.
    "Incidentally, I  must tell  you that  I am  growing  increasingly
concerned about the  lavish scope of  this New Year's  Eve party  that
your friends in the Italian government/business coalition are hosting.
I know  we agreed  at the  beginning  of our  training that  we  would
participate, as a  group, in that  one social function.  But I had  no
idea that it was going to be billed as the party of the century, as it
was called last week by  one of those American personality  magazines.
You know all those people; can't  you do something to reducethe  scope
of the party?"
    "The gala  was  another item  on  my agenda,"  Franceses  replied,
carefully avoiding the thrust of his comment. "I need your  assistance
there as well. Four of the Newton cosmonauts now say that they do  not
plan to attend and two or three more have suggested that they may have
other commitments- even  though we  all agreed  to the  party back  in
March. Takagishi and Yamanaka want to celebrate the holiday with their
families in Japan  and Richard  Wakefield tells  me that  he has  made
reservations to  go  scuba diving  in  the Cayman  Islands.  And  then
there's that Frenchwoman again, who simply says that she's not  coming
and refuses to offer any kind of explanation."
    Borzov could not suppress a grin. "Why are you having such a  hard
time with Nicole des Jardins? I would think that since both of you are
women, you would be able to speak to her more easily than the others."
    "She is entirely unsympathetic with the role of the press in  this
mission. She has told  me so several times.  And she is very  stubborn
about her privacy." Francesca shrugged her shoulders. "But the  public
is absolutely fascinated with her. After all, not only is she a doctor
and a linguist  and a  former Olympic champion,  but also  she is  the
daughter of a famous  novelist and the  mother of a  fourteen-year-old
daughter, despite never having been married-"
    Valeriy  Borzov  was   looking  at   his  watch.   "Just  for   my
information," he  interrupted,  "how  many  more  items  are  on  your
'agenda,' as you call  it? We are  due in the  auditorium in ten  more
minutes." He smiled back at Francesca. "And I feel compelled to remind
you that Madame des  Jardins wentout of her  way today to  accommodate
your request for press coverage of this briefing."
    Francesca studied General  Borzov for several  seconds. /think  he
'sready now, she thought to herself.And unless I misjudged him he will
understand immediately. She  pulled a  small cubic object  out of  her
briefcase and handed it across the desk. "This is the only other  item
on my agenda," she said.
    The Newton commander-in-chief seemed  puzzled. He turned the  cube
over in his hands. "A free-lance journalist sold it to us,"  Francesca
said in a very serious tone. "We were assured it was the only copy  in
existence."
    She paused  a  moment  while  Borzov  loaded  the  cube  into  the
appropriate part of his desk computer. He blanched noticeably when the
first video segment from the cube appeared on the monitor. He  watched
the wild rantings of his daughter, Natasha, for about fifteen seconds.
"I wanted  to  keep this  out  of the  hands  of the  tabloid  press,"
Francesca added softly.
    "How long is the tape?" General Borzov asked quietly.
    "Almost half an hour," she replied. "I'm the only one who has seen
the entire thing."
    General Borzov heaved a sigh. This was the moment his wife, Petra,
had dreaded ever since it was first made official that he would be the
commanding officer of the Newton. The institute director at Sverdlovsk
had promised that no reporters would have access to his daughter.  Now
here was a videotape  with a thirty-minute  interview with her.  Petra
would be mortified.
    He stared out the window. In his mind he was assessing what  would
happen to  the  mission if  his  daughter's acute  schizophrenia  were
paraded before the public. It would be embarrassing, he conceded,  but
the mission would not  be damaged in  any serious way.  . . .  General
Borzov looked  across at  Francesca.  He hated  making deals.  And  he
wasn't  certain  that  Francesca  herself  had  not  commissioned  the
interview with Natasha. Nevertheless . . .
    Borzov relaxed and forced a smile. "I guess I could thank you," he
said, "but  somehow it  doesn't  seem appropriate."  He paused  for  a
moment. "I assume I'm expected to show some gratitude."
    So far, so  good,Francesca thought.  She knew better  than to  say
anything just yet.
    "All right/' the general continued  after the lengthy silence,  "I
will cancel the extra simulation. Others have already complained about
it." He turned the data cube over in his hands. "And Petra and I  will
come to Rome early, as you once suggested, for the personal interview.
I will  remind all  the cosmonauts  tomorrow about  the party  on  New
Year's Eve and tell them that it is their duty to attend. But  neither
I nor anyone else can require Nicole des
    Jardins to talk to you about  anything except her work." He  stood
up abruptly. "Now it's time for us to go to that biometry meeting."
    Francesca reached  up and  kissed him  on the  cheek. "Thank  you,
Valeriy," she said.
    8BIOMETRY
    The medical briefing had already begun when Francesca and  General
Borzov arrived. All the rest of  the cosmonauts were present, as  well
as  twenty-five  or   thirty  additional   engineers  and   scientists
associated with the mission. Four newspaper reporters and a television
crew completed  the audience.  At the  front of  the small  auditorium
stood Nicole des Jardins,  wearing her gray  flight outfit as  always,
and holding a laser pointer in her hand. To the side of her was a tall
Japanese man in  a blue dress  suit. He was  listening carefully to  a
question from the audience. Nicole interrupted him to acknowledge  the
new arrivals.
    "Sumimasen,Hakamatsu-sanr"  she  said.   "Let  me  introduce   our
commander, General Valeriy Borzov of the Soviet Union, as well as  the
journalist-cosmonaut Francesca Sabatini."
    She turned toward the latecomers."Dobriy Utra," Nicole said to the
general, quickly nodding a greeting in Francesca's direction as  well.
"This is  the  esteemed  Dr.  Toshiro  Hakamatsu,"  Nicole  said.  "He
designed and developed the biometry system that we are going to use in
flight, including  the tiny  probes  that will  be inserted  into  our
bodies."
    General Borzov  extended  his  hand.  "1  am  glad  to  meet  you,
Hakamatsu-san," he said- "Madame des Jardins has made us all very much
aware of your outstanding work."
    "Thank you," the man  replied, bowing in  the direction of  Borzov
after shaking his  hand. "It is  an honor for  me to be  part of  this
project."
    Francesca and General Borzov took the two empty seats at the front
of the auditorium and the meeting continued. Nicole aimed her  pointer
at a  keyboard  on  the side  of  a  small podium  and  a  full-scale,
multicolored male model of the human cardiovascular system, with veins
marked in blue and arteries  in red, appeared, as a  three-dimensional
holographic image  in  the  front  of the  room.  Tiny  white  markers
circulating inside the flowing  blood vessels indicated the  direction
and rate of flow. "The Life Sciences  Board of the ISA just last  week
gave final approval  to the  new Hakamatsu  probes as  our key  health
monitoring system for the mission," Nicole was saying. "They  withheld
their approval  until the  last  minute so  that they  could  properly
assess the results of the stress testing, in which the new probes were
asked to perform  in a  wide variety of  off-nominal situations.  Even
under those conditions there was no sign that any rejection mechanisms
were triggered in any of the test subjects.
    "We are fortunate that we will be able to use this system, for  it
will make life much easier both for me, as your life science  officer,
and for  you. During  the mission  you will  not be  subjected to  the
routine injection/scanning techniques that have been used on  previous
projects. These new probes are injected  one time, maybe twice at  the
most during our one-hundred-day  mission, and they do  not need to  be
replaced."
    "How did  the  long-term rejection  problem  get solved?"  came  a
question from another  doctor in the  audience, interrupting  Nicole's
train of thought. "I will discuss  that in detail during our  splinter
session  this  afternoon,"  she  replied.  "For  now,  it  should   be
sufficient for me to  mention that since  the key chemistry  governing
rejection focuses  on  four  or five  critical  parameters,  including
acidity, the probes are coated with chemicals that adapt to the  local
chemistry at the  implantation site.  In other words,  once the  probe
arrives at  its  destination,  it noninvasively  samples  its  ambient
biochemical environment and then exudes a thin coating for itself that
is designed  to be  consistent  with the  chemistry  of the  host  and
thereby avoid rejection. "But  I am getting  ahead of myself,"  Nicole
said, turning to face the large model showing blood circulation in the
human being. "The family of probes will be inserted here, in the  left
arm, and  the individual  monitors will  disperse according  to  their
prescribed guidance  programs to  thirty-two distinct  locales in  the
body. There they will embed themselves in the host tissue." The inside
of the holographic model became animated as she spoke and the audience
watched as thirty-two blinking  lights started from  the left arm  and
scattered throughout the body. Four went  to the brain, three more  to
the heart, four to the primary glands of the endocrine system, and the
remaining twenty-one  monitors spread  out to  assorted locations  and
organs ranging from the eyes to the fingers and toes.
    "Each  of  the  individual  probes  contains  both  an  array   of
microscopic sensors to sample important health parameters and a  fancy
data  system  that  first  stores  and  then  transmits  the  recorded
information upon receipt of an  enabling command from the scanner.  In
practice, I would expect to scan each of you and dump all your  health
telemetry once a day, but the recorders can handle data covering up to
four days if necessary."  Nicole stopped and  looked at the  audience.
"Are there any questions so far?" she asked.
    "Yes," said Richard Wakefield  in the front row.  "I see how  this
system gathers trillions of  bits of data. But  that's the easy  part.
There's no way you  or any other  human being could  look at all  that
information. How does the data get synthesized or analyzed so that you
can tell if anything irregular is happening?"
    "You'd make a  great straight  man, Richard," Nicole  said with  a
smile. "That's  my next  subject." She  held up  a small,  flat,  thin
object with a keyboard on it. "This is a standard programmable scanner
that permits the monitored information to be sampled in many different
ways. I can call for  a full dump from any  and/or all channels, or  I
can request transmission only of warning data . . ."
    Nicole saw many confused looks  in her audience. "I'd better  back
up and start  this part  of the  explanation again,"  she said.  "Each
measurement made by each instrument has anexpected range-one that will
vary of course from individual to individual-and a much widertolerance
range used to identify a  true emergency. If a particular  measurement
only exceeds the expected range, it is entered in the warning file and
that specific channel is  marked with an alarm  identifier. One of  my
options using the scanner is to read out only these warning lists.  If
an individual cosmonaut is feeling fine, my normal procedure would  be
just to see if there are any entries in the warning buffer."
    "But if  you  have a  measurement  outside the  tolerance  range,"
interjected Janos Tabori,  who was  the backup  life science  officer,
"then watch out. The  monitor turns on  its emergency transmitter  and
uses all its  internal power  to send out  abeep, beep  noise that  is
frightening. I know, it happened to  me during a short test with  what
turned out to be  improper tolerance values. 1  thought I was  dying."
His comment caused general laughter. The image of little Janos walking
around emitting a high-pitched beep was amusing.
    "No system is foolproof/' Nicole continued, "and this one is  only
as good as  the set of  values that  are entered to  trigger both  the
warnings and the emergencies. So you  can see why calibration data  is
essential. We  have  examined  each of  your  medical  histories  with
extreme care and entered initial values  in the monitors. But we  must
see actual  results with  the  real probes  inserted in  your  bodies.
That's the reason for today's activity. We will insert your probe  set
today, monitor  your  performance  during the  four  final  simulation
exercises that begin on Thursday, and then update the trigger  values,
if necessary, before we actually launch."
    There was  some involuntary  squirming as  the cosmonauts  thought
about the prospect of tiny medical laboratories indefinitely  embedded
in  their  critical  organs.  They  were  accustomed  to  the  regular
investigative probes  that were  placed  in the  body to  obtain  some
specific information, like the amount of plaque blocking the arteries,
but those probes were temporary.  The thought of permanent  electronic
invasion was disquieting,  to say the  least. General Michael  O’Toole
asked two questions that were bothering most of the crew.
    "Nicole," he inquired in his  usual earnest manner, "can you  tell
us how you make sure that the probes actually go to the right  places.
Even more important, what happens if one malfunctions?"
    "Of course,  Michael/' she  answered pleasantly.  "Remember  these
things will be inside me as well and I had to ask the same questions."
Nicole des Jardins was  in her middle thirties.  Her skin was a  shiny
copper brown,  her  eyes dark  brown  and almond-shaped,  her  hair  a
luxurious jet black. There was an unshakable self-confidence radiating
from her that was sometimes  mistaken for arrogance. "You won't  leave
the clinic  today until  we  have verified  that  all the  probes  are
properly  positioned,"  she   was  saying.  "Based   on  recent   past
experience, one or two of you may have a monitor wander off course. It
is an easy matter  to track it  with the lab  equipment and then  send
overwrite commands as necessary to move it to the proper spot.
    "As far as the malfunction  issue is concerned, there are  several
levels of fault protection. First, each specific monitor tests its own
battery of  sensors  more than  twenty  times a  day.  Any  individual
instrument failing a test is  turned off immediately by the  executive
software in its own monitor. In  addition, each of the probe  packages
undergoes a  full  and rigorous  self-test  twice a  day.  Failure  of
self-test is one of many fault  conditions that causes the monitor  to
secrete  chemicals  causing  self-destruction,  with  eventualharmless
absorption by  the body.  Lest  you become  unduly concerned  we  have
rigorously verified all  these fault paths  with test subjects  during
the past year.^r
    Nicole wound up her presentation and stood quietly in front of her
colleagues. "Any  more questions?"  she asked.  After a  few  seconds'
hesitation she continued,  "Then I need  a volunteer to  walk up  here
beside the robot nurse  and be inoculated. My  personal probe set  was
injected and verified last week. Who wants to be next?"
    Francesca stood up. "All right,  we'll start withla bella  signora
Sabatini " Nicole  said w.th uncharacteristic  flare. She gestured  to
the  television  personnel.   Focus  those  cameras   on  the   tracer
simulation. It's quite a show when these electronic bugs swarm through
the bloodstream."
    9DIASTOLIC IRREGULARITY
    Through the  window  Nicole  could  barely  discern  the  Siberian
snow-fields in the oblique December  light. They were more than  fifty
thousand feet below her.  The supersonic plane was  slowing now as  it
moved south toward Vladivostok and the island of Japan. Nicole yawned.
After only three hours of sleep, it  would be a fight all day to  keep
her body awake. It  was almost ten  in the morning  in Japan but  back
home at  Beauvois,  in  the  Loire Valley  not  far  from  Tours,  her
daughter, Genevieve,  still had  four more  hours of  sleep until  her
alarm would awaken her at seven o'clock,
    The video  monitor in  the back  of the  seat in  front of  Nicole
automatically turned on and reminded her that in only fifteen  minutes
the plane would land at  the Kansai Transportation Center. The  lovely
Japanese girl on the screen suggested  that now would be an  excellent
time  to   make  or   confirm   ground  transportation   and   housing
arrangements. Nicole activated  the communication system  in her  seat
and a thin  rectangular tray with  a keyboard and  small display  area
slid in front of her. In less  than a minute Nicole arranged both  her
train ride to Kyoto and her electric trolley passage from there to her
hotel. She  used  her Universal  Credit  Card  (UCC) to  pay  for  all
transactions, after first correctly identifying herself by  indicating
that her mother's maiden name was Anawi Tiasso. When she was  finished
a small printed  schedule listing her  train and trolley  identifiers,
along with the times of arrival and transit (she would reach her hotel
at 11:14a.m. Japanese time), popped out of one end of the tray.
    As the plane prepared  for its landing,  Nicole thought about  the
reason for her sudden trip one third of the way around the world. Just
twenty-four hours ago she had been  planning to spend this day  around
her home,  alternating  some office  work  in the  morning  with  some
language practice for Genevieve in the afternoon. It was the beginning
of the holiday break  for the cosmonauts and,  except for that  stupid
party in Rome at the end of the year, Nicole was supposedly free until
she had  to report  to LEO-3  on January  8. But  while she  had  been
sitting in her office at home the previous morning, routinely checking
the biometry from the final set of simulations, Nicole had come across
a curious phenomenon. She had been studying Richard Wakefield's  heart
and blood  pressure  during  a  variable  gravity  test  and  had  not
understood a particularly rapid surge in his pulse rate. She had  then
decided  to  check  Dr.   Takagishi's  detailed  heart  biometry   for
comparison, since he had been engaged in a strenuous physical activity
with Richard at the time of the pulse surge.
    What  she  had  found  when  she  had  examined  a  full  dump  of
Takagishi's heart information  had been an  even bigger surprise.  The
Japanese professor's  diastolic  expansion  was  decidedly  irregular,
maybe even pathological. But no warnings had been issued by the  probe
and no data  channels had  been alarmed. What  was going  on? Had  she
detected a malfunction in the Haka-matsu system?
    An  hour's  worth   of  detective   work  had   resulted  in   the
identification  of  more  peculiarities.   During  the  full  set   of
simulations, there  had  been  four separate  intervals  during  which
Takagishi's problem had occurred.  The abnormal behavior was  sporadic
and intermittent. Sometimes the extra long diastole, reminiscent of  a
valve problem during the  filling of the heart  with blood, would  not
appear for as long  as thirty-eight hours. However,  the fact that  it
did recur four different times suggested that there was definitely  an
abnormality of some kind.
    What had mystified Nicole was not  the raw data itself-it was  the
failure of the system to trigger the proper alarms in the presence  of
the wildly irregular  observations. As  part of her  analysis she  had
traced laboriously  through  the  Takagishi  medical  history,  paying
special attention to the cardiology report.  She had found no hint  of
any kind of abnormality, so had convinced herself that she was  seeing
a sensor error and not a true medical problem.
    Soif the system was working correctly, she had reasoned,the  onset
of the long diastole  should have immediately  sent the heart  monitor
outside the expected  range and  triggered an  alarm. But  it didn  't
Neither the first time nor any other time. Is it possible that we have
a double  failure here?  If so,  how  did the  unit continue  to  pass
self-test?
    At first Nicole had thought about phoning one of her assistants in
the life science office at ISA  to discuss the anomaly she had  found,
but she decided instead, since it was a holiday for ISA, to  telephone
Dr. Hakamatsu  in  Japan.  That  phone  call  to  him  had  completely
bewildered her. He  had told her  flatly that the  phenomenon she  had
observed must  have  been  in  the patient,  that  no  combination  of
component failures  in  his probe  could  have produced  such  strange
results. "But then why were there no entries in the warning file?" she
had asked the Japanese electronics designer.
    "Because no  expected range  values  were exceeded,"  he  answered
confidently. "For some  reason an extremely  wide expected range  must
have been entered for  this particular cosmonaut.  Have you looked  at
his medical history?"
    Later on in the conversation, when Nicole told Dr. Hakamatsu  that
the unexplained data had actually come  from the probes inside one  of
his countrymen,  namely  cosmonaut-scientist  Takagishi,  the  usually
restrained engineer had actually shouted into the phone.  "Wonderful,"
he had said, "then I'll be able  to clear up this mystery in a  hurry.
I'll contact Takagishi-san over at  Kyoto University and let you  know
what I find."
    Three hours later Nicole's video  monitor had revealed the  somber
face of Dr. Shigeru Takagishi. "Madame des Jardins," he had said  very
politely, "I understand that you  have been talking with my  colleague
Hakamatsu-san about my biometry  output during the simulations.  Would
you be kind enough to explain to me what you have found?"
    Nicole had  then  presented  all the  information  to  her  fellow
cosmonaut, concealing nothing and expressing her personal belief  that
the source of the erroneous data had indeed been a probe malfunction.
    A long  silence  followed  Nicole's  explanation.  At  length  the
worried Japanese  scientist  had  spoken  again.  "Hakamatsu-san  just
visited me here at the university and checked out the probe set inside
me. He will report that he  Ifound no problems with his  electronics."
Takagishi had then paused, seem-  >ingly deep in thought. "Madame  des
Jardins," he had said a few seconds later, "I would like to ask you  a
favor. It  is a  matter of  the  utmost importance  to me.  Could  you
possibly come to see me in Japan in the very near future? I would like
to talk with you personally and explain something that may be  related
to my irregular biometry data."
    There had  been an  earnestness in  Takagishi's face  that  Nicole
could neither overlook nor misinterpret. He was clearly imploring  her
to help him.  Without asking  any more  questions, she  had agreed  to
visit him immediately. A few minutes later she had reserved a seat  on
the overnight supersonic flight from Paris to Osaka.
    "It was never bombed during the great war with America/' Takagishi
said, waving his arms at the city of Kyoto spread out below them, "and
it suffered almost  no damage when  the hoodlums took  over for  seven
months in 2141.1 admit that I  am prejudiced," he said, smiling,  "but
to me Kyoto is the most beautiful city in the world."
    "Many  of  my  countrymen  feel  that  way  about  Paris,"  Nicole
answered. She pulled her coat rightly around her. The air was cold and
damp. It felt as  if it might  snow at any  moment. She was  wondering
when her associate was  going to start  talking about their  business.
She had not flown five thousand miles for a tour of the city, although
she did  admit that  this Kyomizu  Temple  set among  the trees  on  a
hillside overlooking the city was certainly a magnificent spot.
    "Let's have some tea,"  Takagishi said. He led  her to one of  the
several outside tearooms flanking  the main part  of the old  Buddhist
temple.Now, Nicole said to herself as she stifled a yawn,he's going to
tell me what this  is all about.  Takagishi had met  her at the  hotel
when she had arrived. He had suggested that she have some lunch and  a
short nap before  he returned.  After he had  picked her  up at  three
o'clock, they had come directly to this temple.
    He poured the thick Japanese tea into the two cups and waited  for
Nicole to take a sip. The hot liquid warmed her mouth even though  she
didn't care for the bitter taste. "Madame," Takagishi began, "you  are
doubtless wondering why I have asked you to come all the way to  Japan
on such  short  notice. You  see,"  he  spoke slowly  but  with  great
intensity, "all  my life  I  have dreamed  that perhaps  another  Rama
spacecraft would return while I was still alive. During my studies  at
the university and during  my many years of  research I was  preparing
myself for one single event, the  return of the Ramans. On that  March
morning in 2197 when Alastair Moore  called me to say that the  latest
images from Excalibur indicated  that we had another  extraterrestrial
visitor, I nearly wept with joy. I knew immediately that the ISA would
mount a mission to visit the spaceship. I resolved to be part of  that
mission."
    The Japanese scientist took a drink from his tea and looked to his
left, out across the  manicured green trees and  the slopes above  the
city. "When I  was a boy,"  he continued, his  careful English  barely
audible, "I would climb  these hills on a  clear night and stare  into
the sky, searching for the home  of the special intelligence that  had
created that incomparable giant  machine. Once I  came with my  father
and we huddled together in the  cold night air, looking at the  stars,
while he told me what it had been like in his village during the  days
of the first Rama encounter twelve years before I was born. I believed
on that night"-he turned to look at Nicole and she could again see the
passion in his eyes-"and  I still believe today,  that there was  some
reason for that visit, some purpose for the appearance of that awesome
spaceship. I  have studied  all  the data  from that  6rst  encounter,
hoping to find a clue that would explain why it came. Nothing has been
conclusive. I have developed several theories on the subject, but I do
not have enough evidence to support any of them."
    Again Takagishi stopped talking to  drink some of his tea.  Nicole
had been both surprised and impressed  by the depth of feeling he  had
exhibited. She sat patiently and said nothing while she waited for him
to continue. "I  knew that I  had a good  chance to be  selected as  a
cosmonaut," he said, "not only  because of my publications,  including
theAtlas, but  also because  one of  my closest  associates,  Hisanori
Akita, was the  Japanese representative on  the selection board.  When
the number of scientists remaining in the competition had been reduced
to eight and  I was one  of them,  Akita-san suggested to  me that  it
looked as if the two leading  contenders were myself and David  Brown.
You'll recall that up until that time, no physical examinations of any
kind had been conducted."
    That's  right,Nicole  remembered.The  potential  crew  was   first
reduced to forty-eight and  then we were all  taken to Heidelberg  for
the physicals. The German doctors in charge insisted that each of  the
candidates must  pass  every  single medical  criterion.  The  academy
graduates were the first group tested  and five out of twenty  failed.
Including Alain Blamont
    "When your countryman Blamont, who had already flown half a  dozen
major missions  for  the  ISA,  was  disqualified  from  consideration
because of that trivial heart murmur-and the Cosmonaut Selection Board
subsequently upheld  the doctors  by denying  his appeal-I  completely
panicked." The proud Japanese physicist was now staring directly  into
Nicole's eyes, entreating her to understand. "I was afraid that I  was
going to lose the most important opportunity of my career because of a
minor physical problem that had never  before affected any part of  my
life." He paused to  choose his words carefully.  "1 know that what  I
did was wrong and dishonorable, but 1 convinced myself at the time  it
was all right, that my chance to decipher the greatest puzzle in man's
history should  not be  blocked  by a  group of  small-minded  doctors
defining acceptable health only in terms of numerical values.
    Dr. Takagishi told the rest of his story without embellishment  or
obvious emotion. The passion he had fleetingly demonstrated during his
discussion of the Ramans had vanished. His monotonic recital was crisp
and clear. He explained how he  had cajoled his family physician  into
falsifying his medical history and providing him with a new drug  that
would prevent the occurrence of his diastolic irregularity during  the
two days of his physical at  Heidelberg. Although there had been  some
risk of deleterious side  effects from the  new drug, everything  went
according to  plan. Takagishi  passed the  rigorous physical  and  was
ultimately selected as one of  the two mission scientists, along  with
Dr. David Brown. He  had never thought again  about the medical  issue
until about three months ago, when  Nicole had first explained to  the
cosmonauts that  she  was  planning  to recommend  the  usage  of  the
Hakamatsu probe  system during  the mission  instead of  the  standard
temporary probe scans once every week.
    "You see," Takagishi explained, his  brow now starting to  furrow,
"under the old mission technique I could have used that same drug once
a week and neither you nor  any other life science officer would  ever
have seen my irregularity, But a permanent monitoring system cannot be
fooled-the drug is much too dangerous for constant use."
    So you somehow  worked out a  deal with Hakamatsu,Nicole  thought,
jumping ahead  of him  in  her own  mind.Either  with or  without  his
explicit knowledge. And you input expected value ranges that would not
trigger in the  presence of  your abnormality. You  hoped that  nobody
analyzing the  tests would  call for  a full  biometry dump.  Now  she
understood why he had summoned her  urgently to Japan.And you want  me
to keep your secret.
    "Watakuski no doryo  wa, wakarimas,"Nicole  said kindly,  changing
into Japanese to show her sympathy for her colleague's anguish. "I can
tell how much distress  this is causing you.  You need not explain  in
detail how you  tampered with  the Hakamatsu probes."  She paused  and
watched his face relax. "But if  I understand you correctly, what  you
want is  for  me  to  become an  accomplice  to  your  deception.  You
recognize of course that I cannot even consider preserving your secret
unless I am absolutely convinced that your minor physical problem,  as
you call it, represents no possible threat to the mission. Otherwise I
would be forced-"
    "Madame des  Jardins,"  Takagishi  interrupted her,  "I  have  the
utmost respect for your integrity. I would never,never ask you to keep
my heartirregularity out of the record  unless you agreed that it  was
really an  insignificant problem."  He looked  at her  in silence  for
several seconds. "When  Hakamatsu first  phoned me  last evening,"  he
continued quietly, "I  thought originally  that I would  call a  press
conference and then resign from the project. But while 1 was  thinking
about what I would say in my resignation, 1 kept seeing this image  of
Professor Brown. He is a  brilliant man, my American counterpart,  but
he is also, in my opinion,  too certain of his own infallibility.  The
most likely replacement  for me would  be Professor Wolfgang  Heinrich
from Bonn. He has published many  fine papers about Rama but he,  like
Brown, believes that these  celestial visits represent random  events,
totally without  connection in  any way  to us  and our  planet."  The
intensity and passion had  returned to his eyes.  "1 cannot quit  now.
Unless I have no choice. Both Brown and Heinrich might miss the clue."
    Behind Takagishi, on the path that the led back to the main wooden
building of  the temple,  three Buddhist  monks walked  briskly  past.
Despite the cold, they  were dressed lightly  in their usual  charcoal
gray smocks,  their feet  exposed to  the cold  in open  sandals.  The
Japanese scientist was proposing to Nicole that they spend the rest of
the day at  the office  of his  personal physician,  where they  could
study his complete and uncensored  medical history dating back to  his
childhood. If she would  be willing, he added,  they would give her  a
data cube containing all  the information to take  back to France  and
study at her leisure.
    Nicole, who had been listening intently to Takagishi for almost an
hour, momentarily  diverted  her  attention to  the  three  monks  now
purposefully climbing the  stairs in  the distance.Their  eyes are  so
serene,  she   thought.Their   lives   so   free   of   contradiction.
Onemindedness can be a virtue, ft makes all the answers easy. For just
a moment she was envious of the monks and their ordered existence. She
wondered how well they would handle the dilemma that Dr. Takagishi was
presenting her.He  is  not  one  of the  space  cadets,  she  was  now
thinking,so his role  is not absolutely  critical to mission  success.
And in a sense he  is right The doctors on  the project have been  too
strict. They never should have disqualified Alain. It would be a shame
if . . . "Daijobu," she said  before he had finished talking. "1  will
go with you  to see  your doctor  and if  I don't  find anything  that
bothers me, I will take the entire  file home with me to study  during
the holidays." Takagishi's face lit up.  "But let me warn you  again,"
she added,  "if  there  is  anything  in  your  history  that  I  find
questionable, or if I  have the slightest shred  of evidence that  you
have withheld any information from me,  then I will ask you to  resign
immediately."
    "Thank you, thank  you so much,"  Dr. Takagishi replied,  standing
and bowing to his female colleague. "Thank you so much," he repeated.
    10THE COSMONAUT AND THE POPE
    General  O’Toole  could  not  have  slept  more  than  two   hours
altogether. The combination  of excitement  and jet lag  had kept  his
mind active all night long. He had studied the lovely bucolic mural on
the wall  opposite the  bed in  his  hotel room  and counted  all  the
animals twice. Unfortunately, he had remained wide awake after he  had
finished both counts.
    He took a deep breath, hoping that it would help him relax.So  why
all this nervousness? he thought.He is lust a man like all the rest on
Earth. Well., not exactly.  O’Toole sat up straight  in his chair  and
smiled. It was  ten o'clock in  the morning  and he was  sitting in  a
small anteroom inside  the Vatican.  He was  about to  have a  private
audience with the Vicar of Christ himself, Pope John-Paul V.
    During his childhood, Michael O’Toole had often dreamed of someday
becoming the first North American pope. "Pope Michael," he had  called
himself during  the long  Sunday afternoons  when he  had studied  his
catechism alone. As he had repeated the words of his lessons over  and
over and  committed them  to memory,  he had  imagined himself,  maybe
fifty years  in  the  future,  wearing the  cassock  and  papal  ring,
celebrating mass for thousands in the great churches and stadia of the
world. He would inspire  the poor, the  hopeless, the downtrodden.  He
would show them how God could lead them to a better life.
    As a young man Michael O’Toole  had loved all learning, but  three
subjects had especially intrigued him. He could not read enough  about
religion, history, and physics. Somehow his facile mind found it  easy
to jump between  these different  disciplines. It  never bothered  him
that the epistemologies of religion  and physics were one hundred  and
eighty degrees apart.  Michael O’Toole had  no difficulty  recognizing
which questions in life should be  answered by physics and which  ones
by religion.
    All three of his favorite scholastic subjects merged in the  study
of creation. It was, after all, the beginning of everything, including
religion, history, and physics. How had it happened? Was God  present,
as the  referee perhaps,  for  the kickoff  of the  universe  eighteen
billion years ago? Wasn't it He  who had provided the impetus for  the
cataclysmic explosion known as the  Big Bang that produced all  matter
out of  energy?  Hadn't  He  foreseen  that  those  original  pristine
hydrogen atoms  would  coalesce into  giant  clouds of  gas  and  then
collapse under  gravitation to  become  the stars  in which  would  be
manufactured the basic chemical building blocks of life?
    And I have never lost my fascination for creation,O’Toole said  to
himself as he  waited for his  papal audience.How did  it all  happen?
What is  the significance  of the  particular sequence  of events?  He
remembered his  questions of  the  priests when  he was  a  teenager.I
probably decided not to become a priest because it would have  limited
my free  access to  scientific truth.  The church  has never  been  as
comfortable as lam with the apparent incompatibilities between God and
Einstein.
    An American  priest from  the Vatican  state department  had  been
waiting at his  hotel in Rome  the previous evening  when O’Toole  had
returned from his day as a tourist. The priest had introduced  himself
and apologized profusely for not  having responded to the letter  that
General O’Toole had  written from  Boston in November.  It would  have
"facilitated the process," the priest had remarked in passing, if  the
general had pointed out in his letter that he wasthe General  O’Toole,
the Newton  cosmonaut. Nevertheless,  the  priest had  continued,  the
papal schedule had been juggled and the Holy Father would be delighted
to see O’Toole the next morning. As the door to the papal office swung
open, the American general instinctively stood up. The priest from the
night before walked into the  room, looking very nervous, and  quickly
shook O’Toole's hand. They both glanced toward the doorway, where  the
pope, wearing his normal white cassock, was concluding a  conversation
with a  member  of  his  staff. John-Paul  V  came  forward  into  the
anteroom, a pleasant smile on his  face, and extended his hand  toward
O’Toole. The cosmonaut  automatically dropped to  one knee and  kissed
the papal ring.
    "Holy Father," he murmured, astonished at the excited pounding  of
his heart, "thank you for seeing me. This is indeed a great honor  for
me."
    "For me as well," the pope replied in lightly accented English. "I
have been following  the activities  of you and  your colleagues  with
great interest."
    He gestured toward O’Toole and  the American general followed  the
church leader into a  grand office with high  ceilings. A very  large,
dark wood  desk  stood on  one  side of  the  room under  a  life-size
portrait of  John-Paul IV,  the man  who had  become pope  during  the
darkest days of The  Great Chaos and had  provided both the world  and
the  church  with   twenty  years  of   energetic  and   inspirational
leadership. The gifted  Venezuelan, a poet  and historical scholar  in
his own right, had demonstrated to the world between 2139 and 2158 how
positive a  force  the  organized  church could  be  at  a  time  when
virtually every other institution  was collapsing and was,  therefore,
unable to give any succor to the bewildered masses.
    The pope sat down on a couch and motioned for O’Toole to sit  next
to him. The American priest left the room. In front of O’Toole and the
pope were great  windows that  opened onto a  balcony overlooking  the
Vatican gardens some twenty feet below. In the distance O’Toole  could
see the Vatican museum where he had spent the previous afternoon.
    "You  wrote  in  your  letter,"  the  Holy  Father  said,  without
referring to any notes, "that there were some theological issues  that
you would like  to discuss with  me. I  assume these are  in some  way
related to your mission."
    O’Toole looked  at  the  seventy-year-old  Spaniard  who  was  the
spiritual leader of a  billion Catholics. The  pope's skin was  olive,
his features sharp, his  thick black hair now  mostly gray. His  brown
eyes were soft and clear.He certainly doesn't waste any time,  O’Toole
thought, recalling an article inCatholic magazine in which one of  the
leading cardinals in the Vatican administration had praised  John-Paul
V for his management efficiency.
    "Yes, Holy Father,"  O’Toole said.  "As you  know, I  am about  to
embark on a  journey of the  utmost significance for  humankind. As  a
Catholic, I have some questions that I thought it might be helpful for
me to discuss with  you." He paused for  a moment. "I certainly  don't
expect you to  have all  the answers.  But maybe  you can  guide me  a
little with your accumulated wisdom."
    The pope nodded and waited for O’Toole to continue. The  cosmonaut
took a deep breath, "The issue  of redemption is one that's  bothering
me, even though I guess  it's just a part of  a bigger concern that  I
have in reconciling the Ramans with our faith."
    The pope's brow furrowed  and O'Toole could tell  that he was  not
communicating very well. "I have  no trouble whatsoever," the  general
added as  an  explanation,  "with  the concept  of  God  creating  the
Ramans-that's easy to comprehend. But did the Ramans follow a  similar
pattern of spiritual evolution and  therefore need to be redeemed,  at
some point in their  history, like human beings  on Earth? And if  so,
did God send Jesus, or perhaps his Raman equivalent, to save them from
their sins? Do we humans thus represent an evolutionary paradigm  that
has been repeated over and over throughout the universe?"
    The  pope's  smile  broadened  almost  into  a  grin.   "Goodness,
General/'  he  said  with  humor,   "you  have  romped  over  a   vast
intellectual territory very quickly. You must know that I do not  have
fast answers  to  such profound  questions.  The church  has  had  its
scholars addressing the issues raised by Rama for almost seventy years
and, as  you  would  expect, our  research  has  recently  intensified
because of the discovery of the second spacecraft."
    "But what  do  you  personally believe,  Your  Holiness?"  O'Toole
persisted. "Did  the creatures  who made  these two  incredible  space
vehicles commit some original sin and  also need a savior sometime  in
their history? Is the story of Jesus  unique for us here on Earth,  or
is it just one small chapter in a book of nearly infinite length  that
covers all sentient beings and a general requirement for redemption to
achieve salvation?"
    "I'm not certain," the Holy Father replied after several  seconds.
"Sometimes it is nearly impossible for  me to fathom the existence  of
other intelligence in any form out there in the rest of the  universe.
Then, as soon as  I acknowledge that it  certainly wouldn't look  like
us, I struggle  with images  and pictures that  sidetrack my  thinking
from the  kinds of  theological questions  that you  have raised  this
morning." He paused for a moment, reflecting. "But most of the time  I
imagine that the  Ramans too had  lessons to learn  in the  beginning,
that God did not create them perfect either, and that at some time  in
their development He must have sent them Jesus-"
    The pope  interrupted  himself  and  looked  intently  at  General
O'Toole. "Yes," he continued softly, "I said Jesus. You asked me  what
I believed personally.  To me Jesus  is both the  true savior and  the
only son of God. It would be He who would be sent to the Ramans  also,
albeit in a differentguise."
    O'Toole's face had brightened at the end of the pontiff's remarks.
"I agree with you, Holy Father," he said excitedly. "And therefore all
intelligence is  united,  everywhere  throughout the  universe,  by  a
similar spiritual experience. In a very very real sense, assuming that
the Ramans have also  been saved, we are  all brothers. After all,  we
are made from the  same basic chemicals. That  means that Heaven  will
not be limited just to humans but will encompass all beings everywhere
who have understood His message."
    "I can see  where you  might come to  that conclusion,"  John-Paul
replied. "But it is  certainly not one  that is universally  accepted.
Even within  the  church  there  are  those  who  have  an  altogether
different view of the Ramans."
    "You mean  the homocentric  group that  uses quotations  from  St.
Michael of Siena for support?"
    The pope nodded.
    "For  myself,"  General   O'Toole  said,  "I   6nd  their   narrow
interpretation  of  St.  Michael's  sermon  on  the  Ramans  much  too
confining. In saying that  the extraterrestrial spacecraft might  have
been a  herald, like  Elijah or  even Isaiah,  foretelling the  second
coming of Christ,  Michael was  not restricting the  Ramans to  having
only that particular  role in  our history  and no  other function  or
existence. He was  simply explaining  one possible view  of the  event
from a human spiritual perspective."
    Again the pontiff  was smiling, "I  can tell that  you have  spent
considerable time  and  energy thinking  about  all this.  My  advance
information about you  was only  partially correct.  Your devotion  to
God, the church, and your family  were all cited in your dossier.  But
there is  little  mention  of your  active  intellectual  interest  in
theology."
    "I  consider  this  mission  to  be  by  far  the  most  important
assignment of my life.  I want to make  certain that I properly  serve
both God  and mankind.  So I  am  trying to  prepare myself  in  every
possible way, including discovering whether or not the Ramans may have
a spiritual component. It could affect my actions on the mission."
    O’Toole paused a few seconds before continuing. "By the way,  your
holiness, have your researchers found  any evidence of possible  Raman
spirituality, based on their analysis of the first rendezvous?"
    John-Paul V shook his head. "Not  really, However, one of my  most
devout archbishops, a man  whose religious zeal sometimes  overshadows
his logic, insists that  the structural order  inside the first  Raman
craft-you  know,  the   symmetries,  geometric   patterns,  even   the
repetitive redundant designs based  on the number three-is  suggestive
of a temple. He could be right.  We just don't know. We don't see  any
evidence either  way about  the  spiritual nature  of the  beings  who
created that first spaceship."
    "Amazing!" said  General O’Toole.  "I had  never thought  of  that
before.
    Imagine if it really  was created as some  kind of a temple.  That
would stagger David Brown." The general laughed. "Dr. Brown  insists,"
he said in explanation, "that we poor ignorant human beings would  not
have any chance of ever determining  the purpose of such a  spaceship,
for the  technology of  its builders  is so  far advanced  beyond  our
comprehension that it would  be impossible for  us ever to  understand
any of it. And, according  to him, of course  there could be no  Raman
religion. In his opinion  they would have  left all the  superstitious
mumbo jumbo  behind  eons  before they  developed  the  capability  to
construct such a fabulous interstellar spacecraft."
    "Dr. Brown is an atheist, isn't he?" the pope asked.
    O’Toole nodded. "An outspoken one. He believes that all  religious
thinking impairs  the  proper functioning  of  the brain.  He  regards
anyone who doesn't agree with his point of view as an absolute idiot."
    "And the rest of the crew? Are they as strongly opinionated on the
subject as Dr. Brown?"
    "He is  the  most vocal  atheist,  although I  suspect  Wakefield,
Tabori, and Turgenyev all share his basic attitudes. Strangely enough,
my intuitive sense tells me that  Commander Borzov has a soft spot  in
his heart for religion.  That's true of most  of the survivors of  The
Chaos. Anyway, Valeriy  seems to  enjoy asking me  questions about  my
faith."
    General O’Toole stopped for a moment as he mentally completed  his
survey of  the religious  beliefs of  the Newton  crew. "The  European
women des Jardins and Sabatini  are nominally Catholic, although  they
would not  be considered  devout by  any stretch  of the  imagination.
Admiral Heilmann  is a  Lutheran on  Easter and  Christmas,  Takagishi
meditates and studies Zen. I don't know about the other two,"
    The pontiff  stood up  and walked  to the  window. "Somewhere  out
there a strange and  wonderful space vehicle,  created by beings  from
another star, is headed toward us. We are sending a crew of a dozen to
rendezvous with it" He turned toward General O’Toole. "This  spaceship
may be a messenger  from God, but  probably only you  will be able  to
recognize it as such."
    O'Toole did not reply.  The pope stared out  the window again  and
was quiet for almost a minute.  "No, my son," he finally said  softly,
as much to himself as to General  O’Toole. "I do not have the  answers
to your  questions. Only  God has  them. You  must pray  that He  will
provide the answers when you need them." He faced the general. "I must
tell you  that I  am delighted  to find  you so  concerned with  these
issues. I am confident  that God also has  purposely selected you  for
this mission."
    General O'Toole could tell that the audience was coming to an end.
    "Holy Father," he said, "thank you again for seeing me and sharing
this time. I feel deeply honored."
    John-Paul V smiled and walked over  to his guest. He embraced  him
in the European manner and escorted General O'Toole out of his office.
    11ST. MICHAEL OF SIENA
    The exit from the subway station was opposite the entrance to  the
International Peace Park. As  the escalator deposited General  O'Toole
on the upper  level and  he walked out  into the  afternoon light,  he
could see the  domed shrine to  his right, not  more than two  hundred
meters away. To his left, at the other end of the park, the top of the
ancient Roman Colosseum was visible behind a complex of administrative
buildings.
    The American general walked briskly into the park and turned right
on the  sidewalk leading  to  the shrine.  He  passed a  lovely  small
fountain, part of a monument to the children of the world, and stopped
to watch the animated, sculptured  figures playing in the cold  water.
O'Toole was  full  of  anticipation. What  an  incredible  day,he  was
thinking. First I have  an audience with the  pope. And now I  finally
visit the  shrine of  St Michael.  I definitelysavedthe  best day  for
last.
    When Michael of Siena was canonized in 2188, fifty years after his
death (and, perhaps more significantly, three years after John-Paul  V
had been  elected  as the  new  pope),  there had  been  an  immediate
consensus that the perfect place to locate a major shrine in his honor
would be in  the International  Peace Park. The  great park  stretched
from the Piazza Venezia to  the Colosseum, wandering around and  among
those few ruins from the old Roman fora that had somehow survived  the
nuclear holocaust. Choosing the exact spot  for the shrine had been  a
delicate process. The  Memorial to  the Five  Martyrs, honoring  those
courageous  men  and  women  who  had  dedicated  themselves  to   the
restoration of order in Rome  during the months immediately  following
the disaster, had been the feature  attraction of the park for  years.
There was considerable feeling that the  new shrine to St. Michael  of
Siena must not be  allowed to overshadow  the dignified, open,  marble
pentagon that  had occupied  the southeast  corner of  the park  since
2155.
    After much debate it was decided that St. Michael's shrine  should
be  located  in  the  opposite,  northwest  comer  of  the  park,  its
foundation symbolically centered on the actual epicenter of the blast,
only ten yards from the place where Trajan's Column had stood until it
was instantaneously vaporized by the intense  heat at the core of  the
fireball. The  first  floor  of  the round  shrine  was  entirely  for
meditation and worship. There were twelve alcoves or chapels  attached
to  the  central  nave,  six  with  sculpture  and  artwork  following
classical Roman Catholic motifs and the other six each honoring one of
the world's major  religions. This  eclectic partition  of the  ground
floor  was  purposely  designed  to  provide  comfort  for  the   many
non-Catholics who made pilgrimages to the shrine to pay their respects
to the memory of the beloved St. Michael.
    General O’Toole did  not spend much  time on the  first level.  He
knelt and said a prayer in the chapel of St. Peter, and looked briefly
at the  famous  wood  sculpture  of Buddha  in  the  nook  beside  the
entrance, but  like  most  tourists  he could  not  wait  to  see  the
incomparable frescoes on the second floor. O’Toole was overwhelmed  by
both the size  and the beauty  of the famous  paintings the moment  he
stepped out of the elevator. Directly in front of him was a  life-size
portrait of a lovely  girl of eighteen with  long blond hair. She  was
bending down in an old  church in Siena on  Christmas Eve in 2115  and
leaving behind a curly-haired baby, wrapped in a blanket and placed in
a basket,  on the  cold church  floor. This  painting represented  the
night of  St. Michael's  birth and  was  the first  in a  sequence  of
twelvepanels of frescoes that completely  circled the shrine and  told
the story of the saint's life.
    General O’Toole walked over to the small kiosk beside the elevator
and rented  a  forty-five-minute  audio tour  cassette  that  was  ten
centimeters square and easily fit in his coat pocket. He picked up one
of the tiny disposable  receivers and clipped it  into his ear.  After
choosing   English   as   his   language,   he   pushed   the   button
markedintroduction and  listened as  a lovely  feminine British  voice
explained what he was about to see.
    "Each of the twelve  frescoes is six meters  high," the woman  was
saying as the general was studying the features of the baby Michael in
the first panel. "The lighting in the room is a combination of natural
light  from  the  outside,  coming  through  filtered  skylights,  and
artificial illumination  from  the  electronic  arrays  in  the  dome.
Automatic sensors determine the ambient conditions and mix the natural
with the  artificial light  so that  the viewing  of the  frescoes  is
always perfect.
    "The twelve panels on this level correspond to the twelve  alcoves
on the floor below. The arrangement of the frescoes themselves,  which
follow the life  of the  saint in a  chronological order,  flows in  a
clockwise direction. Thus the final painting, commemorating  Michael's
canonization ceremony at Rome in 2188,  is right next to the  painting
of his birth in the Siena cathedral seventy-two years earlier.
    "The frescoes  were designed  and implemented  by a  team of  four
artists, including  the  master  Feng  Yi  from  China,  who  appeared
suddenly in the spring of 2190 without any prior notification. Despite
the fact that very  little was known outside  China of his skill,  the
other three artists, Rosa da Silva from Portugal, Fernando Lopez  from
Mexico, and Hans Reichwein from Switzerland, immediately welcomed Feng
Yi to their team on  the strength of the  superb sketches that he  had
brought with  him." O'Toole  glanced around  the circular  room as  he
listened to the  lyrical voice on  the cassette. On  this last day  of
2199, there were more than two  hundred people on the second floor  of
St. Michael's  shrine,  including  three  tour  groups.  The  American
cosmonaut progressed slowly  around the circle,  stopping in front  of
each panel to study  the artwork and listen  to the discussion on  the
cassette.
    The major events of St. Michael's life were depicted in detail  in
the frescoes. The second through fifth  panels featured his days as  a
Franciscan novitiate in Siena, his fact-finding tour around the  world
during The Great Chaos, the  beginning of his religious activism  when
he returned to  Italy, and Michael's  use of the  church resources  to
feed the hungry and house the homeless. The sixth painting showed  the
tireless saint  inside  the television  studio  donated by  a  wealthy
American admirer. Here Michael, who spoke eight languages,  repeatedly
proclaimed his message of  the fundamental unity  of all humanity  and
the requirement for the wealthy to care for the less fortunate.
    The seventh fresco was Feng Yi's portrait of the confrontation  in
Rome between Michael and the old and dying pope. It was a  masterpiece
of contrast. Using color and light brilliantly, the painting  conveyed
the image of an energetic, vibrant, and vital young man being  wrongly
censured by a world-weary prelate anxious  to live out his final  days
in peace and quiet. In Michael's  facial expression could be seen  two
distinctly different reactions to what he was being told: obedience to
the papacy and disgust that the  church was more concerned with  style
and order than substance.
    "Michael was sent  to a  monastery in  Tuscany by  the pope,"  the
audio  guide   continued,   "and  it   was   there  that   the   final
transformations in his character took place. The eighth panel  depicts
God's appearances to Michael during this period of solitude. According
to the saint, God spoke to him twice, the first time in the middle  of
a thunderstorm and the second  time when a magnificent rainbow  filled
the sky. It  was during the  long and violent  storm that God  shouted
out, on the  claps of thunder,  the new "Laws  of Life" which  Michael
later proclaimed  at his  Easter sunrise  service at  Bolsena. On  His
second visitation God  informed the  saint that his  message would  be
spread to the ends of the rainbow and that He would give the  faithful
a sign during the Easter mass.
    "That most famous miracle of Michael's life, one that was  watched
on television by over a billion  people, is shown in the ninth  panel.
The painting presents Michael preaching Easter mass to the  multitudes
gathered around the shores of  Lake Bolsena. A vigorous spring  shower
is drenching the crowd, most of whom are dressed in the familiar  blue
robes that had  become associated  with his following.  But while  the
rain falls all around St. Michael, not a drop ever falls on the pulpit
or on the sound equipment being used to amplify his voice. A perpetual
radiant spotlight from  the Sun bathes  the young saint's  face as  he
announces God's new  laws to  the world.  It was  this crossover  from
being a purely religious leader-"
    General O'Toole switched off the cassette as he walked toward  the
tenth and eleventh  paintings. He was  familiar with the  rest of  the
story. After the  mass at  Bolsena, Michael was  beset by  a flock  of
troubles. His  life abruptly  changed. Within  two weeks  most of  his
cable television licenses  were rescinded. Stories  of corruption  and
immorality among his young devotees, whose numbers had grown into  the
hundreds of thousands in the  Western world alone, were constantly  in
the press. There was an assassination attempt, which was foiled at the
last minute by  his staff.  There were  also baseless  reports in  the
media that Michael had proclaimed himself the second Christ.
    And so the leaders of the world became afraid of you. All of them.
You were a threat to everyone with  your Laws of Life. And they  never
understood what  you meant  by the  final evolution.O'Toole  stood  in
front of the tenth  fresco. It was  a scene he  knew by heart.  Almost
every other  educated person  in  the world  would also  recognize  it
instantly. The  television  replays of  the  last seconds  before  the
terrorist bomb exploded were  shown every year on  June 28, the  first
day of the Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul and the anniversary of  the
day that Michael and almost a million others had perished in Rome on a
fateful early summer morning in 2138.
    You had called them to come to Rome to join you, To show the world
that everyone was united. And  so they came.The tenth painting  showed
Michael in his  blue robes, standing  high on the  steps of  theVictor
Emmanuel Monument next to the Piazza Venezia. He was in the middle  of
a sermon. Around him in all  directions, spilling over into the  Roman
fora along  the  jam-packed Via  dei  Fori Imperiali  leading  to  the
Colosseum, was a sea of blue. And faces. Eager, excited faces,  mostly
young, looking up  and around  the monuments  of the  ancient city  to
catch a glimpse of the boy-man who dared to suggest that he had a way,
God's way, out of the despair  and hopelessness that had engulfed  the
world.
    Michael Ryan  O'Toole,  a fifty-seven-year-old  American  Catholic
from Boston, fell on  his knees and wept,  like thousands before  him,
when he looked at  the eleventh panel in  the sequence. This  painting
depicted the same scene as the  previous panel, but the time was  more
than an hour later, an hourafter the seventy-five-kiloton nuclear bomb
hidden in a sound truck near Trajan's Column had exploded and sent its
hideous  mushroom-shaped  cloud  into   the  skies  above  the   city.
Everything within  two  hundred  meters  of  the  epicenter  had  been
instantly vaporized. There was no Michael, no Piazza Venezia, no  huge
Victor Emmanuel Monument. In the center of the fresco was nothing  but
a hole. And around the perimeter of that hole, where the  vaporization
had not been quite as complete,  were scenes of agony and horror  that
would  shatter  the  complacency  of  even  the  most   self-protected
individuals.
    Dear God,General O'Toole said to himself through his tears,Help me
to comprehend  the  message  in  Saint  Michael's  life.  Help  me  to
understand how  I  can contribute,  in  whatever small  way,  to  Your
overall plan for us. Guide me as I prepare to be Your emissary to  the
Ramans.
    12RAMANS AND ROMANS
    So, what do  you think?" Nicole  des Jardins stood  up and  turned
around slowly  in front  of the  camera beside  the monitor.  She  was
wearing a form-fitting white  dress made from one  of the new  stretch
fabrics. The hem of  the dress was  cut just below  her knees and  the
long sleeves were  marked by one  black stripe that  passed under  her
elbows as it ran from the  shoulder to the wrist. The wide,  jet-black
belt matched both the color  of the stripe and  the color of her  hair
and high-heeled shoes. Her hair was  pulled together by a comb at  the
back of her head and then left  to tumble freely almost to her  waist.
Her only jewelry was a gold  tennis bracelet containing three rows  of
small diamonds that she was wearing around her left wrist.
    "You look beautiful, Mom,"  her daughter, Genevieve, answered  her
from the screen. I've  never seen you before  both dressed upand  with
your  hair  down.  What  happened  to  your  normal  sweatsuit?"   The
fourteen-year-old grinned. "And when does the party start?"
    "At nine-thirty,"  Nicole  replied.  "Very  fashionably  late.  We
probably won't have dinner until an hour after that. I'm going to  eat
something in the hotel room before I leave so that I won't starve."
    "Mom, now don't forget  your promise. Last week'sAujourd'hui  said
that my favorite singer,  Julien LeClerc, would  definitely be one  of
the guest entertainers. You have to tell him that your daughter thinks
he's absolutelydivine!"
    Nicole smiled at her daughter. "I will, darling, for you. Although
it will  probably  be misinterpreted.  From  what I  have  heard  your
Monsieur LeClerc thinks that every woman in the world is in love  with
him." She paused for  a moment. "Where's  your grandfather? I  thought
you said he would be joining you in a few minutes."
    "Here I am," Nicole's father said as his weathered, friendly  face
appeared on  the  screen  next  to  his  granddaughter.  "I  was  just
finishing up a  section of  my new novel  on Peter  Abelard. I  didn't
expect you to call this early."  Pierre des Jardins was now  sixty-six
years old. A successful historical  novelist for many years, his  life
since the early  death of  his wife had  been blessed  by fortune  and
accomplishment. "You  look stunning!"  he exclaimed  after seeing  his
daughter in her evening wear. "Did you buy that dress in Rome?"
    "Actually, Dad," Nicole  said, again  turning around  so that  her
father could see  the entire  outfit, "I bought  this for  Francoise's
wedding three years ago. But  of course I never  had a chance to  wear
it. Do you think it's too simple?"
    "Not at all," Pierre replied. "In fact, I think it's just  perfect
for this kind of extravaganza. If it's like the big fetes that I  used
to attend, every  woman there will  be wearing her  fanciest and  most
expensive clothing  and jewelry.  You will  stand out  in your  simple
black and white. Particularly with your hair down like that. You  took
perfect."
    "Thanks," Nicole said.  "Even though I  know you're prejudiced,  I
still like to  hear your compliments."  She looked at  her father  and
daughter, her only two close companions for the last seven years. 'Tin
really surprisingly anxious. 1 don't think I'll be this nervous on the
day we encounter Rama. I often feel  out of my element at big  parties
like this and  tonight I have  a peculiar sense  of foreboding that  I
can't explain. You remember, Dad, like  I felt the day before our  dog
died when I was a child."
    Her father's  face became  serious. "Maybe  you'd better  consider
staying in the hotel. Too many of your premonitions have been accurate
in the past. I remember your telling me that something was wrong  with
your mother two days before we received that message-"
    "It's  not  that  strong  a  feeling,"  Nicole  interrupted.  "And
besides, what  would I  give as  an excuse?  Everyone's expecting  me,
especially the  press, according  to Francesca  Sabatini. She's  still
annoyed with me for refusing to have a personal interview with her."
    "Then I guess you should go. But try to have some fun. Don't  take
things so seriously for this one night."
    "And remember to say  hello to Julien  LeClerc for me,"  Genevieve
added.
    "I'll miss you both when midnight comes," Nicole said. "It will be
the first time I've been away from you on New Year's Eve since  2194."
Nicole paused  for a  moment,  remembering their  family  celebrations
together. "Take care, both of you. You know I love you very much."
    "I love you, too, Mom," Genevieve shouted. Pierre waved good-bye.
    Nicole switched off the videophone  and checked her watch. It  was
eight o'clock. She still had an  hour before she was supposed to  meet
her driver in the lobby. She  walked over to the computer terminal  to
order something to eat.  With a few commands  she requested a bowl  of
minestrone and a small bottle  of mineral water. The computer  monitor
told her to expect them both in between sixteen and nineteen minutes.
    I really  am  high-strung  tonight,Nicole thought  as  she  leafed
through the magazineItalia and waited for her food. The feature  story
inItalia was  devoted to  an interview  with Francesca  Sabatini.  The
article covered  ten full  pages and  must have  had twenty  different
photographs of"la bella  signora." The interviewer  discussed both  of
Francesca's highly  successful  documentary  projects  (the  first  on
modern love and  the second  on drugs),  stressing the  point, in  the
middle of  some  questions  about  the  drug  series,  that  Francesca
repeatedly smoked cigarettes during the conversation.
    Nicole perused the  article in a  hurry, noting as  she read  that
there were  facets  to Francesca  she  had never  considered.But  what
motivates her? Nicole wondered to  herself.What is it that she  wants?
Near the  end  of  the  magazine  story,  the  interviewer  had  asked
Francesca her opinion of  the other two women  in the Newton crew.  "I
feel that I'm actually the only  woman on the mission," Francesca  had
answered. Nicole slowed down to read  the rest of the paragraph.  "The
Russian  pilot  Turgenyev  thinks  and   acts  like  a  man  and   the
French-African princess Nicole  des Jardins  has purposely  suppressed
her femininity,  which is  sad  because she  could  be such  a  lovely
woman."
    Nicole was  only slightly  angered by  Francesca's glib  comments.
More than anything, she was amused. She felt a brief competitive surge
but  then  chided  herself  for  such  a  childish  reaction.I'll  ask
Francesca about this article  at just the  right time, Nicole  thought
with a smile.Who knows?  Maybe I'll even ask  her if seducing  married
men qualifies her as feminine.
    The forty-minute drive from  the hotel to  the party at  Hadrian's
Villa, which was located on the outskirts of the Roman suburbs not far
from the resort town of Tivoli, was passed in total silence. The other
passenger in Nicole's car was Hiro Yamanaka, the most taciturn of  all
the cosmonauts. In  her television interview  two months earlier  with
Yamanaka, a frustrated Francesca Sabatini,  after ten minutes of  two-
and three-word, monosyllabic responses to all her questions, had asked
Hiro if the rumor about his being an android were true.
    "What?" Hiro Yamanaka had asked.
    "Are you an  android?" Francesca had  repeated with a  mischievous
smile. "No," the Japanese pilot had responded, his features  remaining
absolutely expressionless while the camera zoomed in on his face.
    When the car turned off the  main road between Rome and Tivoli  to
drive the  final  mile  to  the  Villa  Adriana,  the  traffic  became
congested. Progress was very slow, not  only because of the many  cars
carrying people  to the  gala, but  also because  of the  hundreds  of
curious onlookers and  paparazzi who  were lining  the small  two-lane
road.
    Nicole took a deep breath as the automobile finally pulled into  a
circular drive and stopped. Outside her tinted window she could see  a
bevy of  photographers  and reporters,  poised  to pounce  on  whoever
climbed out of the car. Her door opened automatically and she  stepped
out slowly, pulling her black suede  coat around her and trying to  be
careful not to catch her heels.  "Who's that?" she heard a voice  say.
"Franco, over here,  quick-it's cosmonaut  des Jardins."  There was  a
smattering of applause and the flash of many cameras. A kindly looking
Italian gentleman came  forward and  took Nicole by  the hand.  People
moiled around her, several microphones were stuck in her face, and  it
seemed as if she were being given a hundred simultaneous questions and
requests in four or five different languages,
    "Why have you refused all personal interviews?" "Please open  your
coat so we can see your  dress." "Do the other cosmonauts respect  you
as a doctor?" "Stop a moment. Please smile." "What is your opinion  of
Francesca Sabatini?"
    Nicole said nothing as  the security men held  back the crowd  and
led her  to a  covered electric  cart. The  four-passenger cart  moved
slowly up a long hill, leaving the crowd behind, as a pleasant Italian
woman in  her mid-twenties  explained in  English to  Nicole and  Hiro
Yamanaka what they were seeing around them. Hadrian, who had ruled the
Roman empire between A.D. 117 and  138, had built this immense  villa,
she told them,  for his own  enjoyment. The architectural  masterpiece
represented a blending of all the building styles Hadrian had seen  on
his many journeys  to the distant  provinces and was  designed by  the
emperor himself on  three hundred acres  of plain at  the foot of  the
Tiburtini Hills.
    The initial cart ride past the ancient assortment of buildings was
apparently an integral part of the evening's festivities. The  lighted
ruins themselves were only vaguely suggestive of their previous glory,
for roofs were mostly  missing, the decorative  statuary had all  been
removed, and the rough stone walls were bare of adornment. But by  the
time the cart wound  past the ruins of  the Canopus, a monument  built
around a rectangular pool in the Egyptian style (it was the  fifteenth
or sixteenth  building  in the  complex-  Nicole had  lost  count),  a
general sense of the huge extent of the villa had definitely emerged.
    This man  died  over  two  thousand  yean  ago,Nicole  thought  to
herself, remembering her history.One of  the smartest humans who  ever
lived. Soldier, administrator, linguist She smiled as she recalled the
story of Antinous.Lonely most of his  life. Except for one brief,  all
consuming passion that ended in tragedy,
    The cart came to a stop at  the end of a short walkway. The  woman
guide finished  her monologue.  "To  honor the  great Pax  Romana,  an
extended  time  of  world  peace   two  millennia  ago,  the   Italian
government, helped by generous donations from the corporations  listed
underneath the statue  over there on  your right, decided  in 2189  to
construct a perfect  replica of  Hadrian's Maritime  Theater. You  may
recall that we passed  the ruins of the  original at the beginning  of
the ride. The goal of the  reconstruction project was to show what  it
would have been like to have visited  a part of this villa during  the
emperor's lifetime. The  building was  finished in 2193  and has  been
used for state events ever since."
    The guests were met by formally clad young Italian men,  uniformly
tall and handsome,  who escorted  them along  the walkway,  up to  and
through Philosopher's  Hall, and  finally into  the Maritime  Theater.
There was a brief security check  at the actual entrance and then  the
guests were free to roam as they pleased.
    Nicole was enchanted by  the building. It  was basically round  in
shape, about forty meters in  diameter. An annulus of water  separated
an inner island-on which was located a large house with five rooms and
a big yard- from the wide  portico with its fiuted columns. There  was
no roof above the  water or the  inner part of  the portico, the  open
skies giving the entire theater a wonderful feeling of freedom. Around
the building the  guests mixed  and talked and  drank; advanced  robot
waiters rolled around carrying large  trays of champagne and wine  and
other alcoholic spirits. Across the  two small bridges that  connected
the island with its house and yard to the portico and the rest of  the
building, Nicole  could see  a  dozen people,  all dressed  in  white,
working to set up the dinner buffet.
    A heavy blond woman and her pint-size, jocular husband, a bald man
wearing an old-fashioned pair of spectacles, were rapidly  approaching
Nicole from about  thirty feet  away. Nicole prepared  for the  coming
onslaught by taking a small sip  of the champagne and cassis  cocktail
that had  been handed  to her  by a  strangely insistent  robot a  few
minutes before.
    "Oh, Madame des Jardins," the man said, waving at her and  closing
in with great speed. "We just have to  talk to you. My wife is one  of
your biggest fans."  He walked up  beside Nicole and  gestured to  his
wife. "Come on, Cecelia," he shouted, "I've got her."
    Nicole took a deep breath and forced a wide smile.It's going to be
one of those evenings, she said to herself.
    Finally,Nicole was thinking,maybe III have a few minutes of  peace
and quiet She was  sitting by herself, her  hack purposely toward  the
door, at a small table in the comer  of the room. The room was at  the
rear of the island house in the middle of the Maritime Theater. Nicole
finished the last few bites of her food and washed them down with some
wine.
    Whew,she thought, trying without success to remember even half the
people she  had met  in the  last hour.  She had  been like  a  prized
photograph, passed from person to person and praised by everyone.  She
bad been embraced, kissed, hugged, pinched, flirted with (by both  men
and women), and even propositioned  by a rich Swedish shipbuilder  who
had invited her to his "castle"  outside the city of Goteborg.  Nicole
had hardly said  a word to  any of  them. Her face  ached from  polite
smiling and  she  was a  trifle  tipsy  from the  wine  and  champagne
cocktails.
    "Well* as I live and breathe,"  she heard a familiar voice  behind
her say, "1 believe the lady in the white dress is none other than  my
fellow  cosmonaut,  the  ice  princess  herself,  Madame  Nicole   des
Jardins." Nicole turned  and saw Richard  Wakefield staggering  toward
her. He bounced  off a table,  reached out to  stabilize himself on  a
chair, and nearly fell in her lap.
    "Sorry," he said,  grinning and  managing to  seat himself  beside
her. "I'm afraid I've had too much gin and tonic." He took a big  gulp
from the glass that had  miraculously remained unspilled in his  right
hand. "And now," he said with a wink, "if you don't mind, I'm going to
take a nap before the dolphin show."
    Nicole laughed as Richard's head hit the wooden table with a splat
and he  feigned  unconsciousness.  After  a  moment  she  leaned  over
playfully and forced  one of  his eyelids  open. "If  you don't  mind,
comrade, could you not pass out until after you explain to me the  bit
about the dolphin show."
    With great effort Richard sat up and began rolling his eyes.  "You
mean you don't know? You, who always knowall the schedules andall  the
procedures? That's impossible."
    Nicole finished  her wine.  "Seriously,  Wakefield. What  are  you
talking about?"
    Richard opened one of the small windows and stuck his arm  through
it, pointing at the pool of water that encircled the house. "The great
Dr. Luigi Bardolini is here  with his intelligent dolphins.  Francesca
is going to  introduce him  in about  fifteen minutes."  He stared  at
Nicole with wild abandon. "Dr, Bardolini  is going to prove, here  and
tonight," he  shouted,  "that his  dolphins  can pass  our  university
entrance exams."
    Nicole pulled back and looked carefully at her colleague.He really
is drunk, she thought to herself.Maybe he  feels as out of place as  I
do.
    Richard was now  gazing intently  out the window.  "This party  is
really some zoo, isn't it?" Nicole  said after a long silence.  "Where
did they find-"
    "That's it," Wakefield interrupted her suddenly, giving the  table
a triumphant pounding. "That's why  this place has seemed familiar  to
me since  the moment  we walked  in." He  glanced at  Nicole, who  was
eyeing him as if he had lost  his mind. "It's a miniature Rama,  don't
you see?"  He  jumped up,  unable  to  contain his  happiness  at  his
discovery. "The water surrounding this  house is the Cylindrical  Sea,
the porticoes represent  the Central  Pkin, and we,  lovely lady,  are
sitting in the city of New York."
    Nicole was beginning to comprehend but could not keep up with  the
racing thoughts of  Richard Wakefield.  "And what  does similarity  of
design prove?'' he  thought out loud.  "What does it  mean that  human
architects two thousand years ago  constructed a theater with some  of
the same guiding principles of design as those used in the Raman ship?
Similarity of nature? Similarity of culture? Absolutely not."
    He stopped,  now aware  that Nicole  was staring  fixedly at  him.
"Mathematics," he said emphatically.  A quizzical expression told  him
that she still  didn't understand completely.  "Mathematics," he  said
again, surprisingly lucid all of a sudden. "That's the key. The Ramans
almost certainly didn't look  like us and clearly  evolved on a  world
far different from the Earth. But  they must Have understood the  same
mathematics as the Romans."
    His face brightened.  "Hah," he shouted  again, causing Nicole  to
jump. He was  pleased with  himself. "Ramans and  Romans. That's  what
tonight is all about. And at  some level of development in between  is
modern-day homo sapiens."
    Nicole shook her head  as Richard exulted in  the joy of his  wit.
"You don't understand, lovely  lady?" he said,  extending his hand  to
help her up from her seat. "Then perhaps you and I should go to  watch
a dolphin show  and I will  speak to  you of Ramans  there and  Romans
here, of  cabbages  and kings,  of  dum-de-dum and  sealing  wax,  and
whether pigs have wings."
    13HAPPY NEW YEAR
    After everyone had finished  eating land all  the plates had  been
cleared, Francesca Sabatini appeared in  the center of the yard  witha
microphone and spent ten minutes thanking all the gala sponsors.  Then
she introduced Dr. Luigi Bardolini, suggesting that the techniques  he
had pioneered to communicate with  the dolphins might prove  extremely
useful when humans try to talk to any extraterrestrials.
    Richard  Wakefield  had  disappeared  just  before  Francesca  had
started speaking, ostensibly to find the rest room and obtain  another
drink. Nicole had caught sight of him briefly five minutes later, just
after Francesca  had  finished  with her  introduction.  He  had  been
surrounded by a  pair of buxom  Italian actresses, both  of whom  were
laughing heartily at  his jokes. He  had waved at  Nicole and  winked,
pointing at the two women as if his actions were self-explanatory.
    Goodfor you, Richard,  Nicole had thought,  smiling to  herself.At
least one of us social misfits is having a good time. She now  watched
Franceses walk  gracefully across  the bridge  and start  to move  the
crowd back from  the water so  that Bardolini and  his dolphins  would
have plenty of room. Fran-cesca was wearing a tight black dress,  bare
on one shoulder, with a starburst of gold sequins in the front. A gold
scarf was tied around her waist.  Her long blond hair was braided  and
pinned against her head.
    You  really  belong   here,Nicole  thought,  truthfully   admiring
Francesca's ease  in  large  crowds. Dr.  Bardolini  began  the  first
segment of his  dolphin show and  Nicole turned her  attention to  the
circular pool of water. Luigi Bardolini was one of those controversial
scientists whose work is brilliant  but never quite as exceptional  as
he himself wants others to believe. It was true that he had  developed
a unique way of communicating with  the dolphins and had isolated  and
identified the  sounds  of  thirty  to forty  action  verbs  in  their
portfolio of squeaks.  But it was  not true, as  he so often  claimed,
that two  of  his dolphins  could  pass a  university  entrance  exam.
Unfortunately,  the  way   the  twenty-second  century   international
scientific community  operated, if  your most  outrageous or  advanced
theories could not be substantiated, or were held up to ridicule, then
your other discoveries, no matter how solid, were often disparaged  as
well. This behavior  had induced  an endemic  conservatism in  science
that was not altogether healthy.
    Unlike most scientists, Bardolini was a brilliant showman. In  the
final segment of his show he had his two most famous dolphins,  Emilio
and Emilia,  take  an intelligence  test  in a  real-time  competition
against two of the villa guides, one male and one female, who had been
selected at random that evening. The construct of the competitive test
was enticingly simple.  On two  of the four  large electronic  screens
(one pair of  screens was in  the water  and another pair  was in  the
yard), a three-by-three  matrix was shown  with a blank  in the  lower
right-hand corner. The other eight elements were filled with different
pictures and  shapes. The  dolphins and  humans taking  the test  were
supposed to discern the  changing patterns moving  from left to  right
and top to bottom in the matrix,  and then correctly pick out, from  a
set of eight candidates displayed on the companion screen, the element
that should be placed in the blank lower right comer. The  competitors
had one minute to make their  choice on each problem. The dolphins  in
the water, like the humans on the land above them, had a control panel
of eight buttons they could push  (the dolphins used their snouts)  to
indicate their selection.
    The first few problems were easy, both for the humans and for  the
dolphins. In the first  matrix, a single white  ball was in the  upper
left corner, two white  balls in the second  column of the first  row,
and three white balls in the  matrix element corresponding to row  one
and column three.  Since the  first element of  the second  row was  a
single ball  as  well,  half  white and  half  black,  and  since  the
beginning element of the third row was another single ball, now  fully
black, it was  easy to read  the entire matrix  quickly and  determine
that what belonged  in the blank  lower right corner  was three  black
balls.
    Later problems were not so easy. With each successive puzzle, more
complications were added.  The humans  made their first  error on  the
eighth matrix, the  dolphins on  the ninth.  Altogether Dr.  Bardolini
exhibited sixteen matrices, the last one so complicated that at  least
ten separate  changing  patterns  had to  be  recognized  to  properly
identify what should be entered as  the last element. The final  score
was a tie,  Humans 12,  Dolphins 12.  Both pairs  took a  bow and  the
audience applauded.
    Nicole had found the exercise  fascinating. She wasn't certain  if
she believed Dr. Bardolini's assertion  that the competition was  fair
and unrehearsed, but  it didn't matter  to her. What  she thought  was
interesting was the nature  of the competition  itself, the idea  that
intelligence could  be defined  in  terms of  an ability  to  identify
patterns and trends.Is there a way that synthesis can be measured? she
thought.In children. Or even adults, for that matter.
    Nicole had  participated in  the  test along  with the  human  and
dolphin contestants  and had  correctly answered  the first  thirteen,
missing the  fourteenth because  of a  careless assumption,  and  just
finishing the fifteenth accurately before  the buzzer sounded the  end
of the allocated  time. She  had had  no idea  where to  begin on  the
sixteenth.And what about you Ramans?  she was wondering, as  Franceses
returned to the microphone to introduce Genevieve's heartthrob, Julien
LeClerc,Would you have been  able to answer  all sixteen correctly  in
one tenth the  time? One hundredth?  She gulped, as  she realized  the
full range of possibilities.Or maybe even one millionth?
    "I never lived, 'til I met you. ... I never loved, 'til I saw you.
. . ."  The soft  melody of  the old  recorded song  swam in  Nicole's
memory and  brought back  an  image from  fifteen years  before,  from
another dance with another man when  she had still believed that  love
could conquer everything. Julien LeClerc misread her body signals  and
pulled her closer  to him.  Nicole decided not  to fight  it. She  was
already very tired and,  if the truth were  known, it felt good  being
held tightly by a man for the first time in several years.
    She had  honored  her  agreement  with  Genevieve,  When  Monsieur
LeClerc had finished his short set of songs, Nicole had approached the
French singer and given him the message from her daughter. As she  had
anticipated,  he  had  interpreted  her  approach  to  mean  something
entirely different.  They had  continued talking  while Francesca  had
announced to  the  partygoers  that  there would  be  no  more  formal
entertainment until after midnight and  that all the guests were  free
to drink or snack  or dance to the  recorded music until then,  Julien
had offered his arm to Nicole and the two of them had walked back over
to the portico, where they had been dancing ever since.
    Julien was a handsome man, in  his early thirties, but he was  not
really Nicole's type. First of all,  he was too conceited for her.  He
talked about himself all the time  and did not pay any attention  when
the conversation switched to  other topics. Although  he was a  gifted
singer, he had no other particularly outstanding  characteristics.But,
Nicole reasoned as  their continued  dancing brought  stares from  the
other guests,he's all right as a  dancer and it beats standing  around
twiddling my thumbs.
    At a break in the music Francesca came over to talk to them. "Good
for you, Nicole,"  she said,  her open smile  appearing genuine.  "I'm
glad to see that you're enjoying yourself." She extended a small  tray
with half a  dozen dark  chocolate balls lightly  sprayed with  white,
possibly a sugar confection. "These are fantastic," Francesca said. "I
made them especially for the Newton crew."
    Nicole took one of the chocolates and popped it into her mouth. It
was delicious. "Now I have a favor to ask," Francesca continued  after
several seconds.  "Since  I was  never  able to  schedule  a  personal
interview with you and our mail  indicates that there are millions  of
people out there who  would like to  find out more  about you, do  you
think that you could come over to  our studio here and give me ten  or
fifteen minutes before midnight?"
    Nicole stared  intently  at  Francesca. A  voice  inside  her  was
sending out a warning, but her mind was somehow garbling the message.
    "I agree," Julien LeClerc said while the two women looked at  each
other. "The press always talks  about the 'mysterious lady  cosmonaut'
or refers to you as 'the ice princess.' Show them what you've shown me
tonight, that you're a normal, healthy woman like everybody else."
    Why not?Nicole finally decided, suppressing her interior  voice.At
least by doing it here I don't have to involve Dad and Genevieve.
    They had started to walk toward the makeshift studio on the  other
side of the portico when Nicole saw Shigeru Takagishi across the room.
He was leaning  against a  column and talking  to a  trio of  Japanese
businessmen dressed in formal attire. "Just a minute," Nicole said  to
her companions, 'I’ll be right back."
    "Tanoshii  shin-nen,Takagishi-san,"   Nicole  greeted   him.   The
Japanese scientist turned, startled at first, and smiled as he saw her
approach. After he formally introduced  Nicole to his associates,  and
they all  bowed  to  acknowledge  her  presence  and  accomplishments,
Takagishi started a polite conversation.
    "O genki desu ka?"he asked.
    "Okagesama de," she replied. Nicole leaned across to her  Japanese
colleague and whispered in his ear. "I only have a minute. I wanted to
tell you that I have carefully examined  all your records and I am  in
complete agreement with your personal physician. There is no reason to
say anything about your heart anomaly to the medical committee."
    Dr. Takagishi looked as if he had just been told that his wife had
given birth to a healthy son. He started to say something personal  to
Nicole but  remembered  he  was  in  the  midst  of  a  group  of  his
countrymen."Domo arrigato gozaimas," he said to the retreating Nicole,
his warm eyes conveying the depth of his thanks.
    Nicole felt great as she waltzed into the studio between Francesca
and Julien LeClerc.  She posed willingly  for the still  photographers
while Signora Sabatini ensured that  all the television equipment  was
in working order for the interview- She sipped some more champagne and
cassis, making intermittent small talk with Julien. Finally she took a
seat beside  Francesca  underneath  the  klieg  lights.How  wonderful,
Nicole kept thinking about  the earlier interaction with  Takagishi,to
be able to help that brilliant little man.
    Francesca's first question was  innocent enough. She asked  Nicole
if she  was  excited about  the  coming launch.  "Of  course,"  Nicole
answered, She then  gave a  lively summary of  the training  exercises
that the  cosmonaut crew  had been  undergoing while  waiting for  the
opportunity to  rendezvous  with Rama  II.  The entire  interview  was
conducted in  English. The  questions flowed  in an  orderly  pattern.
Nicole was  asked  to describe  her  role  in the  mission,  what  she
expected to discover ("I don't really know, but whatever we find  will
be extremely interesting"), and  how she happened to  go to the  Space
Academy in  the first  place.  After about  five minutes,  Nicole  was
feeling at ease and  very comfortable; it seemed  to her that she  and
Francesca had fallen into a complementary rhythm.
    Francesca then  asked  three  personal questions,  one  about  her
father, a second about  Nicole's mother and the  Senoufo tribe in  the
Ivory Coast, and the third about her life with Genevieve. None of them
were difficult. So Nicole was totally unprepared for Francesca's  last
question.
    "It is obvious from your  daughter's photographs that her skin  is
considerably lighter than yours/' Francesca said in the same tone  and
manner that she  had used  for all the  other questions.  "Genevieve's
skin color suggests that  her father was probably  white. Who was  the
father of your daughter?"
    Nicole felt her heart rate surge as she listened to the  question.
Then time  seemed  to stand  still.  A surprising  flood  of  powerful
emotions engulfed Nicole and  she was afraid she  was going to cry.  A
brilliant hot image of two entwined bodies reflected in a large mirror
burst into her mind and made her gasp. She momentarily looked down  at
her feet, trying to regain her composure.
    You stupid woman,she said to herself as she struggled to calm  the
combination of anger  and pain  and remembered love  that had  crashed
upon her like  a tidal wave.You  should have known  better. Again  the
tears threatened and she fought them. She looked up at the lights  and
Francesca. The gold sequins on  the front of the Italian  journalist's
dress had grouped into a pattern, or so it seemed to Nicole. She saw a
head in the sequins, the  head of a large  cat, its eyes gleaming  and
its mouth with sharp teeth just beginning to open.
    At last, after  what seemed to  be forever, Nicole  felt that  she
again had her emotions under control. She stared angrily at Francesca.
"A/onvoglio   parlare   di   quello,"    Nicole   said   quietly    in
Italian."Abbiamo terminate questa in-tervista." She stood up,  noticed
that she was  trembling, and sat  down again. The  cameras were  still
rolling. She breathed  deeply for  several seconds.  At length  Nicole
rose from her chair and walked out of the temporary studio.
    She wanted to flee, to run  away from everything, to go  someplace
where she  could  be alone  with  her  private feelings.  But  it  was
impossible. Julien grabbed her as she exited from the interview. "What
a bitch!" he said, waving an accusing finger in Francesca's direction.
There were people all around Nicole.  All of them were talking at  the
same time. She was  having trouble focusing her  eyes and ears in  all
the confusion.
    In  the  distance  Nicole  heard  some  music  that  she   vaguely
recognized but the song was more than half over before she realized it
was "Auld  Lang Syne."  Julien had  his arm  around her  back and  was
singing lustily. He was also leading the group of twenty or so  people
clustered around them in singing  the final words. Nicole mouthed  the
last bar mechanically and tried to maintain her equilibrium.  Suddenly
a moist pair of lips was pressed against hers and an active tongue was
trying to pry  open her  mouth and force  its way  inside. Julien  was
kissing her  feverishly,  photographers  were  snapping  pictures  all
around, there was an incredible  amount of noise. Nicole's head  began
to spin and  she felt as  if she  were going to  faint. She  struggled
hard, finally succeeding in freeing herself from Julien's grasp.
    Nicole staggered backward and bumped into an angry Reggie  Wilson.
He pushed her aside in his haste  to grab a couple sharing a deep  New
Year's   kiss   in   the   flashing   lights.   Nicole   watched   him
disinterestedly, as if she were in a movie theater, or even in one  of
her own dreams. Reggie pulled the pair apart and raised his right  arm
as if he were going to slug the other man.
    Francesca Sabatini  restrained Reggie  as a  confused David  Brown
retreated from her embrace.
    "Keep your  hands off  her, you  bastard," Reggie  shouted,  still
threatening the American  scientist. "And don't  think for one  minute
that I don't know  what you're doing." Nicole  could not believe  what
she was seeing. Nothing  made any sense. Within  seconds the room  was
full of security guards.
    Nicole was  one of  many people  ushered summarily  away from  the
fracas while order was being restored. As she left the studio area she
happened to pass Elaine Brown, sitting by herself in the portico  with
her back against a column. Nicole had met and enjoyed Elaine when  she
had gone to Dallas to talk to David Brown's family physician about his
allergies. At the moment Elaine was obviously drunk and in no mood  to
talk to anybody. "You shit," Nicole heard her mutter, "I never  should
have showed you the results until  after I had published them  myself.
Then everything would have been different."
    Nicole left  the gala  as soon  as  she was  able to  arrange  her
transportation back to  Rome. Francesca unbelievably  tried to  escort
her out to  the limousine as  if nothing had  happened. Nicole  curtly
rejected her fellow cosmonaut's offer and walked out alone.
    It started  to snow  during the  ride back  to the  hotel.  Nicole
concentrated on  the falling  snowflakes and  was eventually  able  to
clear her mind  enough to  assess the evening.  Of one  thing she  was
absolutely certain. There had been something unusual and very powerful
in that chocolate ball she had eaten. Nicole had never before come  so
close to losing complete control of her emotions.Maybe she gave one to
Wilson too, Nicole thought.And  that partially explains his  eruption.
But why? she asked herself again.What is she trying to accomplish?
    Back at the hotel  she prepared quickly for  bed. But just as  she
was ready to  turn out the  lights, Nicole thought  she heard a  light
knock on the door.  She stopped and listened,  but there was no  sound
for several seconds. She had almost decided that her ears were playing
tricks on her when she heard the knock again. Nicole pulled the  hotel
robe around her and approached the locked door very cautiously. "Who's
there?" she said forcefully but not convincingly. "Identify yourself."
    She heard a  sound of  scraping and a  piece of  folded paper  was
thrust under the door.  Nicole, still wary  and frightened, picked  up
the paper and opened  it. On it was  written, in the original  Senoufo
script of her mother's tribe,  three simple words:Ronata. Omeh.  Here.
Ronata was Nicole's name in Senoufo.
    A mixture of panic and excitement  caused Nicole to open the  door
without first checking on the monitor to see who was outside. Standing
ten feet away from  the door, his amazing  old eyes already locked  on
hers, was an ancient, wizened man  with his face painted in green  and
white horizontal streaks. He was  wearing a full-length, bright  green
tribal costume, similar to  a robe, on which  were gold swashes and  a
collection of line drawings of no apparent meaning.
    "Omeh!" Nicole  said, her  heart threatening  to jump  out of  her
chest. "What are you doing here?" she added in Senoufo.
    The old black man said nothing. He  was holding out a stone and  a
small vial of some kind, both in his right hand. After several seconds
he stepped deliberately forward into the room. Nicole backpedaled with
each of his steps. His gaze never wavered from her. When they were  in
the center of her hotel  room and only three  or four feet apart,  the
old man looked up at the ceiling  and began to chant. It was a  ritual
Senoufo song,  a general  blessing and  spell invocation  used by  the
tribal shaman for hundreds of years to ward off evil spirits.
    When he had finished  the chant the old  man Omeh stared again  at
his great-granddaughter and began to  speak very slowly. "Ronata,"  he
said, "Omeh has sensed  strong danger in this  life. It is written  in
the tribal chronicles that the man  of three centuries will chase  the
evil demons away  from the woman  with no companion.  But Omeh  cannot
protect Ronata after Ronata  leaves the kingdom  of Minowe. Here,"  he
said, taking her  hand and placing  the stone and  vial in it,  "these
stay with Ronata always."
    Nicole looked down  at the  stone, a smooth,  polished oval  about
eight inches long and four inches in each of the other two dimensions.
The stone  was mostly  creamy white  with a  few strange  brown  lines
wriggling across its surface. The small  green vial that he had  given
her was no bigger than a traveling bottle of perfume.
    "The water from the  Lake of Wisdom can  help Ronata," Omeh  said.
"Ronata will know  the time  to drink." He  tilted his  head back  and
earnestly repeated the earlier chant, this time with his eyes  closed.
Nicole stood beside him in puzzled silence, the stone and the vial  in
her right hand. When he was finished singing, Omeh shouted three words
that Nicole did  not understand.  Then he abruptly  turned around  and
walked quickly toward the open door. Startled, Nicole ran out into the
hall just in time to see his green gown disappear into the elevator.
    14GOOD-BYE HENRY
    Nicole and Genevieve  walked arm in  arm up the  hill through  the
light snow. "Did you see the look on that American's face when I  told
him who you were?" Genevieve said with a laugh. She was very proud  of
her mother.
    Nicole shifted her skis  and poles over to  the other shoulder  as
they approached the  hotel."Guten Abend,"  an old man  who would  have
made a  perfect Santa  Claus mumbled  as  he ambled  by. "I  wish  you
wouldn't be  so  quick  to  tell  people,"  Nicole  said,  not  really
chastizing her daughter. "Sometimes it's nice not to be recognized."
    There was a  small shed for  the skis beside  the entrance to  the
hotel. Nicole and Genevieve  stopped and placed  their equipment in  a
locker. They  exchanged their  ski boots  for soft  snow slippers  and
walked back  out  into the  fading  light Mother  and  daughter  stood
together for a moment and looked back down the hill toward the village
of Davos. "You know,"  said Nicole,, "there was  a time today,  during
our race  down that  back  piste toward  Klos-ters,  when I  found  it
impossible to  believe that  I will  actually be  way out  there  (she
gestured at the sky) in less  than two weeks, headed for a  rendezvous
with a mysterious alien spacecraft. Sometimes the human mind balks  at
the truth."
    "Maybe it's  only  a dream,"  her  daughter said  lightly.  Nicole
smiled. She loved  Genevieve's sense of  play. Whenever the  day-today
drudgery of  the hard  work  and tedious  preparation would  begin  to
overwhelm Nicole, she could always count on her daughter's easy nature
to bring her out of her seriousness. They were quite a trio, the three
of them that lived at Beauvois.  Each of them was sorely dependent  on
the other  two. Nicole  did  not like  to  think how  the  hundred-day
separation might affect their harmonious accord.
    "Does it bother  you that I  will be gone  so long?" Nicole  asked
Genevieve as they entered the hotel lobby. A dozen people were sitting
around a roaring fire in the middle of the room. An inconspicuous  but
efficient Swiss waiter was serving  hot drinks to the apres-ski  crew.
There would  be no  robots in  a  Morosani hotel,  not even  for  room
service.
    "I don't think of it  that way," her cheerful daughter  responded.
"After all, I'll be able  to talk with you  almost every night on  the
videophone. The delay time  will even make  it fun. And  challenging."
They walked  past  the  old-fashioned  registration  desk.  "Besides,"
Genevieve added, "I'll be  the center of attention  at school for  the
whole mission. My class  project is already set;  I'm going to draw  a
psychological portrait of  the Ramans based  on my conversations  with
you."
    Nicole smiled again and shook  her head. Genevieve's optimism  was
always infectious. It was a shame-
    "Oh, Madame des Jardins." The  voice interrupted her thought.  The
hotel manager  was  beckoning to  her  from the  desk.  Nicole  turned
around. "There's a  message for  you," the manager  continued. "I  was
told to deliver it to you personally."
    He handed her  a small plain  envelope. Nicole opened  it and  saw
just the tiniest portion of a crest on the note card. Her heart  raced
into overdrive as she closed the envelope again. "What is it, Mother?"
Genevieve inquired. "It must be  special to be hand delivered.  Nobody
does things like that these days."
    Nicole tried  to hide  her  feelings from  her daughter.  "It's  a
secret memo about my work," she lied. "The deliveryman made a terrible
mistake. He should never  have given it even  to Herr Graf. He  should
have put it in my hands only."
    "More confidential medical data about the crew?" Genevieve  asked.
She and her mother had often  discussed the delicate role of the  life
science officer on a major space mission.
    Nicole nodded. "Darling," she said to her daughter, "why don't you
run upstairs and  tell your grandfather  that I'll be  along in a  few
minutes. We'll  still plan  dinner for  seven-thirty. I'll  read  this
message now and see if any urgent response is required."
    Nicole kissed Genevieve and waited  until her daughter was on  the
elevator before walking back outside into the light snow. It was  dark
now. She stood under the streetlight and opened the envelope with  her
cold hands. She had  difficulty controlling her trembling  fingers.You
fool, she thought,you careless fool. After all this time. What if  the
girl had seen. . . .
    The crest was the same as  it had been on that afternoon,  fifteen
and a half years  ago, when Darren Higgins  had handed her the  dinner
invitation outside the Olympic press area. Nicole was surprised by the
strength of her emotions,  She steeled herself  and finally looked  at
the rest of the note below the crest.
    "Sorry for the  last-minute notice.  Must see  you tomorrow.  Noon
exactly. Warming hut #8 on the Weissfluhjoch. Come alone. Henry."
    The next morning Nicole was one of the first in line for the cable
car that carried skiers to the  top of the Weissfluhjoch. She  climbed
into the  polished  glass car  with  about twenty  others  and  leaned
against the window while the  door automatically shut. /have seen  him
only once in these fifteen years, she thought to herself,and yet . . .
    As the cable  car ascended,  Nicole pulled her  snow glasses  down
over her  eyes. It  was a  dazzling morning,  not unlike  the  January
morning seven years earlier  when her father had  called for her  from
the villa. They had had a  rare snowfall at Beauvois the night  before
and, after much pleading, she had let Genevieve stay home from  school
to play in the snow.  Nicole was working at  the hospital in Tours  at
the time and was  waiting to hear about  her application to the  Space
Academy.
    She had been  showing her  seven-year-old daughter how  to make  a
snow angel  when Pierre  had  called a  second  time from  the  house.
"Nicole, Genevieve, there's  something special  in our  mail," he  had
said. "It must have come during  the night." Nicole and Genevieve  had
run to the villa in their snowsuits while Pierre posted the full  text
of the message on the wall video-screen.
    "Most extraordinary," Pierre  had said. "It  seems we've all  been
invited to  the English  coronation, including  the private  reception
afterward. This is extremely unusual."
    "Oh, Grandpapa/' Genevieve said excitedly,  "I want to go. Can  we
go? Do I get to meet a real king and queen?"
    "There is no queen, darling," her grandfather replied, "unless you
mean the queen mother. This king has not yet married."
    Nicole read the invitation several times without saying  anything.
After Genevieve had calmed down and left the room, her father had  put
his arms around Nicole.
    "I want to go," she had said quietly.
    "Are you certain?" he  had asked, pulling  away and regarding  her
with an inquisitive stare.
    "Yes," she had answered 6rmly.
    Henry had never seen her until that evening,Nicole was thinking as
she checked first her watch and then her equipment in preparation  for
her ski run down from the summit.Father had been wonderful. He had let
me disappear at  Beauvois and almost  nobody knew I  had a baby  until
Genevieve was almost a year old. Henry never even suspected. Not until
that night at Buckingham Palace.
    Nicole could still see herself waiting in the reception line.  The
king had been late. Genevieve had been fidgety. At last Henry had been
standing opposite her. "The honorable Pierre des Jardins of  Beauvois,
France, with  his  daughter, Nicole,  and  granddaughter,  Genevieve."
Nicole had bowed very properly and Genevieve had curtsied.
    "So this is Genevieve,"  the king had said.  He had bent down  for
only a moment and put a hand under the child's chin. When the girl had
lifted up her face  he had seen something  that he recognized. He  had
turned to look at Nicole, a trace of questioning in his glance. Nicole
had revealed nothing  with her smile.  The crier was  calling out  the
names of the next guests in the line. The king had moved on.
    Soyou sent Darren to the hotel,  Nicole thought as she schussed  a
short slope, aimed for a small jump, and was airborne for a second  or
two.And he hemmed and hawed and finally asked me if I would come  have
tea. Nicole dug her edges  into the snow and  came to an abrupt  stop.
"Tell Henry I can't," she remembered saying to Darren in London  seven
years earlier.
    She looked again  at her watch.  It was only  eleven o'clock,  too
early to ski to the hut. She eased  over to one of the lifts and  took
another ride to the summit.
    It was two  minutes past  noon when  Nicole arrived  at the  small
chalet on the edge of the woods. She took off her skis, stuck them  in
the  snow,  and  walked  toward  the  front  door.  She  ignored   the
conspicuous signs all around her that saideintritt verboten. From  out
of nowhere came  two burly men,  one of whom  actually jumped  between
Nicole and the door to the hut. "It's all right," she heard a familiar
voice say, "we're expecting her."  The two guards vanished as  quickly
as they  had  appeared  and  Nicole saw  Darren,  smiling  as  always,
occupying the doorway to the chalet.
    "Hi there, Nicole," he said in his normal friendly fashion. Darren
had aged. There were a few flecks of gray around his temples and  some
salt with the pepper in his short beard. "How are you?" he asked.
    "I'm fine,  Darren,"  she answered,  aware  that despite  all  her
lectures to herself,  she was  already starting to  feel nervous.  She
reminded herself that she was  now a professional, as accomplished  in
her own way  as this king  she was  about to see.  Nicole then  strode
forcefully into the chalet.
    It was warm inside.  Henry was standing with  his back to a  small
fireplace. Darren closed the door behind her and left the two of  them
alone. Nicole self-consciously removed her scarf and opened her parka.
She took off her snow glasses.  They stared at each other for  twenty,
maybe thirty  seconds,  neither  saying a  word,  neither  wanting  to
interrupt the powerful flow of emotions that was carrying each of them
back to two magnificent days fifteen years before.
    "Hello, Nicole," the  king said  finally. His voice  was soft  and
tender.
    "Hello, Henry," she replied. He started to walk around the  couch,
to come close to her, perhaps to touch her, but there was something in
her body  language that  stopped him.  He leaned  on the  side of  the
couch.
    "Won't you sit down?" he invited.
    Nicole shook her  head. "I'd prefer  to stand, if  it's all  right
with you." She waited a few more seconds. Their eyes again locked in a
deep communication. She felt  herself being drawn  to him despite  her
strong internal warnings. "Henry," she blurted out suddenly, "why  did
you summon me here? It must be important. It's not normal for the king
of England to  spend his days  sitting in a  chalet on the  side of  a
Swiss ski mountain."
    Henry walked  toward the  comer  of the  room.  "I brought  you  a
present," he said as he bent down  with his back to Nicole, "in  honor
of your thirty-sixth birthday."
    Nicole laughed. Some of the tension was easing. "That's tomorrow,"
she said. "You're a day early. But why-"
    He extended a  data cube toward  her. "This is  the most  valuable
gift I could find for you," he said seriously, "and it has taken  many
marks from the royal treasury to compile it."
    She looked at him quizzically,
    "I have been worried for some  time about this mission of  yours,"
Henry said, "and  in the  beginning I  could not  understand why.  But
about four  months ago,  one  night when  I  was playing  with  Prince
Charles and Princess  Eleanor, I  realized what was  bothering me.  My
intuitive sense tells me that this crew of yours will have problems. I
know it  sounds  crazy, particularly  coining  from me,  but  I'm  not
worried about the Ramans. That  megalomaniac Brown is probably  right,
the Ramans couldn't care less  about us Earth-lings. But you're  about
to spend a hundred days in confined quarters with eleven other ..."
    He could tell that Nicole was not following him. "Here," he  said,
"take this cube. 1  had my intelligence agents  put together full  and
complete dossiers on every member of the Newton dozen, including you."
Nicole's brow  furrowed.  "The  information,  most  of  which  is  not
available in the official ISA  files, confirmed my personal view  that
the Newton team contains quite a few unstable elements. I didn't  know
what to do with-"
    "This is none of your  business," Nicole interrupted angrily.  She
was affronted by  Henry's involvement in  her professional life.  "Why
are you meddling-"
    "Hey, hey, calm down, will you,"  the king replied. "1 assure  you
my motives were all  good. Look," he added,  "you probably won't  even
need all  this information,  but  I thought  that  maybe it  could  be
useful. Take it. Throw  it away if you  like. You're the life  science
officer. You can treat it however you want."
    Henry could tell that he had  botched the meeting. He walked  away
and sat down in a chair facing the fire. His back was toward Nicole.
    'Take care of yourself, Nicole," he mumbled.
    She thought for a long moment, put the data cube inside her parka,
and walked over behind the king. "Thank you, Henry," she said.  Nicole
let her hand fall on his  shoulder. He didn't turn around. He  reached
up with his hand and very slowly wrapped his fingers around hers. They
remained in that position for almost a minute.
    "There was some data that  eluded even my investigators," he  said
in a  low voice.  "One fact  in particular  in which  I was  extremely
interested."
    Nicole could hear her  heart amid the crackle  of the logs in  the
fireplace. A voice inside her  shoutedTell him, tell him. But  another
voice, full of wisdom, counseled silence.
    She slowly withdrew her fingers from his. He turned around to look
at her. She smiled. Nicole walked over to the door. She put her  scarf
back on her head and zipped her parka before going outside. "Good-bye,
Henry," she said.
    15ENCOUNTER
    The combined  Newton  spacecraft -  had  maneuvered so  that  Rama
filled the  expanded  viewpoint  in  the  control  center.  The  alien
spaceship was immense. Its surface was a dull, drab gray, and its long
body was a geometrically perfect cylinder. Nicole stood beside Valeriy
Borzov in silence. For  each of them, this  first sight of the  entire
Rama vehicle in the sunlight was a moment to savor.
    "Have you detected any differences?"  Nicole said at length.  "Not
yet," Commander Borzov replied. "It looks  as if the two of them  came
off the same assembly line." They were quiet again.
    "Wouldn't you love to see that assembly line?" Nicole asked.
    Valeriy Borzov  nodded. A  small flying  craft, like  a bat  or  a
hummingbird zoomed past the viewport in the near field and headed  off
in the  direction  of Rama.  "The  exterior drones  will  confirm  the
similarities. Each of them has a stored set of images from Rama I. Any
variations will be logged and reported within three hours."
    "And if there are no unexplained variations?"
    "Then we  proceed  as planned,"  General  Borzov answered  with  a
smile. "We dock, open  up Rama, and release  the interior drones."  He
glanced at his watch. "All of which should take place about twenty-two
hours from now,  provided the  life science officer  asserts that  the
crew is ready."
    "The crew is in fine shape," Nicole reported. "I've just  finished
looking at  a synopsis  of the  cruise health  data again.  It's  been
surprisingly regular. Except for  hormonal abnormalities in all  three
women, which were not totally unexpected, we have seen no  significant
anomalies in forty days."
    "So  physically  we're  all  ready  to  go,"  the  commander  said
thoughtfully, "but  what about  our psychological  readiness? Are  you
troubled about this recent spate of  arguments? Or can we chalk it  up
to tension and excitement?"
    Nicole was silent for a moment. "I agree these four days since the
docking have  been  a little  rough.  Of  course, we  knew  about  the
Wilson-Brown problem even  before launch.  We partially  solved it  by
having Reggie on  your ship during  most of the  cruise, but now  that
we've joined the two  spacecraft and the team  is all together  again,
those two seem to be at each other at every opportunity.  Particularly
if Francesca is around."
    "I tried  to  talk  to  Wilson twice  while  the  two  ships  were
separated/' Brozov said in a frustrated tone. "He wouldn't discuss it.
But it's clear that he is very angry about something."
    General Borzov  walked  over  to the  control  panel  and  started
fiddling with the keyboards. Sequencing information appeared on one of
the monitors. "It must involve Sabatini," he continued. "Wilson didn't
do much work  during cruise, but  his log indicates  that he spent  an
inordinate amount  of time  on the  videophone with  her. And  he  was
always in  a foul  mood.  He even  offended O’Toole."  General  Borzov
turned and looked intently at Nicole.  "As my life science officer,  I
want to know if you have any official recommendations about the  crew,
especially with respect to  psychological interactions among the  team
members."
    Nicole had not  expected this. When  General Borzov had  scheduled
this final "crew health assessment" with her, she had not thought that
the meeting would extend to the  mental health of the Newton dozen  as
well. "You're  asking  for  a  professional  psychological  evaluation
also?" she asked.
    "Certainly," General Borzov  replied. "I  want an  A5401 from  you
that attests to both the physical and psychological readiness of every
one of  the  crew  members.  The procedure  clearly  states  that  the
commanding  officer,   before  each   sortie,  should   request   crew
certification from the life science officer."
    "But during the  simulations you  asked only  for physical  health
data."
    Borzov smiled.  "I can  wait, Madame  des Jardins,"  he said,  "if
you'd like time to prepare your report."
    "No, no,"  Nicole  said after  some  reflection. "I  can  give  my
opinions now and  then officially  document them  later tonight."  She
hesitated several  more seconds  before  continuing. "I  wouldn't  put
Wilson and Brown together as crew members on any subteam, at least not
in the first  sortie. And  I'd even  have some  qualms, although  this
opinion is certainly  not as  strong, about combining  Francesca in  a
group with either of the two  men. I would place no other  limitations
of any kind on this crew."
    "Good. Good." The  commander grinned broadly,  "I appreciate  your
report, and not just because it  confirms my own opinions. As you  can
understand, these matters can  sometimes be fairly delicate."  General
Borzov abruptly changed the subject.  "Now I have another question  of
an altogether different nature to ask you."
    "What's that?"
    "Francesca came to me  this morning and suggested  that we have  a
party tomorrow night. She contends that the crew is tense and in  need
of some kind of  release before the first  sortie inside Rama. Do  you
agree with her?"
    Nicole reflected for a moment. "It's not a bad idea," she replied.
"The strain has been definitely showing. . . . But what kind of  party
did you have in mind?"
    "A dinner all together,  here in the control  room, some wine  and
vodka, maybe even a little  entertainment." Borzov smiled and put  his
arm on Nicole's shoulder. "I'm  asking your professional opinion,  you
understand, as my life science officer."
    "Of course," Nicole said with  a laugh. "General," she added,  "if
you think  it's  time for  the  crew to  have  a party,  then  I'd  be
delighted to lend a hand. ..."
    Nicole finished her report and  transferred the file by data  line
over to Borzov's's computer  in the military ship.  She had been  very
careful in  her language  to identify  the problem  as a  "personality
conflict" rather than any kind of behavioral pathology. To Nicole, the
problem between Wilson and  Brown was straightforward: jealousy,  pure
and simple, the ancient green-eyed monster itself.
    She was certain that it was wise to prevent Wilson and Brown  from
working closely together during sorties inside Rama. Nicole  chastized
herself for not having  raised the issue with  Borzov on her own.  She
realized that her  mission portfolio included  mental health as  well,
but somehow  she  had  difficulty  thinking of  herself  as  the  crew
psychiatrist. /avoid it because  it 's not  an objective process,  she
thought.We have no sensors yet to measure good or bad mental health.
    Nicole walked down the hall of the living area. She was careful to
keep one foot on the floor at all times; she was so accustomed to  the
weightless environment that  it was almost  second nature. Nicole  was
glad that the Newton design engineers  had worked so hard to  minimize
the differences between being in space  and on the Earth. It made  the
job of  being  a  cosmonaut  much simpler  by  allowing  the  crew  to
concentrate on the more important elements of their work.
    Nicole's room was at the end of the corridor. Although each of the
cosmonauts had  private  quarters  (the  result  of  heated  arguments
between the crew and the system engineers, the latter having  insisted
that sleeping in  pairs was a  more efficient use  of the space),  the
rooms were very small and confining. There were eight bedrooms on this
larger vehicle, called the  scientific ship by  the crew members.  The
military ship had four more  small bedrooms. Both spacecraft also  had
exercise rooms  and  "lobbies,"  common rooms  where  there  was  more
comfortable furniture  as  well  as  some  entertainment  options  not
available in the bedrooms.
    As Nicole passed Janos  Tabori's room on her  way to the  exercise
area, she heard his  unmistakable laugh. His door  was open as  usual.
"Did you really expect  me," Janos was saying,  "to trade bishops  and
leave your knights  in command of  the center of  the board? Come  on,
Shig, 1 may not be a master, but  I do learn from my mistakes. I  fell
for that one in an earlier game."
    Tabori and  Takagishi were  involved in  their usual  postprandial
chess  match.  Almost  every  "night"  (the  crew  had  stayed  on   a
twenty-four-hour day that coincided with Greenwich Mean Time) the  two
men played for an hour or  so before sleeping. Takagishi was a  ranked
chess master  but he  was  also softhearted  and wanted  to  encourage
Tabori. So  in  virtually  every  game,  after  establishing  a  solid
position, Takagishi would allow his edge to be eroded.
    Nicole stuck her  head in  the door. "Come  in, beautiful,"  Janos
said with  a  grin. "Watch  me  destroy  our Asiatic  friend  in  this
pseudocerebral endeavor." Nicole had started  to explain that she  was
going to the exercise room when a strange creature, about the size  of
a big mouse,  scurried through her  legs and into  Tabori's room.  She
jumped back involuntarily as the toy,  or whatever it was, headed  for
the two men.
    "The ousel  cock, so  black  of hue  With orange-lawny  bill,  The
throstle, with his note so true The wren with little quill .
    The robot was singing as  it skipped toward Janos. Nicole  dropped
down on her knees and examined the curious newcomer. It had the  lower
body of a human and the head of a donkey. It continued to sing. Tabori
and Takagishi stopped their  game and both  laughed at the  bewildered
expression on Nicole's face.
    "Go on," said Janos, "tell him that you love him. That's what  the
fairy queen Titania would do/'
    Nicole shrugged her  shoulders. The little  robot was  temporarily
quiet. As  Janos urged  again,  Nicole mumbled  "I  love you"  to  the
twenty-centimeter Athenian with a mule's head.
    The miniature Bottom  turned to Nicole.  "Methinks, mistress,  you
should have little reason for that. And yet, to say the truth,  reason
and love keep little company together nowadays."
    Nicole was amazed. She reached out to pick up the tiny figure  but
stopped herself when she heard another voice.
    "Lord, what fools  these mortals be.  Now where is  that player  I
changed into an ass. Bottom, where art thou?"
    A second small robot, this one  dressed as an elf, leapt into  the
room. When he saw Nicole, he jumped  up from the floor and hovered  at
eye level  for several  seconds,  his tiny  back  wings beating  at  a
frantic pace. "I  be Puck, fair  lass," he said.  "I've not seen  thee
before." The robot dropped  to the ground and  was silent. Nicole  was
now dumbfounded.
    "What in the world-" she started to say.
    "Shh..." Janos said, motioning for her to be quiet. He pointed  at
Puck. Bottom was sleeping in the  corner near the edge of Janos'  bed.
Puck had now found Bottom and was spraying him with a fine light  dust
from a small pouch. As the  three human beings watched, Bottom's  head
began to change. Nicole  could tell that the  small plastic and  metal
pieces making up the asshead  were simply rearranging themselves,  but
even she  was  impressed  by  the scope  of  the  metamorphosis.  Puck
scampered off just  as Bottom  awakened with  his new  human head  and
started talking.
    "1 have had a most rare vision," Bottom said. "I have had a dream,
past the wit of man to say what dream it was. Man is but an ass if  he
go about to expound this dream."
    "Bravo. Bravo," Janos shouted as the creature fell silent.
    "Omedeto,"Takagishi added.
    Nicole sat down in the single  unoccupied chair and looked at  her
companions. "And  to  think," she  said,  shaking her  head,  "that  I
actually told the commander you  two were psychologically sound."  She
paused two or three seconds. "Would one of you please tell me what  is
going on here?"
    "It's Wakefield,"  Janos said.  "The man  is absolutely  brilliant
and, unlike  some  geniuses, also  very  clever. In  addition  he's  a
Shakespeare fanatic.  He has  a  whole family  of these  little  guys,
although I think Puck is the only one that flies and Bottom's the only
one that changes shape."
    "Puck doesn't fly," Richard Wakefield said, coming into the  room.
"He is  barely capable  of hovering,  and only  for a  short  period."
Wakefield seemed  embarrassed. "I  didn't know  you were  going to  be
here/' he said  to Nicole.  "Sometimes I  entertain these  two in  the
middle of their chess game."
    "One night," Janos  added as  Nicole remained  speechless, "I  had
just conceded  defeat to  Shig when  we heard  what we  thought was  a
fracas in the  hall. Moments  later, Tybalt and  Mercutio entered  the
room, swearing and slashing their swords at each other."
    "This is a hobby  of yours?" Nicole  asked after several  seconds,
indicating the robots with a wave of her hand.
    "My  lady,"  Janos  interrupted  before  Wakefield  could  answer,
"never,never mistake  a passion  for a  hobby. Our  esteemed  Japanese
scientist does not play chess as a hobby, And this young man from  The
Bard's home town of Stratford-on-Avon does not create these robots  as
a hobby."
    Nicole glanced at Richard. She was trying to imagine the amount of
energy and work that was  necessary for the creation of  sophisticated
robots like the ones she had just seen. Not to mention talent and,  of
course, passion. "Very impressive," she said to Wakefield.
    His smile acknowledged her compliment. Nicole excused herself  and
started to leave  the room. Puck  zoomed around her  and stood in  the
doorway.
    "If we shadows have offended, Think  but this, and all is  mended,
That you have but slumbered here, While these visions did appear."
    Nicole was laughing as she stepped over the sprite and waved  good
night to her friends.
    Nicole stayed  in  the exercise  room  longer than  she  expected,
Ordinarily thirty minutes of  hard bicycling or  running in place  was
enough to release her tensions and  relax her body for sleep. On  this
evening, however, with the goal of their mission now so close at hand,
it was necessary for  her to work  out for a longer  time to calm  her
hyperactive system. Part  of her difficulty  was her residual  concern
about the report she had filed  recommending that Wilson and Brown  be
separated on all important mission activities.
    Was I too hasty?she asked herself.Did I let General Borzov sway my
opinion? Nicole  was very  proud of  her professional  reputation  and
often constructively second-guessed  her major  decisions. Toward  the
end of her exercise she convinced herself again that she had filed the
proper report. Her tired body told her that it was ready to sleep.
    When she returned  to the living  area in the  spacecraft, it  was
dark everywhere except  in the hallway.  As she started  to turn  left
into the corridor that led to her room, she happened to glance  beyond
the lobby, in the direction of the  small room where she kept all  the
medical supplies.That's strange,  she thought, straining  her eyes  in
the dim light.It looks as if f left the supply room door open.
    Nicole walked across the lobby.  The supply door was indeed  ajar.
She had already activated the automatic lock and had started to  close
the door when she heard a  noise inside the dark room. Nicole  reached
in and turned on the light. She surprised Francesca Sabatini, who  was
sitting in the  comer at  a computer terminal.  There was  information
displayed on the monitor in front  of her and Francesca was holding  a
thin bottle in one of her hands.
    "Oh, hello Nicole,"  Francesca said  nonchalantly, as  if it  were
normal for  her to  be sitting  in the  dark at  the computer  in  the
medical supply room.
    Nicole walked slowly over to the computer. "What's going on?"  she
said casually, her eyes scanning  the information on the screen.  From
the coded headings, Nicole could tell that Francesca had requested the
inventory subroutine  to  list  the birth  control  devices  available
onboard the spacecraft.
    "What is this?" Nicole now  asked, pointing at the monitor.  There
was a trace of irritation in  her voice. All the cosmonauts knew  that
the medical  supply room  was  off limits  to  everyone but  the  life
science officer.
    When Francesca still did not reply, Nicole became angry. "How  did
you get  in  here?"  she demanded.  The  two  women were  only  a  few
centimeters apart  in  the  small  alcove next  to  the  desk.  Nicole
suddenly reached over and grabbed the bottle out of Francesca's  hand.
While Nicole was reading the  label, Francesca pushed her way  through
the narrow space and headed for  the door. Nicole discovered that  the
liquid in her  hand was  for inducing abortions  and quickly  followed
Francesca into the lobby.
    "Are you going to explain this?" Nicole asked.
    "Just give me the bottle, please," Francesca said finally.
    "I can't do that," answered Nicole,  shaking her head. "This is  a
very strong medicine with serious side effects. What did you think you
were going to do? Steal  it and have it pass  unnoticed? As soon as  1
completed an  inventory comparison  I  would have  known that  it  was
gone."
    The two women  stared at  each other for  several seconds.  "Look,
Nicole," Francesca said at length» managing a smile, "this is really a
very simple matter. 1  have discovered recently,  much to my  chagrin,
that I am in the very early  stages of pregnancy. I wish to abort  the
embryo. It's a private matter and I did not want to involve you or any
of the rest of the crew."
    "You can't be  pregnant," Nicole  replied quickly.  "1 would  have
seen it in your biometry data."
    "I'm only four or  6ve days. But I'm  certain. I can already  feel
the changes in my body. And it's the right time of the month."
    "You know the proper procedures for medical problems," Nicole said
after some hesitation. "This might have been very simple, to use  your
phrase, if  you  had  first come  to  me.  Most likely  I  would  have
respected your request for confidentiality. But now you've given me  a
dilemma-"
    "Will  you  stop   with  the   bureaucratic  lecture,"   Francesca
interrupted sharply. "I'm really not interested in the goddamn  rules.
A man has made me pregnant and I intend to remove the fetus. Now,  are
you going to give me the bottle, or must I find another way?"
    Nicole  was  outraged.  "You   are  amazing,"  she  responded   to
Francesca. "Do you really expect me  to hand you this bottle and  walk
away? Without asking  any questions?  You may be  that cavalier  about
your life and health, but  I certainly am not.  I have to examine  you
first,  check  your  medical  history,   determine  the  age  of   the
embryo-only then would  I evenconsider prescribing  this medicine  for
you. Besides, I would feel compelled as well to point out to you  that
there are moral and psychological ramifications-"
    Francesca laughed out loud. "Spare me your ramifications,  Nicole.
I don't need your upper class Beauvois morality passing judgment on my
life. Congratulations to you for raising  a child as a single  parent.
My situation  is much  different. The  father of  this baby  purposely
stopped taking his pills, thinking my being pregnant would rekindle my
love for him. He was  wrong. This baby is  unwanted. Now, should I  be
more graphic-"
    "That's enough," Nicole interrupted, pursing her lips in  disgust.
"The details of your personal life  are really none of my business.  I
must decide what is best for you and for the mission." She paused. "In
any event, I must insist on a proper examination, including the normal
pelvic internal image set. If you  refuse, then I won't authorize  the
abortion. And of course I'd be forced to make a complete report-"
    Francesca laughed. "You don't  need to threaten  me. I am  notthat
stupid. If it will make you feel better to stick your fancy  equipment
between my legs, then be my guest.  But let's do it. I want this  baby
out of me before the sortie."
    Nicole and Francesca  hardly exchanged  a dozen  words during  the
next hour. They  went together  to the small  infirmary, where  Nicole
used her sensitive instruments to verify the existence and size of the
embryo. She also tested Francesca for her acceptability to receive the
abortion liquid. The fetus had been growing inside Francesca for  five
days.Who might you be? Nicole thought as she looked on the monitor  at
the microscopic image  of the tiny  sac embedded in  the walls of  the
uterus. Even in the microscope on the  probe there was no way to  tell
that the collection of  cells was a living  thing.But you are  already
alive. And much of your future is already programmed by your genes.
    Nicole had the printer  list for Francesca  what she could  expect
physically once  she had  ingested the  medicine. The  fetus would  be
swept away,  rejected by  her body,  within twenty-four  hours.  There
could possibly be  some slight cramping  with the normal  menstruation
that would follow immediately.
    Francesca drank the liquid without hesitation. As her patient  was
dressing, Nicole thought back to the time when she had first suspected
her own pregnancy.Never once did I consider . , . And not just because
her father was a prince. No. It was a question of responsibility.  And
love.
    "I can tell  what you're  thinking," Francesca said  when she  was
ready to leave.  She was standing  by the infirmary  door. "But  don't
waste your time. You have enough problems of your own."
    Nicole did  not reply.  "So tomorrow  the little  bastard will  be
gone," Francesca said coldly, her eyes  tired and angry. "It's a  damn
good thing. The world doesn't need another half-black baby." Francesca
didn't wait for Nicole's response.
    16RAMA RAMA BURNING BRIGHT
    The touchdown near the entry port  to Rama was smooth and  without
incident. Following the  precedent of Commander  Norton seventy  years
earlier, General Borzov instructed Yamanaka and Turgenyev to guide the
Newton to a contact point just outside the hundred-meter circular disc
centered on  the  spin axis  of  the giant  cylinder.  A set  of  low,
pillbox-shaped structures temporarily held  the spacecraft from  Earth
in place against the slight centrifugal force created by the  spinning
Rama. Within ten minutes strong attachments anchored the Newton firmly
to its target.
    The large disc was,  as anticipated, the outer  seal of the  Raman
air lock. Wakefield and Tabori departed  from the Newton in their  EVA
gear and started searching for an embedded wheel. The wheel, which was
the manual control  for the  air lock,  was in  exactly the  predicted
place. It turned as expected and exposed an opening in the outer shell
of Rama.  Since  nothing  about  Rama  II  had  yet  varied  from  its
predecessor in any way,  the two cosmonauts  continued with the  entry
procedure.
    Four hours later, after considerable  shuttling back and forth  in
the half kilometer of corridors  and tunnels that connected the  great
hollow interior of the alien spaceship  to the external air lock,  the
two men had  finished opening the  three redundant cylindrical  doors.
They had  also deployed  the transportation  system that  would  ferry
people and equipment from the Newton to the inside of Rama. This ferry
had been  designed  by the  engineers  on  Earth to  slide  along  the
parallel grooves  the Ramans  had  cut into  the  walls of  the  outer
tunnels unknown ages ago.
    After a  short  break for  lunch,  Yamanaka joined  Wakefield  and
Tabori  and  the   three  of  them   constructed  the  planned   Alpha
communications relay  station at  the inside  end of  the tunnel.  The
patterns of  the arrayed  antennas had  been carefully  engineered  so
that, if the second Raman vehicle was identical to the first,  two-way
communication would be possible between cosmonauts located anywhere on
the stairways or in the northern half of the Central Plain. The master
communication plan called for the establishment of another major relay
station, to be  called Beta,  near the  Cylindrical Sea;  the pair  of
stations  would  provide  strong  links  everywhere  in  the  Northern
Hemicylinder and would even extend to the island of New York.
    Brown and Takagishi  took their  positions in  the control  center
once the  operation  of the  Alpha  relay station  was  verified.  The
countdown  to  interior  drone  deployment  proceeded.  Takagishi  was
obviously both nervous and excited as he finished his preflight  tests
with his drone. Brown seemed relaxed, even casual, as he completed his
final preparations. Francesca  Sabatini was  sitting in  front of  the
multiple monitors,  ready  to select  the  best images  for  real-time
transmission to the Earth.
    General Borzov himself announced the major events in the sequence.
He paused for a dramatic breath before issuing the command to activate
the two drones. The drones then  flew away into the dark emptiness  of
Rama. Seconds  later the  main  screen in  the control  center,  whose
picture came directly from the  drone being commanded by David  Brown,
was flooded with  light as  the first  flare ignited.  When the  light
became more manageable, the outline of the first wide-angle shot could
be seen. It had always been planned that this initial picture would be
a composite of  the Northern  Hemisphere, covering  all the  territory
from  the  bowl-shaped  end  where  they  had  entered  down  to   the
Cylindrical Sea at  the midpoint  of the artificial  world. The  sharp
image that was eventually  frozen on the  screen was overwhelming.  It
was one thing to read about Rama and to conduct simulations inside its
replica; it was quite another to be anchored to the gigantic spaceship
near the orbit of Venus, and to be taking a first look inside. . . .
    That the  vista was  familiar barely  lessened the  wonder of  the
image. In  the  end  of  the crater-shaped  bowl,  starting  from  the
tunnels, a complex of terraces and ramps fanned out until they reached
the main  body of  the spinning  cylinder. Trisecting  this bowl  were
three wide ladders,  resembling broad railroad  tracks, each of  which
later expanded into enormous stairways with more than thirty  thousand
steps each. The ladder/stairway  combinations resembled three  equally
spaced ribs of an umbrella and  provided a way to ascend (or  descend)
from the flat bottom of the  crater to the vast Central Plain  wrapped
around the wall of the spinning cylinder.
    The northern half of the Central Plain spread out to fill most  of
the  picture  on  the  screen.  The  huge  expanse  was  broken   into
rectangular fields that  had irregular  dimensions except  immediately
around the  "cities."  The  three  cities  in  the  wide-angle  image,
clusters of tall slim objects, resembling manmade buildings, that were
connected by what looked like highways running along the edges of  the
fields, were immediately recognized  by the crew  as the Paris,  Rome,
and London named by the first Raman explorers. Equally striking in the
image were the long straight grooves or valleys of the Central  Plain.
These three linear trenches, ten kilometers long and a hundred  meters
wide, were equally spaced around the  curve of Rama. During the  first
Raman encounter these valleys had been  the sources of the light  that
had filled the "worldlet" shortly after the melting of the Cylindrical
Sea.
    The strange sea,  a body  of water running  completely around  the
huge cylinder, was at the far edge of the image. It was still  frozen,
as expected, and in its center  was the mysterious island of  towering
skyscrapers  that  had  been  called  New  York  since  its   original
discovery. The skyscrapers stretched off  the end of the picture,  the
looming towers beckoning to be visited.
    The entire crew stared silently at the image for almost a  minute.
Then Dr. David Brown started hooting. "All right, Rama," he said in  a
proud voice. "You see, all  you disbelievers," he shouted loud  enough
for everyone to hear, "it  isexactly like the first one."  Francesca's
video camera turned to record Brown's exultation. Most of the rest  of
the crew  were still  speechless,  transfixed by  the details  on  the
monitor.
    Meanwhile, Takagishi's drone was transmitting narrow-angle  photos
of the area just under the  tunnel. These images were featured on  the
smaller screens around the control center. The pictures would be  used
to reverify  the  designs  of  the  communication  and  transportation
infrastructure to be established inside Rama. This was the real  "job"
of this phase of the mission- comparing the thousands of pictures that
would be taken  by these drones  to the existing  camera mosaics  from
Rama I. Although most of the comparisons could be done digitally  (and
therefore automatically), there would always be differences that would
require human explanation. Even if the two spaceships were  identical,
the differing light levels  at the times the  images were taken  would
create some artificial miscompares.
    Two hours  later the  last of  the drones  returned to  the  relay
station  and  an  initial  summary  of  the  photographic  survey  was
complete. There were no major  structural differences between Rama  II
and the earlier space vehicle down to a scale of a hundred meters. The
only significant  region of  miscompares at  that resolution  was  the
Cylindrical  Sea  itself,  and  ice  reflectivity  was  a  notoriously
difficult  phenomenon  to  handle   with  a  straightforward   digital
comparison algorithm.  It had  been a  long and  exciting day.  Borzov
announced that crew assignments for  the first sortie would be  posted
in an hour and that a "special dinner" would be served in the  control
center two hours later.
    "You cannot do this," an angry David Brown shouted, bursting  into
the commander's office without  knocking, and brandishing a  hard-copy
printout of the first sortie assignments.
    "What are you  talking about?"  General Borzov  responded. He  was
annoyed by Dr. Brown's rude entrance.
    "There must be some  kind of mistake," Brown  continued in a  loud
voice. "You can't really expect me  to stay here on the Newton  during
the first sortie." When there was no response from General Borzov, the
American scientist changed tactics. "I want  you to know that I  don't
accept this. And the ISA management won't like it either."
    Borzov stood up behind his desk.  "Close the door, Dr. Brown,"  he
said calmly. David Brown slammed  the sliding door. "Nowyou listen  to
me for a minute," the general continued. "I don't give a damn who  you
know. I am the commanding officer of this mission. If you continue  to
act like a prima donna, I'll see  to it that younever set foot  inside
Rama."
    Brown lowered his voice.  "But I demand  an explanation," he  said
with undisguised  hostility.  "I  am  the  senior  scientist  on  this
mission. I am also the leading spokesman for the Newton project  among
the media. How can you possibly justify leaving me onboard the  Newton
while nine other cosmonauts go inside Rama?"
    "I don't  have to  justify my  actions," Borzov  replied, for  the
moment enjoying  his  power  over the  arrogant  American.  He  leaned
forward. "But for the record, and because I anticipated this  childish
outburst of yours, I will tell you  why you're not going on the  first
sortie. There are two major purposes for our first visit: to establish
the communications/transportation  infrastructure  and to  complete  a
detailed survey  of  the interior,  ensuring  that this  spaceship  is
exactly like the first one-"
    "That's already been confirmed by the drones," Brown  interrupted.
"Not according to  Dr. Takagishi,"  Borzov rebutted.  "He says  that-"
"Shit, General,  Takagishi  won't  be  satisfied  until  every  square
centimeter of Rama has been shown to be exactly the same as the  first
ship. You saw the results of the  drone survey. Do you have any  doubt
in your mind-"
    David Brown  stopped himself  in midsentence.  General Borzov  was
drumming on his desk with his  fingers and regarding Dr. Brown with  a
cold stare.  "Are you  going to  let me  finish now?"  Borzov said  at
length. He waited a  few more seconds. "Whatever  you may think,"  the
commander continued,  "Dr. Takagishi  is considered  to be  the  world
expert on the  interior of Rama.  You cannot argue  even for a  minute
that your knowledge of the details approaches his. I need all five  of
the space cadets for the infrastructure work. The two journalists must
go inside, not  only because there  are two separate  tasks, but  also
because world attention  is focused  on us  at this  time. Finally,  I
believe it is important for  my subsequent management of this  mission
that I myself  go inside at  least once, and  I choose to  do it  now.
Since the procedures clearly state that at least three members of  the
crew must remain  outside Rama  during the  early sorties,  it is  not
difficult to figure out-"
    "You don't  fool me  for a  minute," David  Brown now  interrupted
nastily. "I know what this is all about. YouVe concocted an apparently
logical excuse to hide the real reason for my exclusion from the first
sortie team. You're jealous, Borzov. You  can't stand the fact that  I
am regarded by most people as the real leader of this mission."
    The commander stared  at the  scientist for  over fifteen  seconds
without saying anything. "You know,  Brown," he said finally, "I  feel
sorry for  you.  You  are  remarkably talented,  but  your  talent  is
exceeded by your own opinion of it. If you weren't such a-" This  time
it was Borzov's turn to stop  himself in midsentence. He looked  away.
"Incidentally, since I  know that you  will go back  to your room  and
immediately whine to the ISA, I should probably tell you that the life
science officer's fitness  report explicitly  recommends against  your
sharing  any  mission  duties  with  Wilson-because  of  the  personal
animosity that both of you have demonstrated."
    Brown's eyes narrowed. "Are you telling me that Nicole des Jardins
actually filed an official memorandum citing Wilson and me by name?"
    Borzov nodded.
    "The bitch," Brown muttered.
    "It's always someone else  who is at fault,  isn't it Dr.  Brown?"
General Borzov said, smiling at his adversary.
    David Brown turned around and stalked out of the office.
    For the banquet, General Borzov ordered a few precious bottles  of
wine to be opened.  The commanding officer was  in an excellent  mood.
Francesca's suggestion  had been  a  good one.  There was  a  definite
feeling of camaraderie among the cosmonauts as they brought the  small
tables together in the control center and anchored them to the floor.
    Dr. David Brown did  not come to the  banquet. He remained in  his
room while the other eleven crew members feasted on game hens and wild
rice. Francesca awkwardly reported that  Brown was "feeling under  the
weather," but when Janos Tabori playfully volunteered to go check  the
American scientist's health, Francesca hurriedly added that Dr.  Brown
wanted to be left alone. Janos and Richard Wakefield, both of whom had
several glasses of  wine, bantered with  Francesca at one  end of  the
table while Reggie Wilson and  General O’Toole engaged in an  animated
discussion about  the  coming baseball  season  at the  opposite  end.
Nicole sat between General Borzov and Admiral Heilmann and listened to
their reminiscences of peacekeeping activities in the early post-Chaos
days. Cosmonauts  Turgenyev and  Yamanaka  were their  usual  taciturn
selves, contributing  to the  conversation only  when asked  a  direct
question.
    When the meal  was over,  Francesca excused herself.  She and  Dr.
Takagishi  disappeared  for  several   minutes.  When  they   returned
Francesca asked the cosmonauts to turn their chairs to face the  large
screen. Then, with the lights out, she and Takagishi projected a  full
exterior view of  Rama on the  monitor. Except that  this was not  the
dull gray cylinder everyone  had seen before. No,  this Rama had  been
cleverly colored, using  image processing subroutines,  and was now  a
black cylinder  with  yellow-gold stripes.  The  end of  the  cylinder
looked almost like  a face. There  was a momentary  quiet in the  room
before Francesca began to recite.
    "Tyger, tyger, burning bright, In  the forests of the night,  What
immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry?"
    Nicole des  Jardins felt  a cold  chill run  up her  spine as  she
listened to Francesca begin the next verse.
    "In what distant deeps or skies, Burnt the fire of thine eyes? . .
"
    That is the real question  after all,Nicole was thinking.Who  made
this  gargantuan  spacecraft?  That's  much  more  important  for  our
ultimate destiny than why.
    "What the hammer? What the chain?  In what furnace was thy  brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp Dare its deadly terrors clasp? . . ."
    Across  the  table   General  O’Toole  was   also  mesmerized   by
Francesca's recitation. His  mind was again  struggling with the  same
fundamental questions that had been bothering him since he  originally
applied for the mission.Dear God, he was wondering,how do these Ramans
fit into your universe? Did You create them first, before us? Are they
our cousins in some sense? Why have You sent them here at this time?
    "When the stars threw  down their spears  And water'd heaven  with
their tears, Did He smile  His work to see, Did  He who made the  Lamb
make thee?"
    When Francesca finished the short  poem there was a brief  silence
and then  spontaneous  applause.  She graciously  mentioned  that  Dr.
Takagishi had provided all the  image processing intelligence and  the
likable Japanese cosmonaut took an embarrassed bow. Then Janos  Tabori
stood at  his  chair.  "I think  I  speak  for all  of  us,  Shig  and
Francesca,   in   congratulating    you   on    that   original    and
thought-provoking performance," he said with  a grin. "It almost,  but
not quite, made me feel serious about what we are doing tomorrow."
    "Speaking of which," General  Borzov said, rising  at the head  of
the table with  his recently  opened bottle of  Ukrainian vodka,  from
which he had already taken  two strong belts, "it  is now time for  an
ancient Russian tradition-the toasts. I brought along only two bottles
of this national treasure and I  propose to share them both with  you,
my comrades and colleagues, on this very special evening."
    He placed both bottles in General O’Toole's hands and the American
adroitly used the  liquid dispenser  to channel the  vodka into  small
covered cups that were  passed around the  table. "As Irina  Turgenyev
knows/' the commander continued, "there is always a small worm in  the
bottom of a bottle of Ukrainian vodka. Legend has it that he who  eats
the worm will be  endowed with special  powers for twenty-four  hours.
Admiral Heilmann has marked  two of the cup  bottoms with an  infrared
cross. The two  people who  drink from the  marked cups  will each  be
allowed to eat one of the vodka-saturated worms."
    "Yuch," said  Janos a  moment  later, as  he passed  the  infrared
scanner to Nicole. He had first verified  that he had no cross on  the
bottom of his cup. "This is one contest I am glad to lose."
    Nicole's cup did have a marking on the bottom. She was one of  the
two lucky cosmonauts  who would be  able to eat  a Ukrainian worm  for
dessert.  She  found  herself  wondering,Must  I  do  this?  and  then
answering her own question affirmatively  as she saw the earnest  look
on her  commanding officer's  face.Oh  well, she  thought,it  probably
won't kill me. Any parasites  have probably been rendered harmless  by
the alcohol.
    General Borzov himself  had the  second cup  with a  cross on  the
bottom. The general smiled,  placed one of the  two tiny worms in  his
own cup (and the other in  Nicole's), and raised his vodka toward  the
ceiling of the spacecraft.
    "Let us all drink to a successful mission," he said. "For each  of
us, these next few  days and weeks will  be the greatest adventure  of
our lives. In a real sense, we dozen are human ambassadors to an alien
culture. Let us each resolve to do our best to properly represent  our
species."
    He took the cover off his cup, being careful not to jiggle it, and
then drank it  all in one  gulp. He swallowed  the worm whole.  Nicole
also swallowed the worm quickly,  commenting to herself that the  only
thing she had  ever eaten  that tasted worse  than the  worm was  that
awful tuber during her Poro ceremony in the Ivory Coast.
    After several more short  toasts the lights in  the room began  to
dim. "And now," General Borzov announced with a grand gesture, "direct
from Stratford, the Newton proudly presents Richard Wakefield and  his
talented robots." The room  became dark except for  a square meter  to
the left of the table  that was spotlit from  above. In the middle  of
the light  was a  cutaway of  an old  castle. A  female robot,  twenty
centimeters high and dressed in a  robe, was walking around in one  of
the rooms. She  was reading a  letter at the  beginning of the  scene.
After a few  steps, however, she  dropped her hands  to her sides  and
began to speak.
    "Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be What thou art promised.
Yet do I fear thy nature: It  is too full o'th'milk of human  kindness
To catch the nearest way. Thou wouldst be great .
    "I know that woman," Janos said with a grin to Nicole. "1 have met
her somewhere before."
    "Shh,"replied Nicole. She was fascinated  by the precision in  the
movements of Lady Macbeth.That Wakefield  really is a genius, she  was
thinking.How is he able to design such extraordinary detail into those
little things? Nicole was  astonished by the  range of expressions  on
the robot's face.
    As she  concentrated, the  tiny stage  began to  swim in  Nicole's
mind. She momentarily forgot  she was watching  robots in a  miniature
performance. A messenger came in and  told Lady Macbeth both that  her
husband was drawing near  and that King Duncan  would be spending  the
night in their castle. Nicole watched Lady Macbeth's face explode with
ambitious anticipation as soon as the messenger had departed.
    ". . .  Come you Spirits  That tend on  mortal thoughts. Unsex  me
here And  fill me,  from the  crown  to the  toe, top-full  Of  direst
cruelty! Make thick my blood . . ."
    My God,Nicole thought, blinking her eyes to make certain they were
not playing tricks on her,she's changing! Indeed she was. As the words
"Unsex me  here" came  from the  robot, her  (or its)  shape began  to
change. The  impression of  the breasts  against the  metal gown,  the
roundness of the hips, even the softness of the face all  disappeared.
An androgynous robot played on as Lady Macbeth.
    Nicole was spellbound and  floating in a  fantasy induced both  by
her wild imagination and the sudden intake of alcohol. The new face on
the robot was  vaguely reminiscent of  someone she knew.  She heard  a
disturbance to  her right  and  turned to  see Reggie  Wilson  talking
avidly with  Franceses. Nicole  glanced back  and forth  quickly  from
Francesca to Lady Macbeth.That's it, she said to herself.This new Lady
Macbeth resembles Francesca.
    A burst of  fear, a premonition  of tragedy, suddenly  overwhelmed
Nicole and  plunged her  into terror.Something  terrible is  going  to
happen, her mind was saying. She  took several deep breaths and  tried
to calm herself but the eerie feeling would not go away. On the little
stage King Duncan had  just been greeted by  his gracious hostess  for
the evening. To her left Nicole saw Francesca offer General Borzov the
last sips of the wine. Nicole could not quell her panic.
    "Nicole, what's the matter?"  Janos asked. He  could tell she  was
distressed.
    "Nothing," she said. She gathered all her strength and rose to her
feet. "Something I ate must have disagreed with me. I think I'll go to
my room."
    "But you'll miss the movie  after dinner," Janos said  humorously.
Nicole
    forced a pained smile. He helped  her stand up. Nicole heard  Lady
Macbeth berating her husband for his lack of courage and one more wave
of  premonitory  fear  surged  through  her.  She  waited  until   the
adrenaline burst had  subsided and then  excused herself quietly  from
the group. She walked slowly back to her room.
    17DEATH OF A SOLDIER
    In her dream  Nicole was ten  years old again  and playing in  the
woods behind her home in the Paris suburb of Chilly-Mazarin. She had a
sudden feeling that her  mother was dying.  The little girl  panicked.
She ran toward  the house  to tell her  father. A  small snarling  cat
blocked her path.  Nicole stopped, She  heard a scream.  She left  the
path and went through  the trees. The branches  scraped her skin.  The
cat followed her.  Nicole heard  another scream. When  she awakened  a
frightened Janos Tabori was standing over her. "It's General  Borzov,"
Janos said. "He's in excruciating pain."
    Nicole jumped  swiftly out  of  bed, threw  her robe  around  her,
grabbed  her  portable  medical  kit,  and  followed  Janos  into  the
corridor, "It  looks  like  an appendicitis,"  he  mentioned  as  they
hurried into the lobby, "But I'm not certain."
    Irina Turgenyev was kneeling beside the commander and holding  his
hand. The general himself was stretched  out on a couch. His face  was
white and  there was  sweat on  his  brow. "Ah,  Dr. des  Jardins  has
arrived." He managed a smile. Borzov then tried to sit up, winced from
the pain, and let himself lie back down. "Nicole," he said quietly, "I
am in agony. I've never felt anything  like this in my life, not  even
when I was wounded in the army."
    "How long ago did it start?" she asked. Nicole had pulled out  her
scanner and  biometry  monitor  to check  all  his  vital  statistics.
Meanwhile Francesca and her video  camera had moved over right  behind
Nicole's shoulder to film the doctor performing the diagnosis.  Nicole
impatiently motioned for her to back away.
    "Maybe two or three minutes ago," General Borzov said with effort.
"I was sitting here in a  chair watching the movie, laughing  heartily
as I recall, when there was an  intense, sharp pain, here on my  lower
right side. It felt as if something were burning me from the inside."
    Nicole programmed the  scanner to  search through  the last  three
minutes of  detailed  data recorded  by  the Hakamatsu  probes  inside
Borzov. She  located the  onset of  the pain,  easily identifiable  in
terms of both heart rate and endocrine secretions. She next  requested
a full  dump over  the  time period  of  interest from  all  channels.
"Janos," she then said to her  colleague, "go over to the supply  room
and bring me the portable  diagnostician." She handed Tabori the  code
card for the door.
    "You have a slight  fever, suggesting your  body is fighting  some
infection,"  Nicole  told  General  Borzov.  "All  the  internal  data
confirms that you are feeling severe pain." Cosmonaut Tabori  returned
with a small electronic  array shaped like a  box. Nicole extracted  a
small  data  cube  from   the  scanner  and   inserted  it  into   the
diagnostician. In about thirty seconds the little monitor blinked  and
the words 94%likely  appendicitis appeared. Nicole  pressed a key  and
the screen displayed the  other possible diagnoses, including  hernia,
internal muscle tear, and drug  reaction. None were, according to  the
diagnostician, more than 2 percent probable.
    I have two choices at this juncture,Nicole was thinking rapidly as
General Borzov winced again from the pain.I can send all the data down
to Earth  for a  complete diagnostic,  per  the procedure  . .  .  She
glanced at her watch and  quickly computed twice the round-trip  light
time plus the minimum duration  of a physician's conference after  the
electronic diagnosis was completelywhich time it might be too late.
    "What does it say, Doctor?" the general was asking. His eyes  were
entreating her to end the pain as quickly as possible.
    "Most likely diagnosis is appendicitis," Nicole answered.
    "Dammit," General Borzov  responded. He looked  around at all  the
others. Everyone was there except  Wilson and Takagishi, both of  whom
had skipped the movie.  "But I won't make  the project wait. We'll  go
ahead with  the  first and  second  sorties while  I'm  recuperating."
Another sharp pain jolted him and his face contorted,
    "Whoa," said Nicole. "It's not certain yet. We need a little  more
data first." She repeated the earlier  data dump, now using the  extra
two minutes of information that had been recorded since she arrived in
the lobby. This time the diagnosis read 92%likely appendicitis. Nicole
was about to routinely check  the alternative diagnoses when she  felt
the commander's strong hand on her arm.
    "If we do  this quickly, before  too much poison  builds up in  my
system, then  this  is  a  straightforward  operation  for  the  robot
surgeon, isn't it?"
    Nicole nodded.
    "And if we spend the time to obtain a diagnostic concurrence  from
the Earth-ouch-then my body may be in deeper trauma?"
    He is reading my mind,Nicole  thought at first. Then she  realized
that the general  was only  displaying his thorough  knowledge of  the
Newton procedures.
    "Is the patient trying  to give the  doctor a suggestion?"  Nicole
asked, smiling despite Borzov's obvious pain.
    "I wouldn't  be that  presumptuous," the  commander answered  with
just a trace of a twinkle in his eye.
    Nicole  glanced  back  at  the  monitor.  It  was  still  blinking
92%likely appendicitis. "Do  you have  anything to add?"  she said  to
Janos Tabori.
    "Only that  I  have  seen  an  appendicitis  before,"  the  little
Hungarian answered,  "once, when  I was  a student,  in Budapest.  The
symptoms were exactly like this."
    "All right," Nicole  said. "Go  prepare RoSur  for the  operation.
Admiral Heilmann, will you and cosmonaut Yamanaka help General  Borzov
to the infirmary please?" She turned around to Francesca. "I recognize
that this is big news. I will allow you in the operating room on three
conditions. You will scrub like all the surgical staff. You will stand
quietly  over  against  the  wall  with  your  camera,  And  you  will
absolutely obey any order that I give you."
    "Good enough," Francesca nodded. "Thank you."
    Irina Turgenyev  and General  O'Toole were  still waiting  in  the
lobby after Borzov left with Heilmann and Yamanaka. "I'm certain  that
I speak  for both  of us,"  the  American said  in his  usual  sincere
manner. "Can we help in any way?"
    "Janos will assist me  while RoSur performs  the operation. But  1
could use one more pair of hands, as an emergency backup."
    "I would like  to do that,"  O'Toole said. "I  have some  hospital
experience from my charity work."
    "Fine," replied Nicole. "Now come with me to clean up."
    RoSur, the portable robot surgeon  that had been brought along  on
the Newton mission  for just this  kind of situation,  was not in  the
same  class,  in  terms  of  medical  sophistication,  as  the   fully
autonomous operating rooms  at the  advanced hospitals  on Earth.  But
RoSur was a technological marvel in its own right. It could be  packed
in a  small  suitcase  and  weighed only  four  kilograms.  Its  power
requirements  were  low.   And  there   were  more   than  a   hundred
configurations in which it could be used.
    Janos Tabori unpacked  RoSur. The electronic  surgeon didn't  look
like much in its stowed configuration.  All of its spindly joints  and
appendages  were  neatly  arranged  for  easy  storage.  After   Janos
rechecked hisRoSur User's Guide, he picked up the central control  box
of the robot surgeon and affixed it, as suggested, to the side of  the
infirmary bed where  General Borzov  was already lying.  His pain  had
only subsided a little. The impatient commander was urging everyone to
hurry.
    Janos entered  the  code  word identifying  the  operation.  RoSur
automatically deployed  all  its limbs,  including  its  extraordinary
scalpel/hand with four fingers, in the configuration needed to  remove
an appendix. Nicole then entered the room, her hands in gloves and her
body covered with the white gown of the surgeon.
    "Have you finished the software check?" she said.
    Janos nodded his head.
    "I'll complete all  the preoperation tests  while you scrub,"  she
said to him. She motioned for  Francesca and General O'Toole, both  of
whom were standing right  outside the door, to  enter the small  room.
"Any better?" she said to Borzov.
    "Not much," he grumbled.
    "That was a light sedative I administered. RoSur will give you the
full anesthetic as the first step  in the operation." Nicole had  done
all her memory refreshing in her room while she was dressing. She knew
this operation inside out; it had been one of the surgical  procedures
they had performed during the  test simulations. She entered  Borzov's
personal data file  into RoSur,  hooked up the  electronic lines  that
would  bring  patient   monitor  information  to   RoSur  during   the
appendectomy, and verified that all the software had passed self-test.
As her last  check, Nicole  carefully tuned  the pair  of tiny  stereo
cameras that worked in concert with the surgical hand.
    Janos came back  into the  room. Nicole  pressed a  button on  the
robot surgeon's  control box  and two  hard copies  of the  operations
sequence were quickly printed. Nicole took one and handed the other to
Janos. "Is everyone ready?" she asked, her eyes on General Borzov. The
commanding officer of the  Newton moved his head  up and down.  Nicole
activated RoSur.
    One of the robot  surgeon's four hands  gunned an anesthetic  into
the patient and in one  minute Borzov was unconscious. As  Francesca's
camera recorded  every  move  of  this  historic  operation  (she  was
whispering occasional  comments into  her ultrasensitive  microphone),
the scalpel hand of RoSur., aided by its twin eyes, made the incisions
necessary to isolate the suspect organ. No human surgeon had ever been
so swift or deft. Armed with a battery of sensors checking hundreds of
parameters every microsecond, RoSur had folded back all the  requisite
tissue and laid the appendix bare within two minutes. Programmed  into
the automatic sequence was a thirty-second inspection time before  the
robot surgeon would continue with the removal of the organ.
    Nicole bent over the patient to check the exposed appendix. It was
neither swollen nor inflamed. "Look at this, quick, Janos/' she  said,
her eye on the digital clock counting down the inspection period.  "It
looks perfectly healthy." Janos leaned over from the opposite side  of
the operating table.My God, Nicole thought,we're going to remove . . .
The digital  clock  read 00:08.  "Stop  it," she  shouted.  "Stop  the
operation." Nicole  and  Janos  both reached  for  the  robot  surgeon
control box at the same time.
    At that  instant the  entire Newton  spacecraft lurched  sideways.
Nicole was  thrown backward,  against the  wall. Janos  fell  forward,
smacking his  head  against  the  operating  table.  His  outstretched
fingers landed  on the  control box  and then  slowly released  as  he
slumped to the floor. General  O’Toole and Franceses were both  thrown
against the far wall. Abeep, beep  from one of the inserted  Hakamatsu
probes indicated  that someone  in  the room  was in  serious  trouble
physically. Nicole checked  briefly to see  that O’Toole and  Sabatini
were all right  and then  struggled against the  continuing torque  to
regain her position next to the operating table. With great effort she
pulled herself across the room on  the floor, using the anchored  legs
of the table.  When she  was beside  the table  she steadied  herself,
still holding on to the legs, and stood up.
    Blood spattered  Nicole  as her  head  crossed the  plane  of  the
operating table.  She  stared with  disbelief  at Borzov's  body.  The
entire incision was full of blood and RoSur's scalpel/hand was  buried
inside, apparently still cutting away. It was Borzov's probe set  that
was goingbeep, beep,  despite the  fact that Nicole  had inserted,  by
command,  significantly  wider  emergency   values  just  before   the
operation.
    A wave of  fear and nausea  swept through Nicole  as she  realized
that the robot  had not  aborted its surgical  activities. Holding  on
tight against the powerful force trying  to push her against the  wall
again, she somehow managed to reach over to the control box and switch
off the  power.  The scalpel  withdrew  from  the pool  of  blood  and
restowed itself against  a stanchion,  Nicole then tried  to stop  the
massive hemorrhaging.
    Thirty seconds later the unexplained force vanished as suddenly as
it had appeared. General O'Toole clambered  to his feet and came  over
beside the now desperate Nicole. The scalpel had done too much damage.
The commander was  bleeding to  death before  her eyes.  "Oh, no.  Oh,
God/' O'Toole said as he surveyed  the wreckage of his friend's  body.
The insistentbeep, beep continued. Now  the life system alarms  around
the table sounded as well. Francesca  recovered in time to record  the
final ten seconds of Valeriy Borzov's life.
    It was a very long  night for the entire  Newton crew. In the  two
hours immediately after the operation, Rama went through a sequence of
three more maneuvers,  each, like the  first one, lasting  one or  two
minutes. The Earth  eventually confirmed that  the combined  maneuvers
had changed  the attitude,  spin  rate, and  trajectory of  the  alien
spaceship. Nobody  could ascertain  the exact  purpose of  the set  of
maneuvers; they  were just  "orientation  changes," according  to  the
Earth scientists, that had altered the inclination and line of apsides
of the Rama orbit. However, the energy of the trajectory had not  been
changed significantly-Rama was still on a hyperbolic escape path  with
respect to the Sun.
    Everyone onboard the Newton and on Earth was stunned by the sudden
death of General Borzov. He was eulogized by the press of all  nations
and his many accomplishments were lauded by his peers and  associates.
His death  was reported  as an  accident, attributed  to the  untimely
motion of the Rama spacecraft that  had taken place during the  middle
of a routine  appendectomy. But  within eight hours  after his  death,
knowledgeable people everywhere were  asking tough questions. Why  had
the Rama spacecraft moved at exactly that time? Why had RoSur's  fault
protection system failed  to stop  the operation? Why  were the  human
medical officers presiding over the  procedure not able to switch  off
the power before it was too late?
    Nicole des Jardins was asking herself the same questions. She  had
already completed the documents required when a death occurs in  space
and had sealed Borzov's body in the  vacuum coffin at the back of  the
military ship's huge supply depot. She had quickly prepared and  filed
her report on the incident; O'Toole, Sabatini, and Tabori had all done
the same.  There was  only one  significant omission  in the  reports.
Janos failed to mention that he had reached for the control box during
the Raman maneuver. At the time Nicole did not think his omission  was
important.
    The required  teleconferences with  ISA officials  were  extremely
painful. Nicole was the person who bore the brunt of all the inane and
repetitious questioning.  She had  to reach  deep inside  herself  for
extra reserves to keep  from losing her  temper several times.  Nicole
had expected that Francesca might hint at incompetence on the part  of
the Newton  medical  staff  in her  teleconference,  but  the  Italian
journalist was evenhanded and fair in her reportage.
    After a short interview with Francesca, in which Nicole  discussed
how horrified she had been at  the moment she had first seen  Borzov's
incision filled with blood,  the life science  officer retired to  her
room, ostensibly  to  rest and/or  sleep.  But Nicole  did  not  allow
herself the luxury of resting. Over and over she reviewed the critical
seconds of the operation. Could she  have done anything to change  the
outcome? What could  possibly explain RoSur's  failure to stop  itself
automatically?
    In Nicole's mind there was  little or no probability that  RoSur's
fault protection  algorithms had  a design  flaw; they  wouldn't  have
passed all the rigorous prelaunch testing if they contained errors. So
somewhere there must have been  a human error, either negligence  (had
she and Janos, in their haste, forgotten to initialize some key  fault
protection parameter?)  or an  accident during  those chaotic  seconds
following the  unexpected  torque.  Her  fruitless  searching  for  an
explanation and her almost total fatigue made her extremely  depressed
when she finally  fell asleep. To  her, one part  of the equation  was
very clear. A man had died and she had been responsible.
    18POSTMORTEM
    As expected,  the day  after General  Borzov's death  was full  of
turmoil. The ISA investigation into the incident expanded and most  of
the cosmonauts  were  subjected  to  another  long  cross-examination.
Nicole was  interrogated  about  her  sobriety  at  the  time  of  the
operation. Some of the questions were ugly and Nicole, who was  trying
to husband  her  energy  for  her  own  investigation  of  the  events
surrounding  the   tragedy,  lost   her   patience  twice   with   the
interrogators.
    "Look," she exclaimed  at one  point, "I have  now explained  four
times that I  had two glasses  of wine  and one glass  of vodka  three
hours before the  operation. I  have admitted  that I  would not  have
drunk any alcohol prior to surgery, // I had known that I was going to
operate. I have even acknowledged, in retrospect, that perhaps one  of
the two life science officers  should have remained completely  sober,
But that's all  hindsight. I repeat  what I said  earlier. Neither  my
judgment nor my physical abilities was in any way impaired by  alcohol
at the time of the operation,"
    Back in her room, Nicole focused her attention on the issue of why
the robot surgeon proceeded with  the operation when its own  internal
fault protection should have aborted all activities. Based on theRoSur
User's Guide, it was evident that at least two separate sensor systems
should have sent error messages to the central processor in the  robot
surgeon. The acoel-erometer package should have informed the processor
that tbe  environmental  conditions  were  outside  acceptable  limits
because of the untoward lateral  force. And the stereo cameras  should
have transmitted a message indicating that the observed images were at
variance with the predicted images. But for some reason neither sensor
set was successful  in interrupting  the ongoing  operation. What  had
happened?
    It took Nicole almost 6ve hours  to rule out the possibility of  a
major error, either software or hardware, in the RoSur system  itself.
She verified that the loaded software  and data base had been  correct
by doing a code comparison with tbe benchmark standard version of  the
software tested extensively  during prelaunch. She  also isolated  the
stereo imaging and accelerometer telemetry from tbe few seconds  right
after the spacecraft lurched. These data were properly transmitted  to
the central processor and should have resulted in an aborted sequence.
But they didn't. Why not? The  only possible explanation was that  the
software had  been  changed by  manual  command between  the  time  of
loading and the performance of the appendectomy.
    Nicole was  now  out  of  her  league.  Her  software  and  system
engineering knowledge had  been stretched to  the limit in  satisfying
herself that  there had  been  no error  in  the loaded  software.  To
determine whether and  when commands  might have changed  the code  or
parameters after they  were installed  in RoSur  required someone  who
could read machine language and carefully interrogate tbe billions  of
bits of  data  that  had  been stored  during  the  entire  procedure.
Nicole's investigation was  stalled until  she could  find someone  to
help her.Maybe I  should give  this up?  a voice  inside her  said.How
could you, another voice replied,until you know for certain the  cause
of General Borzov's death? At the root of Nicole's desire to know  the
answer was a desperate  yearning to prove for  certain that his  death
had not been her fault.
    She turned away from her terminal and collapsed on her bed. As she
was lying there, she remembered her surprise during the  thirty-second
inspection period when  Borzov's appendix  had been  in plain  view,He
definitely wasn 't having an appendicitis, she thought. Without having
any particular motive,  Nicole returned to  her terminal and  accessed
the second set of  data that she had  had evaluated by the  electronic
diagnostician, just prior to her decision to operate. She glanced only
briefly at  the 92%likely  appendicitis on  tbe first  screen,  moving
instead to the backup diagnoses. This timedrug reaction was listed  as
the second most likely cause, with a 4 percent probability. Nicole now
called for  the data  to be  displayed  in another  way. She  asked  a
statistical routine to compute the likely cause of the  symptoms,given
the fact that it could not be an appendicitis.
    The results  flashed up  on  the monitor  in seconds.  Nicole  was
astonished. According to the data,  if the biometry information  input
from Borzov's probe  set was  analyzed under the  assumption that  the
cause for the  abnormalities couldnot be  an appendicitis, then  there
was a 62 percent  chance that it  was due to  a drug reaction.  Before
Nicole was able to  complete any more analysis,  there was a knock  on
her door.
    "Come in," she said,  continuing to work  at her terminal.  Nicole
turned and saw  Irina Turgenyev  standing in the  doorway. The  Soviet
pilot said nothing for a moment.
    "They asked me  to come for  you," Irina said  haltingly. She  was
very shy  around everyone  except her  countrymen Tabori  and  Borzov.
"We're having a meeting of the crew down in the lobby."
    Nicole saved  her temporary  data files  and joined  Irina in  the
corridor. "What sort of meeting is it?" she asked.
    "An organizational  meeting,"  Irina answered.  She  said  nothing
more.
    There was a heated exchange  in process between Reggie Wilson  and
David Brown when the two women reached the lobby. "Am I to understand,
then," Dr. Brown was saying sarcastically, "that you believe the  Rama
spacecraftpurposely decided  to  maneuver at  precisely  that  moment?
Would you like to explain to all of ushow this asteroid of dumb  metal
happened to know  that General  Borzov was having  an appendectomy  at
that very minute? And  while you're at it,  will you explain why  this
supposedly malevolent spaceship has allowed us to attach ourselves and
has done nothing to dissuade us from continuing our mission?"
    Reggie  Wilson  glanced  around  the  room  for  support.  "You're
logic-chopping again, Brown," he said, his frustration obvious.  "What
you say always  sounds logical on  the surface. But  I'm not the  only
member of this crew that found the coincidence unnerving. Look, here's
Irina Turgenyev. She's the one who  suggested the connection to me  in
the first place."
    Dr. Brown acknowledged the arrival of the two women. There was  an
authority in the way he was asking the questions that suggested he was
in control  of the  gathering.  "Is that  right, Irina?"  David  Brown
asked. "Do you feel, like Wilson, that Rama was trying to send us some
specific message  by  performing  its maneuver  during  the  general's
operation?"
    Irina and  Hiro Yamanaka  were the  two cosmonauts  who spoke  the
least during crew  meetings. With  all eyes turned  toward her,  Irina
mumbled "No" very meekly.
    "But when we were  discussing it last  night-" Wilson insisted  to
the Soviet pilot.
    "That's  enough  on   that  subject,"   David  Brown   interrupted
imperiously. "I  think we  have  a consensus,  shared by  our  mission
control officers on Earth, that the Raman maneuver was coincidence and
not conspiracy." He looked at the  fuming Reggie Wilson. "Now we  have
other more important issues  to discuss. I would  like to ask  Admiral
Heilmann to tell us what he has learned about the leadership problem."
    Otto Heilmann stood up on cue and read from his notes.  "According
to the Newton procedures, in the event of the death or the  incapacity
of the  commanding  officer, the  crew  is expected  to  complete  all
sequences then  under  way  in accordance  with  previous  directions.
However, once those in-process activities are finished, the cosmonauts
are supposed to wait for the Earth to name a new commanding officer."
    David Brown jumped back  into the conversation. "Admiral  Heilmann
and I  started discussing  our  situation about  an  hour ago  and  we
quickly realized that we  had valid reasons  for being concerned.  The
ISA is wrapped up  in their investigation  of General Borzov's  death.
They have not even begun to think about his replacement. Once they  do
start, it may take  them weeks to decide.  Remember, this is the  same
bureaucracy that was never able to select a deputy for Borzov, so they
eventually decided that he didn't need one." He paused several seconds
to allow the rest of the crew members to consider what he was saying.
    "Otto suggested that  maybe we should  not wait for  the Earth  to
decide," Dr. Brown continued. "It was his idea that we should  develop
our own management  structure, one  that is  acceptable to  all of  us
here, and  then  send it  to  the  ISA as  a  recommendation.  Admiral
Heilmann thinks they will accept it  because it will avoid what  could
be a protracted debate."
    "Admiral Heilmann and Dr.  Brown came to see  me with this  idea,"
Janos Tabori now chimed in, "and emphasized how important it is for us
to get started  with our  mission inside Rama.  They even  laid out  a
strawman organization that made sense to me. Since none of us has  the
broad experience  of  General Borzov,  they  suggested that  maybe  we
should now have two leaders,  possibly Admiral Heilmann and Dr.  Brown
themselves. Otto would cover  the military and spacecraft  engineering
issues; Dr. Brown would lead the Rama exploration effort."
    "And  what  happens   when  they  disagree   or  their  areas   of
responsibility overlap?" asked Richard Wakefield.
    "In that case," Admiral Heilmann  responded, "we would submit  the
item in question to a vote of all the cosmonauts."
    "Isn't this cute?" said Reggie Wilson. He was still angry. He  had
been taking notes on his keyboard but  now he stood up to address  the
rest of  the  cosmonauts. "Brown  and  Heilmann just  happened  to  be
worrying about this critical  problem and they  just happened to  have
developed a  new  leadership structure  in  which all  the  power  and
responsibility are divided between  them. Am I the  only one here  who
smells something fishy?"
    "Now come  on, Reggie,"  Francesca Sabatini  said forcefully.  She
dropped her video  camera to her  side. "There is  sound logic in  the
strawman proposal. Dr. Brown is our senior scientist. Admiral Heilmann
has been a close colleague of Valeriy Borzov's for many years. None of
us has a solid overall command of all aspects of the mission. To split
the duties would be-"
    It was  difficult  for  Reggie Wilson  to  argue  with  Francesca.
Nevertheless, he  did  interrupt  her  before  she  was  finished.  "I
disagree with  this plan,"  he said  in a  subdued tone.  "I think  we
should have a single leader. And based on what I have observed  during
my time with this crew, there's  only one cosmonaut that we could  all
easily follow. That's General O'Toole."  He waved in the direction  of
his fellow American. "If  this is a democracy,  I nominate him as  our
new commanding officer."
    There was a general uproar as soon as Reggie sat down. David Brown
tried to restore order. "Please, please," he shouted, "let's work  one
issue at a time. Do we want to decide our own leadership and then hand
it to the ISA as a fait  accompli? Once we handle that question,  then
we can settle who those leaders should be."
    "I had not thought about any of this before the meeting,"  Richard
Wake-field said. "But I agree with  the idea of cutting the Earth  out
of the  loop.  They have  not  lived with  us  on this  mission.  More
importantly, they  are not  onboard a  spaceship affixed  to an  alien
creation somewhere just inside the orbit of Venus. We are the ones who
will suffer  if a  bad decision  is  made; we  should decide  our  own
organization."
    It was clear that everyone, with the possible exception of Wilson,
preferred the  idea  of defining  the  leadership structure  and  then
presenting it  to the  ISA.  "All right,"  Otto  Heilmann said  a  few
minutes later, "we must now choose our leaders. One strawman  proposal
has been advanced,  suggesting a leadership  split between myself  and
Dr. Brown. Reggie Wilson has nominated General Michael O'Toole as  the
new  commanding   officer.  Are   there  any   other  suggestions   or
discussion?"
    The room was silent  for about ten  seconds. "Excuse me,"  General
O’Toole then said,  "but I  would like  to make  a few  observations."
Everyone listened to the American general. Wilson was correct. Despite
O'Toole's known  preoccupation with  religion (which  he didn't  force
anyone else to  share), he  had the  respect of  the entire  cosmonaut
crew. "I think we must be careful  at this point not to lose the  team
spirit that we have worked so hard to develop during the past year.  A
contested election at this point could be divisive. Besides, it's  not
all that important or necessary. Regardless of who becomes our nominal
leader, or leaders, each of us is trained to perform a specific set of
functions. We will do them under any circumstances."
    Heads were nodding  in agreement around  the lobby. "For  myself,"
General O’Toole continued, "I must admit that I know little or nothing
about the inside-Rama aspects of this mission. I have never trained to
do anything  except  manage  the two  Newton  spacecraft,  assess  any
potential military threat, and act as a communications nexus  onboard.
I'm not qualified to be the commanding officer." Reggie Wilson started
to interrupt  but O’Toole  continued  without a  pause. "I'd  like  to
recommend that we  adopt the plan  offered by Hetlmann  and Brown  and
move on with our  primary task- namely the  exploration of this  alien
leviathan that has come to us from the stars."
    At the conclusion of the meeting the two new leaders informed  the
rest of the cosmonauts that a rough draft of the first sortie scenario
would be ready for review the following morning. Nicole headed for her
room. On the way she stopped and knocked on the door of Janos  Tabori.
At first there was  no response. When she  knocked a second time,  she
heard Janos yell, "Who is it?"
    "It's me-Nicole," she answered.
    "Come in," he said.
    He was lying on his back on the small bed with an uncharacteristic
frown on his face.
    "What's the matter?" Nicole asked.
    "Oh, nothing," Janos answered. "I just have a headache."
    "Did you take something?" Nicole inquired.
    "No. It's not that serious." He still didn't smile. "What can I do
for you?" he asked in an almost unfriendly tone.
    Nicole was puzzled. She approached her subject cautiously.  "Well,
I was rereading your report on Valeriy's death-"
    "Why were you doing that?" Janos interrupted brusquely.
    "To see if  there was  anything we might  have done  differently,"
Nicole responded. It  was obvious to  her that Janos  did not want  to
discuss the subject. After waiting a few seconds, Nicole spoke  again.
"I'm sorry, Janos. I'm imposing on you. I'll come back another time."
    "No. No," he said. "Let's get this over with now."
    That's a  curious way  of putting  it,Nicole was  thinking as  she
formulated her question.  "Janos," she said,  "nowhere in your  report
did you  mention reaching  for RoSur's  control box  right before  the
maneuver. And I could  have sworn I saw  your fingers on the  keyboard
panel as I was being swept over against the wall."
    Nicole stopped. There was no  expression of any kind on  Cosmonaut
Tabori's face. It was almost as if he were thinking of something else.
"I don't remember," he  said at length, without  emotion. "You may  be
right. Perhaps my hitting my head erased part of my memory."
    Stop now,Nicole  said to  herself as  she studied  her  colleague.
There's nothing more you can learn here.
    19RITE OF PASSAGE
    Genevieve suddenly broke  into tears. "Oh,  Mother/' she said.  "I
love you so much and this is absolutely awful."
    The teenager  hurriedly moved  out  of the  camera frame  and  was
replaced by Nicole's father. Pierre looked off to his right for a  few
seconds, to make certain  that his granddaughter  was out of  earshot,
and then turned toward the monitor. "These last twenty-four hours have
been especially hard on  her. You know how  she idolizes you. Some  of
the foreign press have been saying that you bungled the surgery. There
was even  a  suggestion  this  evening  from  an  American  television
reporter that you  were drunk  during the operation."  He paused.  The
strain was showing on her father's face as well- "Both Genevieve and 1
know that neither of these allegations is true. We love you completely
and send all our support."
    The screen went dark. Nicole had initiated the videophone call and
had, at first, been cheered by talking to her family. After her second
transmission, however, when her father and daughter had reappeared  on
the screen twenty minutes later, it  had been obvious that the  events
onboard the Newton had unsettled  life at Beauvois as well.  Genevieve
had been particularly distraught.  She had cried intermittently  while
talking about General Borzov  (she had met him  several times and  the
avuncular Russian  had always  been especially  nice to  her) and  had
barely managed to  compose herself  before breaking  into tears  again
right before the end of the call.
    So I have embarrassed you as  well,Nicole thought as she sat  down
on her bed.  She rubbed  her eyes.  She was  extremely tired.  Slowly,
without being aware of how depressed she had become, she undressed for
bed. Her mind was plagued with  pictures of her daughter at school  in
Luynes. Nicole  winced  as she  imagined  one of  Genevieve's  friends
asking her about the operation and Borzov's death.My darling daughter,
she thought,you must know how much I  love you. If only I could  spare
you from this pain. Nicole wanted to reach out and comfort  Genevieve,
to hold her close, to share one of those mother-daughter caresses that
chase away the demons.  But it could not  be. Genevieve was a  hundred
million kilometers away.
    Nicole lay in bed  on her back.  She closed her  eyes but did  not
sleep. She was  aware of a  deep and profound  loneliness, a sense  of
isolation more acute  than any she  had felt before  in her life.  She
knew that she was longing for some sympathy, for some human being  who
would tell her that her feelings of inadequacy were overblown and  not
consistent with reality. But there was nobody. Her father and daughter
were back on Earth. Of the two Newton crew members she knew best,  one
was dead and the other was behaving suspiciously.
    I have failed,Nicole was thinking as  she was lying on her  bed.On
my most  important  assignment I  have  failed. She  recalled  another
feeling of failure, when she was only sixteen. At that time Nicole had
competed for  the role  of Joan  of  Arc in  a huge  national  contest
associated with the 750th anniversary of the death of the Maid. If she
had won, Nicole would have portrayed Joan in a series of pageants over
the next two years. She had  thrown herself totally into the  contest,
reading every book she  could find about Joan  and watching scores  of
video presentations. Nicole had scored  at the top in virtually  every
test category  except  "suitability." She  should  have won,  but  she
didn't. Her father had consoled her by telling Nicole that France  was
not ready for its heroines to have dark skin.
    But that was not exactly a failure,the Newton life science officer
told herself.And anyway I had my father to comfort me. An image of her
mother's funeral came to Nicole's mind. She had been ten years old  at
the time. Her mother had gone to  the Ivory Coast by herself to  visit
their African relatives. Anawi  had been in  Nidougou when a  virulent
epidemic of Hogan fever had swept through the village. Nicole's mother
had died quickly.
    Five days later Anawi had been cremated as a Senoufo queen, Nicole
had wept while Omeh chanted her mother's soul through the nether world
and into the Land of Preparation, where beings rested while waiting to
be selected for another life on  Earth. As the flames had mounted  the
pyre and her mother's regal dress had begun to bum, Nicole had felt an
overpowering sense  of  loss. And  loneliness.But  that time  also  my
father -was  there beside  me,  she recalled.He  held  my hand  as  we
watched Mother disappear. Together it was  easier to bear. I was  much
more lonely during the Poro, And more frightened.
    She could still  remember the mixture  of terror and  helplessness
that had filled her seven-year-old body  at the Paris airport on  that
spring morning. Her father had  caressed her very tenderly.  "Darling,
darling Nicole," he had  said. "I will miss  you very much. Come  back
safely to me."
    "But why must I go, Papa?" she  had replied. "And why are you  not
coming with us?"
    He had bent down beside her. "You are going to become part of your
mother's people. All Senoufo children go  through the Poro at the  age
of seven.
    Nicole had started  crying. "But  Papa, I  don't want  to go.  I'm
French, not African.  I don't like  all those strange  people and  the
heat and the bugs . . ."
    Her father had placed  his hands firmly on  her cheeks. "You  must
go, Nicole.  Your mother  and I  have agreed."  Anawi and  Pierre  had
indeed discussed it  many times. Nicole  had lived in  France all  her
life. AH she  knew of  her African heritage  was what  her mother  had
taught her and what she had learned from two month-long visits to  the
Ivory Coast with her family.
    It had  not been  easy for  Pierre to  agree to  send his  beloved
daughter off to the Poro. He knew that it was a primitive ceremony. He
also knew  that it  was  the cornerstone  of the  Senoufo  traditional
religion and that he had promised Omeh, at the time of his marriage to
Anawi, that all their children would  return to Nidougou for at  least
the first cycle of the Poro.
    The hardest  part for  Pierre was  staying behind.  But Anawi  was
right. He was an outsider. He would not be able to participate in  the
Poro. He  would not  understand it.  His presence  would distract  the
little girl. There was an ache in his heart as Pierre kissed his  wife
and daughter and put them onto the plane to Abidjan.
    Anawi was also apprehensive about the rite of passage ceremony for
her only  child,  her little  girl  of  barely seven  years.  She  had
prepared Nicole as well as she could. The child was a gifted  linguist
and had picked up the rudiments  of the Senoufo language very  easily.
But there was  no doubt  that she was  at a  severe disadvantage  with
respect to the rest of the children. All of the others had lived their
whole lives in and around the native villages. They were familiar with
the area. To  alleviate the  orientation problem a  little, Anawi  and
Nicole arrived in Nidougou a week ahead of time.
    The fundamental idea of the Poro was that life was a succession of
phases or cycles and that each transition should be carefully  marked.
Each cycle lasted seven years. There were three Poros in every  normal
Senoufo life, three metamorphoses that were necessary before the child
could be transformed into an adult in the tribe. Despite the fact that
many of  the tribal  customs faded  away with  the arrival  of  modern
telecommunications  devices  in  the  Ivory  Coast  villages  in   the
twenty-first century, the  Poro remained an  integral part of  Senoufo
society. In  the twenty-second  century,  tribal practices  enjoyed  a
renaissance of sorts, especially after The Great Chaos proved to  most
of the African leaders that it was dangerous to depend too much on the
outside world.
    Anawi kept a good acting smile upon her face during the  afternoon
that the tribal  priests came to  take Nicole away  for the Poro.  She
didn't want her  fear or anxiety  to be transferred  to her  daughter.
Nevertheless, Nicole could  tell that her  mother was troubled.  "Your
hands are  cold and  sweaty, Mama,"  she whispered  in French  as  she
hugged Anawi  before  departing. "Don't  worry.  I'll be  all  right."
Nicole, in fact-the only brown face  among the dozen dark black  girls
climbing into the carts-seemed almost cheery and expectant, as if  she
were going to an amusement park or a zoo.
    There were four  carts altogether, two  carrying the little  girls
and two that were covered  and unexplained. Nicole's friend from  four
years earlier,  Lutuwa,  who was  actually  one of  Nicole's  cousins,
explained to the rest of the girls that the other wagons contained the
priests and the  "instruments of  torture." There was  a long  silence
before one of the little girls had the courage to ask Lutuwa what  she
was talking about.
    "I dreamed it all two  nights ago," Lutuwa said  matter-of-factly.
"They are going to burn our nipples and stick sharp objects in all our
holes. And as long as we don't cry, we won't feel any pain." The other
five girls in Nicole's cart, including Lutuwa, hardly said a word  for
the next hour.
    By sunset they had  traveled a long way  east, past the  abandoned
microwave station,  into the  special area  known only  to the  tribal
religious leaders. The half dozen priests threw up temporary  shelters
and started building  a fire. When  it was dark,  food and drink  were
served to the initiates, who sat cross-legged in a wide circle  around
the fire. After dinner the  costumed dancing began. Omeh narrated  the
four dances, each  of which  featured one of  the indigenous  animals.
Music for the dances came  from tambourines and crude xylophones,  the
rhythm  being  maintained  by  the  monotonic  beat  of  the  tom-tom.
Occasionally an  especially meaningful  point in  the story  would  be
punctuated by a blast on the oliphant, the ivory hunting horn.
    Just before  bedtime  Omeh,  still  wearing  the  great  mask  and
headdress identifying him as the chieftain, handed each of the girls a
large kit made of  antelope hide and told  them to study its  contents
very carefully. There was a flask of water, some dried fruit and nuts,
two chunks  of  native bread,  a  cutting implement,  some  rope,  two
different kinds of unguents, and a tuber from an unknown plant.
    "Tomorrow morning each child will be removed from this camp," Omeh
said, "and placed in a specific  location not too far away. The  child
will have only the gifts in  the antelope hide. The child is  expected
to survive on her own and return to the same spot by the time the  sun
is full in the sky on the following day.
    "The hide contains  everything that is  needed except for  wisdom,
courage, and curiosity.  The tuber is  something very special.  Eating
the fleshy root  will terrify the  child, but may  also give  abnormal
powers of strength and vision."
    20BLESSED SLUMBER
    The little girl  had been alone  for almost two  hours before  she
really understood  what was  happening to  her. Omeh  and one  of  the
younger priests had placed Nicole  right near a small, brackish  pond,
surrounded on all sides by the  high grasses of the savanna. They  had
reminded her that  they would return  in the middle  of the next  day.
Then they were gone.
    At first Nicole  had reacted as  if the entire  experience were  a
great game.  She had  taken out  her  kit made  of antelope  hide  and
carefully inventoried the contents. She had mentally divided the  food
into three parts, planning what  she would eat for dinner,  breakfast,
and midmorning snack. There was not excessive food, but little  Nicole
judged that  it would  be enough.  On  the other  hand, when  she  had
visually measured the  flask to  determine the adequacy  of her  water
supply, she had concluded  that it was marginal.  It would be good  if
she could End a spring or some  pure running water that could be  used
in an emergency.
    Nicole's next activity  had been  to create  a mental  map of  her
location, paying special  attention to any  landmarks that would  help
her identify the brackish pond from  a distance. She was an  extremely
organized little girl  and, back  at Chilly-Mazarin,  often played  by
herself in a wooded vacant lot very close to her house. In her room at
home Nicole had maps of the wood that she had carefully drawn by hand,
her secret hiding places marked with stars and circles.
    It was when she  came upon four  striped antelope, grazing  calmly
under the  steady  afternoon sun,  that  Nicole first  understood  how
utterly isolated  she was.  Her first  instinct was  to look  for  her
mother, to show Anawi the  beautiful animals she had found.But  mother
is not here, the little girl  thought, her eyes scanning the  horizon.
lam all alone. The last word echoed  through her mind and she felt  an
inchoate despair. She fought against  the despair and looked off  into
the distance to see if she could find any indication of  civilization.
There were  birds all  around and  some more  grazing animals  on  the
horizon at the limit of her vision,  but no sign of any human  beings.
/am all alone, Nicole said to  herself again, a slight shiver of  fear
running through her body.
    She remembered that she wanted to find another source of water and
walked off in the direction of a large grove of trees. The little girl
had no idea  about distances  in the  open savanna.  Although she  did
carefully stop every  thirty minutes or  so to ensure  that she  could
still find her way back  to the pond, it  amazed her that the  distant
grove did not appear to be coming any closer. She walked on and on. As
the afternoon  waned, she  became tired  and thirsty.  She stopped  to
drink some  of her  water. The  tsetse flies  surrounded her,  buzzing
around her  face  as she  tried  to drink.  Nicole  took out  the  two
unguents, smelled them both, and applied the worse smelling of the two
to her face  and arms. Her  choice was apparently  correct; the  flies
also found the unguent noisome and kept their distance.
    She reached the trees about an hour before dark. She was delighted
to find that she had fortuitously  stumbled upon a small oasis in  the
middle of the great stretch of  savanna. There was a strong spring  in
the grove  where the  water rushed  out  of the  ground and  formed  a
circular pool about ten meters in  diameter. The excess water in  turn
trickled out of one edge of the pool and became a creek that ran  from
the oasis back into the savanna. Nicole was exhausted and sweaty  from
her long walk. The  water in the pool  was inviting. Without  thinking
she pulled off her clothes, except  for her underpants, and jumped  in
for a swim. The water invigorated  and soothed her tired little  body.
With her head underwater  and her eyes closed,  she swam and swam  and
fantasized that  she was  in the  community pool  in her  suburb  near
Paris. In  her  imagination  she  had gone  to  the  piscine,  as  she
generally did  once a  week, and  was playing  water sports  with  her
friends. The memory  comforted her.  After a long  time Nicole  rolled
over on her  back and  took a  few strokes.  She opened  her eyes  and
looked at the trees  above her. The rays  from the late afternoon  sun
were making magic as they cut through the branches and the leaves.
    Seven-year-old Nicole  stopped  swimming  and  treaded  water  for
several seconds, looking around the edge of the pool for her  clothes.
She didn't see them.  Puzzled, she scanned the  perimeter of the  pool
more carefully. Still she saw  nothing. In her mind she  reconstructed
all the scenes of her arrival in the grove and conclusively remembered
exactly where she had  placed both her clothes  and the kit made  from
antelope hide. She climbed out of the water and examined the spot more
closely.This is definitely the place,  she thought.And my clothes  and
the kit are gone.
    There was no  way to  quell the panic.  It overpowered  her in  an
instant. Her eyes flooded  with tears, a wail  broke from her  throat.
She closed her eyes and wept, hoping that this was all a bad dream and
that she would wake up in the next few seconds and see her mother  and
father. But when she opened her  eyes again, the same scene was  still
there. A half-naked little girl was alone in the wilds of Africa  with
no food, no water, and no hope of rescue before the middle of the next
day. And it was almost dark.
    With great  effort Nicole  managed  at last  to control  both  her
fright and her tears. She decided to look for her clothes. Where  they
had been before, she  found fresh prints of  some kind. Nicole had  no
way of knowing what kind of animal might have made the tracks, so  she
assumed that it was one of the gentle antelope that she had seen  that
afternoon in  the  savanna.That  would make  sense,  the  little  girl
thought logically.This is probably  the best water  hole in the  area.
They stopped here and were curious about my things. My splashing  must
have scared them away.
    As the light faded  she followed the tracks  along a tiny  pathway
through the trees. After a short trek she found the antelope hide,  or
rather what was left of it, discarded on the side of the path. The kit
was torn completely open. All the  food was gone, the water flask  was
mostly drained, and everything else had fallen out except the unguents
and the tuber. Nicole  finished the water that  was left in the  flask
and put it with the tuber in  her right hand. She discarded the  messy
unguents. She was about to continue following the path when she  heard
a sound, halfway between a yelp and  a cry. The sound was very  close.
The path  opened into  the savanna  about fifty  meters ahead.  Nicole
strained her eyes and  thought she saw motion,  but she couldn't  make
out anything  specific. Then  she heard  the yelp  again, louder  this
time. She dropped  down on her  stomach and crawled  slowly along  the
path.
    There was a small rise fifteen meters before the end of the grove.
From that vantage point little Nicole saw the source of the yelp.  Two
lion cubs were playing with her green dress. Their watchful mother was
on the opposite side,  staring out into  the savanna twilight.  Nicole
froze in terror as she comprehended  that she was not visiting a  zoo,
that she was  out in  the wild  and a  real African  lioness was  only
twenty meters away.  Trembling with  fear, she inched  back along  the
path, very  slowly,  very quietly,  lest  she call  attention  to  her
presence.
    Back near  the pool  she resisted  the  urge to  jump up  and  run
pell-mell into the savanna.Then the  lioness will see me for  certain,
she thought. But where to spend the night?I'll find a ditch among  the
trees, she reasoned,away from the path. And lie still. Then maybe I'll
be safe. Still clutching the flask and the tuber, Nicole walked softly
over to the spring. She  took a drink and  filled her flask. Next  she
crawled into the grove and found a ditch. Then, convinced that she was
as safe  as  she  could  possibly  be  under  the  circumstances,  the
exhausted little girl fell asleep.
    She woke up suddenly with a sensation that bugs were crawling  all
over her. She reached down and rubbed her bare stomach. It was covered
with ants. Nicole screamed, and then  she realized what she had  done.
In a flash she heard the lioness crashing through the brush, searching
for the creature that  had made the noise.  The little girl  shuddered
and scraped  the ants  off with  a  stick. Then  she saw  the  lioness
staring at her,  the feral  eyes piercing  the dark.  Nicole was  near
collapse. In  her fright  she somehow  remembered what  Omeh had  said
about the tuber.  She put  the dirt-covered  root into  her mouth  and
chewed vigorously. It tasted awful.  She forced herself to swallow.  A
moment later Nicole  was rushing  through the trees  with the  lioness
chasing her. Branches and leaves cut  her face and chest. She  slipped
once and fell. When she reached the pool she did not stop. Nicole  ran
across the water, her  feet barely touching the  top. She flapped  her
arms. They  had changed  to  wings, white  wings.  She was  no  longer
touching the water. She  was a great white  heron soaring up, up  into
the night sky. She turned and looked at the puzzled lioness far  below
her. Laughing to herself, Nicole intensified her wing motion and  rose
above all the trees. The great  savanna unfolded below her. She  could
see for over a hundred kilometers.
    She flew across to the brackish  pond, turned west, and spotted  a
campfire. She zoomed toward it, her bird shrieks piercing the calm  of
the night. Omeh awakened  with a start, saw  the solitary bird  spread
out against the sky, and  made a loud bird  cry of his own.  "Ronata?"
his voice seemed to ask. But Nicole did not answer, She wanted to  fly
higher, even above the clouds.
    On the other side of the clouds the Moon and stars were clear  and
bright. They  beckoned to  her. She  thought she  heard music  in  the
distance, a  tinkling like  crystal bells,  as she  soared higher  and
higher. She tried to flap her wings. They would barely move. They  had
changed into control surfaces, which now extended to increase the lift
in the ultrathin air. Her aft rockets began to fire. Nicole was now  a
silver shuttle, thin and sleek, leaving the Earth behind.
    The music was  louder out  in orbit.  There it  was a  magnificent
symphony, enhancing the beauty  of the majestic  Earth below her.  She
heard her name being called. From where? Who could be calling way  out
here? The sound came  from beyond the Moon.  She changed her  heading,
pointed toward the void  of deep space, and  fired her rockets  again.
She swept past  the Moon,  heading away from  the Sun.  Her speed  was
still increasing exponentially. Behind her the Sun was growing smaller
and smaller. It became a  tiny light and then disappeared  altogether.
There was blackness all  around- She held her  breath and came to  the
surface of the water.
    The lioness was prowling back and  forth on the edge of the  pool.
Nicole could vividly see all the muscles in her powerful shoulders and
read the expression on her  face.Please leave me alone, Nicole  said.I
won't hurt you or your babies.
    "I recognize  your smell,"  the lioness  answered. "My  cubs  were
playing with that smell."
    I too am a cub,Nicole continued,and I want to return to my mother.
But I am afraid.
    "Come out of the water," the  lioness replied. "Let me see you.  I
do not believe that you are what you say."
    Summoning all her courage,  her eyes riveted  on the lioness,  the
little girl walked slowly out of  the water. The lioness didn't  move.
When the water  was only  waist deep, Nicole  shaped her  arms into  a
cradle and began to  sing. It was a  simple, peaceful melody, the  one
she remembered from  the beginning  of her  life, when  her mother  or
father would kiss her good night, put  her down in the crib, and  then
turn out the light. The little  animals in the mobile would go  around
and around while a woman's soft voice sang the Brahms lullaby.
    "Lay thee down, now, and rest . . , May thy slumber be blessed."
    The lioness rocked back on her haunches and threatened to  pounce.
The girl, still softly singing,  continued walking toward the  animal.
When Nicole was completely out of the water and only about five meters
away, the lioness jumped aside and  leapt back into the grove.  Nicole
kept walking, the soothing song giving her both comfort and  strength.
In a few  minutes she  was back  out at the  edge of  the savanna.  By
sunrise she had reached the pond, where she lay down among the grasses
and fell fast  asleep. Omeh and  the Senoufo priests  found her  lying
there, half naked and still asleep, when the sun was high in the sky.
    She could remember it  all as if  it were yesterday.Almost  thirty
years ago now, she recalled as she lay still awake in her small bed on
the  Newton,and  the  lessons  I  learned  have  never  stopped  being
valuable, Nicole thought about the little seven-year-old girl who  had
been stranded in a completely alien world and had managed to  survive.
So why am I feeling sorry for myself now? she thought.That was a  much
tougher situation.
    Immersing herself  in  her  childhood  experience  had  given  her
unexpected strength.  Nicole was  no longer  depressed. Her  mind  was
working overtime again, trying to formulate a plan that would give her
the crucial  answers to  what  had happened  during the  operation  on
Borzov. She had pushed her loneliness aside.
    Nicole realized that  she would  have to stay  onboard the  Newton
during the first sortie if she wanted to do a thorough analysis of all
aspects of the  Borzov incident. She  resolved to bring  up the  issue
with Brown or Heilmann in the morning.
    At length the  exhausted woman  fell asleep. As  she was  drifting
into the twilight world that separates waking and sleeping, Nicole was
humming a tune to herself. It was the Brahms lullaby.
    21PANDORA'S CUBE
    Nicole could see  David Brown sitting  behind the desk.  Francesca
was leaning over him, pointing at something on a large chart that  was
spread out in front of the two of them. Nicole knocked on the door  of
the commander's office.
    "Hello, Nicole," Francesca said, as she opened the door. "What can
we do for you?"
    "I came to see Dr. Brown," Nicole replied. "About my assignment."
    "Come on in," Francesca said.
    Nicole shuffled  in  slowly and  sat  in  one of  the  two  chairs
opposite the desk. Francesca  sat in the other.  Nicole looked at  the
walls of the  office. They  had definitely  changed. General  Borzov's
photographs  of  his  wife  and  children,  along  with  his  favorite
painting, a picture of a solitary bird with outstretched wings soaring
above  the  Neva  River  in  Leningrad,  had  been  replaced  by  huge
sequencing charts. The  charts, each  one headed by  a different  name
(First Sortie, Second Sortie, etc.), covered the side bulletin  boards
from one end of the wall to the other.
    General Borzov's office had been warm and personal. This room  was
definitely sterile  and intimidating.  Dr.  Brown had  hung  laminated
replicas of  two  of  his most  prestigious  international  scientific
awards on the wall behind his desk.  He had also raised the height  of
his chair so that he looked down on anyone else in the room who  might
be sitting.
    "I have come to see you about a personal matter/' Nicole said. She
waited several  seconds, expecting  David Brown  to ask  Francesca  to
leave the room-He said nothing. Finally Nicole glanced in  Francesca's
direction to make her concern obvious.
    "She has been helping me with my administrative duties," Dr. Brown
explained. "I find  that her  feminine insight  often detects  signals
that I have missed altogether."
    Nicole sat  silently for  another fifteen  seconds. She  had  been
prepared to talk to David Brown. She had not expected that it would be
necessary also  for her  to explain  everything to  Francesca.Maybe  I
should just leave,  Nicole thought fleetingly,  somewhat surprised  to
find that she was irritated ahout Francesca's being there.
    "I have read the  assignments for the  first sortie," Nicole  said
eventually in a formal tone, "and I  would like to make a request.  My
duties, as outlined in the sequence, are minimal. Irina Turgenyev,  it
seems to me, is also underworked for the three-day sortie. I recommend
that you give my  nonmedi-cal tasks to Irina  and I will stay  onboard
the Newton with Admiral  Heilmann and General  O'Toole. I will  follow
the progress of the mission carefully and can be available immediately
if there  is  any significant  medical  problem. Otherwise  Janos  can
handle the life science responsibilities."
    Again there was silence  in the room. Dr,  Brown stared at  Nicole
and then at Francesca. "Why do  you want to stay onboard the  Newton?"
Francesca responded at length. "I would have thought that you couldn't
wait to see the inside of Rama."
    "As 1 said, it's mostly  personal," Nicole answered vaguely.  "I'm
still extremely  tired from  the Borzov  ordeal and  I have  a lot  of
paperwork to finish.  The first  sortie should  be straightforward.  I
would like to be fully rested and prepared for the second."
    "It's a highly  irregular request," David  Brown said, "but  under
the circumstances,  I  think  we  can do  it."  He  glanced  again  at
Francesca. "But we'd like to ask a  favor of you. If you're not  going
into  Rama,  then  perhaps  you'd  be  willing  to  spell  O’Toole  as
communications officer from time to time? Then Admiral Heilmann  could
go inside-"
    "Certainly," Nicole answered before Brown had finished.
    "Good. Then I guess we're  all agreed. We'll change the  manifests
for the first sortie. You will  remain onboard the Newton." After  Dr.
Brown was through  talking, Nicole  still made  no move  to leave  her
chair. "Was there something else?" he asked impatiently.
    "According to our  procedures, the life  science officer  prepares
certification memoranda on the cosmonauts prior to each sortie. Should
I give a copy to Admiral-"
    "Give all those memos to me," Dr. Brown interrupted her.  "Admiral
Heilmann is  not  concerned  with  personnel  matters."  The  American
scientist looked directly at  Nicole. "But you  don't need to  prepare
new reports for  the first  sortie. I've  read all  the documents  you
wrote for General Borzov. They are quite adequate."
    Nicole did not let herself be cowed by the man's penetrating gaze.
Soyou know what  I wrote  about you  and Wilson,  she thought,and  you
think I should feel guilty or embarrassed. Well, I don't. My  opinions
have not changed just because you are now nominally in charge.
    That night Nicole continued  with her investigation. Her  detailed
analysis of the biometry data from  General Borzov showed that he  had
had extraordinary levels of two  strange chemicals in his system  just
before his death.  Nicole could  not figure  out where  they had  come
from. Had he been taking medication without her knowledge? Could these
chemicals, which were known to trigger pain (they were used, according
to  her   medical   encyclopedia,   to  test   pain   sensitivity   in
neurologically distressed  patients), somehow  have been  manufactured
internally in some kind of allergic reaction?
    And what about Janos?  Why couldn't he  remember reaching for  the
control box? Why  had he  been reticent and  withdrawn since  Borzov's
death? |ust after  midnight she  stared at  the ceiling  of her  small
bedroom.Today the crew enters Rama and I will be here alone. I  should
wait until then to  continue my analysis. But  she couldn't wait.  She
was unable to  push aside  all the  questions that  were flooding  her
mind.Could there  be  a connection  between  fanos and  the  drugs  in
Borzov? Is it possible that his death was not completely accidental?
    Nicole took her  personal briefcase  out of the  tiny closet.  She
opened it hastily and the contents spilled into the air. She grabbed a
group of family photographs that were floating above her bed. Then she
gathered up most of  the rest of  the items and  returned them to  her
briefcase. Nicole retained in her hand  the data cube that King  Henry
had given her in Davos.
    She hesitated before inserting the cube.  At last she took a  deep
breath and  placed  it  into  the reader.  Eighteen  menu  items  were
immediately displayed  on the  monitor. She  could choose  any of  the
twelve  individual  dossiers  on  the  cosmonauts  or  six   different
compilations of  crew statistics.  Nicole called  for the  dossier  on
Janos Tabori. There  were three submenus  for his biography:  Personal
Data, Chronological Summary, and  Psychological Assessment. She  could
tell from  the  listed  file  sizes  that  the  Chronological  Summary
contained most of the details. Nicole accessed Personal Data first  to
gain familiarity with the format of the dossiers.
    The brief chart  did not  tell her  much that  she didn't  already
know. Janos was forty-one and single. When he was not on duty for  the
ISA, he lived alone in an apartment in Budapest, only four blocks away
from where his twice-divorced mother lived by herself. He had received
an honors engineering degree from  the University of Hungary in  2183.
In addition  to  mundane items  like  height, weight,  and  number  of
siblings, the chart  listed two  other numbers:  IE (for  Intelligence
Evaluation) and SC (for  Socialization Coefficient). Tabori's  numbers
were +337 for IE and 64 for SC.
    Nicole returned to  the main menu  and called up  the Glossary  to
refresh her memory about the definitions of IE and SC. The IE  numbers
supposedly represented a  composite measure  of overall  intelligence,
based on a comparison with a similar worldwide student population. All
students took a set of  standardized tests at specified times  between
the ages of twelve and twenty. The index was actually an exponent in a
decimal measuring system.  An IE  number of  zero was  average. An  IE
index of  +1.00 meant  the  individual was  above  90 percent  of  the
population; +2.00 was above 99 percent of the population; +3.00  above
99.9  percent,  etc.  Negative  IE  indices  indicated   below-average
intelligence. Janos' score of  +3.37 placed him in  the middle of  the
upper one tenth of one percent of the population in intelligence.
    The SC numbers  had a more  straightforward explanation. They  too
were based  on a  battery of  standardized tests  administered to  all
students between the ages of twelve and twenty, but the interpretation
here was easier to understand. The highest SC score was 100. A  person
scoring close to 100 was  liked and respected by virtually  everybody,
would fit into most any group, was almost never quarrelsome or  moody,
and was  very dependable.  A footnote  to the  explanation of  the  SC
scores acknowledged that  written tests could  not accurately  measure
personality traits in all  cases, so the numbers  should be used  with
discretion.
    Nicole reminded herself  to do  a comparison sometime  of all  the
cosmonaut IE  and  SC  scores. Then  she  accessed  the  Chronological
Summary  file  for  Janos  Tabori.  The  next  sixty  minutes  was  an
eye-opening experience for  Nicole. As the  life science officer,  she
had of course studied the official ISA personnel files for the  entire
crew. But if the information about  Janos Tabori on the cube given  to
her by King Henry was correct (and  she had no way of knowing one  way
or the other), then the ISA files were woefully incomplete.
    Nicole had known previously that Janos had twice been selected  as
the outstanding engineering student at the University of Hungary;  she
had not known  that he had  been president  for two years  of the  Gay
Students Association of Budapest.  She was aware  that he had  entered
the Space  Academy in  2192  and had  graduated  in only  three  years
(because of  his previous  experience  with major  Soviet  engineering
projects); she had never been told that he had applied to the  Academy
twice previously and had been rejected both times. Despite sensational
entrance scores, he had twice failed his personal interview-both times
the interview committee  had been  headed by  General Valeriy  Borzov.
Janos had  been  active  in  various  gay  organizations  until  2190.
Subsequently he  had resigned  from  them all  and never  rejoined  or
participated in any organized gay activities. None of this information
had been in his ISA file.
    Nicole was stunned by what she  had learned. It wasn't that  Janos
had been (or was) gay that  disturbed her; she was free of  prejudices
where sexual orientation was concerned. What bothered her most was the
likelihood that his  official file had  been deliberately censored  to
remove all references  both to  his homosexuality and  to his  earlier
interactions with General Borzov.
    The last entries  in the  Tabori Chronological  Summary were  also
surprising for Nicole. According to the dossier, Janos had purportedly
signed a contract  with Schmidt  and Hagenest,  the German  publishing
conglomerate, in the last  week of December,  just before launch.  His
task was to  perform unspecified  "consulting" for a  wide variety  of
post-Newton media endeavors in support of what was referred to as  the
Brown-Sabatini project. Cosmonaut  Tabori was paid  an initial fee  of
three hundred thousand marks for signing. Three days later his mother,
who had been waiting almost a year for one of the new artificial brain
implants that reversed  the damage from  Alzheimer's disease,  entered
the Bavarian Hospital in Munich for neurological surgery.
    Her eyes weary and burning, Nicole finished reading the  extensive
dossier on  Dr.  David Brown.  During  the  hours that  she  had  been
studying his Chronological Summary, she had created a special  subfile
for herself of  those items  in the  summary that  were of  particular
interest to her. Before trying again to sleep, Nicole scrolled through
this special subfile one more time.
    Summer 2161: Brown,  eleven, enrolled  in Camp  Longhom by  father
over strenuous objections  of mother. Typical  outdoor summer camp  in
hill country of Texas for upper class boys, featuring athletics of all
kinds, riflery,  crafts, and  hiking. Boys  lived ten  to a  barracks,
Brown was  extremely unpopular  immediately.  On fifth  day  bunkmates
seized him coming out of shower and painted his genitals black.  Brown
refused to move from bed until mother had traveled almost two  hundred
miles to pick him up and take him home. Father apparently ignored  son
altogether after this incident.
    September  2166:  After  being  valedictorian  from  private  high
school, Brown enrolled as freshman  in physics at Princeton.  Remained
in New Jersey only  eight weeks. Completed  undergraduate work at  SMU
while living at home.
    June 2173:  Awarded Ph.D.  in physics  and astronomy  by  Harvard.
Dissertation advisor  Wilson  Brownwell called  Brown  "an  ambitious,
diligent student."
    June  2175:  Brown  completed   post-doctorate  research  on   the
evolution of stars with Brian Murchison at Cambridge.
    April 2180: Married Jeannette Hudson of Pasadena, California.  Ms.
Hudson had been graduate student in astronomy at Stanford. Only child,
daughter Angela, born in December 2184.
    November 2181:  Was  refused  tenure in  astronomy  department  at
Stanford because two  members of evaluation  committee believed  Brown
had falsified  scientific  data  in  several  of  his  many  scholarly
publications. Issue was never resolved.
    January 2184: Appointed to first ISA Advisory Committee.  Prepared
comprehensive plans for series of major new astronomical telescopes on
far side of the moon.
    May 2187:  Brown  named  chairman of  Department  of  Physics  and
Astronomy at SMU in Dallas, Texas.
    February 2188: Fistfight with Wendell Thomas, Princeton professor,
in atrium outside AAAS meeting in Chicago. Thomas insisted that  Brown
had stolen and published ideas they had discussed together.
    April 2190: Electrified  scientific world by  not only  publishing
breakthrough models of supernova  process, but also predicting  nearby
supernova to occur in mid-March  2191. Research done in  collaboration
with SMU  doctoral  student,  Elaine Bernstein  of  New  York.  Strong
suggestion from  graduate associates  of Ms.  Bernstein that  she  was
actually one with  the new  insights. Brown  catapulted to  fame as  a
result of his bold and correct prediction.
    June 2190: Brown divorced  wife, from whom  he had been  separated
for eighteen months. Separation had started three months after  Elaine
Bernstein had begun graduate work.
    December 2190: Married Ms. Bernstein in Dallas.
    March 2191:  Supernova  2191a  filled night  sky  with  light,  as
predicted by Brown etal.
    June 2191: Brown signed  two-year science reporting contract  with
CBS. Jumped to UBC  in 2194 and then,  at recommendation of agent,  to
INN in 2197.
    December 2193:  Brown  awarded  top ISA  medal  for  Distinguished
Scientific Achievement.
    November  2199:  Signed  exclusive  multimillion  mark,  multiyear
contract  with  Schmidt  and   Hagenest  to  "exploit"  all   possible
commercial applications of Newton mission, including booh, videos, and
educational  material.  Teamed  with   Francesca  Sabatini  as   other
principal, cosmonauts  Heilmann  and Tabori  as  consultants.  Signing
bonus of two million marks deposited in secret account in Italy.
    Her alarm awakened  her after  she had  been asleep  for only  two
hours. Nicole  dragged herself  out of  bed and  freshened up  in  the
retractable wash-basin. She moved slowly into the corridor and  turned
toward the lobby.  The other  four space cadets  were gathered  around
David Brown in the control center, excitedly reviewing the details  of
the initial sortie.
    "All right," Richard Wakefield  was saying, "first priorities  are
the lightweight individual chairlifts by the right and left  stairways
and one heavy load elevator from the hub to the Central Plain. Then we
set up  a  temporary control  center  at the  edge  of the  plain  and
assemble and test the three rovers. Crude campsite tonight, base  camp
at the Beta  site near the  edge of the  Cylindrical Sea tomorrow.  We
will leave  the assembly  and deployment  of the  two helicopters  for
tomorrow, the icemobiles and motorboats for Day Three."
    "That's an excellent summary," Dr. Brown replied. "Francesca  will
go with the  four of you  while you're setting  up the  infrastructure
this  morning.   When  the   lightweight  lifts   are  installed   and
operational, Admiral  Heilmann and  I  will join  you along  with  Dr.
Takagishi and Mr. Wilson. We'll all sleep inside Rama tonight."
    "How many long-duration  flares do you  have?" Janos Tabori  asked
Irina Turgenyev.
    "Twelve," she answered. "That should be plenty for today."
    "And tonight, when we go to sleep in there, it will be the darkest
night that any of us have ever seen," Dr, Takagishi said. "There  will
be no moon  and no stars,  no reflection off  the ground, nothing  but
blackness all around."
    "What will the temperature be?" Wakefield asked.
    "We don't know for certain," the Japanese scientist answered. "The
initial drones carried only cameras. But the temperature in the region
around the end of the tunnel was the same as in Rama I. If thaf s  any
indication, then it should be about ten degrees below freezing at  the
campsites." Takagishi paused  for a moment.  "And getting warmer/'  he
continued. "We're now inside the orbit of Venus. We expect the  lights
to come on in another eight or  nine days, and the Cylindrical Sea  to
melt from the bottom soon thereafter."
    "Hey," kidded Brown. "It sounds  as if you're becoming  converted.
You  no  longer  qualifyall  your  statements,  just  some  of  them."
Takagishi replied, "With each datum  that indicates this spaceship  is
like its predecessor seventy years ago, the probability that they  are
identical increases. Thus far,  if we ignore the  exact timing of  the
correction maneuver, everything  about the two  vehicles has been  the
same."
    Nicole approached the  group. "Well look  who's here," Janos  said
with his usual grin. "Our fifth and final space cadet." He noticed her
swollen eyes. "And our new commander was right. You do look as if  you
might benefit from some rest."
    "I, for one," Richard Wakefield interjected, "am disappointed that
my rover assembly assistant will now be Yamanaka instead of Madame des
Jardins. At least our life science officer talks. I may have to recite
Shakespeare to myself to stay awake." He elbowed Yamanaka in the ribs.
The Japanese pilot almost smiled.
    "1 wanted to wish  you all good luck,"  Nicole said. "As I'm  sure
Dr. Brown  has told  you, I  felt I  was still  too tired  to be  very
helpful. I should be fresh and ready by the second sortie."
    "Well," Francesca Sabatini remarked  impatiently after her  camera
had panned around  the room and  captured one final  close-up of  each
face. "Are we finally ready?"
    "Let's go," said Wakefield. They headed toward the airlock at  the
front of the Newton spacecraft.
    22DAWN
    Richard Wakefield  worked quickly  in the  near darkness.  He  was
halfway down  the  Alpha  stairway,  where  the  gravity  due  to  the
centrifugal force created by the spin of Rama had grown to  one-fourth
of a gee. The light from  his headgear illuminated the near field.  He
was almost finished with another pylon.
    He checked his air supply. It  was already below the midpoint.  By
now they  have been  deeper  into Rama,  closer  to where  they  could
breathe the ambient air. But they had underestimated how long it would
take them  to  install  the lightweight  chairlift,  The  concept  was
extremely simple  and  they had  practiced  it several  times  in  the
simulations. The upper  part of  the job, when  they had  been in  the
vicinity of the ladders and virtually wieghtless, had been  relatively
straightforward. But at this level the installation of each pylon  was
a different process because of the increasing and changing gravity.
    Exactly a thousand  steps above Wakefield,  Janos Tabori  finished
wrapping anchor  lines  around  the metal  banisters  that  lined  the
stairway. After almost four hours of tedious, repetitive work, he  was
becoming fatigued. He remembered the argument the engineering director
had advanced when he and Richard had recommended a specialized machine
for the installation of the lifts. "It's not cost-effective to  create
a robot for  nonrecurring uses," the  man had said.  "Robots are  only
good for recurring tasks."
    Janos glanced  below him  but could  not see  as far  as the  next
pylon, two hundred and fifty steps down the stairway. "Is it time  for
lunch yet?" he said to Wakefield on his commpak.
    "Could be," was  the response.  "But we're way  behind. We  didn't
send Yamanaka and Turgenyev over  to Gamma stairway until  ten-thirty.
At the rate we're  going, we'll be lucky  to finish these  lightweight
lifts and the crude campsite today.  We'll have to postpone the  heavy
load elevator and the rovers until tomorrow."
    "Hiro and 1  are already  eating," they both  heard Turgenyev  say
from the other  side of  the bowl. "We  were hungry.  We finished  the
chair rack and the upper  motor in half an  hour. We're down to  pylon
number twelve."
    "Good work," Wakefield said. "But I'll warn you that you're in the
easy part, around  the ladders and  the top of  the stairway.  Working
weightless is a snap. Wait  until the gravity is measurably  different
at each location."
    "According to  the  laser  range finder,  Cosmonaut  Wakefield  is
exactly eight-point-one-three kilometers away from me," everyone heard
Dr. Takagi-shi interject.
    "That doesn't tell me anything, Professor, unless 1 know where the
hell you are."
    "I'm standing on the  ledge just outside  our relay station,  near
the bottom of the Alpha stairway."
    "Come on, Shig, won't you Orientals ever go along with the rest of
the world? The  Newton is  parked on  thetop of  Rama and  you are  at
thetop of the stairway. If we can't  agree on up and down, how can  we
ever hope to communicate our innermost feelings? Much less play  chess
together."
    "Thank you, Janos. I  am at thetop of  the Alpha stairway. By  the
way, what are you doing? Your range is increasing rapidly."
    "I'm sliding down the banister to meet Richard for lunch. I  don't
like eating fish and chips by myself."
    "I'm also coming down for lunch," Francesca said. "I just finished
filming an excellent  demonstration of the  Coriolis force using  Hiro
and Irina. It will be great  for elementary physics classes. I  should
be there in five minutes."
    "Say, signora"-it was Wakefield again-"do you think we could  talk
you into some  honest-to-goodness work?  We stop what  we're doing  to
accommodate your filming-maybe we can make a trade with you."
    "I'm willing,"  answered Francesca.  "I'll help  after lunch.  But
what I would like now is some light. Could you use one of your  flares
and let me capture you  and Janos having a  picnic on the Stairway  of
the Gods?"
    Wakefield programmed a  flare for a  delayed ignition and  climbed
eighty steps to  the nearest  ledge. Cosmonaut Tabori  arrived at  the
same spot  half a  minute  before the  light  flooded them.  From  two
kilometers above, Francesca panned across the three stairways and then
zoomed in on the two figures  sitting cross-legged on the ledge.  From
that perspective, Janos and Richard looked like two eagles nesting  in
a high mountain aerie.
    By late afternoon the Alpha  chairlift was finished and ready  for
testing. "We'll let you be the first customer," Richard Wakefield said
to Francesca, "since you were good enough to help." They were standing
in full  gravity  at  the  foot of  the  incredible  stairway.  Thirty
thousand steps stretched into the  darkness of the artificial  heavens
above them. Beside them on the Central Plain the ultralight motor  and
the self-contained  portable  power  station for  the  chairlift  were
already in operation.  The cosmonauts had  transported the  electrical
and mechanical subsystems  in unassembled  pieces on  their backs  and
assembly had required less than an hour.
    "The little chairs are not  permanently connected to the  cables,"
Wake-field explained to Francesca. "At  each end there is a  mechanism
that attaches or detaches the chairs.  That way it's not necessary  to
have an almost infinite number of seats."
    Francesca hesitantly sat  down in the  plastic structure that  had
been pulled away from a group  of similar baskets hanging from a  side
cable. "You're  certain  this  is  safe?" she  said,  staring  at  the
darkness above her.
    "Of course," Richard  said with  a laugh. "It's  exactly like  the
simulation. And I'll be in the next chair behind you, only one  minute
or four hundred meters below. Altogether the ride takes forty  minutes
from bottom to top. Average speed is twenty-four kilometers per hour."
    "And I  don't  do  anything," Francesca  remembered,  "except  sit
tight, hold on, and activate my breathing system about twenty  minutes
from the summit."
    "Don't forget to  fasten your seat  belt," Wakefield reminded  her
with a smile. "If the  cable were to slow down  or stop near the  top,
where you are weightless,  your momentum could cause  you to sail  out
into the Raman void." He grinned. "But since the entire chairlift runs
beside the stairway, in the event  of any emergency, you could  always
climb out  of your  basket  and walk  back up  to  the hub  along  the
stairs."
    Richard nodded and Janos Tabori  switched on the motor.  Francesca
was lifted off the  ground and soon disappeared  above them. "I'll  go
right over to  Gamma after I'm  certain you're on  your way,"  Richard
said to Fanos.  "The second system  should be easier.  With all of  us
working together, we  should be  finished by nineteen  hundred at  the
latest."
    "I'll have the campsite ready by  the time you reach the  summit,"
Janos remarked, "Do  you think  we're still  going to  stay down  here
tonight?"
    "That doesn't make much sense," David Brown said from above. He or
Takagishi had monitored  all cosmonaut  communications throughout  the
day. "The rovers aren't ready yet.  We had hoped to do some  exploring
tomorrow."
    "If we  each  bring down  a  few subsystems,"  Wakefield  replied,
"Janos and I could assemble one  rover tonight before we go to  sleep.
The second rover will probably be operational before noon tomorrow  if
we don't encounter any difficulties."
    "That's a possible scenario," Dr. Brown responded. "Let's see  how
much progress we have made and how tired everyone is three hours  from
now." Richard climbed into his tiny chair and waited for the automatic
loading algorithm in the  processor to attach his  seat to the  cable.
"By the  way," he  said to  his companion  as he  started his  ascent,
"thanks a lot  for your good  humor today.  I might not  have made  it
without the jokes."
    Janos smiled  and waved  at his  friend. Looking  upward from  his
moving chair, Richard Wakefield could  barely make out the light  from
Francesca's headgear.She's more  than a  hundred floors  above me,  he
thought.But only two and a half  percent of the distance from here  to
the hub. This place is immense.
    He  reached   in  his   pocket  and   pulled  out   the   portable
meteorological station  that Takagishi  had asked  him to  carry.  The
professor wanted a careful profile  of all the atmospheric  parameters
in the north  polar bowl  of Rama.  Of particular  importance for  his
circulation models was the density  and temperature of the air  versus
the distance below the airlock.
    Wakefield watched  the pressure  readings, which  started at  1.05
bars, fall below  Earth levels, and  continue their steady,  monotonic
decline. The  temperature held  fixed at  a cold  minus eight  degrees
Celsius. He leaned back and closed his eyes. It was a strange feeling,
riding a basket upward, ever upward  in the dark. Richard turned  down
the  volume  of  one  channel   on  his  commpak;  the  only   ongoing
conversation was between  Yamanaka and Turgenyev  and neither of  them
ever had very  much to  say. He  increased the  volume on  Beethoven's
Sixth Symphony,  which  was  playing  in  the  background  on  another
channel.
    As he listened  to the  music, Richard  was surprised  at how  his
internal visions  of brooks  and  flowers and  green fields  on  Earth
evoked a powerful  feeling of homesickness.  It was almost  impossible
for him  to fathom  the miraculous  concatenation of  events that  had
carried him from  his boyhood home  in Stratford to  Cambridge to  the
Space Academy in Colorado and finally  to here, to Rama, where he  was
riding a chairlift in the dark along the Stairway to the Gods.
    No, Prospero,he  said  to  himself,no  magician  could  ever  have
conceived of such  a place.  He remembered seeingThe  Tempest for  the
first time as a boy and being  frightened by the portrayal of a  world
whose mysteries might be beyond  our comprehension.There is no  magic,
he had said at the time.There are only natural concepts that we cannot
yet explain. Richard  smiled.Prospero was not  a mage; he  was only  a
frustrated scientist
    A moment later Richard Wakefield was stupefied by the most amazing
sight he had ever seen. As  his chair was sailing soundlessly  upward,
parallel to the stairway, dawn burst upon Rama. Three kilometers below
him, cut into the  Central Plain, the long  straight valleys that  ran
from the edge  of the bowl  to the Cylindrical  Sea suddenly  exploded
with light. The six linear suns  of Rama, three in each  hemicylinder,
were carefully designed to produce a balanced illumination  throughout
the alien  world.  Wakefield's  first feelings  were  of  vertigo  and
nausea. He was suspended in air  by a thin cable, thousands of  meters
above the  ground.  He closed  his  eyes  and tried  to  maintain  his
bearings.You will not fall, he said to himself.
    "Aieee,"he heard Hiro Yamanaka yell.
    From the ensuing conversation he could tell that Hiro, startled by
the burst of light, had lost his footing near the middle of the  Gamma
stairway. He had apparently fallen  twenty or thirty meters before  he
had adroitly (and luckily) managed to grab part of the banister.
    "Are you all right?" David Brown asked.
    "I think so," Yamanaka answered breathlessly.
    With the  short crisis  over, everyone  started talking  at  once.
"This is fantastic!" Dr. Takagishi was shouting. "The light levels are
phenomenal. And this is  all happeningbefore the  thawing of the  sea.
It's different. It's altogether different."
    "Have another module  ready for me  as soon as  I reach the  top,"
Francesca said. "I'm almost out of film."
    "Such beauty. Such indescribable  beauty/' General O’Toole  added.
He and  Nicole  des Jardins  were  watching the  monitor  onboard  the
Newton. The  real-time  picture  from  Francesca's  camera  was  being
transmitted to them through the relay station at the hub.
    Richard Wakefield said nothing. He simply stared, entranced by the
world below him. He could  barely discern Janos Tabori, the  chairlift
apparatus, and the half-completed campsite  down at the bottom of  the
stairway. Nevertheless, the distance to them gave him some measure  of
this alien  world. As  he looked  out across  the hundreds  of  square
kilometers of the Central  Plain, he saw  fascinating shapes in  every
direction. There  were two  features,  however, that  overwhelmed  his
imagination and vision: the Cylindrical  Sea and the massive,  pointed
structures in the southern bowl opposite him, fifty kilometers away.
    As his  eyes  grew more  accustomed  to the  light,  the  gigantic
central spire in the southern bowl  seemed to grow larger and  larger,
It had been called  Big Horn by the  first explorers.Can it really  be
eight kilometers  tall?  Wakefield  asked  himself.  The  six  smaller
spires, surrounding the Big Horn in a hexagonal pattern and  connected
both to it and the walls  of Rama by enormous flying buttresses,  were
each larger than anything made by man on Earth. Yet they were  dwarfed
by this neighboring prominence originating from the very center of the
bowl and growing straight along the spin axis of the cylinder. In  the
foreground, halfway between Wakefield's  position near the north  pole
and that mammoth  construction in the  south, a band  of bluish  white
ringed the cylindrical world. The frozen sea seemed illogical and  out
of place. It  could never melt,  the mind  wanted to say,  or all  the
water would fall toward the central axis. But the Cylindrical Sea  was
held in its banks by the  centrifugal force of Rama. None knew  better
than the Newton crew that  on its shore a  human being would have  the
same weight as he would standing beside a terrestrial ocean.
    The island city in  the middle of the  Cylindrical Sea was  Rama's
New York. To Richard its skyscrapers had not been too imposing in  the
views that had been  offered by the light  from the flares. But  under
the light of the Raman suns, it  was clear that this city held  center
stage. The eyes were drawn to New York from any point inside  Rama-the
dense oval  island of  buildings was  the only  break in  the  orderly
annulus that formed the Cylindrical Sea.
    "Just look at New York!" Dr. Takagishi was gushing excitedly  into
his commpak.  "There must  be  almost a  thousand buildings  over  two
hundred meters tall." He paused only a second. "That's wherethey live.
I know it. New York must be our target."
    After the initial outbursts there  was a protracted silence  while
each of the cosmonauts privately  integrated the sunlit world of  Rama
into his own consciousness. Richard  could now clearly see  Francesca,
four hundred meters  above him,  as his chair  crossed the  transition
between the stairways and the ladders and closed in on the hub.
    "Admiral Heilmann and I have just had a quick conversation," David
Brown  said,  breaking  the  silence,  "with  some  advice  from   Dr.
Takagishi. There seems to be no obvious reason to change our plans for
this sortie,  at  least not  the  early part.  Unless  something  else
unexpected occurs, we will go forward with Wakefield's suggestion.  We
will finish  the two  chairlifts, carry  the rover  down for  assembly
later this evening, and all sleep in  the campsite at the foot of  the
stairway as planned."
    "Don't forget me," Janos hollered into his commpak. "I'm the  only
one who doesn't have much of a view!"
    Richard Wakefield unfastened  his seat belt  and stepped out  onto
the ledge. He looked down to where the stairway disappeared from view.
"Roger, Cosmonaut  Tabori.  We have  arrived  back at  Station  Alpha.
Whenever you give the signal, we will hoist you up to join us."
    23NIGHTFALL
    Considering the regular abuse that  he received from his  neurotic
rather and  the emotional  scars that  must remain  from his  youthful
marriage to  British actress  Sarah  Tydings, Cosmonaut  Wakefield  is
remarkably well  adjusted.  He  underwent two  years  of  professional
therapy after  his celebrated  divorce, concluding  a year  before  he
entered the  Space  Academy in  2192.  His scholastic  record  at  the
academy is still unequaled to  this day; his professors in  electrical
engineering and computer sciences all insist  that by the time of  his
graduation, Wakefield knew more than any member of the faculty. . . .
    ".  ,  .  Except  for  a  wariness  where  intimacy  is  concerned
(particularly with women-he has apparently had no sustained  emotional
involvements since the  breakup of his  marriage), Wakefield  exhibits
none of  the antisocial  behavior usually  found in  abused  children.
Although his SC was low as a  youth, he has grown less arrogant as  he
has matured  and is  now  less likely  to  force his  brilliance  upon
others. His  honesty and  character are  unassailable. Knowledge,  not
power or money, seems to be his goal. . . ."
    Nicole finished reading the  Psychological Assessment for  Richard
Wake-field and  rubbed  her eyes.  It  was  very late.  She  had  been
studying the dossiers ever since the crew inside Rama had settled down
to sleep. They would be awakening for their second day in that strange
world in less  than two  hours. Her six-hour  shift as  communications
officer would start in  another thirty minutes.So  out of this  entire
bunch, Nicole  was  thinking,there  are only  three  that  are  beyond
question. Those four  with their illegal  media contract have  already
compromised themselves. Yamanaka and Turgenyev are unknowns. Wilson is
marginally stable and has his own agenda anyway. That leaves  O’Toole,
Takagishi, and Wakefield.
    Nicole washed  her  face and  hands  and  sat down  again  at  the
terminal. She exited from  the Wakefield dossier  and returned to  the
main menu of  the data  cube. She scanned  the comparative  statistics
available and keyed a pair of displays  to appear side by side on  the
screen. On the  left-hand side was  the ordered set  of IE scores  for
each  member  of  the  crew;  opposite,  for  comparison,  Nicole  had
displayed the SC indices for the Newton dozen.
    IE
    SC
    Wakefield
    + 5.58
    O'Toole
    86
    Sabatini
    +4.22
    Borzov
    84
    Brown
    +4.17
    Takagishi
    82
    Takagishi
    +4.02
    Wilson
    78
    Tabori
    +3.37
    des Jardins
    71
    Borzov
    + 3.28
    Heilmann
    68
    Des Jardins
    + 3.04
    Tabori
    64
    O’Toole
    +2.92
    Yamanaka
    62
    Turgenyev
    + 2.87
    Turgenyev
    60
    Yamanaka
    + 2.66
    Wakefield
    58
    Wilson
    +2.48
    Sabatini
    56
    Heilmann
    +2.24
    Brown
    49
    Although Nicole  had  very quickly  glanced  through most  of  the
information in the dossiers earlier, she  had not read all the  charts
on all the crew members. Some of the indices she now saw for the first
time. She was  particularly surprised  by the  very high  intelligence
rating  for   Francesca   Sabatini.What  a   waste,   Nicole   thought
immediately.All that potential being used for such ordinary pursuits.
    The overall intelligence level of  the crew was quite  impressive.
Every cosmonaut was in the top  one percent of the population.  Nicole
was "one in a thousand" and she  was only in the middle of the  dozen.
Wakefield's intelligence rating was  truly exceptional and placed  him
in the supergenius category; Nicole had never before personally  known
someone with such high scores on the standardized tests.
    Although her training  in psychiatry  had taught  her to  distrust
attempts to quantify personality traits,  Nicole was intrigued by  the
SC indices as well. She herself would have intuitively placed O’Toole,
Borzov, and Takagishi  at the top  of the list.  All three men  seemed
confident, balanced, and sensitive to  others. But she was  astonished
by Wilson's  high  socialization  coefficient.He  must  have  been  an
altogether different person before he became involved with  Francesca.
Nicole wondered for a brief moment why her own SC index was no  higher
than a seventy-one; then she remembered that as a young woman she  had
been more withdrawn and self-centered.
    5owhat about Wakefield? she asked  herself, realizing that he  was
the only viable  candidate to  help her understand  what had  happened
inside the RoSur software during  Borzov's operation. Could she  trust
him? And could she enlist Richard's help without revealing some of her
farfetched  suspicions?   Again   the  thought   of   abandoning   her
investigation altogether  seemed very  appealing.Nicole, she  said  to
herself,if this conspiracy idea  of yours turns out  to be a waste  of
time . . .
    But  Nicole  was  convinced  that  there  were  enough  unanswered
questions to  warrant continuing  her investigation.  She resolved  to
talk to Wakefield. After determining that she could add her own  files
to the king's data  cube, she created a  new file, a nineteenth  file,
simply callednicole. She called in her word processing subroutine  and
wrote a brief memorandum:
    3-3-00-Have determined for certain  that RoSur malfunction  during
Borzov procedure due to external manual command after initial load and
verification. Enlisting Wakefield for support.
    Nicole pulled a blank data cube from the supply drawer adjacent to
her computer.  She copied  onto it  both her  memorandum and  all  the
information stored on the cube that she had been given by King  Henry.
When she dressed for her  work shift in her  flight suit, she put  the
duplicate cube in her pocket.
    General O’Toole  was  dozing  in  the  CCC  (Command  and  Control
Complex) of the military spacecraft when Nicole arrived to give him  a
break. Although the visual displays  in this smaller vehicle were  not
quite as breathtaking as those in  the scientific ship, the layout  of
the military "C-Cubed"  as a communications  center was far  superior,
especially from a human  engineering point of  view. All the  controls
could easily be handled by a single cosmonaut.
    O’Toole apologized for not  being awake. He  pointed to the  three
monitors that showed three different views of the same scene-the  rest
of the crew fast asleep inside the crude campsite at the foot of Alpha
stairway. "This  last five  hours has  not been  what you  would  call
exciting," he said.
    Nicole smiled. "General, you don't need to apologize to me. I know
you've been on duty for almost twenty-four hours."
    General  O’Toole  stood  up.  "After  you  left,"  he  summarized,
checking his electronic  log on one  of the six  monitors in front  of
him, "they finished dinner and then  they started the assembly of  the
first rover. The  automatic navigation program  failed its  self-test,
but  Wakefield  found  the  problem-a  software  bug  in  one  of  the
subroutines that  was changed  in  the last  delivery -and  fixed  it.
Tabori took the rover  for a test drive  before the crew prepared  for
sleep. At the end of the day Francesca did a stirring short piece  for
transmission to the Earth." He paused for a moment. "Would you like to
see it?"
    Nicole nodded. O’Toole activated the far right television  monitor
and Francesca appeared  in a close-up  outside the enclosed  campsite.
The frame  showed a  portion of  the bottom  of the  stairway and  the
equipment for the chairlift  as well. "It is  time to sleep in  Rama,"
she intoned. She looked up and around her. "The lights in this amazing
world came on unexpectedly  about nine hours ago,  showing us in  more
detail the elaborate handiwork of our intelligent cousins from  across
the stars."  A montage  of still  photographs and  short videos,  some
taken by the drones and some  taken by Francesca herself on that  day,
punctuated her tour  of the  artificial "worldlet" that  the crew  was
"about to explore."  At the end  of the brief  segment the camera  was
again fixed on Francesca.
    "Nobody knows why this  second spacecraft in  less than a  century
has invaded our little domain at the edge of the galaxy. Perhaps  this
magnificent creation has  no explanation that  would be even  remotely
comprehensible to us human beings. But perhaps somewhere in this  vast
and precise world of metal we will find some keys that will unlock the
mysteries enshrouding the creatures who constructed this vehicle." She
smiled and  her nostrils  flared  dramatically. "And  if we  do,  then
perhaps we will  have moved  one step  closer to  an understanding  of
ourselves . . . and maybe our gods as well."
    Nicole could tell  that General O’Toole  was moved by  Francesca's
oratory.  Despite  her  personal  antipathy  for  the  woman,   Nicole
begrudgingly acknowledged  again  that Francesca  was  talented.  "She
captures my  feelings  about  this  venture  so  well,"  O’Toole  said
enthusiastically. "I just wish 1 could be that articulate."
    Nicole sat down at the console and entered the handover code.  She
followed the listed procedure on the  monitor and checked out all  the
equipment. "All right, General/' she said as she turned around in  her
chair, "I believe I can handle it from here."
    O’Toole lingered  behind her.  It was  obvious that  he wanted  to
talk. "1  had a  long discussion  with Signora  Sabatini three  nights
ago," he said.  "About religion. She  told me that  she had become  an
agnostic before finally coming  back to the church.  She told me  that
thinking about Rama had made her a Catholic again."
    There was a long silence.  For some reason, the fifteenth  century
church in the old village of  Sainte Etienne de Chigny, eight  hundred
meters down  the road  from  Beauvois, came  into Nicole's  mind.  She
remembered standing inside the church  with her father on a  beautiful
spring day and being  fascinated by the  light scattering through  the
stained glass windows. "Did God make the colors?" Nicole had asked her
father. "Some say so," he had  answered laconically. "And what do  you
think, Daddy?" she had then asked. "I must admit," General O’Toole was
saying as Nicole forced herself to  return to the present, "that  this
entire voyage has been spiritually uplifting for me. I feel closer  to
God now  than  I  have  ever  felt  before.  There's  something  about
contemplating the vastness of the universe that humbles you and  makes
you-" He stopped himself. "I'm sorry," he said, "I have imposed-"
    "No," Nicole answered.  "No, you  haven't. I  find your  religious
certitude very refreshing."
    "Nevertheless, I hope I haven't offended you in any way.  Religion
is a very private matter." He smiled. "But sometimes it's hard not  to
share your feelings, particularly since both you and Signora  Sabatini
are Catholics as well."
    As O’Toole left  the control  complex, Nicole wished  him a  sound
sleep during his nap. When he had gone, she removed the duplicate data
cube horn her  pocket and placed  it in the  CCC cube reader.At  least
this way, she said to herself,/have backed up my information  sources.
Into her mind came a picture of Francesca Sabatini listening  intently
while  General  O'Toole  waxed   philosophical  about  the   religious
significance of Rama.You're  an amazing woman,  Nicole thought.You  do
whatever it takes. Even immorality and hypocrisy are acceptable.
    Dr. Shigeru Takagishi  stared in  rapt silence at  the towers  and
spheres of New York four kilometers  away. From time to time he  would
walk over to the telescope that he had temporarily set up on the cliff
overlooking the Cylindrical Sea and study a particular feature in that
alien landscape.
    "You  know,"  he  said  at  length  to  Cosmonauts  Wakefield  and
Sabatini, "I don't believe the reports the first crew gave on New York
are entirely accurate. Or else this is a different spaceship." Neither
Richard nor Francesca responded. Wakefield  was engrossed in the  last
stages of assembly of the icemobile and Francesca, as usual, was  busy
video recording Wakefield's efforts.
    "It looks as if there are  certainly three identical parts to  the
city," Dr.  Takagishi  continued,  primarily to  himself,  "and  three
subdivisions within each  of those  parts. But all  nine sections  are
notabsolutely the same. There appear to be subtle differences."
    "There," said  Richard Wakefield,  standing  up with  a  satisfied
smile. "That ought to do it. A  full day ahead of schedule. I'll  just
quickly test all the important engineering functions."
    Francesca glanced at her watch. "We're almost half an hour  behind
the revised timeline. Are we  still going to take  a fast look at  New
York before dinner?"
    Wakefield  shrugged  his  shoulders   and  looked  at   Takagishi.
Francesca walked over  to the  Japanese scientist. "What  do you  say,
Shigeru? Shall we take a quick run across the ice and give the  people
on Earth a close-up view of the Rama version of New York?"
    "By all means/' Takagishi answered. "I can't wait-"
    "Only if  you will  be back  at  camp by  nineteen thirty  at  the
latest," David  Brown  interrupted.  He was  in  the  helicopter  with
Admiral Heilmann  and  Reggie Wilson.  "We  need to  do  some  serious
planning tonight We may want to revise the deployments for tomorrow."
    "Roger," said Wakefield. "If we forget about the pulley system for
now and have  no problem carrying  the icemobile down  the stairs,  we
should be able to cross  the sea in ten  minutes each way. That  would
get us back to camp in plenty of time."
    "We've overflown many of the features of the Northern Hemicylinder
this afternoon," Brown said. "No biots anywhere. The cities look  like
duplicates of  each other.  There were  no surprises  anywhere in  the
Central Plain.  I personally  think that  maybe we  should attack  the
mysterious south tomorrow."
    "New York," Takagishi shouted.  "A detailed reconnaissance of  New
York should be our goal for tomorrow." Brown didn't answer.  Takagishi
walked out to the edge of the  cliff and stared down at the ice  fifty
meters below. To his  left the unimposing narrow  stairway cut in  the
cliff  descended  in  short  steps.  "How  heavy  is  the  icemobile?"
Takagishi asked.
    "Not very," Wakefield answered. "But  it's bulky. Are you  certain
you don't want to wait for me to install the pulleys? We can always go
across tomorrow."
    "I can  help carry  it," Francesca  interjected. "If  we don't  at
least see New York, we will not be able to make educated inputs at the
planning meeting tonight."
    "All right," Richard  replied, shaking  his head  in amusement  at
Francesca. "Anything for journalism.  I'll go first,  so that most  of
the lifting is on my back. Francesca, get in the middle. Dr. Takagishi
at the top. Watch out for the runners. They are sharp on the edges."
    The  climb  down  to  the  surface  of  the  Cylindrical  Sea  was
uneventful. "Goodness," Francesca  Sabatini said as  they prepared  to
cross the ice, "that was easy. Why is a pulley system needed at all?"
    "Because sometimes we  may be carrying  something else or,  perish
the thought,  we  may  need  to  defend  ourselves  during  ascent  or
descent."
    Wakefield and  Takagishi  sat  in  the  front  of  the  icemobile.
Francesca was in the back with her video camera. Takagishi became more
and more animated as they drew closer to New York. "Just look at  that
place," he said when the icemobile was about five hundred meters  from
the opposite shore. "Can there be  any doubt that this is the  capital
of Rama?"
    As the trio approached  the shore, the  breathtaking sight of  the
strange city silenced  all conversation. Everything  about New  York's
complicated structure  spoke  of  order  and  purposeful  creation  by
intelligent beings; yet  the first  set of  cosmonauts, seventy  years
earlier, had found it as empty of  life as the rest of Rama. Was  this
vast  complex,  broken  into  nine  sections,  indeed  an   enormously
complicated machine, as the first  visitors had suggested, or was  the
long thin  island (ten  kilometers  by three)  actually a  city  whose
denizens had long ago disappeared?
    They parked the icemobile on the edge of the frozen sea and walked
along a path until  they found a stairway  leading to the ramparts  of
the wall surrounding the city. The excited Takagishi loped along about
twenty meters in front  of Wakefield and  Sabatini. As they  ascended,
more and more of the details of the city became apparent.
    Richard was immediately intrigued by the geometrical shapes of the
buildings. In addition  to the  normal tall,  thin skyscrapers,  there
were  scattered  spheres,  rectangular  solids,  even  an   occasional
polyhedron. And  they  were definitely  arranged  in some  kind  of  a
pattern.Yes, he thought to himself as his eyes scanned the fascinating
complex  of  structures,aver   there  is  a   dodecahedron,  there   a
pentahedron . . .
    His mathematical ruminations were interrupted when all the  lights
were suddenly extinguished and the entire interior of Rama was plunged
into darkness.
    24SOUNDS IN THE DARKNESS
    At first Takagishi could see absolutely  nothing. It was as if  he
had suddenly been struck blind. He blinked twice and stood  motionless
in the total darkness. The momentary silence on the commlinks  erupted
into hopeless noise as  all the cosmonauts began  to talk at the  same
time. Calmly, fighting  against his growing  fear, Takagishi tried  to
remember the scene that had  been in front of  his eyes at the  moment
the lights  were  extinguished.  He  had been  standing  on  the  wall
overlooking New York, about  a meter from the  dangerous edge. In  the
final second he had been looking off to the left and had just glimpsed
a staircase descending into  the city about  two hundred meters  away.
Then the scene  had vanished. .  . . "Takagishi,"  he heard  Wakefield
calling, "are  you all  right?" He  turned around  to acknowledge  the
question and noticed that his knees  had become weak. In the  complete
darkness he had lost his orientation. How many degrees had he  turned?
Had he  been facing  the city  directly? Again  he recalled  the  last
image. The elevated wall was twenty  or thirty meters above the  floor
of the city. A fall would be fatal.
    "I'm here," he said tentatively, "But I'm too close to the  edge."
He dropped down on all fours. The metal was cold against his hands.
    "We're coming," Francesca said. "I'm  trying to find the light  on
my video camera."
    Takagishi turned down the volume  on his commpak and listened  for
the sound of his companions. A few seconds later he saw a light in the
distance. He could barely make out the forms of his two associates.
    "Where are  you, Shigeru?"  Francesca asked.  The light  from  her
camera illuminated only the area immediately around her.
    "Up here. Up here."  He waved before he  realized that they  could
not see him.
    "I  want   complete  quiet/'   David   Brown  shouted   over   the
communications  system,  "until  everyone   is  accounted  for."   The
conversations  ceased  after  a  few  seconds.  "Now,"  he  continued,
"Francesca, what's going on down there?"
    "We're climbing the stairway  up the wall, on  the New York  side,
David, about a hundred meters from where we parked the icemobile.  Dr.
Takagishi was ahead of us, already at the top. We have the light  from
my camera. We're going to meet him."
    "Janos," Dr. Brown said next, "where are you in rover number two?"
    "About three  kilometers from  camp.  The headlights  are  working
fine. We could return in ten minutes or so."
    "Go back there and man the navigation console. We'll stay airborne
until you verify that the homing system is operational from your side.
. . . Francesca;,  be careful, but  come back to camp  as fast as  you
can. And give us a report every two minutes or so."
    "Roger, David," she said. Francesca  switched off her commpak  and
called for Takagishi again. Despite the  fact that he was only  thirty
meters away, it took Francesca and  Richard over a minute to find  him
in the dark.
    Takagishi was  relieved to  touch his  colleagues. They  sat  down
beside him on  the wall  and listened to  the renewed  chatter on  the
commpak. O'Toole and des Jardins verified that there had been no other
observed changes inside Rama at the time the lights had gone out.  The
half dozen portable scientific stations that had already been deployed
in the  alien spaceship  had  exhibited no  meaningful  perturbations.
Temperatures, wind velocities  and directions,  seismic readings,  and
near field spectroscopic measurements were all unchanged-
    "So the lights  went out," Wakefield  said. "I admit  that it  was
scary, but it was no big deal. Probably-"
    "Shh,"said Takagishi abruptly. He reached down and turned off both
his and Walcefield's commpak. "Do you hear that noise?"
    To Wakefield the  sudden silence  was nearly as  unnerving as  the
total darkness  had been  a few  minutes before.  "No," he  said in  a
whisper, after listening  for several  seconds, "but my  ears are  not
very-"
    "S/z/z." Now it was Francesca's turn. "Are you talking about  that
distant, high-pitched scraping sound?" she whispered.
    'Yes," said Takagishi, quietly  but excitedly. "Like something  is
brushing against a metallic surface. It suggests movement."
    Wakefield listened again. Maybe he could hear something. Maybe  he
was imagining it. "Come on," he said to the others out loud, "let's go
back to the icemobile."
    "Wait," said Takagishi  as Richard  stood up. "It  seemed to  stop
just as you spoke." He leaned over to Francesca. "Turn off the light,"
he said softly. "Let's sit here in the darkness and see if we can hear
it again."
    Wakefield sat back  down beside  his companions.  With the  camera
light off it  was absolutely  black around  them. The  only sound  was
their breathing. They waited a  full minute. They heard nothing.  Just
as Wakefield was  about to insist  that they leave,  he heard a  sound
from the direction  of New  York. It  was like  hard brushes  dragging
across metal, but there was also an embedded high-frequency noise,  as
if a tiny  voice were singing  very fast, that  punctuated the  nearly
constant  scraping.  The  sound  was  definitely  louder.  And  eerie.
Wakefield felt his spine tingle.
    "Do you have a tape  recorder?" Takagishi whispered to  Francesca.
The scraping  stopped at  the  sound of  Takagishi's voice.  The  trio
waited another fifteen seconds.
    "Hey there, hey there," they heard David Brown's loud voice on the
emergency interrupt  channel.  "Is  everybody all  right?  You're  way
overdue for a report."
    "Yes, David," Francesca  replied. "We're still  here. We heard  an
unusual sound coming from New York.'
    "Now's not the time for dilly-dallying. We have a major crisis  on
our hands.  All  our  new  plans  have  assumed  that  Rama  would  be
constantly lit.
    We need to regroup."
    "All right," Wakefield responded. "We're leaving the wall now.  If
all goes well we should be back to the campsite in less than an hour."
    Dr. Shigeru Takagishi  was reluctant  to leave New  York with  the
mystery of the strange sound unresolved. But he understood  completely
that now was not the appropriate time for a scientific foray into  the
city. As the icemobile  raced across the  frozen Cylindrical Sea,  the
Japanese scientist smiled to  himself. He was happy.  He knew that  he
had heard a new sound, something  decidedly different from any of  the
sounds catalogued by the first Rama team. This was a good beginning.
    Cosmonauts Tabori and Wakefield were the  last two to ride up  the
chair-lift beside  the Alpha  stairway.  "Takagishi was  really  quite
irritated with Dr. Brown, wasn't he?"  Richard was saying to Janos  as
he helped the little Hungarian  disembark from the chair. They  glided
along the ramp toward the ferry.
    "I've never  seen  him  so  angry,"  Janos  replied.  "Shig  is  a
consummate professional and  he has  great pride in  his knowledge  of
Rama. For  Brown to  discount the  noise  you guys  heard in  such  an
offhand manner suggests an absence  of respect for Takagishi. I  don't
blame Shig for being irritated."
    They climbed onboard  the ferry and  activated the  transportation
module. The vast darkness of Rama retreated behind them as they  eased
through the lighted corridor toward the Newton.
    "It was a very  strange sound," Richard said.  "It really gave  me
the chills. I have no idea if it  was a new sound, or if maybe  Norton
and his team heard  the same thing  seventy years ago.  But I do  know
that I had a bad case of the willies while I was standing there on the
wall."
    "Francesca was even pissed off at Brown at first. She wanted to do
a feature interview with Shig for her nightly report. Brown talked her
out of  it, but  I'm  not certain  he  completely convinced  her  that
strange noises are not  news. Luckily she had  enough of a story  with
just the lights going out."
    The two men descended from the ferry and approached the air  lock.
"Whew," said Janos.  "I'm bushed.  It has been  a couple  of long  and
hectic days."
    "Yeah," Richard agreed. "We thought we would be spending the  next
two nights at the campsite. Instead we're back up here. I wonder  what
surprises are in store for us tomorrow."
    Janos smiled  at his  friend.  "You know  what's funny  about  all
this?" he said. He did not wait for Wakefield to answer. "Brown really
believes he's in charge  of this mission. Did  you see how he  reacted
when Takagishi suggested that we could  explore New York in the  dark?
Brown probably  thinks it  washis decision  for us  to return  to  the
Newton and abort the first sortie."
    Richard looked at  Janos with  a quizzical smile.  "It wasn't,  of
course," Janos continued. "Rama made the decision for us to leave. And
Rama will decide what we do next."
    25A FRIEND IN NEED
    In his dream  he was  lying on a  futon in  a seventeenth  century
ryokan. The room was very large, nine tatami mats in all. To his left,
in the  yard on  the other  side of  the open  screen, was  a  perfect
miniaturized garden with  tiny trees  and a manicured  stream. He  was
waiting for a young woman.
    "Takagishi-san, are you awake?"
    He stirred and reached out for the communicator. "Hello," he said,
his voice betraying his grogginess. "Who is it?"
    "Nicole des Jardins," the  voice said. "I'm sorry  to call you  so
early, but I need to see you. It's urgent."
    "Give me three minutes," Takagishi said,
    There was a knock on his door exactly three minutes later.  Nicole
greeted him and entered  the room. She was  carrying a data cube.  "Do
you mind?" she said, pointing to the computer console. Takagishi shook
his head.
    "Yesterday there  were half  a dozen  separate incidents,"  Nicole
said gravely, pointing at  some blips on  the monitor, "including  the
two largest aberrations  I have  ever seen  in your  heart data."  She
looked at him. "Are you certain  that you and your doctor provided  me
with complete historical records?"
    Takagishi nodded.
    "Then  I   have  reason   for   concern,"  she   continued.   "The
irregularities  yesterday   suggest   that  your   chronic   diastolic
abnormality has worsened.  Perhaps the  valve has sprung  a new  leak.
Perhaps the long periods of weightlessness-"
    "Or perhaps," Takagishi interrupted with  a soft smile, "I  became
overly excited and my extra adrenaline aggravated the problem."
    Nicole stared  at the  Japanese scientist.  "That's possible,  Dr.
Takagishi. One of the major  incidents occurred just after the  lights
went out.  I guess  it was  when you  were listening  to your  strange
sound."
    "And the other, by chance, could  it have been during my  argument
with Dr.  Brown  in  the  campsite?  If  so,  that  would  support  my
hypothesis."
    Cosmonaut des Jardins touched several keys on the console and  her
software entered a new subroutine.  She studied the data displayed  on
two sides of  a split screen.  "Yes," she said,  "it looks right.  The
second incident took  place twenty minutes  before we started  leaving
Rama. That would have been toward  the end of the meeting." She  moved
away from the monitor.  "But I can't dismiss  the bizarre behavior  of
your heart just because you were excited."
    They stared at each other for several long seconds. "What are  you
trying to tell me, Doctor?" Takagishi  said softly. "Are you going  to
confine me to my quarters on the Newton? Now, at the most  significant
moment in my professional career?"
    "I'm considering it,"  Nicole answered directly.  "Your health  is
more important to me than your career. I've already lost one member of
the crew.  I'm not  certain that  I  could forgive  myself if  I  lost
another."
    She saw the entreaty in her colleague's face. "I know how critical
these sorties into Rama are  to you. I'm trying  to find some kind  of
rationalization that  will allow  me  to overlook  yesterday's  data."
Nicole sat down at the far end of  the bed and looked away. "But as  a
doctor, not a Newton cosmonaut, it's very very tough."
    She heard  Takagishi approach  and  felt his  hand gently  on  her
shoulder. "1 know  how difficult it  has been for  you these last  few
days," he said. "But it was not  your fault. All of us are aware  that
General Borzov's death was unavoidable."
    Nicole recognized the respect and friendship in Takagishi's  gaze.
She thanked him with  her eyes, "I very  much appreciate what you  did
for me before launch," he continued.  "If you feel compelled to  limit
my activities now, I will not object."
    "Dammit," said Nicole, standing up quickly, "it's not that simple.
I've been studying  your overnight data  for almost an  hour. Look  at
this. Your chart for the last  ten hours is perfectly normal.  There's
not a trace of any  anomaly. And you had  had no incidents for  weeks.
Until yesterday. What is it with you,  Shig? Do you have a bad  heart?
Or just a weird one?"
    Takagishi smiled.  "My wife  told me  once that  I had  a  strange
heart.  But  I  think  she  was  referring  to  something   altogether
different."
    Nicole activated her scanner and displayed the data on the monitor
in real-time. "There we are  again"-she shook her head-"the  signature
of a perfectly healthy heart. No cardiologist in the world would argue
with my conclusion." She moved toward the door.
    "So what's the verdict, Doc?" Takagishi asked.
    "I haven't decided," she answered.  "You could help. Have  another
one of your incidents in the next few hours and make it easy for  me."
She waved good-bye. "See you at breakfast."
    Richard Wakefield was coming out of his room as Nicole headed down
the hall after leaving Takagishi.  She made a spontaneous decision  to
talk to him about the RoSur software.
    "Good morning, princess," he said as he approached. "What are  you
doing awake at this hour? Something exciting, I hope."
    "As a matter of fact," Nicole replied in the same playful tone, "I
was coming to  talk to  you." He  stopped to  listen. "Do  you have  a
minute?"
    "For you, Madame Doctor," he  answered with an exaggerated  smile,
"I havetwo minutes. But no more. Mind you, I'm hungry. And if I am not
fed quickly  when I'm  hungry,  I turn  into  an awful  ogre."  Nicole
laughed. "What's on your mind?" he added lightly.
    "Could we go into your room?" she asked.
    "I knew  it. I  knew it,"  he said,  spinning around  and  sliding
quickly toward  his door.  "It's  finally happened,  just like  in  my
dreams. An  intelligent,  beautiful  woman is  going  to  declare  her
undying affection-"
    Nicole could not suppress a chortle. "Wakefield," she interrupted,
still grinning, "you are hopeless. Are you never serious? I have  some
business to discuss with you."
    "Oh, darn," Richard said dramatically. "Business. In that case I'm
going to  limit  you to  the  two  minutes I  allocated  you  earlier.
Business also makes me hungry . . . and grumpy."
    Richard Wakefield  opened the  door  to his  room and  waited  for
Nicole to enter.  He offered her  the chair in  front of his  computer
monitor and sat down behind her on the bed. She turned around to  face
him. On the shelf above his bed were a dozen tiny figurines similar to
the ones  she had  seen before  in  Tabori's room  and at  the  Borzov
banquet.
    "Allow me to introduce you to some of my menagerie," Richard said,
noticing her curiosity. "You've met  Lord and Lady Macbeth, Puck,  and
Bottom. This matched pair is Tybalt and Mercutio fromRomeo and  Juliet
Next to them are Iago and  Othello, followed by Prince Hal,  Falstaff,
and the wonderful Mistress  Quickly. The last one  on the right is  my
closest friend, The Bard, or TB for short."
    As Nicole watched, Richard activated a switch near the head of his
bed and  TB climbed  down a  ladder from  the shelf  to the  bed.  The
twenty-centimeter-nigh robot carefully navigated the folds in the  bed
coverings and came over to greet Nicole.
    "And what be your name, fair lady?" TB said.
    "I am Nicole des Jardins," she replied.
    "Sounds French," the robot said  immediately. "But you don't  look
French. At least not Valois." The robot appeared to be staring at her.
"You look more like a child of Othello and Desdemona."
    Nicole was astonished. "How did you do that?" she asked.
    "I'll explain later," Richard  said with a wave  of his hand.  "Do
you have a favorite  Shakespearean sonnet?" he  now inquired. "If  you
do, recite a line, or give TB a number."
    "Full many a glorious morning . . ." recalled Nicole.
    ". . . have I seen," the robot added,
    "Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye, Kissing with golden
face the meadows green. Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy . .
."
    The little  robot  recited the  sonnet  with fluid  head  and  arm
movements as well as a wide range of facial expressions. Again  Nicole
was impressed by  Richard Wakefield's creativity.  She remembered  the
key four lines of the sonnet from her university days and mumbled them
along with TB:
    "Even so  my sun  one early  morn did  shine, With  all-triumphant
splendor on my brow;  But, out alack,  he was but  one hour mine,  The
region cloud hath masked him from me now . . ."
    After the robot finished the final couplet, Nicole, who was  moved
by the almost forgotten words,  found herself applauding. "And he  can
do all the sonnets?" she asked.
    Richard nodded.  "Plus  many, many  of  the more  poetic  dramatic
speeches. But that's not his most outstanding capability.  Remembering
passages from Shakespeare only requires plenty of storage. TB is  also
a very intelligent robot. He can carry on a conversation better than-"
    Richard stopped himself  in midsentence. "I'm  sorry, Nicole.  I'm
monopolizing the time. You said you had some business to discuss."
    "But you've already used my two minutes," she said with a  twinkle
in her eye. "Are  you certain that  you won't die  of starvation if  I
take five more minutes of your time?"
    Nicole  quickly  summarized  her  investigation  into  the   RoSur
software  malfunction,  including  her   conclusion  that  the   fault
protection algorithms must have been disabled by manual commands.  She
indicated that she could go no further with her own analysis and  that
she would  like  some help  from  Richard.  She did  not  discuss  her
suspicions.
    "Should be a snap,"  he said with  a smile. "All I  have to do  is
find the place in memory where  the commands are buffered and  stored.
That could take  a little  time, given the  size of  the storage,  but
these memories  are  generally designed  with  logical  architectures.
However, I don't understand why you're doing all this detective  work.
Why don't  you simply  ask Janos  and  the others  if they  input  any
commands?"
    "That's the problem," Nicole  replied. "Nobody recalls  commanding
RoSur at any time after the final load and verify. When Janos hit  his
head during the maneuver,  I thought his fingers  were on the  control
box. He doesn't remember and I can't be certain."
    Richard's brow furrowed.  "It would  be very  unlikely that  Janos
just happened  to toggle  the fault  protection enable  switch with  a
random command. That  would mean  the overall design  was stupid."  He
thought for a  moment. "Oh well,"  he continued, "there's  no need  to
speculate. Now you've aroused my  curiosity. I'll look at the  problem
as soon as I have-"
    "Break  break.  Break   break."  Otto  Hermann's   voice  on   the
communicator  interrupted  their  conversation.  "Will  everyone  come
immediately to the science control center for a meeting. We have a new
development. The lights inside Rama just came on again."
    Richard opened the  door and  followed Nicole  into the  corridor.
"Thanks for your help," Nicole said. "I appreciate it very much."
    "Thank me after I  do something," Richard said  with a grin.  "I'm
notorious for promises. Now, what do  you think is the meaning of  all
these games with the lights?"
    26SECOND SORTIE
    David Brown had placed a single large sheet of paper on the  table
in the middle  of the control  center. Franceses had  divided it  into
partitions, representing hours, and was now busy writing down whatever
he told her, "The damn mission planning software is too inflexible  to
be useful in  a situation like  this," Dr. Brown  was saying to  Janos
Tabori and Richard  Wakefield. "It's  only good when  the sequence  of
activities being  planned  is consistent  with  one of  the  preflight
strategies."
    Janos walked over to  one of the monitors.  "Maybe you can use  it
better than I  can," Dr. Brown  continued, "but I  have found it  much
easier this morning to  rely on pencil and  paper." Janos called up  a
software program for mission sequencing and began to key in some data.
    "Wait a  minute,"  Richard Wakefield  interjected.  Janos  stopped
typing on the keyboard and turned  to listen to his colleague.  "We're
getting all worked up over nothing.  We don't need to plan the  entire
next sortie  at this  moment. In  any case,  we know  the first  major
activity segment must  be the completion  of the infrastructure.  That
will take another ten or twelve  hours. The rest of the sortie  design
can be done in parallel."
    "Richard's right," Francesca added. "We're trying to do everything
too fast. Let's send the space cadets into Rama to finish setting  up.
While they're gone we can work out the details of the sortie."
    "That's impractical," Dr.  Brown replied.  "The academy  graduates
are the only ones  who know how long  each of the various  engineering
activities should  take. We  can't make  meaningful timelines  without
them."
    "Then one of us  will stay here with  you," Janos Tabori said.  He
grinned. "And  we can  use Heilmann  or O'Toole  inside, as  an  extra
worker. That shouldn't slow us down too much."
    A consensus decision  was reached  in half an  hour. Nicole  would
stay onboard the Newton again,  at least until the infrastructure  was
completed, and represent the cadets  in the mission planning  process,
Admiral Heilmann would go into  Rama with the four other  professional
cosmonauts. They  would  finish  the  remaining  three  infrastructure
tasks: the assembly  of the rest  of the vehicles,  the deployment  of
another  dozen   portable   monitoring  stations   in   the   Northern
Hemicylinder, and the construction of the Beta campsite/communications
complex on the north side of the Cylindrical Sea.
    Richard Wakefield was in the process of reviewing all the detailed
subtasks with  his  small  team  when  Reggie  Wilson,  who  had  been
virtually silent during  the entire morning,  suddenly jumped up  from
his chair. "This is  all bullshit/' he shouted.  "I can't believe  all
the nonsense I'm hearing."
    Richard stopped his review. Brown  and Takagishi, who had  already
started discussing the sortie design,  were suddenly silent- All  eyes
were focused on Reggie Wilson.
    "A man died here four days ago," he said. "Killed, most likely, by
whoever or whatever is operating that gigantic spacecraft. But we went
inside exploring anyway. Next the lights go on and off  unexpectedly."
Wilson looked around the room at the  rest of the crew. His eyes  were
wild. His forehead was sweating. "And what  do we all do? Huh? How  do
we respond to this warning from alien creatures far superior to us? We
sit down calmly and plan the rest of our exploration of their vehicle.
Don't any of you  get it? They  don't want us in  there. They want  us
toleave, to go home to Earth."
    Wilson's outburst  was greeted  by  an uncomfortable  silence.  At
length General O'Toole walked over beside Reggie Wilson. "Reggie,"  he
said quietly, "we were all upset  by General Borzov's death. But  none
of the rest of us see any connection-"
    "Then you're blind, man,  you're blind. I was  up in that  goddamn
helicopter when the  lights went out.  One minute it  was bright as  a
summer day and  the next,  poof, it was  pitch black.  It was  fucking
weird, man.  Somebody turned  outall the  lights. In  this  discussion
never once have I heard anybody askwhy the lights went out. What's the
matter with you people? Are you too smart to be afraid?"
    Wilson ranted for several minutes. His recurring theme was  always
the same. The Ramans had planned  Borzov's death, they were sending  a
warning with  the  lights  going  on and  off,  there  would  be  more
disasters if the crew insisted on continuing with the exploration.
    General O’Toole stood beside Reggie during the entire episode. Dr,
Brown, Francesca, and Nicole had a hurried discussion on the side  and
then  Nicole  approached  Wilson.   "Reggie,"  she  said   informally,
interrupting his diatribe,  "why don't  you and  General O’Toole  come
with me? We can continue  this conversation without delaying the  rest
of the crew."
    He looked at  her suspiciously.  "You, Doctor? Why  should I  come
with you? You weren't even in  there. You haven't seen enough to  know
anything." Wilson moved over in  front of Wakefield. "You were  there,
Richard," he  said.  "You  saw  that place,  You  know  what  kind  of
intelligence and power  it would  take to  make a  space vehicle  that
large and  then launch  it on  a  trip between  the stars.  Hey,  man,
we'renothing to them. We're less than ants. We haven't got a chance."
    "I agree with you, Reggie," Richard Wakefield said calmly after  a
moment's hesitation. "At least where our comparative capabilities  are
concerned. But we have no evidence they're hostile. Or even care about
whether or not we explore their craft. On the contrary, the very  fact
that we are alive-"
    "Look,"shouted Irina Turgenyev suddenly. "Look at the monitor."  A
solitary image was frozen on the giant screen in the control center. A
crablike creature filled the  entire frame. It had  a low, flat  body,
about twice as long as  it was wide. Its  weight was supported on  six
triple-jointed legs. Two  scissorlike claws extended  in front of  the
body and a whole row of manipulators, which looked uncannily like tiny
human hands at first glance, nestled close to some kind of opening  in
the carapace. On closer inspection  the manipulators were a  veritable
hardware store of capabilities-there were pincers, probes, rasps,  and
even something that resembled a drill.
    Its eyes, if that's indeed what they were, were deeply recessed in
protective hoods  and raised  like  periscopes above  the top  of  the
shell. The eyeballs themselves  were crystal or  jelly, vivid blue  in
color, and utterly expressionless. From the legend on the side of  the
image it was  clear that the  photograph had been  taken just  moments
before, by one of the long-range drones, at a
    spot roughly five  kilometers south  of the  Cylindrical Sea.  The
frame, filmed  with a  telescopic lens,  covered an  area roughly  six
meters square.
    "So we have company  in Rama," said Janos  Tabori. Therest of  the
cosmonauts stared at the monitor in amazement.
    All of the crew later  agreed that the image  of the crab biot  on
the giant screen  would not  have been so  frightening if  it had  not
occurred at  that  precise  moment.  Although  Reggie's  behavior  was
definitely aberrant, there was enough sense  in what he was saying  to
remind each of them  of the dangers in  their expedition. None of  the
crew was completely free from fear.  All of them had, in some  private
moment, confronted the disquieting fact that the super-advanced Ramans
might not be friendly.
    But most of the time they pushed aside their fears. It was part of
their job. Like  the early  space shuttle astronauts  in America,  who
knew that  every so  often the  vehicle would  crash or  explode,  the
Newton  cosmonauts  accepted  that  there  were  uncontrollable  risks
associated with  their mission.  Healthy denial  caused the  group  to
avoid discussion of  the unsettling  issues most  of the  time and  to
focus on the  more bounded  (and therefore  more controllable)  items,
such as the sequence of events for the following day.
    Reggie's outburst and the simultaneous appearance of the crab biot
on  the  monitor  triggered  one   of  the  few  philosophical   group
discussions that ever occurred on the project. O’Toole staked out  his
position early. Although he was fascinated  by the Ramans, he did  not
fear them. God had seen fit to place him on this mission and, if He so
chose,  could  decide  that  this  extraordinary  adventure  would  be
O’Toole's last. In any case, whatever happened would be God's will.
    Richard Wakefield articulated a point of view that was  apparently
shared by  several of  the  other crew  members.  To him,  the  entire
project was  both a  challenging voyage  of discovery  and a  test  of
personal mettle. The uncertainties  were there, to  be sure, but  they
produced excitement  as well  as  danger. The  intense thrill  of  new
learning, together with the  possible monumental significance of  this
extraterrestrial encounter,  more  than  compensated  for  the  risks.
Richard had no qualms about the mission. He was certain that this  was
the apotheosis of his life;  if he didn't live  beyond the end of  the
project, it  would  still have  been  worth  it, He  would  have  done
something important during his brief existence on Earth.
    Nicole listened attentively to the discussion. She didn't say much
herself, but she found her own opinions crystallizing as she  followed
the flow of the conversation. She enjoyed watching the responses, both
verbal and nonverbal, from the other cosmonauts. Shigeru Takagishi was
clearly in the Wake-field camp. He was vigorously nodding his head the
entire time Richard was talking about the excitement of  participating
in such a significant effort. Reggie Wilson, now subdued and  probably
embarrassed by his earlier tirade, did not say much. He commented only
when asked a  direct question. Admiral  Heilmann looked  uncomfortable
from the beginning to the end.  His entire contribution was to  remind
everyone of the passage of time.
    Surprisingly,  Dr.  David   Brown  did   not  add   much  to   the
philosophical discussion. He made several  short comments and once  or
twice seemed  on  the  verge  of launching  into  a  long,  amplifying
explanation. But he never  did. His true beliefs  about the nature  of
Rama were not revealed.
    Francesca Sabatini  initially  acted as  a  kind of  moderator  or
interlocuter,  asking  questions  of  clarification  and  keeping  the
conversation on  an  even keel.  Toward  the end  of  the  discussion,
however, she offered several personal, candid comments of her own. Her
philosophical view of the Newton mission was altogether different from
that expressed by O’Toole and Wakefield.
    "I think  you're making  this entire  thing much  too complex  and
intellectual/' she said after Richard  had delivered a long  panegyric
on the joys of  knowledge. "There was  no need for me  to do any  deep
soul-searching before 1 applied to be a Newton cosmonaut-1  approached
the issue  the  same  way  I  do all  my  major  decisions.  I  did  a
risk/reward trade-off. I judged  that the rewards-considering all  the
factors, including  fame, prestige,  money, even  adventure-more  than
warranted the risks.  And I  absolutely disagree with  Richard in  one
respect. If I die on this mission I will not be at all happy. For  me,
most of the rewards  from this project are  delayed; I cannot  benefit
from them if I do not return to Earth."
    Francesca's comments aroused Nicole's curiosity. She wanted to ask
the Italian journalist some more questions, but Nicole didn't think it
was the proper  time or  place. After the  meeting was  over, she  was
still intrigued by  what Francesca  had said.Can life  really be  that
simple to her? Nicole thought  to herself.Can everything be  evaluated
in terms  of risks  and rewards?  She remembered  Francesca's lack  of
emotion when she drank the  abortion liquid.But what about  principles
or values? Or even feelings? As  the meeting broke up Nicole  admitted
to herself that Francesca was still very much a puzzle.
    Nicole watched Dr.  Takagishi carefully. He  was handling  himself
much better today. "I have brought  a printout of the official  sortie
strategy, Dr. Brown," he was  saying, waving a four-inch-thick set  of
papers in his hand, "to remind us of the fundamental tenets of  sortie
design that resulted from over  a year of unhurried mission  planning.
May I read from the summary?"
    "I don't think you need to do that," David Brown responded. "We're
all familiar with-"
    "I'm not," interrupted General O’Toole. "I would like to hear  it.
Admiral Heilmann asked me to pay close attention and brief him on  the
issues."
    Dr. Brown waved for Takagishi to continue. The diminutive Japanese
scientist was borrowing a page from Brown's own portfolio. Even though
he knew that David Brown personally favored going after the crab biots
on the second sortie, Takagishi  still was attempting to convince  the
other cosmonauts that the top-priority activity should be a scientific
foray into the city of New York.
    Reggie Wilson had excused himself an hour earlier and had gone  to
his room for a nap. The remaining five crew members onboard the Newton
had spent most of the afternoon struggling, without success, to  reach
an agreement on the  activities for the second  sortie. Since the  two
scientists Brown  and Takagishi  had radically  different opinions  on
what should be done, no consensus was possible. Meanwhile, behind them
on the large monitor, there had  been intermittent views of the  space
cadets and Admiral Heilmann working  inside Rama. The current  picture
showed Tabori and Turgenyev at the campsite adjoining the  Cylindrical
Sea. They had just finished  assembling the second motorboat and  were
checking its electrical subsystems.
    ". .  . The  sequence  of sorties  has been  carefully  designed,"
Takagishi was reading, "to be consistent with the mission policies and
priorities document,  ISA-NT-0014.  The  primary goals  of  the  first
sortie are to establish the engineering infrastructure and to  examine
the interior on at least a superficial level. Of particular importance
will be the identification of any characteristics of this second  Rama
spacecraft that are in any way different from the first.
    "Sortie number  two is  designed to  complete the  mapping of  the
inside of Rama,  focusing particularly on  regions unexplored  seventy
years ago, as well as the  collections of buildings called cities  and
any interior differences  identified on the  first sortie.  Encounters
with biots will beavoided on the second sortie, although the  presence
and location of the various kinds of biots will be part of the mapping
process.
    "Interaction with  the  biots  will be  delayed  until  the  third
sortie. Only after careful  andprolonged observation will any  attempt
be made-"
    "That's enough, Dr. Takagishi,"  David Brown interrupted. "We  all
have the gist of it. Unfortunately that sterile document was  prepared
months  before  launch.   The  situation   we  face   now  was   never
contemplated. We have the lights going on and off. And we have located
and are tracking  a herd of  six crab biots  just beyond the  southern
edge of the Cylindrical Sea."
    "I disagree," said the Japanese scientist respectfully. "You  said
yourself that the  unpredicted lighting  profile did  not represent  a
fundamental difference between the two  spacecraft. We are not  facing
an unknown Rama.  I submit  that we  should implement  the sorties  in
accordance with the original mission plan."
    "So you favor  dedicating this  entire second  sortie to  mapping,
including or  perhaps even  featuring a  detailed exploration  of  New
York?" asked O’Toole.
    "Exactly, General O’Toole. Even if one takes the position that the
strange sound heard by cosmonauts Wakefield, Sabatini, and myself does
not constitute an official difference, the careful mapping of New York
is clearly one  of the highest  priority activities. And  it is  vital
that we accomplish it on this  sortie. The temperature in the  Central
Plain has already  risen to minus  five degrees. Rama  is carrying  us
closer and  closer to  the Sun.  The spacecraft  is heating  from  the
outside in. I predict the Cylindrical Sea will begin to melt from  the
bottom in three or four more days-"
    "I have never said that New  York was not a legitimate target  for
exploration," David Brown interrupted again,^4< but I have  maintained
from the  very  beginning  that  the biots  are  the  true  scientific
treasure of this voyage.  Look at these  amazing creatures/' he  said,
filling the center  screen with a  film of the  six crab biots  moving
slowly across a bland  region in the  Southern Hemi-cylinder. "We  may
never have another opportunity to capture one. The drones have  almost
finished reconnoitering the  entire interior and  no other biots  have
been spotted."
    The rest of the crew  members, including Takagishi, looked at  the
monitor  with  rapt  attention.  The  bizarre  assemblage  of  aliens,
arranged in a triangular formation with a slightly larger specimen  in
the lead, approached  a jumbled mound  of loose metal.  The lead  crab
moved directly into the obstacle, paused a few seconds, and then  used
its claws to chop the elements of the mound into still smaller pieces.
The two crabs in the second  row transferred the metal fragments  onto
the backs  of the  remaining  three members  of  the troop.  This  new
material increased the size of the small piles already on the tops  of
the shells of the three crab biots in the back row.
    "They must be  the Raman garbage  crew," Francesca said.  Everyone
laughed.
    "But you  can  see  why  I want  to  move  quickly,"  David  Brown
continued. "Right now the short film we just saw is on its way to  all
the television networks on Earth. Over a billion of our fellow men and
women  will  watch  it  today  with  the  same  mixture  of  fear  and
fascination  that  all  of  you  just  felt.  Imagine  what  kind   of
laboratories we  will be  able  to build  to  study such  a  creature.
Imagine what we will learn-"
    "What makes you think you can capture one?" General O'Toole asked.
"They look as if they could be quite formidable."
    "We are certain that these  creatures, although they appear to  be
biological, are actually robots. Hence the name 'biots,' which  became
popular during and after the first  Rama expedition. Based on all  the
reports from Norton  and the other  Rama I cosmonauts,  each of  these
biots is  designed  to  perform  a singular  function.  They  have  no
intelligence as we know it. We should  be able to outsmart them . .  .
and capture them."
    A camera close-up of the  scissorlike claws appeared on the  giant
screen. They were obviously very  sharp. "I don't know," said  General
O’Toole. "I'd be  inclined to  follow Dr.  Takagishi's suggestion  and
observe them for quite a while before trying to catch one."
    "I disagree," said Francesca. "Speaking as a journalist, no  story
could be bigger  than the attempted  capture of one  of those  things.
Everyone on Earth will  watch. We may never  have another chance  like
this." She paused for a moment. "The ISA has been pushing us for  some
upbeat news. The Borzov incident didn't exactly convince the taxpayers
of the world that their space money is being wisely spent."
    "Why can't we do both tasks  on the same sortie?" General  O'Toole
asked.
    "One subteam could explore New York and the other would go after a
crab."
    "No way," replied Nicole. "If the goal of this sortie is to seizea
biot, then all of our resources  should be applied in that  direction.
Remember, we are limited in both manpower and time."
    "Unfortunately," David Brown now said with a wan smile, "we  can't
make  this  decision  by  committee.  Since  we  don't  have  complete
agreement, I must make the choice. . . . Therefore, the purpose of the
next sortie will  be to capture  a crab biot.  I presume that  Admiral
Heilmann will agree with me. If  he doesn't, we will submit the  issue
to a vote of the crew."
    The meeting broke  up slowly.  Dr. Takagishi wanted  to offer  one
more argument, to point out that the majority of the biot species seen
by the first Rama explorers did not materialize untilafter the thawing
of the Cylindrical Sea. But nobody wanted to listen anymore.  Everyone
was tired.
    Nicole  approached  Takagishi  and  clandestinely  activated   her
biometry scanner. The warning  file was empty.  "Clean as a  whistle,"
she said with a smile.
    Takagishi looked  at  her  very  seriously.  "Our  decision  is  a
mistake," he said somberly. "We should be going into New York."
    27TO CATCH A BIOT
    Be very careful," Admiral Heilmann said to Francesca. "It makes me
nervous to see you leaning out like that."
    Signora Sabatini had hooked her ankles underneath the seats of the
helicopter and was now  stretching out beyond the  plane of the  door.
She was holding a small video camera in her right hand. Three or  four
meters  below  her,  apparently  oblivious  to  the  whirring  machine
overhead, the six  crab biots  plodded methodically  along. They  were
still in their phalanx formation,  arranged like the first three  rows
of a set of bowling pins.
    "Move out  over  the sea/'  Francesca  shouted to  Hiro  Yamanaka.
"They're coming to the edge and will be turning again."
    The helicopter veered sharply to the  left and flew over the  side
of the five-hundred-meter  cliff that separated  the southern half  of
Rama from the  Cylindrical Sea.  The bank  here was  ten times  higher
above the water than its  northern counterpart. David Brown gasped  as
he looked down at the frozen sea half a kilometer below him,
    "This is ridiculous,  Francesca," he  said- "What do  you hope  to
accomplish? The automatic camera in the  nose of the copter will  take
adequate pictures/'
    "This camera was specifically designed for zoom action," she said.
"Besides, a  little  jitter  gives the  images  more  verisimilitude."
Yamanaka steered back toward the bank. The biots were now about thirty
meters directly ahead.  The lead biot  came up to  within half a  body
length of the edge, paused for a fraction of a second, and then turned
abruptly  to  its  right.  Another  quick  ninety-degree  right   turn
completed the maneuver and left the biot heading in the exact opposite
direction. The other five crabs followed their leader, executing their
turns row by row with military precision.
    "I got it that time," Francesca said happily, pulling herself back
into the helicopter. "Head on and full  frame. And I think I caught  a
glimmer of movement in the leader's blue eye just before it turned."
    The biots were  now ambling away  from the cliff  at their  normal
speed of  ten kilometers  per  hour. Their  movement caused  a  slight
indentation in the loamy soil. Their heading was along a path parallel
to their last  previous sweep toward  the sea. From  above, the  whole
region looked like a suburban yard in which part of the grass had been
mowed-on one  side  the ground  was  neat  and packed,  while  in  the
territory not yet covered by the biots there was no orderly pattern in
the soil markings.
    "This could get boring," Francesca said, playfully reaching up and
putting her arms  around David  Brown's neck.  "We may  have to  amuse
ourselves with something else."
    "We'll only watch  them one  more strip. Their  pattern is  fairly
simple." He ignored Francesca's light tickling on his neck. It  seemed
as if he were  going through some  kind of checklist  in his mind.  At
length Brown  spoke into  the communicator.  "What do  you think,  Dr.
Takagishi? Is there anything else we should do at this time?"
    Back in the scientific control center on the Newton, Dr. Takagishi
was following the progression of the  biots on the monitor. "It  would
be extremely valuable,"  he said,  "if we  could find  out more  about
their sensory capabilities before  we try to capture  one of them.  So
far they have not responded to noises or to distant visual stimuli. In
fact, they have apparently not even noticed our presence. As I'm  sure
you would  agree,  we  don't have  enough  data  yet to  come  to  any
definitive conclusions. If we could expose them to an entire range  of
electromagnetic frequencies  and calibrate  their responses,  then  we
might have a better idea-"
    "But that  would takedays,"  Dr. Brown  interrupted. "And  in  the
final analysis  we would  still  have to  take  our chances.  I  can't
imagine what we might learn that would materially alter our plans."
    "If we found out more  about them first," Takagishi argued,  "then
we could design a better, safer capture procedure. It might even occur
that we would learn something that would dissuade us altogether-"
    "Unlikely," was David Brown's  abrupt response. As  far as he  was
concerned, this particular discussion  was over. "Hey there,  Tabori,"
he now shouted. "How are you guys coming with the huts?"
    "We're almost finished," the  Hungarian answered. "Another  thirty
minutes at the most. Then I'll be ready for a nap."
    "Lunch comes first," Francesca interjected. "You can't go to sleep
on an empty stomach."
    "What are you cooking, beautiful?" Tabori bantered.
    "Osso buco a la Rama."
    "That's enough,"  Dr.  Brown  said.  He paused  for  a  couple  of
seconds. "O'Toole," he then continued, "can you handle the Newton  all
by yourself? At least for the next twelve hours?"
    "Affirmative," was the response.
    "Then send down the rest of the  crew. By the time we all meet  at
the new campsite, it  should be ready for  occupancy. We'll have  some
lunch and a brief nap. Then we'll plan our biot hunt."
    Below the helicopter  the six crablike  creatures continued  their
relentless march across the barren soil. The four human beings watched
them encounter a distinct boundary, where the floor changed from  dirt
and small rocks into  a fine wire  mesh. As soon  as they touched  the
narrow lane dividing the  two sections, the  biots executed a  U-turn.
They then headed back toward the sea along a parallel line adjacent to
their last  track.  Yamanaka  banked  the  helicopter,  increased  his
altitude, and headed for the  Beta campsite ten kilometers across  the
Cylindrical Sea,
    They were all correct,Nicole was thinking.Seeing it on the monitor
is nothing by  comparison. She  was descending on  the chairlift  into
Rama.  Now  that  she  was  beyond  the  halfway  point,  she  had   a
breathtaking view in every direction. She remembered a similar feeling
once, when she  had been standing  on the Tonto  Plateau in the  Grand
Canyon National  Park.But that  was made  by nature  and took  over  a
billion  years,  she  said  to  herself.Rama  was  actually  built  by
somebody. Or something.
    The chair  momentarily slowed.  Shigeru  Takagishi climbed  off  a
kilometer below her. Nicole couldn't see  him, but she could hear  him
talking to  Richard Wakefield  on the  communicator. "Hurry  up,"  she
heard Reggie Wilson shout. "I don't like sitting here in the middle of
nowhere." Nicole enjoyed being suspended on the chairlift. The amazing
scene around her was temporarily almost static and she could study  at
her leisure any feature that was particularly interesting.
    After one more stop  for Wilson to disembark,  Nicole was at  last
approaching the bottom  of the Alpha  chairlift herself. She  watched,
fascinated, as the resolution of her eyes improved quickly during  the
last three hundred meters  of her descent. What  had been a jumble  of
indistinct images resolved  itself into  a rover,  three people,  some
equipment, and a small surrounding camp. After a few more seconds  she
could identify each  of the three  men. She had  a quick flashback  to
another chairlift  ride,  this  one in  Switzerland  some  two  months
before. An image of King  Henry flitted momentarily through her  mind.
It was replaced by  the smiling face of  Richard Wakefield just  below
her. He was giving her instructions on how best to ease herself out of
the chair.
    "It will never come  to a complete stop,"  he was saying, "but  it
will slow  down a  lot. Unfasten  your belt  and then  hit the  ground
walking, as if you were coming off a moving sidewalk."
    He grabbed  her by  the waist  and lifted  her off  the  platform.
Takagishi and  Wilson  were already  in  the backseat  of  the  rover.
"Welcome to Rama," Wakefield said.
    "All right, Tabori," he then  spoke into the communicator.  "We're
all here and ready to go. We're switching now to the listen-only  mode
for our drive."
    "Hurry," Janos urged  him. "We're  having a hard  time not  eating
your lunch. . . . By the way, Richard, will you bring tool box C  when
you come? We've been  talking about nets  and cages and  I may need  a
wider variety of gadgets."
    "Roger," Wakefield replied.  He jogged  over to  the campsite  and
entered the only large hut. He  emerged with a long rectangular  metal
box that was obviously  very heavy. "Shit, Tabori,"  he said into  the
radio, "what in the world is in here?"
    They all heard  a laugh.  "Everything you could  possibly need  to
catch a crab biot. And then some."
    Wakefield switched off the transmitter  and climbed in the  rover.
He started driving  away from  the stairway  in the  direction of  the
Cylindrical Sea. "This biot  hunt is the  stupidest goddamn idea  I've
ever heard," Reggie Wilson groused. "Somebody is going to get hurt."
    There was quiet in the rover for almost a minute. To the right, at
the limit of their vision, the  cosmonauts could barely see the  Raman
city of London.  "Well, how  does it  feel to  be part  of the  second
team?" Wilsony»& *** ' nobody in particular.
    After an awkward  silence, Dr.  Takagishi turned  to address  him.
"Excuse me, Mr. Wilson," he said politely, "are you talking to me?"
    "Sure I am/' Wilson replied, nodding his head up and down. "Didn't
anyone ever tell  you that you  were the numbertwo  scientist on  this
mission? I  guess not,"  Wilson continued  after a  short pause.  "But
that's not  surprising. Down  on Earth  I never  knew that  1 was  the
number two journalist."
    "Reggie, I don't think-" Nicole said before she was interrupted.
    "As for you, Doctor"-Wilson leaned  forward in the rover-"you  may
be the only member of thethird team. I overheard our glorious  leaders
Heilmann and Brown talking about you. They'd like to leave you on  the
Newton permanently. But since we may need your skills-"
    "That's  enough,"  Richard  Wakefield   broke  in.  There  was   a
threatening edge in  his voice.  "You can stop  being so  unpleasant."
Several tense seconds  passed before  Wakefield spoke  again. "By  the
way, Wilson," he said in a friendlier tone, "if I remember  correctly,
you're a racing fanatic. Would you like to drive this buggy?"
    It was the perfect suggestion.  A few minutes later Reggie  Wilson
was in  the driver's  seat  beside Wakefield,  laughing wildly  as  he
accelerated the rover  around a tight  circle. Cosmonauts des  Jardins
and Takagishi were bumping around in the backseat.
    Nicole was observing Wilson very carefully.He's erratic again, she
was thinking.That's at least three times in the last two days.  Nicole
tried to recall when she had last done a full scan on Wilson.Not since
the day  after Borzov  died.  I've checked  the  cadets twice  in  the
interim. . . . Dammit, she said to herself, /let my preoccupation with
the Borzov incident make me careless.  She made a mental note to  scan
everyone as soon as possible after she arrived at the Beta campsite.
    "Say, my good professor," Richard  Wakefield said once Wilson  had
finally straightened out and was heading for camp, "I have a  question
for you." He turned around and faced the Japanese scientist. "Have you
figured out our  strange sound from  the other day?  Or has Dr.  Brown
convinced  you  that  it  was   just  a  figment  of  our   collective
imagination?"
    Dr. Takagishi shook his head. "1 told you at the time that it  was
a new noise." He  stared off in the  distance, across the  unexplained
mechanical fields of the Central Plain.  "This is a different Rama.  I
know it. The  checkerboard squares  in the south  are laid  out in  an
entirely new  pattern  and  no  longer extend  to  the  shore  of  the
Cylindrical Sea. The lights now go  on before the sea melts. And  they
go off abruptly, without dimming for  several hours as the first  Rama
explorers reported,  The crab  biots now  appear in  herds instead  of
individually." He paused,  still looking out  across the fields.  "Dr.
Brown says that all  these differences are trivial,  but I think  they
mean something. It's just possible," Takagishi said softly, "that  Dr.
Brown is wrong."
    "It's also possible  that he's a  complete son of  a bitch,"  said
Wilson bitterly. He accelerated the rover to its maximum speed.  "Beta
campsite, here we come!"
    28EXTRAPOLATION
    Nicole  completed  her  lunch   of  pressed  duck,   reconstituted
broccoli, and mashed potatoes. The  rest of the cosmonauts were  still
eating and it was temporarily quiet at the long table. In the  corner,
by the entrance,  a monitor tracked  the location of  the crab  biots.
Their pattern had not changed.  The blip representing the crabs  would
move in one  direction for  slightly more  than ten  minutes and  then
reverse itself.
    "What happens after  they finish this  parcel?" Richard  Wakefield
asked. He was looking at a computer map of the area that was posted on
a temporary bulletin board.
    "Last  time  they  followed  one   of  those  lanes  between   the
checkerboard  partitions  until  they  came  to  a  hole,"   Francesca
responded from the  other end of  the table. "Then  they dumped  their
garbage in it. They haven't picked up anything in this new  territory,
so what they will do when they finish is anybody's guess."
    "Everyone is convinced  that our  biots are  in fact  garbagemen?"
Richard asked.
    "The evidence  is fairly  strong/' David  Brown said.  "A  similar
solitary crab biot encountered by Jimmy Pak inside the first Rama  was
also believed to be a garbage collector."
    "Excuse me," Janos Tabori interjected, "but just what garbage  are
these crabs collecting?"
    "We flatter ourselves," Shigeru Takagishi said softly after a long
silence. He finished chewing his  last bite and swallowed. "Dr.  Brown
himself was  the one  who first  said that  it was  unlikely we  human
beings could comprehend what Rama was about. Our conversation  reminds
me of  that  old  Hindu proverb  about  the  blind men  who  felt  the
elephant. They all described it differently, for each of them  touched
only a small part of the animal. None of them was correct."
    "So, you  don't  think our  crabs  work for  the  Rama  Sanitation
Department?" Janos inquired.
    "I didn't say that," Takagishi  replied. "1 merely suggested  that
it's hubris  on  our  part  to conclude  so  quickly  that  those  six
creatures  have  no  purpose  except  cleaning  up  the  garbage.  Our
observational data is woefully inadequate."
    "Sometimes it  is necessary  to extrapolate,"  Dr. Brown  rejoined
testily, ". . . and even speculate, based on minimal amounts of  data.
You know  yourself that  new science  is based  on maximum  likelihood
rather than certainty."
    "Before we become involved in an esoteric discussion about science
and its methodology,"  Janos now interrupted  with a grin,  "I have  a
sporting proposition for you all." He stood up at his place. "Actually
it was Richard's idea originally, but I've figured out how to make  it
into a game. It has to do with the lights."
    Janos took a quick  drink of water from  his cup. "Since we  first
arrived here in Ramaland," he intoned formally, "there have been three
transitions in the illumination state."
    "Boo. Hiss," shouted Wakefield. Janos laughed.
    "Okay, you  guys,"  the little  Hungarian  then continued  in  his
normal offhand way, "what's the deal with the lights? They've come on,
gone off, and now come on again. What's going to happen in the future?
1 propose  that we  have  a pool  and  contribute, say,  twenty  marks
apiece. Each of us  will make a prediction  about the behavior of  the
lights for the rest of the mission and whoever is closest will win the
pot."
    "Who will judge the winner?"  Reggie Wilson inquired sleepily.  He
had yawned  several  times during  the  preceding hour.  "Despite  the
impressive set of brains around this  table, I don't think anyone  has
figured out Rama yet. My personal  belief is that the lights will  not
follow any pattern. They will go on and off at random times to keep us
guessing."
    "Write it  down and  send  it on  the  modem to  General  O'Toole.
Richard and I  agreed that  he would make  a perfect  judge. When  the
mission is  over, he'll  compare the  predictions with  actuality  and
someone will win a lucky dinner for two."
    Dr. David Brown  pushed his chair  back from the  table. "Are  you
finished with your game, Tabori?" he asked. "If so," he added, without
waiting for an answer,  "perhaps we can clean  up this lunch mess  and
get on with our schedule."
    "Hey skipper," Janos  replied, "I'm just  trying to loosen  things
up. Everybody's getting tense-"
    Brown walked out of the  hut before Cosmonaut Tabori had  finished
his sentence.
    "What's bothering him?" Richard asked Francesca,
    "I guess he's anxious about the hunt," Francesca answered. "He has
been in a  bad mood  since this morning.  Maybe he's  feeling all  the
responsibility."
    "Maybe he's just a jerk," said Wilson. He too rose from his  seat.
"I'm going to take a nap."
    As Wilson was  leaving the  large hut Nicole  remembered that  she
wanted to check everyone's biometry before  the hunt. It was a  simple
enough task. All she needed was  to stand close to each cosmonaut  for
about forty-five seconds with her activated scanner and then read  the
critical data off the monitor. If there were no entries in the warning
files,  the  entire  procedure  was  quite  straightforward.  On  this
particular  check  everyone  was  clean,  including  Takagishi.  "Nice
going," Nicole said to her Japanese colleague very quietly.
    She walked outside to look for David Brown and Reggie Wilson.  Dr.
Brown's hut was at the far end  of the campsite. Like the rest of  the
individual dwellings, his hut resembled  a tall skinny hat sitting  on
the ground. All the huts were off-white in color, about two and a half
meters tall, with a circular base  just under two meters in  diameter.
They were manufactured with super-lightweight, flexible materials that
combined easy  packing and  storage with  formidable strength.  Nicole
remarked to  herself  that  the  huts  looked  something  like  native
American Indian teepees.
    David Brown was in his hut, sitting cross-legged on the ground  in
front of a portable computer monitor. On the screen was text from  the
chapter on biots in Takagishi'sAtlas of Rama. "Excuse me, Dr.  Brown,"
Nicole said as she stuck her head in his door.
    "Yes," he  said, "what  is it?"  He made  no attempt  to hide  his
annoyance at the interruption.
    "I need to check  your biometry data,"  Nicole said. "You  haven't
been dumped since right before the first sortie."
    Brown gave her an  irritated glance. Nicole  held her ground.  The
American shrugged his shoulders, half grunted, and turned back to  the
monitor. Nicole knelt beside him and activated her scanner.
    "There are some  folding chairs  over in the  supply hut,"  Nicole
offered as Dr. Brown shifted  his weight uncomfortably on the  ground.
He ignored her comment.Why is he  so rude to me? Nicole found  herself
wondering.Is it because  of that  report on  Wilson and  him? No,  she
thought, answering her  own question,it's  because I  have never  been
properly deferential,
    Data began to appear  on Nicole's screen.  She carefully keyed  in
several inputs that  permitted a synopsis  of the warning  data to  be
shown. "Your  blood  pressure  has  been  too  high  for  intermittent
intervals during the last seventy-two  hours, including almost all  of
today," she said without emotion. "This particular kind of pattern  is
usually associated with stress."
    Dr. Brown stopped reading about biots and turned to face his  life
science officer. He looked at the displayed data without understanding
it.  "This  graph   shows  the  amplitudes   and  durations  of   your
out-of-tolerance excursions,"  Nicole said,  pointing at  the  screen.
"None of the individual  occurrences would be  serious by itself.  But
the overall pattern is cause for concern."
    "I have been under some pressure," he mumbled. David Brown watched
while Nicole called up other  displays showing data that  corroborated
her  original  statements.   Many  of  Brown's   warning  files   were
overflowing.
    The  lights  continued  to  flash  on  the  monitor.  "What's  the
worst-case scenario?" he inquired.
    Nicole eyed her patient. "A  stroke with paralysis or death,"  she
replied. "If the condition persists or worsens."
    He whistled. "What should I do?"
    "In the first place," Nicole answered, "you must start by  getting
more sleep.  Your metabolic  profile  shows that  since the  death  of
General Borzov you  have only  had a total  of eleven  hours of  solid
rest. Why didn't you tell me you were having trouble sleeping?"
    "I thought it was just excitement. I even took a sleeping pill one
night and it had no effect."
    Nicole's brow furrowed. "I don't remember giving you any  sleeping
pills."
    Dr. Brown smiled. "Shit,"  he said, "I forgot  to tell you. I  was
talking to  Francesca Sabatini  about my  insomnia one  night and  she
offered me a pill. I took it without thinking."
    "Which night was that?" Nicole  asked. She changed displays  again
on her monitor and called for more data from the storage buffers.
    "I'm not certain," Dr. Brown said after some hesitation. "I  think
it was-
    "Oh, here  it is,"  Nicole said.  "I can  see it  in the  chemical
analysis. That was March third, the second night after Borzov's death.
The day you and Heilmann were  selected as joint commanders. From  the
breakout in this  spectrometry data,  I would  guess that  you took  a
single medvil."
    "You can tellthat from my biometry data."
    "Not exactly," Nicole  said with a  smile. "The interpretation  is
not unique. What was it you said at lunch? Sometimes it's necessary to
extrapolate . . , and speculate,"
    Their eyes met for a moment.Could that be fear? Nicole wondered as
she tried to  interpret what  she was seeing  in his  gaze. Dr.  Brown
looked away. "Thank you, Dr. des Jardins," he said stiffly, "for  your
report on my blood  pressure. I will  try to relax  and get plenty  of
sleep. And I apologize for not informing you about the sleeping pill."
He dismissed her with a wave of his hand.
    Nicole started to protest her dismissal but decided against  it.He
wouldn't follow my advice  anyway, she said to  herself as she  walked
toward  Wilson's  hut.And  his   blood  pressure  was  certainly   not
dangerously high. She thought about the strained final two minutes  of
their conversation, after  she had astonished  Dr. Brown by  correctly
identifying the  type of  sleeping  pill.There's something  not  quite
right here. What is it that I am missing?
    She could hear  Reggie Wilson  snoring before she  arrived at  the
door of his tent.  After a brief debate  with herself, Nicole  decided
that she would scan him  after his nap. She  then returned to her  own
hut and quickly fell asleep.
    "Nicole. Nicole des Jardins." The voice intruded in her dream  and
awakened her. "It's me. Francesca. I need to tell you something."
    Nicole sat up slowly on her cot. Francesca had already entered the
hut. The  Italian was  wearing  her friendliest  smile, the  one  that
Nicole had thought was always saved for the camera.
    "I was talking to David just a few minutes ago," Francesca said as
she approached the cot, "and he told me about your conversation  after
lunch." Francesca kept  talking as  Nicole yawned and  swung her  legs
around to the floor. "I was, of course, very concerned to learn  about
his blood pressure- don't worry, he  and I have already agreed that  I
won't use it-but what  really bothered me was  he reminded me that  we
never told you about the sleeping pill. I'm so embarrassed. We  should
have told you immediately."
    Francesca was talking too fast for Nicole. Just moments before she
had been in  a deep  sleep, dreaming  of Beauvois,  and now  all of  a
sudden she was expected  to listen to a  staccato confession from  the
Italian cosmonaut.
    "Could you wait a minute until  I wake up?" Nicole asked  crossly.
She leaned around  Francesca to a  makeshift table and  took a cup  of
water. She drank slowly.
    "Now am I to understand," Nicole said, "that you have awakened  me
to tell  me that  you gave  Dr.  Brown a  sleeping pill?  Something  I
already know?"
    "Yes," Francesca said with  a smile. "I mean,  that's part of  it.
But I realized that I had forgotten to tell you about Reggie also."
    Nicole shook her head. "I'm not following you, Francesca. Are  you
talking about Reggie Wilson now?"
    Francesca hesitated for  a second.  "Yes," she  said. "Didn't  you
check him with your scanner right after lunch?"
    Nicole shook  her head  again. "No,  he was  already asleep."  She
looked at her  watch. "I had  planned to scan  him before the  meeting
started. Maybe an hour from now/'
    Francesca was flustered.  "Well," she  said, "when  David told  me
that the medvil showed up in his  biometry data, I thought . . ."  She
stopped herself  in  midsentence.  She seemed  to  be  collecting  her
thoughts. Nicole waited patiently.
    "Reggie  started  complaining  of  headaches  over  a  week  ago,"
Francesca eventually continued, "after the two Newton ships joined for
the rendezvous with Rama. Since he  and 1 have been close friends  and
he knew about my knowledge of drugs-you know, from all that work on my
documentary series-he  asked me  if  I would  give him  something  for
headaches. I refused at  first, but finally,  after he kept  badgering
me, I gave him some nubitrol."
    Nicole frowned.  "That's  a  very strong  medicine  for  a  simple
headache. There  are still  doctors  who believe  it should  never  be
prescribed unless everything else has failed-"
    "I told him all that," Francesca said. "He was adamant. You  don't
know Reggie. Sometimes you can't reason with him."
    "How much did you give him?"
    "Eight pills altogether, a total of two hundred milligrams."
    "No wonder he's been acting so strangely." Nicole leaned over  and
picked up her pocket computer sitting  on the end table. She  accessed
her medical data base  and read the short  entry about nubitrol.  "Not
much here," she said. "I'll have  to ask O’Toole to transmit the  full
entry from  the medical  encyclopedia. But  if I  remember  correctly,
wasn't there a controversy about nubitrol remaining in the system  for
weeks?"
    "I don't recall," Francesca replied. She looked at the monitor  in
Nicole s hand  and quickly read  the text. Nicole  was irritated.  She
started to lambast Francesca verbally  but at the last moment  changed
her mind.So you gave drugs to both David and Reggie, she was thinking.
Out of  her memory  came  a vague  recollection of  Francesca  handing
Valeriy Borzov a glass of wine several hours before he died. A strange
chill ran through Nicole's body. Could her intuition be correct?
    Nicole turned around and fixed  Francesca with a cold stare.  "Now
that you  have confessed  to playing  doctor and  pharmacist for  both
David and Reggie, is there anything else you want to tell me?"
    "What do you mean?" Francesca asked.
    "Have you given drugs to any other member of the crew?"
    Nicole  felt  her  heart  race  as  Francesca  blanched,  ever  so
slightly, and hesitated before replying.
    "No. No, of course not," was her answer.
    29THE HUNT
    The helicopter very slowly dropped  the rover to the ground.  "How
much farther?" Janos Tabori asked over the communicator.
    "About ten meters," Richard Wakefield  replied from below. He  was
standing in a spot  about a hundred  meters south of  the edge of  the
Cylindrical Sea. Above him  the rover dangled at  the end of two  long
cables. "Be careful  to let it  down gently. There  are some  delicate
electronics in the chassis."
    Hiro Yamanaka commanded the helicopter into its tightest  possible
altitude control loop while Janos electronically extended the cables a
few centimeters at a time.  "Contact," shouted WakeBeld. "On the  rear
wheels. The front needs to come down another meter."
    Francesca Sabatini raced around to the side of the rover to record
its historic touchdown  in the  Southern Hemicylinder  of Rama.  Fifty
meters farther from the cliff, in  the neighborhood of a hut that  was
serving as a temporary headquarters,  the rest of the cosmonauts  were
preparing for  the hunt  to begin.  Irina Turgenyev  was checking  the
installation of the cable snare in the second helicopter. David  Brown
was by himself a few  meters away from the  hut, talking on the  radio
with Admiral Heilmann  back at  the Beta  campsite. The  two men  were
reviewing the details of the capture plan. Wilson, Takagishi, and  des
Jardins were watching the conclusion of the rover landing operation.
    "Now we know who's really the boss of this outfit," Reggie  Wilson
was saying to his two companions. He pointed at Dr. Brown. "This  damn
hunt is more like a military  operation than anything we've done,  yet
our senior scientist is in charge  and our ranking officer is  manning
the phones.'*  He spat  on  the ground.  "Christ,  do we  have  enough
equipment here? Two  helicopters, a  rover, three  different kinds  of
cages-not to mention several large boxes of electrical and  mechanical
shit. Those poor bastard crabs don't have a chance."
    Dr. Takagishi put the laser binoculars  to his eyes. He found  the
target quickly.  Half a  kilometer to  the east  the crab  biots  were
nearing the edge of  the cliff again. Nothing  about their motion  had
changed. "We  need  all the  equipment  because of  the  uncertainty,"
Takagishi said quietly. "Nobody really knows what is going to happen."
    "I hope the lights go out," Wilson said with a laugh.
    "We're prepared for that," David  Brown interjected tersely as  he
walked up to join the other three cosmonauts. "The shells of the crabs
have been sprayed with a light fluorescent material and we have plenty
of flares. While  you were complaining  about the length  of our  last
meeting,  we  were  finishing   the  contingency  plans."  He   stared
truculently at his countryman. "You know, Wilson, you could try-"
    "Break break," the voice of Otto Heilmann interrupted him.  "News.
Hot news. I just received word from O’Toole that INN will be  carrying
our feedlive, beginning twenty minutes from now."
    "Good work," replied  Brown. "We should  be ready by  then. I  see
Wake-field heading this way  in the rover." He  glanced at his  watch.
"And the  crabs  should  be  turning again  in  another  few  seconds.
Incidentally, Otto, do you still disagree with my suggestion to  snare
the lead biot?"
    "Yes, David, I do. I think  it's an unnecessary risk. What  little
we do know suggests  that the lead crab  has the most capability.  Why
take a chance? Any biot would be an incredible treasure to carry  back
to Earth, particularly if  it's still functional.  We can worry  about
the leader after we already have one in the bag."
    "Then I guess I'm outvoted on  this one. Dr, Takagishi and  Tabori
both agree with you. So does General O'Toole. We'll proceed with  Plan
B. The target  biot will be  number four,  the back right  biot as  we
approach from the rear."
    The rover carrying Wakefield and Sabatini arrived at the hut  area
at almost the same time as the helicopter. "Good job, men," Dr.  Brown
said as Tabori  and Yamanaka  jumped down  from the  'copter. "Take  a
short breather, Janos. Then  go over and make  sure Turgenyev and  the
cable snare are both ready to go. I want you airborne in five minutes.
    "All right,"  Brown said,  turning  to the  others, "this  is  it.
Wilson, Takagishi,  and  des  Jardins in  the  rover  with  Wakefield.
Francesca, you come with me in the second helicopter with Hiro."
    Nicole started walking toward the rover but Francesca  intercepted
her. "Have  you  ever  used  one of  these?"  The  Italian  journalist
extended a video camera the size of a small book.
    "Once," Nicole answered, studying the camera in Francesca's  hand,
"eleven or  twelve years  ago. I  recorded one  of Dr.  Delon's  brain
operations. I guess-"
    "Look," interrupted Francesca, "I could use some help. I'm sorry I
didn't discuss it with you earlier, but I didn't know- Anyway, I  need
another camera, one on the ground,  especially now that we're live  on
INN. I'm not asking for miracles. You're the only one who-"
    "What about Reggie?" Nicole replied. "He's the other journalist."
    "Reggie won't help," Francesca said quickly. Dr. Brown called  for
her to come  to the helicopter.  "Will you do  it, Nicole? Please?  Or
should I ask someone else?"
    Why not?ran through Nicole's mind.I have nothing else to do unless
an emergency comes up. "Sure," she replied.
    "Thanks a million,"  Francesca shouted  as she  handed Nicole  the
camera and dashed off to the waiting helicopter.
    "Well, well," said  Reggie Wilson as  Nicole approached the  rover
with the camera cradled in her hands. "I see that our crew doctor  has
been recruited by the number one journalist. I hope you asked for  the
minimum wage."
    "Lighten up, Reggie,"  Nicole replied.  "It doesn't  bother me  to
help others when I have nothing specific to do myself."
    Wakefield switched on the rover and began to drive east toward the
biots. The headquarters had been intentionally established in the area
already "cleaned" by  the crabs.  The packed soil  made progress  very
easy for the rover. They were within a hundred meters of the biots  in
less than three minutes. Overhead  the two helicopters circled  around
the crabs.
    "What exactly do you want me to do?" Nicole called to Franceses on
the rover transmitter.
    "Try to move parallel to the biots/' Francesca answered. "You  can
probably run  alongside, at  least  for some  of  the time.  The  most
important moment is when Janos tries to close the snare."
    "We're all  ready here,"  Tabori announced  a few  seconds  later,
"Just give the word."
    "Are we on the air?" Brown  asked Francesca. She nodded her  head.
"All right," he said to Janos. "Go ahead."
    From out of one of the  helicopters came a long, thick cable  with
what looked like  an inverted basket  on the end.  "Janos will try  to
center the snare on the  target biot/' Wakefield explained to  Nicole,
"and let the sides drape naturally over the corner of the shell.  Then
he will increase the tension and pull the biot off the ground. We will
cage the crab after we return it to the Beta campsite."
    "Let's see  what they  look like  from down  there," Nicole  heard
Francesca say.  The rover  was now  right next  to the  biots.  Nicole
climbed out and jogged beside them.  She was frightened at first.  For
some reason she had  not expected them  to be so  large or so  strange
looking. Their metallic  sheen reminded  her of the  cold exterior  of
many of the new buildings in Paris. As she ran along on the soil,  the
biots were only  about two meters  away from her.  With the  automatic
focusing and framing of the camera, it was not difficult for Nicole to
take the proper pictures.
    "Don't get in front of them," Dr. Takagishi warned her. He  didn't
need to worry.  Nicole had not  forgotten what they  had done to  that
mound of metal.
    "Your pictures are really very good," Francesca's voice boomed  on
the rover receiver. "Nicole, try to speed up to the lead biot and then
fall back little by little, letting the camera pan across each of  the
ranks." She waited while Nicole moved to the front of the biots. "Wow.
That's superb. Now 1 know why we brought an Olympic champion with us."
    On his first two attempts Janos missed with the snare. However, on
the third try it landed perfectly on the number four crab's back.  The
edges of the  net or  basket spread  out to  the limit  of the  shell.
Nicole was starting to  sweat. She had been  running already for  four
minutes. "From now  on," Francesca  said to her  from the  helicopter,
"focus on the single target crab. Move up as close as you dare."
    Nicole reduced  her distance  from  the closest  biot to  about  a
meter. She nearly slipped  once and a cold  chill swept over her.If  I
were to fall across their path, she thought,they 'd make mincemeat out
of me. Her camera was fixed on the right rear crab as Janos  tightened
the cables.
    "Now!" he shouted. The  snare, with the  biot entrapped, began  to
rise off the ground.  Everything happened very  fast. The target  biot
used its scissor-like claws to snap  through one of the metal  threads
of the snare. The other five biots came to a brief halt, for maybe one
full second, and then  immediately all attacked  the snare with  their
claws. The metal net was completely shredded and the biot was freed in
five seconds,
    Nicole was amazed  by what  she was seeing.  Despite her  pounding
heart she continued to film. The lead biot now sat down on the ground.
The other five surrounded it in an extremely tight circle. Each of the
biots attached one claw to the crab in the center and the other to its
neighbor on the right.  The formation was finished  in less than  five
more seconds. The biots were locked and motionless.
    Francesca was  the first  to speak.  "Absolutely incredible,"  she
screamed in elation. "We  just made the hair  stand up on every  human
being on Earth."
    Nicole felt Richard Wakefield beside her. "Are you all right?"  he
asked.
    "I think so,"  she said. She  was still shaking.  The two of  them
glanced over at the biots. There was no movement.
    "They're in a  huddle," Reggie  Wilson said from  the rover.  "The
score is now Biots seven, Humans zero."
    "Since you are so convinced that there is no danger, I'll agree to
go ahead. But I  must confess that I  myself am nervous about  another
attempt. Those things clearly communicate with each other. And I don't
think they want to be captured."
    "Otto, Otto/'  Dr.  Brown  replied.  "This  procedure  is  only  a
straightforward refinement of what we  tried the first time. The  line
nexus will adhere  to the shell  of the  crab and will  wrap its  thin
cables tightly around the entire carapace. The other biots will not be
able to use their claws.  There will be no  room between the line  and
the shell."
    "Admiral Heilmann,  this is  Dr.  Takagishi." There  was  definite
concern in  his voice  as  he spoke  into  the communicator.  "I  must
register my strongest objection to proceeding with this hunt. We  have
seen already  how  little  we understand  about  these  creatures.  As
Wakefield said,  our  attempt  to  snare one  of  them  has  obviously
triggered their main fault  protection responses. We  have no idea  at
all how they will react next."
    "We all understand that,  Dr. Takagishi," David Brown  interjected
before Heilmann could respond. "But there are extenuating factors that
override the  uncertainties.  First,  as Francesca  pointed  out,  the
entire Earth will  again be watching  if we go  after the biots  right
away. You heard  what Jean-Claude  Revoir said  twenty minutes  ago-we
have already done  more for  space exploration than  anyone since  the
original Soviet and American cosmonauts back
    in the twentieth century. Second, we are prepared to complete  the
hunt now. If we  abandon the attempt and  return all our equipment  to
Beta, then  we will  have wasted  a huge  amount of  time and  effort.
Finally, there is no obvious danger. Why do you insist on making  such
dire predictions? AH we saw  the biots do was  engage in some kind  of
self-defense activity."
    "Professor Brown,"  the eminent  Japanese scholar  tried one  last
rational  appeal,  "please  look  around  you.  Try  to  imagine   the
capabilities of the creatures  who made this  amazing vehicle. Try  to
appreciate the possibility  that perhaps,  just perhaps,  what we  are
trying to do might  be viewed as  a hostile act  and has somehow  been
communicated to  whatever intelligence  is managing  this  spacecraft.
Suppose as a result that we, as representatives of the human  species,
are condemning not only ourselves, but also, in some larger sense, all
of our fellow-"
    "Poppycock," David Brown scoffed. "How can anyone ever accuseme of
wild speculation? .  . ." He  laughed heartily. "This  is absurd.  The
evidence overwhelmingly indicates that this Rama has the same  purpose
and function as  its predecessor  and is completely  oblivious to  our
existence. Just because one single subfamily of robots bands  together
when threatened does  not have overwhelming  significance." He  looked
around at the  others. "I  say that's  enough talk,  Otto. Unless  you
object, we're going out to capture a biot."
    There was a short hesitation from across the Cylindrical Sea. Then
the cosmonauts heard Admiral Heilmann's affirmative reply. "Go  ahead,
David. But don't take any unnecessary chances."
    "Do you think  we're really  in danger?" Hiro  Yamanaka asked  Dr.
Takagi-shi while the new capture tactics were being reviewed by Brown,
Tabori, and  Wakefield. The  Japanese  pilot was  staring off  in  the
distance at the  massive structures  in the  southern bowl,  thinking,
perhaps for the first time, of the vulnerability of their position.
    "Probably not/' his countryman replied,  "but it's insane to  take
such-"
    "Insane is a perfect word for it," Reggie Wilson interrupted. "You
and I were the only two vocal opponents of continuing this  stupidity.
But our  objections were  made  to sound  foolish and  even  cowardly.
Personally, 1 wish  one of  those goddamn things  would challenge  the
esteemed Dr. Brown  to a duel.  Or better still,  a bolt of  lightning
would come shooting out of those spires over there."
    He pointed at  the great  horns that Yamanaka  had been  regarding
earlier. Wilson's voice changed  and there was a  fearful edge to  it.
"We are over our heads  here. I can feel it  in the air. We are  being
warned of danger by  powers that none of  us can begin to  understand.
But we are ignoring the warnings."
    Nicole turned away from her  colleagues and glanced at the  lively
planning meeting taking place fifteen meters away from her.  Engineers
Wakefield  and  Tabori  were  definitely  enjoying  the  challenge  of
outwitting the  biots.  Nicole wondered  if  perhaps Rama  really  was
sending them some kind  of a warning.Poppycock,  she said to  herself,
repeating David Brown's expression. She shuddered involuntarily as she
recalled the several seconds  when the crab  biots had devastated  the
metal snare.I'm overreacting. And so  is Wilson. There's no reason  to
be afraid.
    Yet, as  she turned  again and  looked through  the binoculars  to
study the biot formation half a  kilometer away, there was a  palpable
fear in her that would not be assuaged. The six crabs had not moved in
almost  two  hours.   They  were  still   locked  in  their   original
arrangement.What are you really all about, Rama? Nicole asked  herself
for the umpteenth time. Her next question startled her. She had  never
verbalized it before.And how many of us  mil make it back to Earth  to
tell your tale?
    On the second capture attempt Francesca wanted to be on the ground
beside the biots. As before, Turgenyev and Tabori were up in the prime
helicopter along with the  most important equipment. Brown,  Yamanaka,
and Wakefield  were in  the other  helicopter. Dr.  Brown had  invited
Wakefield to  provide  him with  real-time  advice; Francesca  had  of
course persuaded  Richard to  take  some aerial  pictures for  her  to
complement the automatic images from the helicopter system.
    Reggie Wilson drove the ground-based  cosmonauts to the biot  site
in the  rover.  "Now here's  a  good job  for  me," he  said  as  they
approached the location of the  alien crabs. "Chauffeur." He gazed  up
at the  distant  ceiling  of  Rama. "You  hear  that,  you  guys?  I'm
versatile. I can do many things."  He looked over at Francesca  beside
him in the front seat. "By  the way, Mrs. Sabatini, were you  planning
to thank Nicole for her spectacular  work? It was her action shots  on
the ground that captured the audience in your last transmission."
    Francesca was busy checking all  her video equipment and at  first
ignored Reggie's comment.  When he repeated  his jibe, she  responded,
without looking up, "May I  remind Mr. Wilson that  I do not need  his
unsolicited advice on how to conduct my business?"
    "There was a time," Reggie mused out loud, shaking his head, "when
things were very  different." He  glanced at Francesca.  There was  no
indication that she was even listening. "Back when I still believed in
love," he said in  a louder voice. "Before  I knew about betrayal.  Or
ambition and its selfishness."
    He jerked the rover wheel vigorously to the left and brought it to
a stop about  forty meters  west of  the biots.  Francesca jumped  out
without a word.
    Within three seconds she was chattering to David Brown and Richard
Wakefield on the radio  about the video coverage  of the capture.  The
ever polite Dr. Takagishi thanked Reggie Wilson for driving the rover.
    "We're coming  in,"  Tabori  shouted from  above.  He  managed  to
position the dangling nexus properly on his second attempt. The  nexus
was a round, heavy sphere about twenty centimeters in diameter, with a
dozen small  holes  or indentations  on  its surface.  It  was  slowly
dropped onto the center of the shell of one of the outside biots. Next
Janos, transmitting a barrage of commands from the hovering helicopter
to the processor  in the nexus,  ordered the extension  of the  massed
threads of metal rolled up inside  the sphere. The crabs did not  stir
as the threads wrapped themselves around the target biot.
    "What  do  you  think,  inspector?"  Janos  hollered  at   Richard
Wakefield in the other helicopter.
    Richard surveyed  the  strange  apparatus.  The  thick  cable  was
attached to a ring  stanchion at the rear  of the helicopter.  Fifteen
meters below, the metal ball sat on the back of the target biot,  thin
filaments extending from inside the ball around the top and bottom  of
the carapace. "Looks  fine," Richard  replied. "Now  there's only  the
single question  remaining.  Is  the helicopter  stronger  than  their
collective grip?"
    David Brown commanded Irina Turgenyev to lift the prey. She slowly
increased the speed of the blades and tried to ascend. The tiny  slack
in the cable disappeared but  the biots barely moved. "They're  either
very heavy or they're holding onto the ground somehow," Richard  said.
"Hit them with a sharp burst."
    The sudden  jolt in  the cable  lifted the  entire biot  formation
momentarily skyward. The helicopter strained as the biot mass  dangled
two or three meters off the ground. The two crabs not attached to  the
target biot  dropped first,  falling into  a motionless  heap  seconds
after takeoff.  The  other  three crabs  lasted  longer,  ten  seconds
altogether before  they  finally  disengaged their  claws  from  their
companion and fell to the ground below. There were universal cries  of
joy and congratulations as the helicopter climbed higher into the sky.
    Francesca was  filming the  capture sequence  from a  distance  of
about ten meters. After  the last three  biots, including the  leader,
had released their grips on the target crab and fallen onto the  Raman
soil, she leaned back  to record the helicopter  as it headed for  the
banks of the Cylindrical Sea with its  prey. It took her two or  three
seconds to realize that everyone was shouting at her.
    The lead biot and its final  two companion crabs had not  crumbled
into a heap when they had  hit the ground. Although slightly  damaged,
they were active and on the  move within moments after landing.  While
Francesca was filming the departure  of the helicopter, the lead  biot
sensed her presence and  headed toward her. The  other two followed  a
step behind.
    They were only  four meters  away when  Francesca, still  filming,
finally understood that she  was now the prey.  She turned around  and
started to run. "Run to the side," Richard Wakefield screamed into the
communicator, "they can only go in straight lines."
    Francesca zigged and zagged but the biots continued to follow her.
Her original burst of  adrenaline enabled her  to extend the  distance
separating her from the  crabs to ten meters.  Later, however, as  she
began to  tire, the  relentless  biots were  closing  in on  her.  She
slipped and almost fell. By the time Francesca regained her stride the
lead biot was no more than three meters away.
    Reggie Wilson had raced toward the  rover as soon as it was  clear
that the biots were chasing Francesca. Once he was at the controls  of
the vehicle, he headed for her rescue at top speed. He had  originally
intended to  pick her  up and  move her  out of  the way  of the  biot
onslaught. They were too close to  her, however, so Reggie decided  to
smash into the three crabs from the  side. There was a crash of  metal
on metal as the  lightweight vehicle rammed  the biots. Reggie's  plan
worked. The momentum of the crash carried Reggie and the crabs several
meters to the side. The threat to Francesca was over.
    But the biots  were not  incapacitated. Far from  it. Despite  the
fact that one of the follower crabs  had lost a leg and the lead  biot
had a slightly damaged claw, within seconds all three of them were  at
work in the wreckage. They started slicing the rover into chunks  with
their claws, and then they used their fearful collection of probes and
rasps to tear the chunks into still smaller pieces.
    Reggie was momentarily stunned by the impact of the rover  against
the biots. The alien  crabs had been heavier  than he had  anticipated
and the damage to his vehicle was severe. As soon as he realized  that
the biots were still active, he started to jump out of the rover.  But
he couldn't. His legs were wedged underneath the collapsed dashboard.
    His unmitigated terror  lasted no longer  than ten seconds.  There
was nothing anyone could do. Reggie Wilson's horrified shrieks  echoed
through the vastness of Rama as the biots chopped him apart exactly as
if he  were  part  of  the rover.  It  was  accomplished  swiftly  and
systematically.  Both  Francesca  and  the  automatic  camera  in  the
helicopter filmed the  final seconds  of his life.  The pictures  were
transmitted live back to the Earth.
    30POSTMORTEM II
    Nicole sat quietly in her hut at the Beta campsite. She could  not
erase from  her  mind the  horrible  image of  Reggie  Wilson's  face,
contorted in terror  as he was  being hacked to  pieces. She tried  to
force herself to think  of something else.So  what now, she  wondered.
What will happen to the mission now?
    Outside it  was  dark  again  in Rama.  The  lights  had  vanished
abruptly  three  hours   before,  after  a   period  of   illumination
thirty-four seconds  less  than during  the  previous Raman  day.  The
disappearance of the lights should  have prompted much discussion  and
speculation. But  it didn't.  None of  the cosmonauts  wanted to  talk
about anything. The awful memory of Wilson's death weighed too heavily
on everyone.
    The normal  crew meeting  after dinner  had been  postponed  until
morning because David Brown and  Admiral Heilmann were in an  extended
conference  with  ISA  officials  back   on  Earth.  Nicole  had   not
participated in any of the conversations, but it was not difficult for
her to imagine their content. She realized that there was a very  real
possibility the mission would now be aborted. The hue and cry from the
public might demand it. After all, they had witnessed one of the  most
gruesome scenes. . . .
    Nicole thought of Genevieve sitting in front of the television  at
Beauvois, watching  while  Cosmonaut  Wilson  was  being  methodically
subdivided by the biots. She shuddered. Then she chastised herself for
being self-centered.The real honor, she said to herself,must have been
in Los Angeles.
    She had met the Wilson family twice during the early parties right
after the crew  selections were announced.  Nicole remembered the  boy
particularly. Randy was his name. He was seven or eight, wide-eyed and
beautiful. He loved sports.  He had brought Nicole  one of his  prized
possessions, a  program  from  the 2184  Olympics  in  nearly  perfect
condition, and had asked  her to sign the  page featuring the  women's
triple jump. She had  tousled his hair  as he had  thanked her with  a
huge smile.
    The image of Randy  Wilson watching his  father die on  television
was too much for her. Several tears wedged themselves into the corners
of her eyes.What a nightmare this  year has been for you, little  boy,
she thought.The roller coaster of life.  First the joy of having  your
father selected as a  cosmonaut. Then all  the Francesca nonsense  and
the divorce. Now this terrible tragedy.
    Nicole was becoming depressed  and her mind  was still too  active
for sleep. She decided that she  wanted some company. She walked  over
to the next hut and knocked softly on the door.
    "Is someone out there?" she heard from inside.
    "Hot,Takagishi-san," she replied. "It's Nicole. May I come in?"
    He walked over to the door  and opened it. "This is an  unexpected
surprise," he said. "Is the visit professional?"
    "No," she answered as she  entered. "Strictly informal. I was  not
ready to sleep. I thought-"
    "You are welcome to  visit me any time,"  he said with a  friendly
smile. "You  do not  need a  reason."  He looked  at her  for  several
seconds. "I am  deeply disturbed  by what happened  this afternoon.  I
feel responsible. I don't think I did enough to stop-"
    "Come on, Shigeru," Nicole  replied. "Don't be ridiculous.  You're
not to blame. At least you spoke up. I'm the doctor and I didn't  even
say anything."
    Her eyes  wandered aimlessly  around Takagishi's  hut. Beside  his
cot, sitting on  a small piece  of cloth  on the floor,  Nicole saw  a
curious white figurine with black markings. She walked over to it  and
bent down on her knees, "What's this?" she asked.
    Dr. Takagishi was slightly embarrassed. He came over beside Nicole
and picked up the tiny fat oriental man. He held it between his  index
finger and his thumb. "It's a netsuke heirloom from my wife's family,"
he said. "It's made from ivory."
    He handed the little man to Nicole.  "He is the king of the  gods.
His companion, a similarly plump queen,  rests on the table beside  my
wife's bed in  Kyoto. Back  before elephants  became endangered,  many
people collected  figures like  this. My  wife's family  has a  superb
collection."
    Nicole studied the little man in her hand. He had a benign, serene
smile on his face. She  imagined the beautiful Machiko Takagishi  back
in Japan and for a few seconds she envied their marital bond.It  would
make events like Wilson's death much easier to deal with, she thought.
    "Would you like  to sit  down?" Dr. Takagishi  was saying.  Nicole
positioned herself on a box next to the cot and they talked for twenty
minutes. Mostly they shared memories of their families. They  referred
obliquely to the  afternoon disaster several  times, but they  avoided
detailed discussion of  Rama and the  Newton mission altogether.  What
they both needed were  the comforting images of  their daily lives  on
Earth.
    "And now," Takagishi said, finishing his cup of tea and putting it
on the end table  beside Nicole's, "I have  a strange request for  Dr.
des Jardins. Would you please go over to your hut and bring back  your
biometry equipment? I would like to be scanned."
    Nicole started  to  laugh  but  noticed  the  seriousness  in  her
colleague's face. When she returned  with her scanner several  minutes
later, Dr.  Takagishi  told her  the  reason for  his  request.  "This
afternoon," he said, "I felt two very sharp pains in my chest. It  was
during the  excitement, after  Wilson crashed  into the  biots, and  I
realized . . ."  He did not complete  his sentence. Nicole nodded  and
activated the scanning instrument.
    Neither of them said anything  for the next three minutes.  Nicole
checked all  the warning  data,  displayed graphs  and charts  of  his
cardiac performance,  and  shook  her head  regularly.  When  she  was
finished she faced her friend with a grim smile. "You've had a  slight
heart attack,"  she  said to  Dr.  Takagishi. "Maybe  two  very  close
together. And your  heart has  been irregular ever  since." She  could
tell that he  had expected the  news. "I'm sorry,"  she said. "I  have
some medicine with me  that I can  give you, but  it's only a  stopgap
measure. We must  go back to  the Newton immediately  so we can  treat
this problem properly."
    "Well." He smiled wanly. "If our predictions are correct, then  it
will be light again in Rama in  about twelve hours. I assume we'll  go
then."
    "Probably," she answered. "I'll talk  to Brown and Heilmann  about
it right away. My guess  is that you and I  will leave first thing  in
the morning."
    He reached out and took her hand. "Thank you, Nicole," he said.
    She turned away. For the second  time in an hour there were  tears
in the corners of her eyes. Nicole left Takagishi's hut and headed for
the edge of camp to talk to David Brown.
    "Ah, itis you." She heard  Richard Wakefield's voice in the  dark.
"I thought for certain you were asleep. I have some news for you."
    "Hello, Richard," Nicole said as the figure holding the flashlight
emerged from the darkness.
    "I couldn't sleep," he said. "Too many grisly pictures in my head.
So I decided to work on your problem." He smiled. "It was even  easier
than I thought. Would you like to come to my hut for an explanation?"
    Nicole was confused. She  had been preoccupied  with what she  was
going to say to Brown and Heilmann about Takagishi. "You do  remember,
don't you?" Richard inquired. "The problem with the RoSur software and
the manual commands."
    "You've been working onthat?" she asked. "Down here?"
    "Certainly. All I  had to do  was have O’Toole  transmit the  data
that I needed. Come on, let me show you."
    Nicole decided seeing Dr. Brown could wait for a few more minutes.
She walked beside Richard. He knocked on another hut as they went  by.
"Hey Tabori, guess what?" he shouted. "I found our lovely lady  doctor
wandering around in the dark. Do you want to join us?"
    "I explained some  of it to  him first," Richard  said to  Nicole.
"Your hut was dark and I figured you were asleep."
    Janos stumbled  out of  his  door less  than  a minute  later  and
acknowledged Nicole with  a smile.  "All right,  Wakefield," he  said,
"but let's not prolong it. I was finally drifting off."
    Back in Wakefield's hut,  the British engineer thoroughly  enjoyed
recounting what had happened to the robot surgeon when the Newton  had
experienced the unexpected torque. "You were right, Nicole," he  said,
"that there were manual  commands input to  RoSur. And these  commands
did indeed shut down the normal fault protection algorithms. But  none
of them was input untilduring the Raman maneuver."
    Wakefield smiled  and  continued,  watching  Nicole  carefully  to
ensure that she was following his explanation. "Apparently, when Janos
fell and his fingers hit the control box, he generated three commands.
At least that's what RoSur thought; it was told that there were  three
manual commands in it’s  queue. Of course they  were all garbage.  But
RoSur had no way of knowing this.
    "Maybe now you can appreciate  some of the nightmares that  plague
system software  designers. There's  just no  way anybody  could  ever
anticipate all  possible contingencies.  The designers  had  protected
againstone inadvertent  garbage command-someone  brushing the  control
box during  an operation,  for  example-but notseveral  bad  commands.
Manual commands were essentially considered  to be emergencies by  the
overall system  design. Hence  they had  the highest  priority in  the
interrupt structure of  the RoSur software  and were always  processed
immediately, The design acknowledged, however,  that there could be  a
single 'bad' manual command and had the capability of rejecting it and
moving on  to  the  next priority  interrupts,  which  included  fault
protection."
    "Sorry," said  Nicole. "You've  lost  me. How  could a  design  be
structured to  disregard a  single  bad command,  but not  several?  I
thought this simple processor operated in series."
    Richard turned to his portable  computer and, working from  notes,
called up  on  the monitor  a  mass of  numbers  arrayed in  rows  and
columns. "Here are  the operations, instruction  by instruction,  that
the RoSur software implemented after there were manual commands in its
queue."
    "They repeat," Janos observed, "every seven operations."
    "Exactly," Richard replied.  "RoSur tried three  times to  process
the first manual command, was  unsuccessful in each attempt, and  then
went on to the next command.  The software operated exactly as it  was
designed-"
    "But why," Tabori  asked, "did  it go  back to  the first  command
afterward?"
    "Because the software designers  never considered the  possibility
ofmultiple bad manual  commands. Or  at least never  designed for  the
condition. The  internal question  the software  asks after  finishing
with the processing of each command is whether or not there is another
manual command  in  the buffer.  If  there isnot,  then  the  software
rejects the first command and is free to handle another interrupt.  If
thereis, however, the software is  told to store the rejected  command
and process  the next  command. Now,  if  two commands  in a  row  are
rejected, the softwareassumes  that the  command processorhardware  is
broken, swaps  to  the redundant  hardware  set, and  tries  again  to
process the same  manual commands. You  can understand the  reasoning.
Suppose one . . ."
    Nicole listened for  several seconds as  Richard and Janos  talked
about redundant subsystems, buffered  commands, and queue  structures.
She had very little training in either fault protection or  redundancy
management and could  not follow  the exchange. "Just  a moment,"  she
interjected at length,  "you've lost  me again. Remember,  I'm not  an
engineer. Can't somebody give me a summary in normal English?"
    Wakefield was apologetic. "Sorry, Nicole," he said. "You know what
an interrupt-driven  software system  is?" She  nodded. "And  you  are
familiar with the way priorities operate in such a system? Good.  Then
the explanation is  simple. The fault  protection interrupts based  on
the accelerometer and imaging data were lower priority than the manual
commands inadvertently  entered  by Janos  when  he was  falling.  The
system became locked  in a  software loop  trying to  process the  bad
commands and never  had a chance  to heed the  fault signals from  the
sensor subsystems. That's why the scalpel kept cutting."
    For some reason Nicole was disappointed. The explanation was clear
enough, and she  had certainly  not wanted the  analysis to  implicate
Janos or any other member of the  crew. But it was too simple. It  had
not been worth all her time and energy.
    Nicole sat down on  the cot in Richard  Wakefield's hut. "So  much
for my mystery," she said.
    Janos sat beside her. "Cheer up,  Nicole," he said. "This is  good
news. At least  now we know  for certain  that we didn't  foul up  the
initialization  process.  There's  a  logical  explanation  for   what
happened."
    "Great," she replied sarcastically.  "But General Borzov is  still
dead. And now Reggie Wilson is too." Nicole thought about the American
journalist's  erratic  behavior  over   the  last  several  days   and
remembered her earlier  conversation with Francesca.  "Say," she  said
spontaneously, "did either of you ever hear General Borzov complain of
headaches or  any  other discomfort?  Especially  on the  day  of  the
banquet?"
    Wakefield shook his head. "No," said Janos. "Why do you ask?"
    "Well, I  asked  the  portable diagnostician,  based  on  Borzov's
biometry data, to give me the  possible causes of his symptoms,  given
that the general wasnot having an appendicitis. The most likely  cause
was listed as  drug reaction.  Sixty-two percent  probable. I  thought
that maybe he might have had an adverse reaction to some medication."
    "Really?" Janos said,  his curiosity piqued.  "Why have you  never
said anything about this to me before?"
    "I was going to ... several times," Nicole answered. "But I didn't
think you were interested. Remember when I stopped by your room on the
Newton the day after General Borzov died? It was right after the  crew
meeting. From the way you responded  I concluded that you didn't  want
to rehash-"
    "Goodness."  Janos  shook  his  head.  "How  we  humans  fail   to
communicate. It was just a headache. Nothing more or less. I certainly
didn't mean to give  you the impression that  I was unwilling to  talk
about Valeriy's death."
    "Speaking of communicating," Nicole said as she rose wearily  from
the cot, "I must go to see Dr. Brown and Admiral Heilmann before I  go
to bed."  She  looked at  Wakefield.  "Thanks  a lot  for  your  help,
Richard. I wish I could say that I felt better now."
    Nicole walked over beside Janos. 'Tm sorry, friend," she said.  "I
should have shared my whole investigation with you. It probably  would
have been over much faster-"
    ^ "It's fine," Janos replied.  "Don't worry about it." He  smiled.
"Come on, I'll walk with you as far as my suite."
    Nicole could hear the loud conversation inside before she  knocked
on the door  to the  hut. David  Brown, Otto  Heilmann, and  Francesca
Sabatini were arguing about how to reply to the latest directions from
Earth.
    "They're overreacting," Francesca was saying. "And they'll realize
it as soon as they  have some time to reflect.  This is not the  first
mission to  suffer  a loss  of  human  life. They  didn't  cancel  the
American space  shuttle  when that  schoolteacher  and her  crew  were
killed."
    "But they  haveordered us  to  return to  the  Newton as  soon  as
possible/' Admiral Heilmann protested.
    "So tomorrow we'll talk to them  again and explain why we want  to
survey New York first.  Takagishi says the sea  will start to melt  in
another day or two and we'll have to leave anyway. Besides,  Wakefield
and Takagishi  and I  did hear  something that  night, even  if  David
doesn't believe us."
    "I don't know, Francesca," Dr. Brown was starting to respond  when
he finally heard Nicole's knock. "Who's there?" he asked crossly.
    "Cosmonaut  des   Jardins,   I   have   some   important   medical
information-"
    "Look, des Jardins," Brown interrupted quickly, "we're very  busy.
Can't it wait until morning?"
    All right,Nicole said  to herself.I  can wait  until morning.  She
wasn't anxious to answer Dr. Brown's questions about Takagishi's heart
condition anyway. "Roger," she said out loud, laughing at herself  for
using the expression.
    Within seconds Nicole could hear the discussion start again behind
her. She walked  slowly back to  her hut.Tomorrow has  to be a  better
day, she said as she crawled onto her cot.
    31ORVIETO PRODIGY
    Good night, Otto," David Brown said as the German admiral left his
hut. "See you  in the  morning." Dr.  Brown yawned  and stretched.  He
looked at his watch. It was a  little more than eight hours until  the
lights should come on again.
    He pulled off his  flight suit and  had a drink  of water. He  had
just laid down on his cot when Francesca entered his hut. "David," she
said, "we have more  problems." She walked over  and gave him a  short
kiss. "I've been talking  to Janos. Nicole  suspects that Valeriy  was
drugged."
    "Whaaat?" he replied. He sat up on his cot. "How could she?  There
was no way-"
    "Apparently there was some evidence  in his biometry data and  she
cleverly found it. She mentioned it to Janos tonight."
    "You didn't react when he  told you, did you?  I mean, we must  be
absolutely-"
    "Of course not,"  Francesca answered. "Anyway,  Janos would  never
suspect anything in a thousand years. He is a total innocent. At least
where things like this are concerned."
    "Damn that woman," David Brown  said. "And damn her biometry."  He
rubbed his face with his hands. "What a day. First that stupid  Wilson
tries to be a hero. Now this. ... I told you we should have  destroyed
all the data from the operation. It would have been an easy matter  to
wipe out the central files. Then things would never-"
    "She would still have his biometry records," Francesca  countered.
"That's where the prime evidence is. You would have to be an  absolute
genius  to  take  the  data  from  the  operation  itself  and  deduce
anything." She  sat down  and  cradled Dr.  Brown's head  against  her
chest. "Our big mistake was not  when we failed to destroy the  files.
That would  have  aroused suspicion  at  the  ISA. Our  error  was  in
underestimating Nicole des Jardins."
    Dr. Brown  shook free  from  the embrace  and stood  up.  "Dammit,
Francesca, it's your fault. I never  should have let you talk me  into
it. I knew at the time-"
    "You knew at the time," Francesca sharply interrupted, "that  you,
Dr. David Brown,  were not going  on the first  sortie into Rama.  You
knew at the time that your  future millions as the hero and  perceived
leader of this expedition would be seriously compromised if you stayed
onboard the Newton."  Brown stopped pacing  and faced Francesca.  "You
knew at the time," she continued more softly, "that I too had a vested
interest in your going on the sortie.  And that I could be counted  on
to provide you with support."
    She took his hands and pulled him back toward the cot. "Sit  down,
David," Francesca said.  "We've been over  and over this.  We did  not
kill General  Borzov. We  simply  gave him  a  drug that  created  the
symptoms of an appendicitis.  We made the  decision together, If  Rama
had not maneuvered and the  robot surgeon had not malfunctioned,  then
our plan would have  worked perfectly. Borzov would  be on the  Newton
today, recovering from his appendectomy, and  you and I would be  here
leading the exploration of Rama."
    David Brown removed his hands from hers and started to wring them.
"I feel so ...  so unclean," he said.  "I've never done anything  like
this before.  I mean,  whether we  like it  or not,  we are  partially
responsible for Borzov's death.  Maybe even for  Wilson's as well.  We
could be indicted." He was shaking his head again. There was a forlorn
expression on his  face. "I'm supposed  to be a  scientist," he  said.
"What has happened to me? How did I get mixed up in these things?"
    "Spare me your righteousness," Francesca said harshly. "And  don't
try to kid yourself.  Aren't you the man  who stole the decade's  most
important astronomical discovery  from a woman  graduate student?  And
then married  her  to  keep  her quiet  forever?  Your  integrity  was
compromised a long long time ago."
    "That's unfair," Dr.  Brown said petulantly.  "I have mostly  been
honest. Except-"
    "Except when it was important and worth a lot to you, What a  pile
of shit!" Francesca  now stood up  and paced around  the hut  herself.
"You men are so damn hypocritical. You preserve your lofty self-images
with amazing rationalizations. You never  admit to yourselves who  you
really are and what  you really want. Most  women are more honest.  We
acknowledge our  ambitions, our  desires, even  our basest  wants.  We
admit our weaknesses.  We face ourselves  as we are,  not as we  would
like to be."
    She returned to  the cot  and took  David's hands  in hers  again.
"Don't  you  see,  darling?"  she  said  earnestly.  "You  and  I  are
soulmates. Our alliance is based  on the strongest bond of  all-mutual
self-interest. We are both  motivated by the same  goals of power  and
fame."
    "That sounds awful," he said.
    "But it's true. Even  if you don't want  to admit it to  yourself.
David, darling, can't you see that your indecisiveness comes from your
failure to acknowledge your  true nature? Look at  me. I know  exactly
what I want and  am never confused  about what to  do. My behavior  is
automatic."
    The American physicist  sat quietly  beside Francesca  for a  long
time. At length  he turned and  put his head  on her shoulder.  "First
Borzov, now Wilson," he said with a sigh. "I feel whipped. I wish none
of this had happened."
    "You can't give up,  David," she said,  stroking his head-  "We've
come too far. And the big prize is now within our reach."
    Francesca reached  across him  and started  to remove  his  shirt.
"It's been a long and trying day/' she said soothingly. "Let's try  to
forget it." David Brown closed his  eyes as she caressed his face  and
chest.
    Francesca bent  over and  kissed him  slowly on  the lips.  A  few
moments later  she  abruptly  stopped. "You  see,"  she  said,  slowly
removing her own clothes, "as long as we are in this together, we  can
derive strength from  each other."  She stood  up in  front of  David,
forcing him to open his eyes.
    "Hurry," he said impatiently, "I was already-"
    "Don't worry so much about it," Francesca replied, lazily  pulling
down her pants, "you've never had a problem with me." Francesca smiled
again as she pushed his knees  apart and pressed his face against  her
breasts. "Remember," she said, tugging  easily at his shorts with  her
free hand, "I'm not Elaine."
    She studied David  Brown as he  slept beside her.  The strain  and
anxiety that  had dominated  his  face just  minutes before  had  been
replaced by the carefree smile of  a boy.Men are so simple,  Franceses
was thinking.Orgasm is the perfect pain reliever. I wish it were  that
easy for us.
    She slipped  off the  small  cot and  put  her clothes  on  again.
Francesca was very careful not to disturb her sleeping friend.But  you
and I still have a real problem,  she said to herself as she  finished
dressing,which we  need  to  address  quickly. And  it  will  be  more
difficult because we are dealing with a woman.
    Francesca walked outside her  hut, into the  black of Rama.  There
were a few lights near the supplies at the other end of the camp,  but
otherwise the Beta campsite  was dark. Everyone  else was asleep.  She
switched on  her  small flashlight  and  walked away  in  a  southerly
direction, toward the Cylindrical Sea.
    What is it that you want, Madame Nicole des jardins?she thought as
she walked along.And where's your  weakness, your Achilles' heel?  For
several minutes Francesca  flipped through her  entire memory bank  on
Nicole, attempting  to find  any personality  or character  flaw  that
could be exploited.Money's not the answer. Sex. isn't either, at least
not with me. She laughed  involuntarily.And certainly not with  David.
Your dislike for him is obvious.
    What about blackmail!'Francesca asked herself as she drew near  to
the banks  of  the Cylindrical  Sea.  She remembered  Nicole's  strong
reaction to her question about Genevieve's father.Maybe, she  thought,
if I knew the answer to that question . . . But I don't
    Francesca was temporarily  stumped. She could  not figure out  any
way to compromise Nicole des Jardins. By this time the lights from the
campsite behind her  were barely visible.  Francesca extinguished  her
flashlight and very cautiously  sat down to dangle  her feet over  the
edge of the cliff.
    Having her legs suspended above the frozen ice of the  Cylindrical
Sea brought back a  suite of poignant memories  from her childhood  in
Orvieto. At the age of eleven, despite the barrage of health  warnings
that assaulted her from every direction, the precocious Francesca  had
decided to start smoking cigarettes. Every day after school she  would
wind her way down the hill to the plain below the town and sit on  the
bank of her favorite creek. There  she would smoke in silence, an  act
of solitary rebellion. On  those lazy afternoons  she would inhabit  a
fantasy world of castles and princes, millions of kilometers away from
her mother and stepfather.
    The memory of  those adolescent moments  produced an  irresistible
desire to smoke in Francesca. She  had been taking her nicotine  pills
throughout  the  mission,  but   they  satisfied  only  the   physical
addiction. She laughed at herself and reached into one of the  special
pockets of her flight suit. Francesca had hidden away three cigarettes
in a special container  that would preserve  them in fresh  condition.
She had told herself before leaving the Earth that the cigarettes were
there "in case of an emergency" . . .
    Smoking a cigarette inside  an extraterrestrial space vehicle  was
even more  outrageous than  smoking at  the age  of eleven.  Francesca
wanted to hoot with delight when she threw back her head and  expelled
the smoke into the Raman air.  The act made her feel free,  liberated.
Somehow the threat represented by Nicole  des Jardins did not seem  so
serious.
    While she was smoking, Francesca recalled the acute loneliness  of
that young girl  stealing down  the slopes  of old  Orvieto. She  also
remembered the terrible secret that she had kept locked forever in her
heart. Francesca had never told anyone about her stepfather, certainly
not her mother, and  she rarely thought about  it anymore. But as  she
sat on the banks of the Cylindrical Sea, the anguish of her  childhood
appeared to her in sharp relief.
    It began right  after my eleventh  birthday,she thought,  plunging
back into the details of her life eighteen years before. /had no  idea
what the bastard wanted at first  She took another deep drag from  her
cigarette.Even after he started bringing me gifts for no reason.
    He had been the  principal of her new  school. When she had  taken
her first full set of aptitude  tests, Francesca had made the  highest
scores in the history  of Orvieto. She was  off the scale, a  prodigy.
Until then  he  had never  noticed  her.  He had  married  her  mother
eighteen months  before and  fathered  the twins  almost  immediately.
Francesca had been  a nuisance,  another mouth to  feed, nothing  more
than a part of her mother's furniture.
    For several months he was especially nice to me. Then Mother  went
to visit Aunt  Carlo for a  few days.The painful  memories came  fast,
rushing like a torrent through her  mind. She remembered the smell  of
wine on her stepfather's breath, his sweat against her body, her tears
after he had left her room.
    The nightmare had lasted  for over a year.  He had forced  himself
upon her whenever her mother was  not in the house. Then one  evening,
while he  was  putting  on  his  clothes  and  looking  in  the  other
direction, Francesca had smacked him in  the back of the head with  an
aluminum baseball bat. Her stepfather had fallen to the floor,  bloody
and unconscious. She had dragged him into the living room and left him
there.
    He never touched  me again,Francesca remembered,  putting out  her
cigarette in the Raman dirt.We were strangers in the same house.  From
then on I spent most  of my time with Roberto  and his friends. I  was
just waiting for my chance. I was ready when Carlo came.
    Francesca was fourteen during the  summer of 2184. She spent  most
of her time that summer loitering  around the main square of  Orvieto.
Her older cousin Roberto  had just completed his  certificate to be  a
tour guide for the cathedral in  the square. The old Duomo, the  chief
tourist attraction of the town, had been built in phases, starting  in
the fourteenth century. The church  was an artistic and  architectural
masterpiece. The frescoes  by Luca  Signorelli inside  its San  Brizio
chapel were  widely  hailed  as the  finest  examples  of  imaginative
fifteenth century painting outside of the Vatican museum.
    To have become  an official  Duomo guide was  considered quite  an
accomplishment, especially at the age of nineteen. Francesca was  very
proud of Roberto. She sometimes accompanied him on his tours, but only
if she agreed beforehand not to embarrass him with her wisecracks.
    One August afternoon, right after lunch, a sleek limousine  pulled
into the piazza around  II Duomo and the  chauffeur requested a  guide
from the tourist bureau. The gentleman in the limousine had not made a
reservation and  Roberto  was  the  only  guide  available.  Francesca
watched with great  curiosity as  a short,  handsome man  in his  late
thirties or  early forties  climbed out  of the  back of  the car  and
introduced himself to Roberto. Automobiles had been banned from  upper
Orvieto, except  by special  permit, for  almost a  hundred years,  so
Francesca knew the man must be an unusual individual.
    As he  always  did,  Roberto  began  his  tour  with  the  reliefs
sculptured by Lorenzo Maitani  on the outside  portals of the  church.
Still curious, Francesca stood just off to the side, smoking  quietly,
while her  cousin  explained the  significance  of the  weird  demonic
figures at the  bottom of  one of  the columns.  "This is  one of  the
earliest representations of Hell," Roberto  said, pointing at a  group
of Dantesque figures. "The fourteenth century concept of Hell involved
an extremely literal interpretation of the Bible."
    "Hah!" Francesca had suddenly interjected, dropping her  cigarette
on the  cobblestones  and  walking toward  Roberto  and  the  handsome
stranger. "It was also a very  masculine concept of Hell. Notice  that
many of the  demons have  breasts and most  of the  sins depicted  are
sexual. Men have always believed that they were created perfect; it is
women who have taught them to sin."
    The stranger  was  astonished by  the  appearance of  this  gangly
teenager expelling smoke from her  mouth. His trained eye  immediately
recognized her  natural beauty  and it  was clear  that she  was  very
bright. Who was she?
    "This is my cousin,  Francesca" Roberto said, obviously  flustered
by her interruption.
    "Carlo Bianchi," the man  said, extending his  hand. His hand  was
moist Francesca  looked up  at his  face  and could  see that  he  was
interested. She could feel  her heart pounding in  her chest. "If  you
listen to  Roberto/' she  said  coyly, "then  all  you'll get  is  the
official tour. He leaves out the juicy bits."
    "And you, young lady-"
    "Francesca," she said.
    "Yes, Francesca. Do you have a tour of your own?"
    Francesca gave him her prettiest smile. "I read a lot," she  said.
"I  know  all  about  the   artists  who  worked  on  the   cathedral,
particularly the painter  Luca Signorelli/' She  paused for a  moment.
"Did you know," she continued,  "that Michelangelo came here to  study
Signorelli's nudes  before  he  painted the  ceiling  at  the  Sistine
Chapel?"
    "No, I  didn't," Carlo  said, laughing  heartily. He  was  already
fascinated. "But 1 do  now. Come. Join  us. You can  add to what  your
cousin Roberto says."
    She loved the way  he kept staring  at her. It was  as if he  were
appraising her, as if she were a fine painting or a jeweled  necklace,
his eyes missing nothing as  they roamed unabashedly over her  figure.
And his  easy laughter  spurred her  on. Francesca's  comments  became
increasingly outrageous and bawdy.
    "You see that poor girl on the demon's back?" she said while  they
were  gazing  at  the  bewildering   range  of  genius  exhibited   by
Signorelli's frescoes inside  the San Brizio  chapel. "She looks  like
she's humping the demon in the butt,  right? You know who she is?  Her
face and naked body are portraits of Signorelli's girlfriend. While he
was slaving in  here day after  day, she became  bored and decided  to
diddle a duke or two on the side. Luca was really pissed, So he  fixed
her. He condemned her to ride a demon in perpetuity."
    When he stopped laughing, Carlo asked Francesca if she thought the
woman's punishment was  fair. "Of course  not/' the  fourteen-year-old
replied, "it's  just another  example of  the male  chauvinism of  the
fifteenth century. The men  could screw anybody  they wanted and  were
called virile; but let a woman try to satisfy herself-"
    "Francesca!"Roberto interrupted. "Really. This  is too much.  Your
mother would kill you if she heard what you are saying-"
    "My mother  is irrelevant  at  this moment.  I'm talking  about  a
double standard that still exists today. Look at ..."
    Carlo Bianchi  could  hardly  believe his  good  fortune.  A  rich
clothes designer from Milano, one who had established an international
reputation by the time he was thirty, he had just happened to  decide,
on a whim, to hire a car to  take him to Rome instead of going on  the
usual high-speed train. His sister, Monica, had always told him  about
the beauty of  II Duomo in  Orvieto. It had  been another  last-minute
decision to  stop. And  now. My,  my.  The girl  was such  a  splendid
morsel.
    He invited Francesca to  dinner when the tour  was over. But  when
they reached the entrance to  the fanciest restaurant in Orvieto,  the
young woman  balked. Carlo  understood. He  took her  to a  store  and
bought her an expensive new dress with matching shoes and accessories.
He was astonished by how beautiful she was. And only fourteen!
    Francesca had never before drunk really fine wine. She drank it as
if it  were water.  Each dish  was so  delicious that  she  positively
squealed. Carlo was enchanted with  his woman-child. He loved the  way
she let her cigarette dangle  from the corner of  her lips. It was  so
unspoiled, so perfectly gauche.
    When the meal was over it was dark. Francesca walked with him back
to the limousine  parked in front  of II  Duomo. As they  went down  a
narrow  alley,  she  leaned  over  and  playfully  bit  his  ear.   He
spontaneously pulled her  to him  and was rewarded  with an  explosive
kiss. The surge in his loins overwhelmed him.
    Francesca had felt  it too.  She did  not hesitate  a second  when
Carlo suggested  they go  for  a ride  in the  car.  By the  time  the
limousine had  reached  the  outskirts of  Orvieto,  she  was  sitting
astride him in the backseat. Thirty minutes later, when they  finished
making love  the second  time, Carlo  could not  bear the  thought  of
parting with this  incredible girl.  He asked Francesca  if she  would
like to accompany him to Rome.
    "Andiamo,"she replied with a smile.
    So we went to Rome and then Capri,Francesca remembered.Paris for a
week.  In  Milano  you  had  me  live  with  Monica  and  Luigi.   For
appearances. Men are always so worried about appearances.
    Francesca's long reverie  was broken  when she  thought she  heard
footsteps in the  distance. She cautiously  stood up in  the dark  and
listened. It was hard for her to hear anything over her own breathing.
Then she heard the sound again, off to the left. Her ears told her the
sound was out on the ice. A burst of fear flooded her with an image of
bizarre creatures  attacking  their  camp from  across  the  ice.  She
listened again very carefully, but heard nothing.
    Francesca turned back  toward the  camp. /loved  -you, Carlo,  she
said to herself,if I ever loved any man. Even after you began to share
me with your friends.  More long-buried pain came  to the surface  and
Francesca fought it with hard anger.Until you started hitting me. That
ruined everything. You proved that you were a real bastard.
    Francesca very deliberately pushed  aside the memories.Now,  where
were we? she thought as she  approached her hut.Ah yes. The issue  was
Nicole des Jardins.  How much does  she really know?  And what are  we
going to do about it?
    32NEW YORK EXPLORER
    The tiny bell on his wristwatch awakened Dr. Takagishi from a deep
sleep. For a few moments he was disoriented, unable to remember  where
he was.  He sat  up on  his  cot and  rubbed his  eyes. At  length  he
recalled that he was inside  Rama and that the  alarm had been set  to
wake him up after five hours of sleep.
    He dressed in the dark. When he was finished he picked up a  large
bag and fumbled around inside for several seconds. Satisfied with  its
contents, he threw the strap over his shoulder and walked to the  door
of his hut.  Dr. Takagishi  peered out  cautiously. He  could not  see
lights in any of the other huts. He took a deep breath and tiptoed out
the door.
    The world's leading authority  on Rama walked out  of the camp  in
the direction of the  Cylindrical Sea. When he  reached the shore,  he
climbed slowly down  to the  icy surface on  the stairs  cut into  the
fifty-meter cliff. Takagishi  sat on the  bottom rung, hidden  against
the base of the cliff. He removed some special cleats from his bag and
attached them to the  bottom of his shoes.  Before walking out on  the
ice, the scientist calibrated his personal navigator so that he  would
be able to keep a constant heading once he left the shoreline.
    When he was  about two  hundred meters  away from  the shore,  Dr.
Takagishi reached  in his  pocket  to pull  out his  portable  weather
monitor. It dropped on the ice,  making a short clacking sound in  the
quiet night. Takagishi picked it up  a few seconds later. The  monitor
told him that  the temperature  was minus two  degrees Centigrade  and
that a soft wind  was blowing across the  ice at eight kilometers  per
hour.
    Takagishi inhaled  deeply and  was astonished  by a  peculiar  but
familiar odor. Puzzled, he inhaled  again, this time concentrating  on
the smell, There  was no  doubt about  it-it was  cigarette smoke!  He
hurriedly extinguished his flashlight and stood motionless on the ice.
His mind raced into overdrive, searching for an explanation. Franceses
Sabatini was the only cosmonaut  who smoked. Had she somehow  followed
him when he left the camp? Had she seen his light when he checked  his
weather monitor?
    He listened for noises but heard nothing in the Raman night. Still
he waited. When the cigarette smell had been gone for several minutes,
Dr. Takagishi continued his trek  across the ice, stopping every  four
or five steps to ensure that he was not being followed. Eventually  he
convinced himself  that Francesca  was not  behind him.  However,  the
cautious Takagishi did not turn on  his flashlight again until he  had
walked more than a kilometer and had become worried that he might have
drifted off course.
    Altogether it took  him forty-five minutes  to reach the  opposite
edge of the sea and the island city of New York. When he was a hundred
meters from the shore, the Japanese scientist tooka larger  flashlight
from  his  bag  and  switched  on  its  powerful  beam.  The   ghostly
silhouettes of the  skyscrapers sent  an exhilarating  chill down  his
spine. At last he was here! At  last he could seek the answers to  his
lifetime  of  questions  unencumbered  by  someone  else's   arbitrary
schedule.
    Dr. Takagishi knew exactly where he wanted to go in New York. Each
of  the  three  circular  sections  of  the  Raman  city  was  further
subdivided into  three  angular  portions, like  a  pie  divided  into
slices. At the center of each of the three main sections was a central
core, or plaza,  around which the  rest of the  buildings and  streets
were arranged. As a  boy in Kyoto, after  reading everything he  could
find about the first Raman expedition, Takagishi had wondered what  it
would be like to stand in the center of one of those alien plazas  and
stare upward at buildings created by beings from another star.
    Takagishi felt certain not only that the secrets of Rama could  be
understood by studying New York, but  also that its three plazas  were
the most likely locations for clues  to the mysterious purpose of  the
interstellar vehicle.
    The map of New  York drawn by the  earlier Raman explorers was  as
firmly etched in Takagishi's  mind as the map  of Kyoto, where he  was
born and  raised. But  that  first Raman  expedition  had had  only  a
limited time to survey  New York. Of the  nine functional units,  only
one had  been  mapped  in  detail; the  prior  cosmonauts  had  simply
assumed, on  the basis  of limited  observations, that  all the  other
units were identical.
    As Takagishi's brisk pace carried  him deeper and deeper into  the
foreboding quiet  of one  part  of the  central section,  some  subtle
differences between  this  particular  segment of  Rama  and  the  one
studied by Norton's crew (they  had surveyed an adjacent slice)  began
to emerge. The layout of  the major streets in  the two units was  the
same; however, as Dr. Takagishi drew closer to the plaza, the  smaller
streets broke into a slightly different pattern from the one that  had
been reported  by  the first  explorers.  The scientist  in  Takagishi
forced him to  stop often and  note all the  variations on his  pocket
computer.
    He entered the region immediately surrounding the plaza, where the
streets ran in concentric circles. He crossed three avenues and  found
himself standing opposite  a huge octahedron,  about a hundred  meters
tall, with a mirrored exterior. His powerful flashlight beam reflected
off its surface and then bounced from building to building around him.
Dr. Takagishi walked  slowly around the  octahedron, searching for  an
entrance, but he did not find one.
    On the other side of the  eight-sided structure, in the center  of
the plaza, was a broad circular space without tall buildings.  Shigeru
Takagishi moved  deliberately  around  the  entire  perimeter  of  the
circle, studying the surrounding buildings as he walked. He gained  no
new insights  about the  purpose  of the  structures. When  he  turned
inward at regular intervals  to survey the plaza  area itself, he  saw
nothing unusual or particularly noteworthy. Nevertheless, he did enter
into his computer the location of the many short, nondescript metallic
boxes that divided the plaza into partitions.
    When he  was  again in  front  of the  octahedron,  Dr.  Takagishi
reached into his  bag and pulled  out a thin  hexagonal plate  densely
covered with electronics. He deployed the scientific apparatus in  the
plaza, three or four meters away  from the octahedron, and then  spent
ten minutes verifying  with his  transceiver that  all the  scientific
instruments were  properly working.  When the  Japanese scientist  had
completed checking the  payload, he  quickly left the  plaza area  and
headed for the Cylindrical Sea.
    Takagishi was in the middle  of the second concentric avenue  when
he heard a short but  loud popping noise behind  him in the plaza.  He
turned around  but  didn't  move.  A few  seconds  later  he  heard  a
different sound. This one Takagishi recognized from his first  sortie,
both the dragging of the metal brushes and the embedded high-frequency
singing. He shone his  flashlight in the direction  of the plaza.  The
sound stopped. He switched off his flashlight and stood quietly in the
middle of the avenue.
    Several minutes later  the brush dragging  began again.  Takagishi
moved stealthily  across  the  two  avenues  and  started  around  the
octahedron in the direction  of the noise. When  he was almost to  the
plaza, abeep, beep from his bag  broke his concentration. By the  time
he turned  off the  alarm, which  was indicating  that the  scientific
package he had just deployed  in the plaza had already  malfunctioned,
there was total  quiet in New  York. Again Dr.  Takagishi waited,  but
this time the sound did not recur.
    He took  a  deep breath  to  calm  himself and  summoned  all  his
courage. Somehow his curiosity won out over his fear and Dr. Takagishi
'returned to the plaza  opposite the octahedron to  find out what  had
happened to the scientific  payload. His first  surprise was that  the
hexagonal package had  vanished from the  spot where he  had left  it.
Where could it have gone? Who or what could have taken it?
    Takagishi knew that he was on the verge of a scientific  discovery
of overwhelming importance. He was also terrified. Fighting a powerful
desire to flee, he shone his large flashlight around the plaza, hoping
to find an explanation for  the disappearance of the science  station.
The beam reflected  off a small  piece of metal  some thirty to  forty
meters  closer  to  the  center  of  the  plaza.  Takagishi   realized
immediately  that  the  reflection  was  coming  from  the  instrument
package. He hurried over to it.
    He bent down on his knees and examined the electronics. There  was
no damage that was obvious. He had just pulled out his transceiver  to
begin a  methodical  check of  all  the science  instruments  when  he
noticed a ropelike object about fifteen centimeters in diameter at the
edge of  the flashlight  beam illuminating  the science  package.  Dr.
Takagishi picked up his  light and walked over  to the object. It  was
striped, black  and gold,  and  stretched off  into the  distance  for
twelve meters or so, disappearing behind an odd metal shed about three
meters tall. He felt the thick rope. It was soft and fuzzy on the top.
When he tried to turn it over to feel the bottom, the object began  to
move. Takagishi dropped it immediately  and watched it slither  slowly
away from him toward the shed. The motion was accompanied by the sound
of brushes dragging against metal.
    Dr. Takagishi could hear the sound of his own heartbeat. Again  he
fought the urge to run away.  He remembered his dawn meditations as  a
college student  in the  garden of  his Zen  master. He  would not  be
afraid. He ordered his feet to march in the direction of the shed.
    The black  and gold  rope disappeared.  There was  silence in  the
plaza. Takagishi approached the shed with his light beam on the ground
at the spot where the thick rope had last been visible. He came around
the corner and  thrust the beam  into the shed.  He could not  believe
what he saw. A mass of black and gold tentacles writhed underneath the
light.
    A  high-frequency  whine  suddenly  exploded  in  his  ears.   Dr.
Takagishi looked over  his left  shoulder and  was thunderstruck.  His
eyes bugged  out  of  his head.  His  scream  was lost  as  the  noise
intensified and three of the tentacles  reached out to touch him.  The
walls of his  heart gave way  and he slumped,  already dead, into  the
grasp of the amazing creature.
    33MISSING PERSON
    "Admiral Heilmann."
    "Yes, General O’Toole."
    "Are you by yourself?"
    "Certainly. I just woke up a few minutes ago. My meeting with  Dr.
Brown is not for another hour. Why are you calling so early?"
    "While you were  sleeping I  received a coded  top secret  message
from COG military  headquarters. It's  about Trinity.  They wanted  to
know the status."
    "What do you mean, General?"
    "Is this line secure, Admiral?  Have you turned off the  automatic
recorder?"
    "Now I have."
    "They asked two questions. Did  Borzov die without telling  anyone
his RQ? Does anyone  else on the crew  know about Trinity?" "You  know
the answers to both questions."
    "I wanted to be certain that you hadn't talked to Dr. Brown.  They
insisted that I check with you before encoding my answer. What do  you
think this is all about?"
    "I don't know, Michael.  Maybe somebody down  on Earth is  getting
nervous. Wilson's death probably scared them."
    "It certainly scared me. But not  to the point that I would  think
about Trinity. I wonder if they know something that we don't."
    "Well, I guess we'll find out  soon enough. All the ISA  officials
have been  insisting  that  we  should  evacuate  Rama  at  the  first
available opportunity. They didn't even like our decision to rest  the
crew for several hours first. This time I don't think they will change
their minds."
    "Admiral, do you remember that hypothetical discussion we had with
General Borzov during the cruise, about the conditions under which  we
would activate Trinity?"
    "Vaguely. Why?"
    "Do you still disagree  with his insistence  that we must  knowwhy
the Trinity contingency is being called for? You said at the time that
if the Earth thought great danger was imminent, you didn't  personally
need to understand the rationale."
    "I'm afraid I'm not following you, General. Why are you asking  me
these questions?"
    "I would like your permission, Otto, when I encode the response to
COG military headquarters, to find out  why they are asking about  the
status of Trinity  at this particular  time. If we  are in danger,  we
have a right to know."
    "You may request additional information, Michael, but I would  bet
that their inquiry is strictly routine."
    Janos Tabori awakened while it was  still dark inside Rama. As  he
pulled on his  flight suit, he  made a mental  list of the  activities
that would be required  to transport the crab  biot to the Newton.  If
the order to leave  Rama was confirmed, they  would be departing  soon
after dawn. Janos consulted the formal evacuation procedure stored  on
his pocket computer and updated it by adding the new tasks  associated
with the biot.
    He checked his watch. Dawn was only fifteen minutes away, assuming
of course that the  Rama diurnal cycle was  regular. Janos laughed  to
himself. Rama had produced so many surprises already that there was no
certainty the lights would return  on schedule. If they did,  however,
Janos wanted to watch the Raman "sunrise." He could eat his  breakfast
after dawn.
    A hundred meters from his hut the caged crab biot was immobile, as
it had been since it was hoisted away from its companions the previous
day. Janos shone  his flashlight through  the tough, transparent  cage
wall and checked to see  if there were any  signs that the biot  might
have moved during the night. Having established that the biot had  not
changed position,  Janos walked  away from  the Beta  campsite in  the
direction of the sea.
    As he waited  for the burst  of light, he  found himself  thinking
about the very end of his  conversation with Nicole the night  before.
There was something not  quite right about  her offhand revelation  of
the possible cause  of General  Borzov's pain  on the  night he  died.
Janos remembered vividly the healthy appendix; there was no doubt that
the primary  diagnosis had  been  incorrect. But  why had  Nicole  not
talked to him about the backup  drug diagnosis? Especially if she  was
conducting an investigation into the issue. . .
    Janos reached the inescapable conclusion that Dr. des Jardins  had
either lost faith in  his ability or somehow  suspected that he  might
have  himself  administered  the  drugs  to  General  Borzov   without
consulting her. Either way he should find out what she was thinking. A
strange idea, born from  his own feelings of  guilt, next crossed  his
mind.Could it be, he mused,that Nicole somehow knows about the Schmidt
and Hagenest project and suspects all four of us?
    For the  first time,  Janos himself  wondered if  perhaps  Valeriy
Borzov's pain had not  been natural. He  recalled the chaotic  meeting
the four of them had had two hours after David Brown had learned  that
he would be left onboard the Newton during the first sortie. "You must
talk to  him,  Otto/' a  frustrated  Dr.  Brown had  said  to  Admiral
Heilmann. "You must convince him to change his mind."
    Otto Heilmann had  then admitted  it was  unlikely General  Borzov
would change the personnel assignments based on his request. "In  that
case/' Dr. Brown had replied angrily, "we can say good-bye to all  the
incentive awards in our contract."
    Throughout the meeting Francesca  Sabatini had remained quiet  and
seemingly unworried. As he was leaving, Janos had overheard Dr.  Brown
berating her. "And why are  you so calm?" he  had said. "You stand  to
lose as  much as  anyone else.  Or do  you have  a plan  I don't  know
about?"
    Janos had  glimpsed Francesca's  smile for  only a  fraction of  a
second. But he had remarked to himself at the time that she had seemed
oddly confident. Now, as Cosmonaut  Tabori awaited dawn on Rama,  that
smile returned to haunt  him. With Francesca's  knowledge of drugs  it
would have  been well  within her  capability to  give General  Borzov
something that would induce appendicitis symptoms. But would she  have
done something  so ...  so blatantly  dishonest, just  to enhance  the
value of their postmission media project?
    Again Rama was instantaneously flooded  with light. As always,  it
was a feast for the eyes.  Janos turned around slowly, looking in  all
directions and studying both bowls of the immense structure. With  the
light now brightly shining,  he resolved to talk  to Franceses at  the
first opportunity.
    It was Irina Turgenyev, strangely enough, who asked the  question.
The cosmonauts were  almost finished with  their breakfast. Dr.  Brown
and Admiral Heilmann, in fact, had  already left the table to  conduct
another of their  interminable conference calls  with ISA  management.
"Where's Dr. Takagi-shi?" she said  innocently. "He's the last  member
of the crew that I would expect to be late for anything."
    "He must have  slept through  his alarm,"  Janos Tabori  answered,
pushing his folding chair away from the table. "Ill go check on him."
    When Janos returned a  minute later he  was perplexed. "He  wasn't
there," he said with a  shrug of his shoulders.  "I guess he went  out
for a walk."
    Nicole des  Jardins  had  an  immediate  sinking  feeling  in  her
stomach. She rose abruptly without finishing her breakfast. "We should
go look for him," she said,  her concern undisguised, "or he won't  be
ready when we leave."
    The other cosmonauts all noticed Nicole's agitation. "What's going
on  here?"  Richard  Wakefield   said  good-naturedly.  "One  of   our
scientists takes a  little morning  walk on  his own  and the  company
doctor goes  into  panic?"  He  switched on  his  radio.  "Hello,  Dr.
Takagishi, wherever you are. This is Wakefield. Will you please let us
know that you're all right so that we can finish our breakfast."
    There was a long  silence. Every member of  the crew knew that  it
was an absolutely mandatory requirement to carry a communicator at all
times. You could choose to  turn off the transmission capability,  but
you had to listen under any and all circumstances.
    "Takagishi-san," Nicole  said  next with  an  urgent edge  in  her
voice. "Are  you  all  right? Please  respond."  During  the  extended
silence, Nicole's sinking feeling in  her stomach turned into a  large
knot. Something terrible had happened to her friend.
    "I've explained that to you twice, Dr. Maxwell," David Brown  said
in exasperation. "It makes no sense to evacuate part of the crew.  The
most efficient way to  search for Dr. Takagishi  is to use the  entire
staff. Once we find him  we will clear out  of Rama with great  haste.
And to answer your last question, no,  this is not a ploy on the  part
of the crew to avoid compliance with the evacuation order."
    He turned  to  Admiral Heilmann  and  handed him  the  microphone.
"Dammit,  Otto,"  he   muttered,  "you  talk   to  that   bureaucratic
nincompoop. He thinks he can command this mission better than we  can,
even though he's a hundred million kilometers away."
    "Dr. Maxwell, this is Admiral Heilmann. 1 am in complete agreement
with Dr. Brown. Anyway, we really can't afford to argue with such long
delay times. We are going to  proceed with our plan. Cosmonaut  Tabori
will stay  here with  me at  Beta and  pack all  the heavy  equipment,
including the biot. I will coordinate the search. Brown, Sabatini, and
des  Jardins  will  cross  the  ice  to  New  York,  the  most  likely
destination if  the professor  went under  his own  power.  Wakefield,
Turgenyev, and Yamanaka will look for him in the helicopters."
    He paused for  a moment. "There's  no need for  you to respond  to
this transmission  in a  hurry.  The search  will already  have  begun
before your next message will arrive."
    Back  in  her  hut,  Nicole  very  carefully  packed  her  medical
supplies. She  criticized herself  for not  foreseeing that  Takagishi
might try one last  time to visit New  York.You made another  mistake,
Nicole said to herself.The  least you can do  is make certain you  're
prepared when you find him.
    She knew the  personal packing procedure  by heart.  Nevertheless,
she skimped on her own supplies of  food and water to ensure that  she
had whatever an injured or sick Takagishi might need. Nicole had mixed
emotions about her two  companions on the quest  to find the  Japanese
scientist, but it never occurred to  her that the grouping might  have
been purposely planned. Everyone knew Takagishi's fascination with New
York. Given the circumstances,  it was not  surprising that Brown  and
Sabatini were accompanying her to the primary search area.
    Just before Nicole left the hut, she saw Richard Wakefield at  her
door. "May I come in?" he asked.
    "Certainly," she replied.
    He walked in with an  uncharacteristic uncertainty, as if he  were
confused or embarrassed. "What is  it?" Nicole asked after an  awkward
silence.
    He smiled. "Well," he said sheepishly, "it seemed like a good idea
a few minutes  ago. Now it  strikes me as  a little stupid-maybe  even
childish." Nicole noticed he was holding something in his right  hand.
"I brought you something," he continued. "A good luck charm, I  guess.
I thought you might take it with you to New York."
    Cosmonaut  Wakefield  opened  his  hand.  Nicole  recognized   the
figurine of Prince  Hal. "You can  say what you  will about valor  and
discretion  and  all  that,  but  sometimes  a  little  luck  is  more
important."
    Nicole was surprisingly touched. She took the little figurine from
Wake-field and studied its intricate detail with admiration. "Does the
prince have any  special qualities I  need to know  about?" she  asked
with a smile.
    "Oh yes." Richard brightened. "He loves to spend witty evenings in
pubs with  fat  knights  and  other  unsavory  characters.  Or  battle
renegade dukes and earls. Or court beautiful French princesses."
    Nicole blushed slightly.  "If I'm  lonely and want  the prince  to
amuse me, what do I do?" she asked.
    Richard came over  beside Nicole  and showed her  a tiny  keyboard
just above Prince  Hal's buttocks. "He'll  respond to many  commands/'
Richard said, handing her a very small baton the size of a pin.  "This
will fit perfectly into any  of the key slots.  Tryt for talk ora  for
action if you want him to show you his stuff."
    Nicole put the little  prince and the baton  in the pocket of  her
flight suit. "Thank you, Richard," she said. "This is very sweet."
    Wakefield was flustered. "Well, you  know, it's no big deal.  It's
just that we've had a spate of bad luck and I thought, I mean, maybe-"
    "Thanks again, Richard,"  Nicole interrupted,  "I appreciate  your
concern." They walked out of her hut together.
    34STRANGE COMPANIONS
    Dr. David Brown  was the  kind of abstract  scientist who  neither
liked nor trusted machines. Most of his published papers were  written
about theoretical  subjects  because  he abhorred  the  formality  and
detail  of  empirical  science.   Empiricists  had  to  contend   with
instrumentation and, even worse,  engineers. Dr. Brown considered  all
engineers to be nothing more  than glorified carpenters and  plumbers.
He tolerated their existence only because some of them were  necessary
if his theories were ever to be proved by actual data.
    When Nicole innocently asked Dr. Brown some simple questions about
the workings of the icemobile, Francesca could not restrain a  cackle.
"He has absolutely no idea," the Italian journalist responded, "and he
couldn't care less. Would you believe  that the man doesn't even  know
how to drive  an electric cart?I've  seen him stare  at a simple  food
processing robot for  over thirty minutes,  trying without success  to
figure out how  to use it.  He would starve  to deathif nobody  helped
him."
    "Come on, Francesca," Nicole replied as the two women climbed into
the front seat of the icemobile, "he can't be that bad. After ail,  he
has to use all the crew  computers and communication devices, as  well
as the image  processing system  onboard the  Newton. So  you must  be
exaggerating."
    The tenor of the  conversation was light  and harmless. Dr.  David
Brown slumped  in the  backseat and  heaved a  sigh. "Surely  you  two
exceptional women have  something more important  to discuss. If  not,
perhaps you could explain to me why a lunatic Japanese scientist takes
off from our camp in the middle of the night."
    "According to Maxwell's  assistant, that  obsequious cipher  named
Mills, many  people  on  Earth  think our  good  Japanese  doctor  was
kidnapped by the Ramans."
    "Come on, Francesca. Be serious. Why would Dr. Takagishi decide to
strike out on his own?"
    "I have an idea," Nicole said slowly, "that he was impatient  with
the scheduled exploration process. You know how fervently he  believes
in the importance of New York. After  the Wilson incident . . .  well,
he was fairly certain that an evacuation would be ordered. By the time
we come back  inside,if we  come back,  the Cylindrical  Sea may  have
melted and it will be more difficult to reach New York."
    Nicole's natural honesty was urging her to tell Brown and Sabatini
about Takagishi's heart problems. But her intuitive sense told her not
to trust her two companions. "He just doesn't seem like the type to go
off half-cocked," Dr, Brown was saying.  "I wonder if he heard or  saw
something."
    "Maybe he had a headache or couldn't sleep for some other reason,"
Francesca offered. "Reggie Wilson used  to prowl around at night  when
his head was bothering him."
    David Brown  leaned forward,  "By  the way,"  he said  to  Nicole,
"Francesca tells me  that you  think Wilson's  instability might  have
been exacerbated by  the headache  pills he was  using. You  certainly
seem to know your drugs. I was extremely impressed by how quickly  you
identified the particular sleeping pill I had taken."
    "Speaking of drugs," Francesca added  after a short pause.  "Janos
Tabori  mentioned  something  about  a  discussion  he  had  with  you
concerning Borzov's death.  I may not  have understood him  correctly,
but I thought he said that you  believe a drug reaction may have  been
involved."
    They were driving  steadily across the  ice. The conversation  had
been even in tone, apparently casual.  There was no obvious reason  to
be suspicious.
    Nevertheless,Nicole said to  herself as she  framed a response  to
Francesca's remarks,those last two comments seemed too smooth.  Almost
practiced. She  turned to  look  at David  Brown. She  suspected  that
Francesca could dissemble without effort,  but Nicole was certain  she
would be able to  tell from Dr. Brown's  facial expression whether  or
not their questions  were rehearsed.  He squirmed  slightly under  her
unblinking gaze.
    "Cosmonaut Tabori and I were  having a conversation about  General
Borzov and we  started speculating  about what might  have caused  his
pain/' Nicole said  blandly. "After  all, his  appendix was  perfectly
healthy, so something else  must have been  responsible for his  acute
discomfort. In the course  of our conversation,  I mentioned to  Janos
that an adverse  drug reaction  should be considered  as one  possible
cause. It was not a very strong statement."
    Dr. Brown  seemed relieved  and immediately  changed the  subject.
However, Nicole's statement  had not satisfied  Francesca.Unless I  am
mistaken, our lady journalist has more questions, Nicole mused.But she
isn't going to  ask them right  now. She watched  Francesca and  could
tell that the Italian  woman was not paying  attention to Dr.  Brown's
monologue in the  backseat. While  he was discussing  the reaction  on
Earth to Wilson's  death, Francesca  was deep in  thought-There was  a
momentary quiet after  Brown finished his  commentary. Nicole  glanced
around her at the miles  of ice, the imposing  cliffs on the sides  of
the Cylindrical Sea, and the skyscrapers of New York in front of  her.
Rama was a glorious world. She had a momentary pang of guilt about her
distrust of Francesca and  Dr. Brown.It's a shame  that we humans  are
never able to pull in the  same direction, Nicole said to  herself.Not
even when confronted by infinity.
    "I can't  imagine  how  you  have  managed  it,"  Francesca  said,
suddenly breaking the silence. She had turned to address Nicole. "Even
after all this  time, not even  the tabloid videos  have a  legitimate
lead. And it doesn't  take a genius  to figure out  when it must  have
occurred."
    Dr. Brown was completely lost. "What in the world are you  talking
about?" he asked.
    "Our famous life science  officer," Francesca replied. "Don't  you
find it fascinating  that after  all this  time, the  identity of  her
daughter's father is still unknown to the public?"
    "Signora Sabatini," Nicole said immediately, switching to Italian,
"as I told you once before, this  subject is none of your business.  I
will not tolerate this kind of intrusion into my private affairs-"
    "I just  wanted  to  remind you,  Nicole/'  Francesca  interrupted
quickly, also in Italian,  "that you have secrets  you might not  want
exposed."
    David Brown stared blankly at the two women. He had not understood
a word in the last exchange  and was confused by the obvious  tension.
"So, David," Francesca said in  a patronizing tone, "you were  telling
us about the mood  on Earth. Do  you think we're  going to be  ordered
home? Or are we merely going to abort this particular sortie?"
    "The COG Executive  Council has been  called into special  session
for later this  week," he  answered after a  puzzled hesitation.  "Dr.
Maxwell's current  guess  is that  we  will  be told  to  abandon  the
project."
    "That would be a typical  overreaction from a group of  government
officials whose  primary objective  has always  been to  minimize  the
downside risk.  For the  first time  in history,  adequately  prepared
human beings are exploring the interior of a vehicle built by  another
intelligence. Yet  on Earth,  the politicians  continue to  act as  if
nothing unusual  has  happened. They  are  incapable of  vision.  It's
amazing."
    Nicole des  Jardins did  not  listen to  the rest  of  Francesca's
conversation with  Dr. Brown.  Her  mind was  still focused  on  their
earlier exchange.She  must  think I  have  proof about  the  drugs  in
Borzov, Nicole said to  herself.There's no other possible  explanation
for the threat
    When they reached the edge of the ice, Francesca spent ten minutes
setting up the robot camera and sound equipment for a sequence showing
the three of them preparing to search the alien city for their missing
colleague. Nicole's complaints to  Dr. Brown about  the waste of  time
went unheeded. She did,  however, make the fact  that she was  annoyed
obvious by  refusing  to  participate in  the  video  sequence.  While
Francesca was completing her  preparations, Nicole climbed the  nearby
stairway and studied the amazing city of skyscrapers. Behind and below
her, Nicole could hear Francesca invoking the drama of the moment  for
the millions of viewers back on Earth.
    "Here I stand on  the outskirts of the  mysterious island city  of
New York. It  was near this  very spot that  Dr. Takagishi,  Cosmonaut
Wakefield, and I heard some strange sounds earlier this week. We  have
reason to  suspect  that  New  York  may  have  been  the  professor's
destination when he took off from Beta campsite last night to do  some
solitary and unauthorized exploration. . . .
    "What has happened to the professor? Why does he not respond  when
called on the commpak? Yesterday we witnessed a terrible tragedy  when
journalist Reggie Wilson, risking his own life to save this  reporter,
was trapped inside  the rover and  was unable to  escape the  powerful
claws of the crab biots. Has a similar fate befallen our Rama  expert?
Did the  extraterrestrials who  built this  amazing vehicle  eons  ago
perhaps create a sophisticated trap designed to subdue and  ultimately
destroy any unsuspecting visitors? We don't know for certain. But we .
. ."
    From her vantage point on top of the wall, Nicole tried to  ignore
Francesca and imagine in what direction Dr. Takagishi might have gone.
She consulted the  maps stored  in her pocket  computer.He would  have
gone toward the exact geometrical center of the city, she concluded.He
was certain there was meaning in the geometry.
    35INTO THE PIT
    They had walked the  bewildering maze of  streets for only  twenty
minutes, but  they would  have already  been hopelessly  lost  without
their personal navigators. They had  no thorough plan for the  search.
They simply wandered up  and down streets  in a quasi-random  pattern.
Every three or four minutes  there would be another transmission  from
Admiral Heilmann to Dr. Brown and the search party would have to  look
for a location where the signal strength was satisfactory.
    "At this rate," Nicole remarked  as once again they faintly  heard
Otto Heilmann's voice  on the  communicator, "our search  is going  to
take forever Dr.  Brown, why  don't you just  stay in  one spot?  Then
Francesca and I-"
    "Break break," they heard Otto  more clearly as David Brown  moved
into a  space between  two tall  buildings. "Did  you copy  that  last
transmission?"
    "Afraid not, Otto,"  Dr. Brown replied.  "Would you please  repeat
it."
    "Yamanaka, Wakefield, and Turgenyev have covered the bottom  third
of the Northern Hemicylinder. No sign of Takagishi. It's unlikely that
he could have gone farther north, unless he went to one of the cities.
In that case we should have  seen his footprints somewhere, So  you're
probably on the right track.
    "Meanwhile we have big news  here, Our captured crab biot  started
to move about two minutes ago. It is trying to escape, but so far  its
tools have barely  dented the  cage. Tabori is  working feverishly  to
build  a  larger,  stronger  cage  that  will  go  around  the  entire
apparatus. I'm bringing Yamanaka's 'copter back to Beta so he can give
Tabori a hand. He should  be here in a minute-Wait.  . . . There's  an
urgent coming through from WakeBeld. . . . I'll put him on."
    Richard Wakefield's  British accent  was unmistakable,  though  he
could barely be heard by the  trio in New York. "Spiders," he  shouted
in response to  a question  from Admiral Heilmann.  "You remember  the
spider biot dissected  by Laura Ernst?  Well, we can  see six of  them
just beyond the southern cliff. They're all over that temporary hut we
built. And  something  has apparently  repaired  those two  dead  crab
biots, for  our prisoner's  brothers are  trundling toward  the  south
pole-"
    "Pictures!" Francesca Sabatini screamed  into the radio. "Are  you
taking pictures?"
    "What's that? Sorry, I did not copy."
    "Francesca wants  to  know  if you're  taking  pictures,"  Admiral
Heilmann clarified.
    "Of course,  love," Richard  Wakefield said.  "Both the  automatic
imaging system in the helicopter and the hand camera you gave me  this
morning have been running without  interruption. The spider biots  are
amazing. I've never seen  anything move so fast.  ... By the way,  any
sign of our Japanese professor?"
    "Not yet," David Brown hollered from New York. "It's slow going in
this maze. I feel as if I'm looking for a needle in a haystack."
    Admiral Heilmann repeated the status of the missing person  search
for Wakefield and Turgenyev in the helicopter. Richard then said  that
they were coming  back to  Beta to  refuel. "What  about you,  David?"
Heilmann asked. "In  view of  everything, including the  need to  keep
those bastards on Earth informed, don't you think you should return to
Beta yourself? Cosmonauts  Sabatini and des  Jardins can continue  the
search for Dr, Takagishi. If necessary we can send someone to  replace
you when the helicopter picks you up."
    "I don't know, Otto, I haven't-" Francesca turned off the transmit
switch on David Brown's radio in the middle of his reply. He shot  her
an angry glance that quickly softened.
    "We need to talk  about this," she said  firmly. "Tell him  you'll
call him back in a couple of minutes."
    Nicole was flabbergasted by  the conversation that ensued  between
Franceses Sabatini and David Brown. Neither  one of them seemed to  be
even slightly concerned  about the  fate of  Dr. Takagishi.  Francesca
insisted that she had  to return to Beta  immediately to coverall  the
breaking stories. Dr. Brown was anxious  because he was away from  the
"primary" action of the expedition.
    Each argued that  his reasons for  returning were more  important.
What if they both  left New York? No,  that would leave cosmonaut  des
Jardins alone.  Maybe  she  should  come  with  them  and  they  could
reinitiate the search for Takagishi when things calmed down in several
hours, . . .
    Nicole finally  exploded."Never," she  shouted suddenly  at  them,
"never in my life have  I seen such egotistical .  . ." She could  not
think of a  good noun. "One  of our colleagues  is missing and  almost
certainly needs our help. He may be injured or dying, yet all you  two
can do  is  argue  about  your own  petty  prerogatives.  It's  really
disgusting."
    She paused a  second to  catch her breath.  "Let me  tell you  one
thing," Nicole continued, still fuming. "I  am not going back to  Beta
right now. I don't give a damn if you order me. I am staying here  and
finishing the search. At least I have my priorities straight. I know a
man's life is  more important than  image or status  or even a  stupid
media project,"
    David Brown blinked twice, as if he had been slapped in the  face.
Francesca smiled.  "Well,  well," she  said,  "so our  reclusive  life
science officer knows  more than we  have given her  credit for."  She
looked over at David and then back at Nicole. "Will you excuse us  for
a moment, dear? We have a few matters to discuss in private."
    Francesca and Dr. Brown moved over beside the base of a skyscraper
about twenty meters  away and began  an animated conversation.  Nicole
turned the  other way.  She  was angry  with  herself for  losing  her
temper. She  was  especially  irritated  that  she  had  revealed  her
knowledge of their contract with Schmidt and Hagenest.They will assume
Janos told me, she thought.After all, we have been close friends.
    Francesca walked  back  to join  Nicole  while Dr.  Brown  radioed
Admiral Heilmann. "David  is calling  for the helicopter  to meet  him
next to the icemobile. He assures me  that he can find his way out.  I
will stay here with you and search for Takagishi. At least that way  I
can photograph New York."
    There was  no emotion  in  Francesca's pronouncement.  Nicole  was
unable to  read  her mood.  "One  other thing,"  Francesca  added.  "I
promised David we would conclude our search and be ready to return  to
camp in four hours or less."
    The two women hardly talked during the first hour of their search.
Francesca was content  to let  Nicole choose the  path. Every  fifteen
minutes they stopped to radio the Beta camp and obtain an updated  fix
on their position.  "You're now  about two kilometers  south and  four
kilometers east of  the icemobile," Richard  Wakefield told them  when
they stopped for lunch. He had been delegated the job of keeping track
of their progress. "You're just east of the central plaza."
    They had gone to the central section first, for Nicole had thought
that Takagishi  would  have headed  there.  They had  found  the  open
circular plaza  with  many  low  structures,  but  no  sign  of  their
colleague. Since then, Francesca and Nicole had visited the two  other
plazas and  carefully combed  the length  of two  of the  central  pie
portions. They had found nothing. Nicole admitted she was running  out
of ideas.
    "This is quite an astonishing  place/' Francesca responded as  she
began to eat her lunch. They were sitting on a square metal box  about
a meter  high.  "My  photographs  can  barely  begin  to  capture  it.
Everything is so quiet, so tall, so . . alien."
    "Some of  these  buildings could  not  be described  without  your
pictures. _ The polyhedrons, for example. There's at least one in each
slice, with the biggest  one always right around  the plaza. I  wonder
what they signify, if  anything? And why are  they located where  they
are?"
    The emotional  tension just  below the  surface in  the two  women
remained suppressed. They chatted a little about what they had seen in
their trek across New York.  Francesca had been especially  fascinated
by a large trellis arrangement that they had found connecting two tall
skyscrapers in the central unit. "What do you suppose that lattice  or
net thing was  all about?" she  asked idly. "It  must have had  twenty
thousand loops and must have been fifty meters tall."
    "I guess it's ridiculous for us to try to understand any of this,"
Nicole said  with a  wave of  her  hand. She  finished her  lunch  and
glanced at her companion. "Ready to continue?"
    "Not quite,"  Francesca  said  purposefully. She  cleaned  up  the
remains of her lunch and put them  in the garbage pouch of her  flight
suit. "You and I still have some unfinished business."
    Nicole looked at her quizzically. "I  think it's time we took  off
the masks and raced each other honestly," Francesca said in what was a
deceptively friendly  manner.  "If you  suspect  that I  gave  Valeriy
Borzov some medication on the day that  he died, why don't you ask  me
directly?"
    Nicole stared at her adversary for several seconds. "Did you?" she
asked at length.
    "Do you think I did?" Franceses replied coyly. "And if so, why did
1 do it?"
    "You're just playing the same game at another level," Nicole  said
after a pause. "You're not willing to admit anything. You just want to
find out how  much I know.  But I  don't need a  confession from  you.
Science and technology are supporting me. Eventually the truth will be
obvious."
    "I doubt it," Francesca  said casually. She  jumped down from  the
box. "The truth always  eludes those who search  for it." She  smiled.
"Now let's go find the professor."
    On the western side of the central plaza the two women encountered
another unique structure. From  a distance it  resembled a huge  barn.
The peak of its  black roof was easily  forty meters above the  ground
and it was more than a hundred meters long. There were two  especially
fascinating features  about  the  bam.  First, the  two  ends  of  the
building were open. Second,  although one could not  see into it  from
the outside,  all  the  walls  and  the  roof  were  transparent  from
theinside. Francesca and Nicole took turns proving that it was not  an
optical illusion,  Someone inside  the barn  could indeed  see in  all
directions except down. In  fact, the adjacent reflective  skyscrapers
had been precisely aligned so that all the nearby streets were visible
from inside the barn.
    "Fantastic," said Francesca as she photographed Nicole standing on
the other side of the wall.
    "Dr. Takagishi told me," Nicole said as she came around the comer,
"that it was impossible to believe that New York was purposeless.  The
rest of Rama? Maybe.  But nobody could have  spent this much time  and
effort without some reason."
    "You almost sound religious," Francesca said.
    Nicole stared quietly at  her Italian colleague.She's needling  me
now, Nicole  said to  herself.She doesn't  really care  what I  think.
Maybe what anybody thinks.
    "Hey. Look at this," Francesca said after a short silence. She had
walked a short way into  the interior of the  bam and was pointing  at
the ground. Nicole came up beside her. In front of Francesca a  narrow
rectangular pit was cut  in the floor. The  pit was about five  meters
long, a meter and a half wide, and quite deep, maybe as much as  eight
meters. Most of the bottom  was in shadow. The  walls of the pit  were
straight up and down, without any sign of indentation.
    "There's another  one  over  here.  And  another  there.  .  .  ."
Altogether there were nine pits, each constructed in exactly the  same
manner, that were  scattered over the  south half of  the bam. In  the
north half, nine small  spheres rested on the  surface in a  carefully
measured array.  Nicole found  herself wishing  for a  legend of  some
kind, an instructional guide that would explain the meaning or purpose
of all these objects. She was starting to feel bewildered.
    They had crossed almost  the entire length of  the barn when  they
heard a faint emergency signal on their communicators. "They must have
found Dr. Takagishi," Nicole  said out loud as  she rushed out one  of
the open ends of the bam. As soon as she was no longer underneath  the
roof,  the  volume  of  the  emergency  signal  nearly  shattered  her
eardrums. "Okay. Okay," she radioed. "We can hear you. What's up?"
    "We've been trying to call you  for over two minutes,"' she  heard
Richard Wakefield say. "Where in the  hell have you been? I only  used
the emergency signal because of its higher gain."
    "We were inside this amazing barn," Francesca replied from  behind
Nicole. "It's  like a  surrealistic world,  with one-way  mirrors  and
weird reflections-"
    "That's great," Richard  interrupted, "but we  don't have time  to
chat. You ladies  are to march  forthwith to the  closest spot on  the
Cylindrical Sea. A helicopter  will pick you up  in ten minutes.  We'd
come into New York itself if there was a place for us to land."
    "Why?" Nicole asked. "What's the hurry all of a sudden?"
    "Can you see the South Pole from where you are?"
    "No. We have too many tall buildings in the way."
    "Something weird is happening around  the little horns. Huge  arcs
of lightning  are bouncing  from spire  to spire.  It's an  impressive
display. We all feel  something unusual is  about to happen."  Richard
hesitated a second. "You should leave New York immediately."
    "Okay," Nicole answered. "We're on our way."
    She switched off the transmitter and turned to Francesca. "Did you
hear how loud the emergency signal was  the moment we came out of  the
barn?" Nicole thought for several seconds. "The material in the  walls
and roof of  that building  must block  radio signals."  Her face  now
brightened. "That  explains  what  happened to  Takagishi-he  must  be
inside a barn, or something similar."
    Francesca was not following Nicole's  line of thought. "So  what?"
she said, taking one last panoramic  image of the barn with her  video
camera. "It's really not important now. We must hurry out to meet  the
helicopter."
    "Maybe he's  even in  one of  those very  pits," Nicole  continued
excitedly.
    "Sure. It could have  happened. He was exploring  in the dark.  He
could have fallen . . . Wait here," she said to Francesca. "I'll  only
be a minute."
    Nicole dashed back inside the barn and bent down beside one of the
holes. Holding the side of the pit  with her hand, she shone the  beam
from her flashlight  down into  the bottom. Something  was there!  She
waited a few seconds for her eyes to focus. It was a pile of  material
of some kind. She moved quickly  to the next pit. "Doctor  Takagishi,"
she yelled. "Are you here, Shig?" she shouted in Japanese.
    "Come on!" Francesca hollered at Nicole from the end of the  barn.
"Let's go. Richard sounded very serious."
    At the fourth pit the shadows made it very difficult for Nicole to
see the bottom even with the beam from her flashlight. She could  make
out some objects, but what were they? She laid down on her stomach and
eased slightly into the  pit at an  angle to try  to confirm that  the
shapeless mass below her was not the body of her friend.
    The lights in Rama began flashing on and off. Inside the bam,  the
optical effect was startling. And  disorienting. Nicole glanced up  to
see what was  happening and lost  her balance. Most  of her body  slid
into the pit. "Francesca," she yelled, pressing her hands against  the
opposite wall of the pit for  support. "Francesca, I need some  help,"
Nicole shouted again.
    Nicole waited almost a minute before she concluded that  Cosmonaut
Sabatini must have already  left the barn area.  Her arms were  tiring
rapidly. Only her feet  and the very bottoms  of her legs were  safely
resting on the barn floor. Her head  was next to one of the pit  walls
about eighty centimeters below floor level. The remainder of her  body
was suspended in midair,  prevented from falling  only by her  intense
arm pressure against the wall.
    The lights  continued to  flash  off and  on at  short  intervals.
Nicole lifted her head to see if  she could possibly reach the top  of
the pit with one of her  arms, while holding her position secure  with
the other, It was  hopeless. Her head  was too deep  in the hole.  She
waited several more seconds, her desperation growing as the fatigue in
her arms increased. Finally Nicole made  an attempt both to throw  her
body upward and  to grab  onto the  lip of  the pit  in one  connected
motion. She  was  almost  successful.  Her arms  could  not  stop  her
downward momentum when she fell. Her  feet followed her body into  the
hole  and  she  smacked  her  head  against  the  wall.  She   tumbled
unconscious to the bottom of the pit.
    36IMPACT COURSE
    Francesca had  also been  startled  when the  lights of  Rama  had
suddenly begun to flash. Her initial  impulse had been to run  inside,
just under the roof  of the barn. Once  there, she felt slightly  more
protected.What's going on  now? she  thought as  the reflected  lights
from the adjacent buildings forced her to close her eyes to keep  from
becoming dizzy.
    When she heard Nicole's  cry for help,  Francesca started to  rush
over to help her fellow cosmonaut. However, she tripped on one of  the
spheres and banged  her knee  as she  fell. When  she rose,  Francesca
could see  in  the strobing  light  that Nicole's  position  was  very
precarious. Only the backs of  Nicole's shoes were visible.  Francesca
stood quite still and  waited. Her mind had  already raced ahead.  She
had a nearly  perfect image  of the pits  in her  memory, including  a
fairly accurate assessment of the depth.Ifshe falls she'll be injured,
she thought,maybe even killed.  Francesca remembered the smooth  walk.
She won't be able to climb out.
    The flashing  lights  gave an  eerie  overtone to  the  scene.  As
Francesca watched, she saw  Nicole's body rise barely  out of the  pit
and her hands scramble for a hold  on the lip. In the next flashes  of
light the  shoes  changed angle  with  respect  to the  pit  and  then
abruptly disappeared. Francesca heard no scream.
    If she had  not controlled herself,  Francesca would have  hurried
over to the pit and  looked into it. TVb,  she said to herself,  still
standing amid the small spheres, /must  not look. If by chance she  is
still conscious, she might see me. Then I will have no options.
    Already Francesca was thinking about the possibilities offered  by
Nicole's fall. She was certain, based on their earlier exchange,  that
Nicole intended to do her utmost  to prove that Borzov had ingested  a
pain-inducing drug on the last day  of his life. It might be  possible
for  Nicole  even  to  identify  the  particular  compound  and   then
eventually, since it  was not common,  to trace its  purchase back  to
Francesca. The scenario was unlikely,  even implausible. But it  could
happen.
    Francesca  remembered  using  her  special  permits  to  buy   the
dimethyldexfl, along  with  a batch  of  other items,  at  a  hospital
pharmacy in Copenhagen two years earlier. At the time there had been a
suggestion that  the drug,  in very  small doses,  could produce  mild
reelings of euphoria in highly stressed individuals. A single  journal
article in an obscure Swedish mental health publication the  following
year had contained the information that sizable doses of dimethyldexil
would produce acute pain that simulated an appendicitis.
    As Francesca  walked rapidly  away from  the barn  in a  northerly
direction, her agile  mind worked through  all the possibilities.  She
was performing her usual risk/reward trade-off. The primary issue  she
was facing, now that she  had left Nicole in  the pit, was whether  or
not to tell the truth about Nicole's  fall. But why did you leave  her
there? somebody would ask. Why didn't you radio us that she had fallen
and stand by until help could arrive?
    Because  I  was  confused  and  frightened  and  the  lights  were
flashing. And Richard had sounded so very concerned about our leaving.
I thought  it would  be easier  for us  to all  talk together  at  the
helicopter.Was that  believable?  Barely.  But it  was  easy  to  keep
straight.So I still have the  partial truth option, Francesca  thought
as she passed the octahedron near the central plaza. She realized  she
had walked too far  to the east, checked  her personal navigator,  and
then changed her direction. The lights of Rama continued to flash.
    And what  are my  other choices:'  Wakefield talked  with us  just
outside the  barn.  He knows  where  we  were. A  search  party  would
definitely find her.
    Unless . .  .Francesca thought  again about  the possibility  that
Nicole might  eventually  implicate her  in  the drugging  of  General
Borzov. The  resulting  scandal  would certainly  result  in  a  messy
investigation  and  probably  a  criminal  indictment.  In  any  case,
Francesca's reputation would  be sullied  and her future  career as  a
journalist would be seriously compromised.
    With Nicole  out of  the picture,  on the  other hand,  there  was
virtually zero probability that anyone would ever learn that Francesca
had drugged  Borzov. The  only person  who knew  the facts  was  David
Brown, and he had been a co-conspirator. Besides, he had even more  to
lose than she did.
    So the issue,Francesca thought,is whether or  not I can make up  a
believable story that both reduces the chance Nicole will be found and
does not implicate me if she is. That's a very difficult task.
    She was nearing the Cylindrical  Sea. Her personal navigator  told
her that  she  was  only six  hundred  meters  away.Dammit,  Francesca
answered herself after  thinking very carefully  about her  situation,
/don't really have a completely safe option. I mil have to choose  one
or the other. Either way there's a significant risk.
    Francesca stopped moving  north and paced  back and forth  between
two skyscrapers. As she  was walking, the  ground underneath her  feet
began to tremble. Everything was shaking. She dropped to her knees  to
steady herself. She  heard Janos  Tabori's voice very  faintly on  the
radio. "It's all right,  everybody, don't be alarmed.  It looks as  if
our vehicle is  undergoing a maneuver.  That must have  been what  the
warnings were all  about. ... By  the way, Nicole,  where are you  and
Francesca? Hiro and Richard are about to take off in the helicopter."
    "I'm  close  to  the  sea,  maybe  two  minutes  away,"  Francesca
answered. "Nicole went back to check on something."
    "Roger," Janos  replied.  "Are you  there,  Nicole? Do  you  copy,
cosmonaut des Jardins?"
    There was silence on the radio.
    "As you know, Janos,"  Francesca interjected, "communications  are
very spotty  from here.  Nicole knows  where to  meet the  helicopter.
She'll be  along quickly,  I'm certain."  She paused  a moment.  "Say,
where are the others? Is everyone all right?"
    "Brown and Heilmann are  on the radio  with Earth. ISA  management
will be completely freaked out  now. They were already demanding  that
we leave Rama before this maneuver began."
    "We're just  boarding  the helicopter,"  Richard  Wakefield  said.
"We'll be there in a few minutes."
    It's done.  I've made  my choice,Francesca  said to  herself  when
Richard was  finished. She  was surprisingly  elated. Immediately  she
began to rehearse her story. "We were near the large octahedron in the
central plaza when Nicole  spotted an alley off  to our right that  we
had not noticed before. The street leading to the alley was  extremely
narrow  and  she  remarked  that  it  was  probably  a  region   where
communications could not  penetrate. I was  already tired-we had  been
walking so fast. She told me to go ahead to the helicopter. . . ."
    "And you  never saw  her  again?" Richard  Wakefield  interrupted.
Francesca shook her head. Richard was standing on the ice next to her.
Beneath them the ice was vibrating as the long maneuver continued. The
lights were now on. They had stopped their flashing when the  maneuver
began.
    Pilot Yamanaka  was  sitting in  the  cockpit of  his  helicopter.
Richard checked his watch. "It's  almost five minutes since we  landed
here. Something must have happened to her." He glanced around.  "Maybe
she's coming out somewhere else."
    Richard and  Francesca climbed  into the  helicopter and  Yamanaka
took off. They cruised  up and down the  island coast, twice  circling
over  the  solitary  icemobile.   "Edge  into  New  York,"   Wakefield
commanded. "Maybe we'll be able to spot her."
    From the helicopter it was virtually impossible to see the  ground
in the city. The 'copter had  to fly above the tallest buildings.  The
streets were very narrow and the  shadows played games with the  eyes.
Once Richard thought  he saw something  moving between the  buildings,
but it turned out to be an optical illusion.
    "All right, Nicole, all right. Where in the hell are you?"
    "Wakefield," Dr.  David  Brown's  sonorous voice  sounded  in  the
helicopter, "I want  you three to  come back to  Beta immediately.  We
need to have a meeting." Richard was surprised to hear that it was Dr.
Brown. Janos  had been  the one  monitoring their  communication  link
since they had left Beta.
    "What's the  hurry, boss?"  Wakefield replied.  "We still  haven't
made our scheduled rendezvous with  Nicole des Jardins. She should  be
coming out of New York any minute."
    "I'll give  you  the details  when  you  get here.  We  have  some
difficult decisions to make. I'm  certain that des Jardins will  radio
when she reaches the shore."
    It did not take them long to  cross the frozen sea. Near the  Beta
campsite, Yamanaka landed the helicopter on the shaking ground and the
three cosmonauts descended.  The remaining  four members  of the  crew
were waiting for them.
    "This is one incredibly long maneuver," Richard said with a  smile
as he approached  the others.  "I hope  the Ramans  know what  they're
doing."
    "They probably do," Dr. Brown  said somberly. "At least the  Earth
thinks that they do." He looked carefully at his watch. "According  to
the navigation  section  in mission  control,  we should  expect  this
maneuver to  last  another  nineteen  minutes,  give  or  take  a  few
seconds."
    "How do they know?" inquired Wakefield. "Have the Ramans landed on
Earth  and  handed  out  a  flight  plan  while  we've  been  up  here
exploring?"
    Nobody laughed.  "If  the  vehicle  stays  at  this  attitude  and
acceleration rate,"  Janos  said  with  uncharacteristic  seriousness,
"then in nineteen more minutes it will be on an impact course."
    "Impact with what?" Francesca asked.
    Richard Wakefield did  some quick mental  computations. "With  the
Earth?" he guessed. Janos nodded.
    "Jesus!" Francesca exclaimed.
    "Exactly," David Brown  said. "This  mission has  become an  Earth
security concern. The COG  Executive Council is  meeting at this  very
moment to  consider  all  contingencies.  We have  been  told  in  the
strongest possible language  that we must  leave Rama as  soon as  the
maneuver is completed. We are to take nothing except the crab biot and
our personal belongings. We are-"
    "What about Takagishi? And des Jardins?" Wakefield asked.
    "We will leave the icemobile where it is, along with a rover  here
at Beta. They  are both easy  to operate.  We will still  be in  radio
contact from the Newton."  Dr. Brown stared  directly at Richard.  "If
this spacecraft  is  really  on  an  Earth  impact  course,"  he  said
dramatically, "our individual lives are no longer very important.  The
entire course of history is about to be changed."
    "But what if the navigation engineers are wrong? What if Rama  has
just happened to make a maneuver that momentarily intersects an  Earth
impact trajectory? It could be-"
    "Extremely  unlikely.  You  remember  that  group  of  short-burst
maneuvers at the time of Borzov's death? They changed the  orientation
of Rama's orbit  so that an  Earth impact could  be achieved with  one
long maneuver  at  exactly the  right  time. The  engineers  on  Earth
figured it out thirty-six hours ago. They radioed O'Toole before  dawn
this morning to  expect the maneuver.  I didn't want  to say  anything
while everyone was out looking for Takagishi."
    "That explains why everyone is so  anxious for us to clear out  of
here/' Janos noted.
    "Only  partially,"  Dr.  Brown  continued.  "There  is  clearly  a
different feeling  about  Rama  and  the Ramans  down  on  Earth.  ISA
management and  the world  leaders on  the COG  Executive Council  are
apparently convinced that Rama is implacably hostile."
    He stopped for several seconds, as if he were reassessing his  own
attitude.
    "I think  they  are  reacting emotionally  myself,  but  I  cannot
persuade them differently. I personally see no evidence of  hostility,
only a disinterest in and disregard  for a wildly inferior being.  But
the televised  account of  Wilson's  death has  done its  damage.  The
world's populace cannot behere beside us, cannot grasp the majesty  of
this place. They can only react viscerally to the horror-"
    "If you don't think the Ramans have hostile intentions," Francesca
interrupted, "then  how do  you  explain this  maneuver? It  can't  be
coincidence. They or it  has decided for some  reason to head for  the
Earth. No wonder the people down there are traumatized. Remember,  the
first Rama  never acknowledged  its visitors  in any  way. This  is  a
dramatically different response. The Ramans are telling us they know-"
    "Hold it.  Hold  it," Richard  said.  "I think  we're  jumping  to
conclusions a little too fast. We  have twelve more minutes before  we
should start pushing the panic buttons."
    "All right, Cosmonaut Wakefield," Francesca said, now  remembering
that she was  a reporter  and activating  her video  camera, "for  the
record, what do you think it will mean if this maneuver does culminate
in a trajectory that impacts the Earth?"
    When Richard finally  spoke he  was very serious.  "People of  the
Earth," he said dramatically, "if  Rama has indeed changed its  course
to visit our  planet, it is  not necessarily a  hostile act. There  is
nothing, I repeat  nothing, that  any of us  have seen  or heard  that
indicates the species that  created this space  vehicle wishes us  any
harm. Certainly Cosmonaut  Wilson's death was  disturbing, but it  was
probably an isolated  response from  a specific set  of robots  rather
than a part of a sinister plan.
    "1 see this  magnificent spacecraft  as a  single machine,  almost
organic in  its  complexity.  It is  extraordinarily  intelligent  and
programmed for long-term survival. It is neither hostile nor friendly.
It could easily have  been designed to  track any incoming  satellites
and compute where the visiting spacecraft must have originated. Rama's
orbit change to fly  in the vicinity of  the Earth might therefore  be
nothing more than its standard  response to an encounter initiated  by
another spacefaring species. It may simply be coming to find out  more
about us."
    "Very good," Janos Tabori said  with a grin. "That was  borderline
philosophical."
    Wakefield laughed nervously.
    "Cosmonaut Turgenyev," Francesca said as she changed the direction
of the camera, "do you agree with your colleague? Right after  General
Borzov died,  you  openly expressed  some  concern that  perhaps  some
'higher force,'  meaning the  Ramans, might  have had  a hand  in  his
death. What are your feelings now?"
    The normally taciturn Soviet pilot stared directly into the camera
with her sad eyes."Da,"  she said, "I think  Cosmonaut Wakefield is  a
very brilliant  engineer.  But  he  has  not  answered  the  difficult
questions. Why did  Rama maneuver during  General Borzov's  operation?
Why did the biots cut Wilson to pieces? Where is Professor Takagishi?"
    Irina Turgenyev paused a moment to control her emotions. "We  will
not find  Nicole des  Jardins. Rama  may  be only  a machine,  but  we
cosmonauts have already seen how dangerous it can be. If it is heading
for the Earth,  I fear for  my family, my  friends, for all  humanity.
There is no way to predict what it might do. And we would be powerless
to stop it."
    Several minutes  later Francesca  Sabatini carried  her  automatic
video equipment out beside the frozen sea for one final sequence.  She
carefully checked the time before switching on the camera at precisely
fifteen seconds before the maneuver was expected to end. "The  picture
you are  seeing  is  jumping  up  and down,"  she  said  in  her  best
journalistic voice, "because the ground underneath us here on Rama has
been shaking  continuously  since this  maneuver  started  forty-seven
minutes ago. According to the navigation engineers, the maneuver  will
stop in the next few seconds if Rama has changed course to impact  the
Earth. Their calculations are, of  course, based on assumptions  about
Rama's intentions-"
    Francesca stopped  in midsentence  and took  a deep  breath.  "The
ground is no longer shaking. The maneuver  is over. Rama is now on  an
Earth impact trajectory."
    37MAROONED
    When Nicole awakened the first time  she was groggy and had  great
difficulty holding any idea fixed in  her mind. Her head hurt and  she
could feel sharp pains in her back and legs. She did not know what had
happened to her. She was barely able to find her water flask and  take
a drink.I must have a concussion, she thought as she fell back asleep.
    It was dark when Nicole woke up again. But her mind was no  longer
in a fog. She knew where she was. She remembered looking for Takagishi
and sliding into the pit. Nicole also remembered calling for Francesca
and the painful, terrible fall. She immediately took her  communicator
from the belt of her flight suit.
    "Hello there, Newton team," she said as she stood up slowly. "This
is cosmonaut  des Jardins  checking in.  I've been,  well,  indisposed
might be a good word. I fell down into a hole and knocked myself  out.
Sabatini knows where I am. . . ."
    Nicole broke off her monologue  and waited. There was no  response
from her  receiver. She  turned  up the  gain  but only  succeeded  in
picking up some strange static.It's  dark already, she thought,and  it
had only been light for two hours at  most . . . Nicole knew that  the
periods of light inside Rama had been lasting about thirty hours.  Had
she been  unconscious  that long?  Or  had Rama  thrown  them  another
curveball? She looked  at her  wristwatch, which  showed time  elapsed
since the start  of the second  sortie, and did  a quick  calculation.
/have been down here for thirty-two hours. Why has nobody come?
    Nicole thought back to the last minutes before she fell. They  had
talked to Wakefield,  and then she  had dashed in  to check the  pits.
Richard always did a navigation fix when they were in two-way lock and
Francesca knew exactly . . .
    Could something have happened to the entire crew? But if not,  why
had nobody discovered her? Nicole smiled to herself as she fought  the
onset of  panic.Of  course, she  reasoned,they  found me,  but  I  was
unconscious, so they decided . . . Another voice in her head told  her
that her thought pattern didn't  make sense. Under any  circumstances,
she would have been retrieved from the pit if they had found her.
    She shuddered involuntarily  as she  feared, for  a brief  moment,
that perhaps she wouldnever be found. Nicole forced her mind to change
subjects and  began  an assessment  of  the physical  damage  she  had
suffered during the  fall. She  ran her fingers  carefully across  all
portions of her skull. There were several bumps, including a large one
on the very back of her  head.That must have been responsible for  the
concussion, she surmised. But there  were no skull fractures and  what
little bleeding there had been had stopped hours ago.
    She checked her arms and legs,  then her back. There were  bruises
everywhere, but  miraculously no  bones  were broken.  The  occasional
sharp pain just below her neck  suggested that she had either  crushed
part of a vertebra or pinched some nerves. Other than that, she  would
heal. The discovery  that her body  had survived more  or less  intact
temporarily buoyed her spirits.
    Nicole next surveyed her new domain. She had fallen in the  middle
of a deep but narrow rectangular pit. It was six paces from end to end
and one and a half paces across. Using her flashlight and outstretched
arm, she estimated the depth of the hole at eight and a half meters.
    The pit  was  empty  except  for a  jumbled  collection  of  small
metallic pieces, ranging in length  from five to fifteen  centimeters,
that were stacked over  at one end of  the hole. Nicole examined  them
carefully under  the  beam from  her  flashlight. There  were  over  a
hundred altogether and maybe a dozen different individual types-  Some
were long and  straight, others  curved, a  few jointed-they  reminded
Nicole of industrial trash from a modern steel mill.
    The walls of the pit  were absolutely straight. The wall  material
felt like a metal/rock hybrid to Nicole. It was cold, very cold. There
were no anomalies, no wrinkles that might have been used as footholds,
nothing that would encourage her to  believe she could climb out.  She
tried to chip or  scrape the wall surface  using her portable  medical
tools. She was unable to make any mark.
    Discouraged by the perfect construction  of the pit walls,  Nicole
walked back to the metal  pile to see if there  was any way she  could
put together a  ladder or scaffold,  some kind of  support that  would
elevate her  to the  point where  she could  climb out  using her  own
strength. It  was not  encouraging. The  metal pieces  were small  and
thin. A quick mental calculation told her there was not enough mass to
support her weight.
    Nicole became even more  discouraged when she  ate a small  snack.
She remembered that she  had brought very little  food and water  with
her because  she  had  wanted  to carry  extra  medical  supplies  for
Takagishi. Even if  she rationed  it carefully, her  water would  only
last a day and her food no more than thirty-six hours.
    She shone her flashlight directly upward. The beam bounced off the
roof of the  bam. Thinking about  the barn reminded  her again of  the
events preceding her fall.  Nicole remembered the increased  amplitude
of the  emergency  signal  once she  exited  the  building.Great,  she
thought despondently.The interior of this fantastic barn is probably a
radio blackout zone. No wonder nobody heard me.
    She slept because there was nothing else to do. Eight hours  later
Nicole woke up  with a start  from a frightening  dream. She had  been
sitting with her father and daughter in a lovely provincial restaurant
in France. It was a magnificent  spring day; Nicole could see  flowers
in the garden adjoining the restaurant.  When the waiter had come,  he
had placed a plate of escargots smothered in herbs and butter in front
of Genevieve. Pierre received a mountainous serving of chicken  cooked
in a mushroom and wine sauce.  The waiter had smiled and left.  Slowly
it had dawned on Nicole that there was nothing forher. , . ,
    She had never dealt with real hunger before. Even during the Poro,
after the  lion cubs  took her  food, Nicole  had not  been  seriously
hungry. She had told herself before she slept that she would carefully
ration her remaining food,  but that was before  the hunger pangs  had
become overpowering.  Now  Nicole  tore into  her  food  packets  with
trembling hands and just  barely stopped herself  from eating all  the
food that was left. She wrapped the paltry remainder, put it back into
one of her pockets, and buried  her face in her hands. Nicole  allowed
herself to cry for the first time since she had fallen.
    She also allowed  herself to  acknowledge that  starving to  death
would be a terrible way to die. Nicole tried to imagine what it  would
feel like to weaken from hunger  and then ultimately to perish.  Would
it be a gradual process, each successive stage more horrible than  the
one before? "Then let it come soon," Nicole said out loud, momentarily
abandoning all  hope.  Her digital  watch  was glowing  in  the  dark,
counting off the  last precious  seconds of her  life.How much  longer
will it be before I die? she wondered.
    Several hours passed. Nicole grew weaker and more despondent.  She
sat with her head bowed in the cold corner of the pit. Just as she was
about to give up completely and accept her death, however, from inside
her there came a different voice, an assertive, optimistic voice  that
refused to let her quit. It told  her thatany time of being alive  was
precious and wonderful, that simply  being conscious at all,ever,  was
an overwhelming miracle of nature. Nicole took a slow, deep breath and
opened her eyes. //I'm to die here, she said to herself,then at  least
let me do  it with elan.  She resolved that  she would spend  whatever
time  remained  concentrating  on  the  outstanding  moments  of   her
thirty-six years.
    Nicole still retained a  tiny hope of being  rescued. But she  had
always been a practical woman, and  logic told her that what was  left
of her life was probably measured in hours. During her unhurried  trip
into her  treasured  memories,  Nicole  wept  several  times,  without
inhibition, tears of  joy at  the past  recaptured, bittersweet  tears
because she knew, as  she relived each episode,  that it was  probably
her last visit to that particular portion of her memory.
    There was no pattern to her  wanderings through the life that  she
had  lived.  She   did  not  categorize,   measure,  or  compare   her
experiences. Nicole simply lived them again as they came to her,  each
old event transformed and enriched by her heightened awareness.
    Her mother occupied a special place in her memory. Because she had
died when  Nicole  was only  ten,  her  mother had  retained  all  the
attributes of  a  queen  or  goddess. Anawi  Tiasso  had  indeed  been
beautiful and regal,  a jet-black African  woman of uncommon  stature.
All Nicole's images of her were bathed in soft, glowing light.
    She remembered her  mother in  the living  room of  their home  in
Chilly-Mazarin, gesturing to Nicole  to come sit  upon her lap.  Anawi
read a book to  her daughter every night  before bedtime. Most of  the
stories were  fairy tales  about princes  and castles  and  beautiful,
happy people who overcame every obstacle. Her mother's voice was  soft
and mellow. She would  sing lullabies to Nicole  as the little  girl's
eyes grew heavier and heavier.
    The Sundays of her childhood were special days. In the spring they
would go to the park and play on the wide fields of grass. Her  mother
would teach Nicole how to run. The little girl had never seen anything
as beautiful  as  her mother,  who  had been  an  international  class
sprinter as a young woman, racing gracefully across the meadow.
    Of course Nicole remembered  vividly all the  details of her  trip
with Anawi to the Ivory Coast for the Poro. It was her mother who  had
held her during  the nights  in Nidougou before  the ceremony.  During
those long, frightening nights, the  little girl Nicole had  struggled
with all her fears. And each day, calmly and patiently, her mother had
answered all her questions and had  reminded her that many many  other
girls  had  passed  through   the  transitional  rite  without   undue
difficulty.
    Nicole's fondest memory from that trip  was set in the hotel  room
in Abidjan, the night before she and Anawi returned to Paris. She  and
her mother  had discussed  the Poro  only slightly  during the  thirty
hours since Nicole and  the other girls  had finished the  ceremonies.
Anawi had not yet offered any praise. Omeh and the village elders  had
told Nicole that  she had  been exceptional, but  to a  seven-year-old
girl no appraisal is as important  as the one from her mother.  Nicole
had summoned her courage just before dinner.
    "Did I do all right, Mama?" the little girl had said  tentatively.
"At the Poro, I mean."
    Anawi had burst into tears. "Did you do all right? Did you do  all
right?" She had wrapped her long sinuous arms around her daughter  and
picked her up off the floor. "Oh, Darling," her mother had said as she
had held Nicole high above her head. "I'm so proud of you that I could
split." Nicole had jumped into her  mother's arms and they had  hugged
and laughed and cried for fifteen minutes.
    Nicole lay on her back  in the bottom of  the pit, the tears  from
her memories rolling sideways across her face and down into her  ears.
For almost an hour she had been thinking about her daughter,  starting
with her birth  and then  going through each  of the  major events  of
Genevieve's life. Nicole  was recalling the  vacation trip to  America
that they had taken together,  three years earlier when Genevieve  had
been eleven. How very close they had been on that trip, especially  on
the day they  had hiked  down the South  Kaibab trail  into the  Grand
Canyon.
    Nicole and Genevieve had stopped at each of the markers along  the
trail, studying  the imprint  of  two billion  years  of time  on  the
surface of  the  planet  Earth.  They  had  lunched  on  a  promontory
overlooking the desert desiccation of  the Tonto plateau. That  night,
mother and  daughter had  spread their  sleeping mats,  side by  side,
right next to the  mighty Colorado River. They  had talked and  shared
dreams and held hands throughout the night.
    /would not have taken that trip, Nicole mused, beginning to  think
about her father,if it hadn't been for you. You were the one who  knew
it was the right  time to go. Nicole's  father was the cornerstone  of
her life. Pierre des Jardins  was her friend, confessor,  intellectual
companion, and most ardent supporter. He  had been there when she  was
born and at every significant moment of  her life. It was he whom  she
missed the most as she  lay in the bottom of  the pit inside Rama.  It
was he  with  whom  she  would  have chosen  to  have  had  her  final
conversation.
    There was no single memory of  her father that jumped out at  her,
that demanded renewal above all  the rest. Nicole's mental montage  of
Pierre framed all the  events of her  own life. Not  all of them  were
happy. She remembered  clearly, for example,  the two of  them in  the
savanna not far  from Nidougou,  silently holding hands  as they  both
wept quietly while the funeral pyre for Anawi burned into the  African
night. She could  also still feel  his arms around  her as she  sobbed
without cease following her failure, at the age of fifteen, to win the
nationwide Joan of Arc competition.
    They had lived together at Beauvois, an unlikely pair, from a year
after the death of her mother until Nicole had finished her third year
of studies  at  the  University  of Tours.  It  had  been  an  idyllic
existence. Nicole roamed  through the woods  around their villa  after
she bicycled home from school. Pierre  wrote his novels in the  study.
In the evening Marguerite rang the bell and called them both to dinner
before the lady climbed on her  own bicycle, her day's work  complete,
and returned to her husband and children in Luynes.
    During the  summers Nicole  traveled  with her  father  throughout
Europe, visiting the medieval towns and castles that were the  primary
venues of his  historical novels.  Nicole knew more  about Eleanor  of
Aquitaine and her husband  Henry Plantagenet than  she knew about  the
active political leaders of France and Western Europe. When Pierre won
the Mary Renault Prize for historical  fiction in 2181, she went  with
him to Paris to receive the award. Nicole sat on the first row in  the
large auditorium, dressed in the tailored white skirt and blouse  that
Pierre had helped her  choose, and listened to  the speaker extol  her
father's virtues.
    Nicole could still recite parts of her father's acceptance  speech
from memory. "I have often been  asked," her father had said near  the
end of his delivery,  "if I have accumulated  any wisdom that I  would
like to share with future generations." He had then looked directly at
her in the  audience. "To  my precious  daughter Nicole,  and all  the
young people of the world,  I offer one simple  insight. In my life  I
have found two things of priceless worth- learning and loving. Nothing
else-not fame,  not  power,  not  achievement  for  its  own  sake-can
possibly have the same lasting value.  For when your life is over,  if
you can say 'I have learned' and 'I have loved,' you will also be able
to say 'I have been happy.' "
    /have been happy, Nicole said as  another group of tears ran  down
the side of her face,and mostly because of you. You never disappointed
me. Not even in  my most difficult moment.  Her memory turned, as  she
knew it would, to the summer of 2184, when her life had accelerated at
such a fantastic pace that she  had lost control of its direction.  In
one six-week  period Nicole  won an  Olympic gold  medal, conducted  a
short but torrid  affair with  the Prince  of Wales,  and returned  to
France to tell her father that she was pregnant.
    Nicole could remember the key events  from that period as if  they
had happened only  yesterday. No emotion  in her life  had ever  quite
matched the  joy and  exhilaration  that she  had  felt when  she  was
standing on the victory stand inLos Angeles, the gold medal around her
neck and the cheers of a hundred thousand people echoing in her  ears.
It was her moment. For almost a week she was the darling of the  world
media. She was on  the front page of  every newspaper, highlighted  in
every major broadcast on sports.
    After her final interview in  the television studio adjoining  the
Olympic stadium,  a  young  Englishman  with  an  engaging  smile  had
introduced himself as Darren Higgins and handed her a card. Inside was
a handwritten invitation to dinner from none other than the Prince  of
Wales, the man who would become Henry XI of Great Britain.
    The dinner was magical,Nicole recalled, her desperate situation in
Rama temporarily forgotten.He  was charming.  The next  two days  were
absolutely wonderful. But thirty-nine  hours later, when she  awakened
in Henry's  bedroom suite  in Westwood,  her fairy  tale was  suddenly
over. Her prince who  had been so attentive  and affectionate was  now
frowning and fretful. As the inexperienced Nicole tried unsuccessfully
to understand what had  gone wrong, it slowly  dawned on her that  her
flight of fantasy was over.  /was just a conquest, she  remembered,the
celebrity  of  the  moment.  I   was  unsuitable  for  any   permanent
relationship.
    Nicole would never forget  the last words the  prince had said  to
her in Los Angeles. He had  been circling her while she was  hurriedly
packing. He could not understand why she was so distraught. Nicole had
not replied to any of his  questions and had resisted his attempts  to
embrace her.  "What  did  you  expect?"  he  had  asked  finally,  his
frustration obvious. "That we would ride off into the sunset and  live
happily ever after? Come on, Nicole, this is the real world. You  must
know that the English people would never accept a half-black woman  as
their queen."
    Nicole had escaped before Henry  saw her tears.And so, my  darling
Gene-vieve, Nicole said to herself in the bottom of the pit in  Rama,I
left Los Angeles  with two new  treasures. I  had a gold  medal and  a
wonderful baby  girl  within my  body.  Her thoughts  quickly  skipped
across the following weeks of anxiety to the desperate, lonely  moment
when she finally summoned her courage to talk to her father.
    "I ... I don't  know what to do,"  Nicole had said tentatively  to
Pierre on that September morning in the living room of their villa  at
Beauvois. "I  know  that  I  have  disappointed  you  terribly-I  have
disappointed myself- but I want to ask you if it's all right. I  mean,
if I want to, Papa, can I stay here and try-"
    "Of course, Nicole/' her father had interrupted her. He was softly
crying. It was the only time Nicole  had seen him cry since the  death
of her mother. "We'll do whatever's  right/' he had said as he  pulled
her into his embrace.
    /was so  lucky,  Nicole  thought.He was  so  accepting.  He  never
faulted me. He never  asked anything. When I  told him that Henry  was
the father and that I never wanted  anyone else to know, least of  all
Henry or the child, he promised he would keep my secret And he has.
    The lights came  on suddenly  and Nicole  stood up  to survey  her
prison under the new conditions. Only the center of the pit was  fully
lighted; both the ends were in shadow. Considering her situation,  she
was feeling amazingly cheerful and upbeat.
    She looked  up to  the roof  of the  barn and  through it  to  the
nondescript sky of Rama. Nicole thought  about her last few hours  and
had a sudden impulse. She had not  said a prayer in over twenty  years
but she dropped down on her knees  in the full light in the middle  of
the pit.Dear God, she  said,I know it's a  little late, but thank  you
for my father,  my mother,  and my daughter.  And all  the wonders  of
life. Nicole glanced  up at  the ceiling. She  was smiling  and had  a
twinkle in her eye.And right now, dear God, I could use a little help.
    38VISITORS
    The tiny robot strode out into the light and unsheathed his sword.
The English army had arrived at Harfleur.
    "Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more,
    Or close the wall up with our English dead.
    In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
    As modest stillness and humility:
    But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
    Then imitate the action of the tiger . . ,"
    Henry V, new king  of England, continued  to exhort his  imaginary
soldiers. Nicole smiled as she listened. She had spent the better part
of an hour following Wakefield's Prince Hal from the debauchery of his
youth, onto the  battlefields fighting against  Hotspur and the  other
rebels, and thence to the throne of England. Nicole had only once read
the three Henry  plays, and that  had been years  before, but she  was
well  aware  of  the  historical   period  because  of  her   lifelong
fascination with Joan of Arc.
    "Shakespeare made you into something you never were," she said out
loud to the  little robot as  she bent beside  it to insert  Richard's
baton in theoff slot. "You were  a warrior,, to be sure, nobody  would
argue with that. But you were also a cold and heartless conqueror. You
made Normandy bleed under your  powerful yoke. You almost crashed  the
life out of France."
    Nicole laughed nervously at herself.Here I am, she thought,talking
to a senseless ceramic prince twenty centimeters high. She  remembered
her feelings of hopelessness an hour  earlier after she had tried  one
more time to figure out  a way to escape. The  fact that her time  was
running out had been  reinforced when she had  drunk the next to  last
swig of water.Oh well, she mused, turning back to Prince Hal,at  least
this is better than feeling sorry for myself.
    "And what else can you do,  my little prince?" Nicole said.  "What
happens if I insert this pin in the slot marked c?"
    The robot activated,  walked a few  steps, and finally  approached
her left foot. After a long silence Prince Hal spoke, not in the  rich
actor's voice he had used during his earlier recitals, but instead  in
Wakefield's British twang. "C  stands for converse,  my friend, and  I
have a  considerable  repertoire. But  I  don't speak  until  you  say
something first."
    Nicole laughed. "All right, Prince Hal," she said after a moment's
thought, "tell me about Joan of Arc,"
    The robot hesitated and then frowned. "She was a witch, dear lady,
burned at the stake in Rouen a decade after my death. During my  reign
the north  of France  had been  subjugated by  my armies.  The  French
witch, claiming she was sent by God-"
    Nicole stopped  listening  and jerked  her  head up  as  a  shadow
crossed over them. She thought she saw something flying above the roof
of the bam. Her heart pounded furiously. "Here. I'm here," she shouted
at the top of her voice. Prince Hal droned on in the background  about
how Joan of  Arc's success  had sadly resulted  in the  return of  his
conquests to the realm of France. "So English. So typically  English,"
Nicole said as she  once again inserted the  baton in Prince  Hal'soff
button.
    Moments later the  shadow was  large and  completely darkened  the
bottom of  the pit.  Nicole looked  up  and her  heart caught  in  her
throat. Hovering over the  pit, its wings spread  and flapping, was  a
gigantic  birdlike   creature.  Nicole   shrunk  back   and   screamed
involuntarily. The creature stuck its neck into the pit and uttered  a
set of noises. The sounds were harsh yet slightly musical. Nicole  was
paralyzed. The thing repeated almost the  same set of noises and  then
tried, without  success because  its wings  were too  large, to  lower
itself slowly into the narrow pit.
    During this brief period Nicole,  her traumatic terror giving  way
to normal fear, studied the great  flying alien. Its face, except  for
two soft  eyes that  were a  deep  blue surrounded  by a  brown  ring,
reminded her  of the  pterodactyls that  she had  seen in  the  French
museum of natural  history. The beak  was quite long  and hooked.  The
mouth was toothless and the two talons, bilaterally symmetrical  about
the main body, each had four sharp digits.
    Nicole would  have guessed  the avian's  mass at  about a  hundred
kilograms. Its body,  except for the  face and beak,  the ends of  the
wings, and the  talons, was  covered by  a thick  black material  that
resembled velvet. When it was clear to the avian that it would not  be
able to fly down to the bottom of the pit, it sounded two sharp notes,
pulled itself up, and disappeared.
    Nicole did  not move  at all  during the  first minute  after  the
creature departed.  Then  she  sat  down  and  tried  to  collect  her
thoughts. The adrenaline  from her fright  was still coursing  through
her body. She tried to think  rationally about what she had seen.  Her
first idea was that  the thing was  a biot, like all  the rest of  the
mobile creatures that  had been  seen previously in  Rama.If that's  a
biot, she said to herself,then  it's extremely advanced. She  pictured
the other  biots  she had  seen,  both  the crabs  from  the  Southern
Hemicylinder and the  wide variety  of weird creations  filmed by  the
first Raman expedition.  Nicole could  not convince  herself that  the
avian was a biot. There was something about the eyes . . .
    She heard  wings flapping  in the  distance and  her body  tensed.
Nicole cowered in the shadowy corner just as the light in the pit  was
again obscured by a  huge hovering body. Actually  it was two  bodies.
The first  avian  had  returned  with  a  companion,  the  second  one
considerably the larger. The new bird  stuck its neck down and  stared
at Nicole with its blue eyes while it hovered over the pit. It made  a
sound, louder and  less musical than  the other, and  then craned  its
neck around to look  at its companion. While  the two avians  jabbered
back and  forth, Nicole  noticed  that this  one  was covered  with  a
polished surface, like linoleum, but in all other respects except size
was identical to her  first visitor. At length  the new bird  ascended
and the strange pair landed on  the side of the pit, still  jabbering.
They observed Nicole quietly for a minute or two. Then, after a  brief
conversation, they were gone.
    Nicole was  exhausted after  her bout  with fear.  Within  minutes
after her flying visitors  departed, she was curled  up and asleep  in
the comer of the pit.
    She slept soundly for  several hours. She was  awakened by a  loud
noise, a crack that  resounded through the barn  like the report of  a
gun. She woke up  quickly, but heard no  more unexplained sounds.  Her
body reminded her that she was hungry and thirsty. She pulled out what
was left of her  food.Should I make  two tiny meals  out of this?  she
asked herself wearily,or should I eat  it alt now and accept  whatever
comes?
    With a deep sigh, Nicole decided to finish off her food and  water
with one last meal. She was thinking that the two combined might  give
her enough sustenance  that she could  temporarily forget about  food.
She was wrong. While  Nicole was drinking the  last sip of water  from
her water flask,  her mind was  bombarded with images  of the  bottled
spring water  that she  and her  family  always had  on the  table  at
Beauvois.
    There was  another loud  crack in  the distance  after Nicole  had
finished her meal. She stopped to listen, but again there was silence.
Her thoughts were  dominated by escape  ideas, all of  them using  the
avians in some  way to help  her out of  the pit. She  was angry  with
herself for not having  tried to communicate with  them while she  had
the chance.  Nicole  laughed to  herself.Of  course, they  might  have
decided to  eat me.  But  who's to  say starving  to  death is  to  be
preferred over being eaten?
    Nicole was certain that  the avians would  come back. Perhaps  her
certainty was reinforced  by the  hopelessness of  her situation,  but
nevertheless she started making plans for what she would do when  they
did return.Hello, she imagined herself saying. She would stand up with
an outstretched palm  and walk forcefully  to the center  of the  pit,
right under the hovering creature. Nicole would then use a special set
of gestures to  communicate her plight:  Pointing repeatedly first  at
herself and  then the  pit would  indicate that  she couldn't  escape;
waving at both the avians and the  barn roof would ask them for  their
help.
    Two loud  sharp noises  brought Nicole  back to  reality. After  a
brief pause she heard still another crack. Nicole searched through the
"Environments" chapter  in  her  computerizedAtlas of  Rama  and  then
laughed at  herself for  not having  recognized immediately  what  was
occurring. The loud reports were the  sound of the ice breaking up  as
the Cylindrical Sea melted from the bottom. Rama was still inside  the
orbit of Venus  (although the  last midcourse maneuver  had placed  it
onto a  trajectory whose  distance  from the  sun was  now  increasing
again), and the solar input had finally brought the temperature inside
Rama to above the freezing point of water.
    TheAtlas warned  of fierce  windstorms, hurricanes  that would  be
created by the atmospheric thermal instabilities following the melting
of the sea.  Nicole walked to  the center  of the pit.  "Come on,  you
birds, or whatever you are," she yelled.  "Come get me now and let  me
have a chance to escape."
    But the avians did not come  back. Nicole sat awake in the  corner
for ten hours,  slowly growing  weaker as  the frequency  of the  loud
reports reached a peak and  then gradually diminished. The wind  began
to blow. At first it  was just a breeze, but  it became a gale by  the
time the  cracks from  the ice  breaking up  had stopped.  Nicole  was
completely discouraged. When  she fell asleep  again she told  herself
that she would probably not be awake more than one or two more times.
    The winds  pummeled New  York as  the hurricane  raged for  hours.
Nicole huddled lifelessly  in a  corner. She listened  to the  howling
wind and  remembered sitting  in a  ski chalet  during a  blizzard  in
Colorado. She tried to remember the pleasures of skiing but she  could
not. Her  hunger and  fatigue had  weakened her  imagination as  well.
Nicole sat  very  still,  her  mind  devoid  of  thoughts  except  for
wondering occasionally what it would feel like to die.
    She couldn't  remember  falling  asleep,  but  then  she  couldn't
remember waking up either. She was very weak. Her mind was telling her
that something had  blown into  her hole.  It was  dark again.  Nicole
crawled from her end of the pit toward the end with the jumbled metal.
She did not switch  on her flashlight. She  bumped into something  and
started, then she felt it with her hands. The object was big, as large
as a basketball. It had a smooth exterior and was oval in shape.
    Nicole became more alert. She  found her flashlight in her  flight
suit and illuminated the object. It  was off-white and shaped like  an
egg. She examined it thoroughly. When she pressed on it hard, it  gave
some under the pressure.Can  I eat it? her  mind asked, her hunger  so
severe that she had no worries about what it might do to her.
    Nicole  pulled  out  her  knife  and  was  able  to  cut  it  with
difficulty. She feverishly chopped off a chunk and forced it into  her
mouth. It was tasteless.  Nicole spat it out  and started to cry.  She
kicked the object angrily  and it rolled over.  She thought she  heard
something. Nicole  reached out  and pushed  it hard,  rolling it  over
again.Yes, she said to herself,yes. That was a sloshing sound.
    It was  slow cutting  through the  outside with  her knife.  After
several minutes  Nicole retrieved  her medical  equipment and  started
working on the  object with her  power scalpel. Whatever  it was,  the
object was made of  three separate and  distinct layers. The  covering
was tough, like the  skin of a football,  and relatively difficult  to
manipulate. The second layer  was a soft,  moist, royal blue  compound
the consistency of a melon. Inside, in the center, were several quarts
of a  greenish liquid.  Trembling with  anticipation, Nicole  stuck  a
cupped hand into the  incision and pulled the  liquid to her lips.  It
had an odd,  medicinal taste,  but it  was refreshing.  She drank  two
hurried swallows and then her years of medical training interceded.
    Fighting against her  desire to  drink more,  Nicole inserted  the
probe from  her  mass spectrometer  into  the liquid  to  analyze  its
chemical constituents. She was in such a hurry that she made a mistake
with the  first specimen  and  had to  repeat  the process.  When  the
results of the  analysis were  displayed on the  tiny modular  monitor
that could be affixed to any of her instruments, Nicole began to  weep
with joy. The  liquid would not  poison her. On  the contrary, it  was
rich in proteins and  minerals in the  kinds of chemical  combinations
that the body could process.
    "All right,  all right!"  Nicole shouted  out loud.  She stood  up
quickly and nearly fainted.  More cautious now, she  sat back down  on
her knees and began the  feast of her life.  She drank the liquid  and
ate the moist  meat until she  was absolutely stuffed.  Then she  fell
into a deep, satisfied sleep.
    Nicole's primary concern  when she awakened  was to determine  the
quantity of "manna  melon," as she  called it, that  was available  to
her. She had been a  glutton, and knew it, but  that was in the  past.
What she needed to  do now was  to husband the  manna melon until  she
could somehow enlist the aid of the avians.
    Nicole  measured  the  melon  carefully.  Its  gross  weight   had
originally been almost  ten kilograms,  but only a  little over  eight
remained. Her approximate assessment indicated that the inedible outer
portion comprised roughly two kilograms, leaving her six kilograms  of
nourishment split roughly evenly between the liquid and the royal blue
meat.Let's see, she was thinking,three liquid kilograms makes . , .
    Nicole's thought processes were interrupted as the lights came  on
again.Yessirree, she said to herself, checking her wristwatch,right on
time, with the same secular drift She looked up from her watch and saw
the egg-shaped  object for  the  first time  in  the full  light.  Her
recognition was immediate.Oh my God, Nicole thought as she walked over
and  traced  with  her  fingers  the  brown  lines  wriggling  on  the
creamy-white surface.I  had almost  forgotten.  She reached  into  her
flight suit and pulled out the polished stone that Omeh had given  her
on New Year's Eve in Rome. She  stared at it and then glanced over  at
the oval object in the pit.Oh my God, Nicole repeated.
    She replaced the stone in her  pocket and removed the small  green
vial,  "Ronata  will  know   the  time  to   drink,"  she  heard   her
great-grandfather say again. Nicole sat down in the comer and  emptied
the vial in one gulp.
    39WATERS OF WISDOM
    Immediately Nicole's vision began to blur. She closed her eyes for
a second.
    When she opened  them again she  was blinded by  a riot of  bright
colors, streaming by her in geometrical patterns as if she were moving
very fast. In  the center of  her sight,  way off in  the distance,  a
black dot  emerged  from  the  background  amid  a  brilliant  set  of
alternating red and yellow forms. Nicole concentrated on the dot as it
continued to  grow. It  rushed toward  her and  expanded to  fill  her
vision. She saw a  man, an old black  man, running across the  African
savanna on a perfect starry night.  Nicole clearly saw his face as  he
turned to climb  a mountain  of rocks. The  man looked  like Omeh  but
also, somewhat strangely, like her mother.
    He raced up the rock mountain with amazing agility. At the top  he
stood in silhouette, his  arms outspread, and stared  into the sky  at
the crescent moon on the horizon.  Nicole heard the sound of a  firing
rocket engine and turned to her  left. She watched a small  spacecraft
descend to the  surface of the  moon. Two men  in space suits  started
down a ladder. She heard Neil Armstrong say "That's one small step for
a man, one giant leap for mankind."
    Buzz Aldrin joined Armstrong  on the lunar  surface and they  both
pointed off to  their right.  They were staring  at an  old black  man
standing on  a nearby  lunar scarp.  He smiled.  His teeth  were  very
white.
    His face  loomed  ever larger  in  Nicole's vision  as  the  lunar
landscape behind him  began to fade.  He started to  chant slowly,  in
Senoufo, but at first Nicole could not comprehend what he was  saying.
All of a sudden she  realized that he was  talking toher and that  she
could understand every  word. "I am  one of your  ancestors from  long
ago," he said. "As a boy I went out to meditate the night that  people
landed on the moon. Because I  was thirsty, I drank deeply the  waters
from the Lake of Wisdom. I flew first to the moon, where I talked with
the astronauts, and then to other  worlds. I met The Great Ones.  They
told me you would come to bring the story of Minowe to the stars."
    As Nicole watched,  the old man's  head began to  grow. His  teeth
became vicious, long, his eyes yellow. He transformed into a tiger and
leapt for her throat. Nicole screamed  as she felt the teeth upon  her
neck. She prepared  to die. But  the tiger became  limp, an arrow  was
buried deep  in its  side. Nicole  heard a  noise and  looked up.  Her
mother, wearing a magnificent flowing  red robe and carrying a  golden
bow, was  running gracefully  toward a  gilded chariot  parked in  the
middle of the air. "Mother wait," Nicole shouted.
    The figure turned. "You were seduced," her mother said. "You  must
be more careful. Only three times can  I save you. Beware of what  you
cannot see but know is there." Anawi climbed into the chariot and took
the reins. "You  must not  die. I love  you, Nicole."  The winged  red
horses arched higher and higher until Nicole could no longer see them.
    The color pattern returned to her vision. Nicole heard music  now,
first far off  in the distance,  then much closer.  It was  synthetic,
like the sound of crystal bells. Beautiful, haunting, ethereal.  There
was loud applause. Nicole  was sitting in the  front row at a  concert
with her father. On the  stage an Oriental man  with hair down to  the
floor, his  eyes fixed  in a  gaze  of rapture,  stood next  to  three
odd-shaped instruments. The sound was all around her.It made her  want
to cry.
    "Come on," her father said. "We  must go," As Nicole was  watching
her father turned into  a sparrow. He smiled  at her. She flapped  her
own sparrow wings and they were airborne together, leaving the concert
behind. The music faded. The air rushed by them. Nicole could see  the
lovely Loire Valley and a glimpse of their villa at Beauvois. She  was
content to be going home. But her sparrow father descended instead  at
Chinon, farther down the Loire. The  two sparrows landed in a tree  on
the castle grounds.
    Beneath  them,  standing   in  the  crisp   December  air,   Henry
Plantagenet and Eleanor of Aquitaine were arguing about the succession
to the  throne of  England. Eleanor  walked over  under the  tree  and
noticed the sparrows. "Why  hello, Nicole/' she  said, "I didn't  know
you were there/' Queen  Eleanor reached up  and stroked the  sparrow's
underbelly. Nicole thrilled to the  softness of her touch.  "Remember,
Nicole," she said, "destiny is more  important than love of any  kind.
You can endure anything if you are certain of your destiny."
    Nicole smelled fire  and sensed they  were needed somewhere  else.
She and her father ascended,  turning north toward Normandy. The  fire
smell grew stronger. They  heard a cry for  help and urgently  flapped
their wings.
    In Rouen a plain girl with lights in her eyes looked up at them as
they approached. The fire below had reached her feet, the first  smell
of burning flesh was in the air.  The girl lowered her eyes in  prayer
as a makeshift  cross was held  above her head  by a priest.  "Blessed
Jesus/' she said, tears running down her cheeks.
    "We'll save  you, Joan,"  Nicole  shouted as  she and  her  father
dropped into the crowded square. Joan embraced them as they untied her
from the  stake. The  fire exploded  around them  and everything  went
black. In the next instant Nicole was flying again, but this time as a
great white heron. She  was alone, inside Rama,  flying high over  the
city of New York. She banked to avoid one of the avians, who  regarded
her with shock.
    Nicole could see everything in  New York in incredible detail.  It
was as if she had multispectral eyes with a wide-range of lenses.  She
could spot movement  in four different  places. Close to  the barn,  a
centipede biot  was  trudging  slowly  toward the  south  end  of  the
building. From the vicinity of each of the three central plazas,  heat
was emanating from  underground sources, causing  colored patterns  in
her infrared vision. Nicole  circled down toward  the barn and  landed
safely in her pit.
    40ALIEN INVITATION
    I must  be prepared  for rescue,Nicole  said to  herself. She  had
finished filling her flask with the greenish liquid from the center of
the manna melon. After carefully sectioning the moist melon flesh  and
putting the pieces in her old food container packets, Nicole sat  back
down in her usual corner.
    Whew!she thought, returning to the  wild mental excursion she  had
taken after drinking the  contents of the vial.What  in the world  was
that all about? Nicole recalled her  vision during the Poro, when  she
was still a child,  and the brief conversation  about it that she  had
had with Orneh three years later when Nicole had returned to  Nidougou
for the funeral of her mother.
    "Where did Ronata go?" Omeh had asked one evening when the old man
and the girl had been alone together.
    She had known  immediately what  he was  asking. "I  became a  big
white bird," she bad answered. "1 flew beyond the Moon and Sun to  the
great void."
    "Ah," he had said, "Omeh thought so."
    And why  didn't you  ask him  then what  had happened  to  you?the
scientist in the adult Nicole asked her former ten-year-old  self.Then
maybe some of this would make sense. But somehow Nicole knew that  the
vision was  beyond  analysis,  that  it existed  in  a  realm  as  yet
unfathomed by the deductive processes  that made science so  powerful.
She thought instead about her mother, about how beautiful she had been
in her long  flowing red robes.  Anawi had saved  her from the  tiger.
Thank you,  Mother, Nicole  thought. She  wished that  she had  talked
longer with her.
    It was  a  weird sound,  like  dozens of  unshod  baby feet  on  a
linoleum floor, and it was definitely coming in her direction.  Nicole
didn't have much time to wonder.  Seconds later the head and  antennae
of a  centipede biot  appeared at  the edge  of her  pit and,  without
slowing down  in any  way, proceeded  directly down  the wall  at  the
opposite end.
    Altogether the biot was  four meters long.  It clambered down  the
wall without  difficulty,  placing each  of  its sixty  legs  directly
against the smooth  surface and holding  on by some  kind of  suction.
Nicole put on her  backpack and watched for  her opportunity. She  was
notthat surprised by the  appearance of the biot.  After what she  had
seen in her vision, she was certain  that she was going to be  rescued
by some means.
    The  centipede  biot  consisted   of  fifteen  attached,   jointed
segments, each with four legs, and  an insectlike head with a  bizarre
array of  sensors, two  of  which were  long  and thin  and  resembled
antennae. The jumbled pile of  metal at the other  end of the pit  was
apparently its  spare  parts.  While Nicole  was  watching,  the  biot
replaced three of its legs, the carapace for one of its segments,  and
two knobby protruberances on the side of its head. The entire  process
took no more than five minutes. When it was finished, the biot started
again up the wall.
    Nicole jumped on the centipede  biot's back when three-fourths  of
its body was heading upward. The sudden extra weight was too much. The
biot lost its grasp  and fell, along with  Nicole, back into the  pit.
Moments later  it tried  again to  scale the  wall. This  time  Nicole
waited until the  entire length of  the centipede was  heading up  the
wall, hoping that the  strength of the extra  segments would make  the
difference. It was to no avail.  The biot and Nicole collapsed into  a
heap.
    One of its front legs had been severely injured during the  second
fall, so the biot made the  necessary repairs before trying to  ascend
the wall a  third time.  Nicole, meanwhile, pulled  all her  strongest
suture material out of  her medical pack  and tied one  end of a  long
octuple thickness around the three back  sections of the biot. In  the
other end of the suture thread she made a loop. After she first put on
gloves to protect her hands and then fashioned a waistband to keep the
thread from cutting, Nicole tied the loop around her waist.
    This could be a disaster,Nicole  realized as she imagined all  the
possible outcomes of her scheme. //the  thread does not hold, I  could
fall. The second time I might not be so lucky.
    The centipede inched its way up the wall as before. Several  small
steps after it was completely elongated, the biot felt Nicole's weight
from below. This time, however, it  did not fall. The struggling  biot
managed to continue slowly  on its upward path.  Nicole kept her  body
perpendicular to the surface, as if  she were rock climbing, and  held
onto the suture thread with both her hands.
    Nicole was about forty centimeters behind the last segment of  the
biot as they scaled the wall.  When the head of the centipede  reached
the top of the pit, Nicole was almost halfway out. Her slow and steady
climb continued as, segment after segment, a portion of the biot  left
the pit above her. A few  minutes later, however, her progress  slowed
markedly, stopping altogether  when the number  of centipede  segments
remaining on the wall dropped to  four. Nicole could almost touch  the
rear segment of  the centipede if  she stretched her  arms above  her.
Only about ,one meter's length of the biot was still on the wall,  but
nevertheless it  was apparently  stuck. Nicole  was putting  too  much
strain on the joints attaching the rear segments.
    Grim scenarios ran through Nicole's mind as she dangled more  than
six meters  above the  floor of  the pit.This  is great,  she  thought
sarcastically, as she pulled tightly on the suture line and placed her
feet firmly against the wall.There  are three possible outcomes,  none
of them good. The  thread could break. The  biot could collapse. Or  I
might remain suspended here forever.
    Nicole considered  her  alternatives.  The  only  plan  she  could
conceive with even  a reasonable  probability of success,  and it  was
still very risky, was  for her to  climb up the  suture thread to  the
last segment and then, somehow using the body or legs of the centipede
as handholds, to muscle her way to the top of the pit.
    Nicole glanced down  and remembered  her first  fall.I think  I'll
wait awhile first and see if this machine gets moving again. A  minute
passed. Then another. Nicole took a  deep breath. She reached up  high
on the suture line  and pulled herself up  the wall. She repeated  the
process with  the  other hand.  She  was  now right  behind  the  last
segment. Nicole reached out and grabbed  one of the legs, but as  soon
as she tried to put any weight on it, it pulled free from the wall.
    So much for that plan,she thought after a moment's fright. She had
restabilized  herself  just  behind  the  biot.  Nicole  studied   the
centipede again very carefully. The carapace of each segment was  made
of overlapping pieces.It might be possible to grab one of those flaps,
. . . Nicole reconstructed her first two attempts to ride on the  back
of the biot.It was the  suction force of the  feet that gave out,  she
thought.Now most of the biot is  on the level ground above. It  should
be able to hold me.
    Nicole realized that once she was on the back of the biot, she  no
longer had any protection  against falling. To  test the concept,  she
pulled herself to the top of the suture line and grabbed the  carapace
flap. She was able to get a  firm grip. The only question was  whether
the flap could support her weight. Nicole tried to assess its strength
while holding onto the suture with her other hand for safety. So  far,
so good.
    Nicole grasped the flap  on the rear  biot segment and  cautiously
pulled herself up. She  released her grip on  the suture thread.  Then
she wrapped  her legs  around the  side of  the centipede's  body  and
scooted along until  she could reach  the next flap.  The legs of  the
rear segment  popped off  the wall,  but the  centipede did  not  move
otherwise.
    She repeated  the  process  twice more,  moving  from  segment  to
segment. Nicole was  almost to  the top. While  she was  on her  final
climb, she had a brief scare  when the biot slipped a few  centimeters
back into the pit. Holding on breathlessly, she waited until the  biot
was stable and then crawled forward  to the first segment that was  on
level ground. As she was crawling,  the biot began walking again,  but
Nicole just rolled off sideways and landed on her back on the  ground.
"Hallelujah!" she shouted.
    As she stood on  the wall around  New York and  stared out at  the
moiling waters of the Cylindrical  Sea, Nicole wondered why there  had
been no answer to her call for help. The self-test status flag on  her
radio indicated that it was working properly, yet she had tried  three
separate times without success to  establish contact with the rest  of
the crew. Nicole  was well  aware of  the commlinks  available to  the
cosmonauts. Failure to receive a reply meant both that no crew members
were within six to eight kilometers of her at presentand that the Beta
relay  station  was  not  operational.If  Beta  were  working,  Nicole
thought,then they would be able to talk to me from anywhere, even  the
Newton.
    Nicole told herself that the crew was doubtless onboard their  own
spacecraft,  preparing  for   another  sortie,  and   that  the   Beta
communications station had  probably been disabled  by the  hurricane.
What bothered her,  though, was  that it had  already been  forty-five
hours since the onset of the melting and more than ninety hours  since
she had fallen into the pit. Why was nobody looking for her?
    Nicole's eyes scanned the sky for  some sign of a helicopter.  The
atmosphere now  contained clouds,  as predicted.  The melting  of  the
Cylindrical Sea  had substantially  altered  the weather  patterns  on
Rama. The temperature  had warmed up  considerably. Nicole glanced  at
her thermometer  and confirmed  her  estimate, that  it was  now  four
degrees above freezing.
    The  most  likely  situation,Nicole  reasoned,  returning  to  the
question of the whereabouts of her colleagues,is that they will return
soon. I need to stay close to this wall so that I can be easily  seen.
Nicole did  not waste  much  time thinking  about other,  less  likely
scenarios. She considered only briefly  the possibility that the  crew
had had a major disaster and nobody had yet been available to look for
her.But even in  that case, she  said to herself,I  should follow  the
same approach. They would come sooner or later.
    To pass the time, Nicole took a  sample of the sea and tested  it.
It had  very few  of the  organic  poisons found  by the  first  Raman
expedition.Maybe they flourished  and died  while I was  still in  the
pit, she thought.Anyway they're virtually  all gone now. Nicole  noted
to herself that in an emergency a strong swimmer might be able to make
it across without a  boat. However, she recalled  the pictures of  the
shark biots and other denizens of  the sea reported by Norton and  his
crew and slightly modified her assessment.
    Nicole walked along the ramparts for several hours. While she  was
sitting down quietly eating her manna melon lunch {and thinking  about
methods she could  employ to retrieve  the rest of  the melon, in  the
event that she still wasn't rescued in another seventy-two hours), she
heard what she  thought was a  cry coming from  New York. She  thought
immediately of Dr. Takagi-shi.
    She tried her radio one  more time. Nothing. Again Nicole  checked
the sky for some sign of a helicopter. She was still debating  whether
or not to forsake her lookout on the wall when she heard another  cry.
This time  she had  a better  fix  on its  location. She  located  the
nearest stairway and walked south into the center of New York.
    Nicole had  not yet  updated the  map of  New York  stored in  her
computer. After  she  crossed the  annular  streets near  the  central
plaza, she  stopped  near  the  octahedron and  entered  all  her  new
discoveries, including the  bam with  the pits and  anything else  she
could remember. A moment later,  while Nicole was admiring the  beauty
of the bizarre, eight-sided building, she heard a third cry. Only this
time it was more like a shriek. If it was Takagi-shi, he was certainly
making a peculiar noise.
    She jogged across the open plaza, trying to close in on the  sound
while it  was  still fresh  in  her  mind. As  Nicole  approached  the
buildings on the opposite  side, the shriek  sounded again. This  time
she also heard an answer. She recognized the voices. They sounded like
the avian pair that had visited her  while she was in the pit.  Nicole
became more cautious.  She walked in  the direction of  the sound.  It
seemed to  be  coming from  the  area  around the  lattice  nets  that
Francesca Sabatini had found so fascinating.
    In less than  two minutes,  Nicole was standing  between two  tall
skyscrapers that were connected at the ground by a thick mesh  lattice
that rose 6fty  meters into  the air.  About twenty  meters above  the
ground, the  velvet-bodied  avian  struggled  against  its  trap.  The
avian's talons and  wings were ensnared  in the cords  of the  stringy
lattice. It screamed again when  it saw Nicole. Its larger  companion,
presently circling near  the top of  the buildings, dove  down in  her
direction.
    Nicole cowered against the facade of  one of the buildings as  the
avian drew near. It  jabbered at Nicole, as  if it were scolding  her,
but it did not  touch her. The velvet  avian then said something  and,
after a short exchange,  the huge linoleum bird  withdrew to a  nearby
ledge about twenty meters away.
    After she had calmed herself (and keeping one eye on the  linoleum
avian on its perch), Nicole walked  over to the lattice and  inspected
it. She and Francesca had not had any time to spare when they had been
searching for  Takagishi, so  this  was Nicole's  first chance  for  a
detailed examination. The  lattice was  made of  a ropelike  material,
about four centimeters  thick, that  had some  elasticity. There  were
thousands of intersections  in the lattice,  and at each  one of  them
there was a small knot, or node.  The nodes were a little sticky,  but
not enough to make Nicole think  that the whole lattice was some  kind
of spider web for catching flying creatures.
    While she was studying the bottom  of the lattice, the free  avian
flew over Nicole's head and landed close to its trapped friend.  Being
very careful  to avoid  becoming  snared itself,  it played  with  the
individual strands with its talons. It also stretched and twisted  the
cords, with some difficulty. Next  the linoleum bird gingerly  stepped
over to where its  companion was trapped and  made an awkward  attempt
either to break or  untie the lattice links  holding the other  avian.
When it was finished, the huge bird stepped back and stared at Nicole.
    What is  it doing?Nicole  said to  herself.I'm certain  that  it's
trying to tell me something. . . . When Nicole did not move, the avian
laboriously  repeated  the  entire  demonstration.  This  time  Nicole
thought she understood that the alien creature was trying to tell  her
that it couldn't free its friend. Nicole smiled and waved. Then, still
staying at the bottom of the lattice,  she tied a few of the  adjacent
cords together.  When she  subsequently untied  them, the  two  avians
shrieked their  approval.  She repeated  the  process twice  and  then
pointed, first  at herself  and then  at the  velvet creature  trapped
above her.
    There was a flurry of talk in their loud, sometimes musical tongue
and the larger of the pair returned to his ledge. Nicole stared up  at
the velvet creature. It was caught in three different places; in  each
case its struggle had resulted in its being wedged more tightly in the
elastic cord. Nicole surmised that the avian must have been caught  in
the violent hurricane winds and had been blown into the lattice during
the preceding  night.  The  cords  had  probably  deformed  under  the
momentum of  the contact,  and when  they had  snapped back  to  their
normal size, the  great bird was  trapped in  the mesh. It  was not  a
difficult climb.  The  lattice  was  carefully  anchored  to  the  two
buildings and the  rope itself was  heavy enough that  Nicole did  not
sway very much.  But twenty meters  off the ground  is a  considerable
height, taller than a normal six-story building, so Nicole was  having
some second thoughts when she  finally reached the altitude where  the
avian was trapped.
    Nicole was  panting  from  the  effort of  her  climb.  She  eased
gingerly over to the  avian to ensure that  she had not  misunderstood
anything in their strange communication.  The alien bird followed  her
fixedly with its  huge blue  eyes. One of  the wings  was snared  very
close to the avian's head. Nicole began trying to free the wing, first
wrapping strands of the lattice around her own ankles to make  certain
that she would not fall. It was slow work. At one point Nicole  caught
a whiff of the  creature's powerful breath.  /know that smell,  Nicole
said to herself.  It only took  an instant for  Nicole to connect  the
smell with the manna melon that she had been eating earlier.So you eat
the same thing?  Nicole thought.But  where does it  come from?  Nicole
wished that she could talk to these strange and wonderful creatures.
    She struggled with  the first  knot. It  was very  tight. She  was
afraid she might injure  the creature's wing if  she pulled with  more
force. Nicole reached into her pack and retrieved her power scalpel.
    Instantly the other  avian was upon  her, jabbering and  shrieking
and scaring Nicole half to death. It would not go away and permit  her
to proceed until Nicole  moved away from the  trapped bird and  showed
its companion how the scalpel could cut through the lattice cord.
    Using the scalpel the freeing operation was completed quickly. The
velvet avian  soared into  the  air, its  musical cries  of  happiness
resounding  throughout  the   area.  Its  companion   joined  in   the
celebration with shrieks  of its own  as the two  played, almost  like
lovebirds, in the  air above  the lattice. They  disappeared a  moment
later and Nicole climbed slowly down to the ground. Nicole was pleased
with herself. She was ready now to return to the wall and wait for the
rescue that she was certain was imminent. She walked toward the north,
singing a  folk  song  of  the Loire  that  she  remembered  from  her
adolescence.
    After several minutes Nicole  had company again. More  accurately,
she had a  guide. Whenever  she would make  a wrong  turn, the  velvet
avian, flying overhead,  would make  an incredible  racket. The  noise
would only cease when Nicole would go in the proper direction. /wonder
where we're going? Nicole asked herself.
    In the plaza area, not more than forty meters from the octahedron,
the avian  swooped  down on  an  utterly unobtrusive  portion  of  the
metallic ground. It tapped its  talons several times and then  hovered
over the spot.  A covering  of some kind  slid away  and the  creature
disappeared under  the plaza.  Twice it  flew out,  said something  in
Nicole's direction, and then descended,
    Nicole understood the  message.I think I'm  being invited home  to
meet the family, she said to herself.Let's just hope that I'm not  the
dinner.
    41A FRIEND INDEED
    Nicole had no idea what  to expect. - She  was not fearful as  she
walked over and  gazed at the  hole in the  ground. Curiosity was  her
dominant feeling. She worried momentarily  that her rescue team  might
arrive while she was  under the ground,  but Nicole convinced  herself
that they would return later.
    The rectangular cover  was large,  about ten meters  long and  six
meters wide. When  the avian saw  that Nicole was  following, it  flew
into the hole and  waited on the third  ledge. Nicole squatted  beside
the opening and  stared into  the depths.  She could  see some  lights
close by and more were flickering in the distance below her. She could
not estimate accurately to what  depth the corridor descended, but  it
was obviously more than twenty or thirty meters.
    The downward  climb was  not  easy for  a nonflying  species.  The
vertical corridor was essentially a large hole with a series of  broad
ledges along its sides. Each of the ledges was exactly the same  size,
about five meters long and one meter wide, and they were separated one
from another  by about  two meters  in depth.  Nicole had  to be  very
careful.
    What light  there  was in  the  vertical corridor  came  from  the
opening to the plaza and some lanterns hanging on the walls every four
ledges along the  descent. The lanterns  were enclosed in  transparent
wrappings that were very flimsy and paperlike. Each lantern  contained
a small, burning fire, together with some liquid substance that Nicole
assumed was the fuel.
    Nicole's velvet-bodied friend watched her patiently throughout the
descent, always staying three ledges below her. Nicole had the feeling
that if she were to slip, the avian would catch her in midair, but she
didn't want to test  her hypothesis. Her mind  was running at a  rapid
pace. Nicole had  already decided that  the creatures were  definitely
not biots. That meant they were an alien species of some kind.But they
couldn't possibly  be  the  Ramans,  Nicole  reasoned.Their  level  of
technological development is totally inconsistent with this incredible
spacecraft.
    Nicole remembered from her history  courses the poor and  backward
Mayans found in Mexico by the conquistadors. The Spanish had deemed it
impossible that  the  ancestors  of those  ignorant  and  impoverished
people could possibly have  built such impressive ceremonial  centers.
Could that  have happened  here? Nicole  wondered.Might these  strange
avians be all that is left of the master species that constructed this
vehicle!'
    About twenty meters  below the surface  Nicole heard what  sounded
like running water. The  noise increased as she  dropped onto a  ledge
that was  actually an  extension of  a horizontal  tunnel heading  off
behind her. Across the  vertical corridor Nicole  could see a  similar
dark hallway going  in the  opposite direction, also  parallel to  the
surface.
    Her avian guide was, as usual, three ledges below. Nicole  pointed
down the tunnel at  her rear. The  creature flew up  close to her  and
systematically hovered over each of  the two ledges immediately  below
Nicole, making it perfectly clear that Nicole was expected to descend.
    Nicole was not  willing to  give up so  easily. She  took out  her
flask and made a  drinking motion. Then Nicole  pointed behind her  at
the dark tunnel.  The avian fluttered  about, apparently weighing  the
decision, and then flew over  Nicole's head into the blackness.  Forty
seconds later Nicole  saw a light  in the distance  that continued  to
grow as it approached her. The  avian returned carrying a large  torch
in one of its talons.
    Nicole followed the avian for about fifteen meters. They came to a
room, off to the  left of the tunnel,  that contained a large  cistern
full of water. Fresh water fell into the cistern from a pipe  embedded
in the wall. Nicole  pulled out her mass  spectrometer and tested  the
liquid. It was  virtually pure  H2O; no other  chemicals were  present
above one part in a million.  Careful to remember her manners,  Nicole
cupped her hands  and drank  from the waterfall.  It was  unbelievably
delicious.
    After she had finished drinking, Nicole continued to walk down the
tunnel in the same direction. The avian went into a frenzy, flying  up
and  down  and  jabbering  incessantly,  until  Nicole  reversed   her
direction and returned to the main vertical corridor. When she renewed
her descent,  she noticed  that the  ambient light  level had  dropped
considerably. Nicole glanced above  her. The opening  to the plaza  in
New York was now  closed.I hope that doesn't  mean I'm here for  good,
she thought.
    Twenty meters  more  below  the  surface,  another  pair  of  dark
horizontal tunnels ran  perpendicular to  the main  corridor. At  this
second level the velvet  avian, still carrying  the torch, led  Nicole
down one of the horizontal tunnels  for about two hundred meters.  She
followed the bird into a large, circular room with a high ceiling. The
avian used its torch to light  several wall lanterns around the  room.
Then it disappeared.  It was gone  for almost an  hour. Nicole sat  as
patiently as she could,  at first staring around  the black room  that
reminded her of a cave or grotto. There were no decorations. At length
Nicole began to concentrate  on how she would  inform the avians  that
she was ready to leave.
    When her  velvet  friend  eventually  returned,  it  brought  four
associates. Nicole heard them flapping their wings in the hallway  and
jabbering intermittently. Her  avian's companion  (who Nicole  assumed
was  a  mate  of  some  kind)  and  two  additional  linoleum-surfaced
creatures flew in first. They landed and then awkwardly walked up very
close to Nicole to  conduct a visual examination.  After they had  sat
down on the opposite side of the room, another velvet-bodied creature,
this one brown instead of black, flew in last. It was carrying a small
manna melon in its talons.
    The melon was placed in front of Nicole. All of the avians watched
expectantly. Nicole neatly cut a  one-eighth section out of the  melon
with her  scalpel, picked  it up  to drink  a small  draught from  the
greenish liquid in the  middle, and then  carried the remaining  melon
over  to  her  hosts.  They  shrieked  appreciatively,  admiring   the
precision of the cut as they passed the melon among themselves.
    Nicole watched the  avians eat.  They shared the  melon, one  with
another, and at no  time were any portions  meted out. The two  velvet
avians were surprisingly deft and dainty with their talons, making  as
little mess as possible  and leaving no  waste whatsoever. The  larger
avians were much clumsier; their eating reminded Nicole of animals  on
Earth. Like Nicole, none of the avians ate the tough outer covering of
the manna melon.
    When the meal was over the avians, who had not talked at all while
they were eating, huddled in a circle for several seconds. The  huddle
broke up after the brown velvet one jabbered something that sounded to
Nicole like a song.  One at a  time, they then  flew over for  another
close-up look at her and disappeared out the door.
    Nicole sat quietly and wondered what would happen next. The avians
had left  the  lights on  in  the dining  room  (or banquet  hall,  or
whatever it was), but it was pitch black in the corridor outside. They
clearly intended for her to stay where she was, at least for the  time
being. It had been a long time since Nicole had had any sleep and  she
was pleasantly full  from the  meal.Oh well, she  thought to  herself,
curling up on the  floor after a short  internal debate,maybe a  short
nap will refresh me.
    In her dream she heard someone  calling her name, but it was  very
far away. She  had to strain  to hear  the voice. Nicole  woke with  a
start and tried to remember where she was. She listened carefully  but
didn't hear anything. When she checked her watch, she learned that she
had been asleep  for four  hours.I'd better  get out  of here,  Nicole
thought.It will be dark soon and I don't want to miss my chance to  be
rescued.
    She  moved  out  into  the  hallway  and  switched  on  her  small
flashlight. Nicole  reached  the  vertical corridor  in  less  than  a
minute. Immediately she  began scrambling  up the  ledges. Just  below
where she had stopped during her descent for a drink of water,  Nicole
heard a strange noise above her. She stopped to catch her breath.  She
leaned slightly into the gaping hole and shone her light above, in the
direction of the sound. Something large  was moving back and forth  on
the portion  of the  first level  that jutted  out into  the  vertical
corridor,
    Nicole cautiously climbed up to the ledge directly underneath  the
new phenomenon  and  crouched beneath  it.  Whatever it  was,  it  was
covering each square centimeter  of the ledge in  front of the  tunnel
entrance once every five seconds. There was no way Nicole could  avoid
it. She couldn't possibly pull herself  up and then climb to the  next
ledge above in less than five seconds.
    She moved down to  one end of her  ledge and listened intently  to
the sound above her.  When the thing turned  and went in the  opposite
direction, Nicole pulled her head over the edge of the next level. The
object was  moving rapidly  on treads  and looked  altogether like  an
armored tank from the rear. She had only a brief glimpse, for the  top
half of the tank spun around quickly  at the other end as it  prepared
to reverse its field.
    One thing is certain,Nicole  said to herself as  she stood on  the
ledge below.That tank issome kind of sentinel. Nicole wondered whether
or not it had any sensors-certainly it had given no indication that it
had heard  her-but decided  that she  couldn't afford  to find  out.It
wouldn't be much of a guard if it couldn't at least stop an intruder.
    Nicole climbed slowly down  the ledges to  the dining room  level.
She was sorely disappointed and now angry with herself for having come
into the avian lair in the first place. It still did not make sense to
her that the  avians might  be holding her  as a  captive. After  all,
hadn't the creature invited  her to visit after  Nicole had saved  its
life?
    Nicole was also puzzled  by the tank  sentinel. Its existence  was
baffling, and completely inconsistent with the level of  technological
development of  everything else  in the  lair. What  was its  purpose?
Where did it come from?Things just get curiouser and curiouser, Nicole
thought, recalling a phrase from one of her favorite books.
    When she was back on  the second underground level, Nicole  looked
around to see  if there was  any other way  she could get  out of  the
lair. There was an identical set of ledges on the opposite side of the
vertical corridor. If she could jump across, then maybe . . .
    Before considering seriously such a plan, Nicole had to  determine
whether or  not  a tank,  or  equivalent sentinel,  was  guarding  the
opposite horizontal tunnel on the first level. She couldn't tell  from
where she  was standing,  so Nicole,  muttering to  herself about  her
stupidity, climbed back  up the ledges  on her side  to obtain a  good
view across the corridor. She was in  luck. The ledge in front of  the
opposite tunnel was empty.
    By the time she  returned to the  second underground level  again,
Nicole was  fatigued from  all  the climbing.  She stared  across  the
corridor and at the  lights in the abyss  below her. She would  almost
certainly die if she  fell. Nicole was a  very good judge of  distance
and correctly reckoned that it was about four meters from the edge  of
the ledge extension in front of her tunnel to the edge on the opposite
side.Four meters, she mused,four and a half at the most. Allowing  for
some room at both ends, I need a five-meter jump to clear it In flight
suit with backpack.
    Nicole remembered  a  Sunday  afternoon  at  Beauvois  four  years
earlier, when  Genevieve was  ten and  both mother  and daughter  were
watching the 2196 Olympics on television.  "Can you still jump a  long
way, Mama?" the little  girl had asked, having  a hard time  picturing
her mother as an Olympic champion.
    Pierre had  cajoled her  into taking  Genevieve to  the  athletics
field adjacent to the secondary school at Luynes. Her timing had  been
way off in  the triple jump,  but after thirty  minutes of warmup  and
practice Nicole  had managed  to  long jump  six  and a  half  meters.
Genevieve had not been that impressed. "Shoot, Mama," her daughter had
said while they  were bicycling  home through  the green  countryside,
"Danielle's big sister  can jump  almost that  far, and  she's only  a
university student."
    The memory of Genevieve stirred a profound sadness in Nicole.  She
longed to hear  her daughter's voice,  help her with  her hair, or  go
boating with  her on  their small  private pond  beside the  Bresme.We
never value  enough the  time we  have, she  thought,until they're  no
longer around.
    Nicole started back down the tunnel  to where the avians had  left
her. She wouldn't try the jump. It was too dangerous. If she slipped .
. .
    "Nicole des Jardins,  where the  hell are you?"  Nicole froze  the
moment she heard the  call, very faint, off  in the distance. Had  she
imagined it?  "Nicole," she  heard again.  It was  definitely  Richard
Wakefield's voice. She ran back  to the vertical corridor and  started
to shout.No, she thought rapidly,that will wake them. It will not take
me more than five minutes. I can jump . . .
    Nicole's adrenaline was pumping at an incredible rate. She  marked
off her  steps and  soared across  the chasm  with plenty  of room  to
spare. She climbed up  the ledges at breakneck  speed. Toward the  top
she beard Wakefield calling her again.
    "I'm here,  Richard.  Below  you," she  shouted.  "Underneath  the
plaza."
    Nicole reached the top ledge and started pushing on the  covering.
It wouldn't budge. "Shit,"  she shouted as  the puzzled Richard  paced
around in the vicinity.  "Richard, come over here.  Where you hear  my
voice. Beat on the ground."
    Richard began to knock hard on the covering. They were shouting at
each other. The noise was deafening.  From far below Nicole heard  the
flapping of wings. As the avians  rose in the corridor, they began  to
shriek and jabber.
    "Help me," Nicole hollered at them as they drew close. She pointed
up at the cover. "My friend is out there."
    Richard continued to pound. Only the two avians who had originally
found Nicole in the pit came up to where she was. They hovered  around
her, flapping their wings  and jabbering back at  the five others  who
were  one  level  below.  The  creatures  were  apparently  having  an
argument, for  the black  velvet avian  twice extended  its neck  down
toward its associates and uttered a fearsome screech.
    The covering suddenly opened. Richard had to scramble to keep from
falling in. When he looked  down into the hole  he saw Nicole and  two
gigantic bird creatures,  one of  which flew  right by  him as  Nicole
crawled out  of  the  opening."Holy  shit'"  he  exclaimed,  his  eyes
following the flight of the avian.
    Nicole was  overcome  with joy.  She  ran into  Wakefield's  arms.
"Richard, oh Richard," she said, "I'm so glad to see you."
    He grinned at her and returned the  hug. "If I had known you  felt
like this," he said, "I would have come earlier."
    42TWO EXPLORERS
    Let me get this straight. You're telling me that you'realone?  And
we have no way to cross the Cylindrical Sea?"
    Richard nodded. It was too  much for Nicole. Five minutes  earlier
she had  been exultant.  Her ordeal  had finally  been over.  She  had
imagined returning to  the Earth  and seeing her  father and  daughter
again. Now he was telling her ...
    She walked away  quickly and leaned  her head against  one of  the
buildings surrounding the plaza. Tears  rolled down her cheeks as  she
gave vent to her disappointment. Richard followed her at a distance.
    "I'm sorry," he said.
    "It's not your fault/' Nicole  replied after she had regained  her
composure. "It just never occurred to me  that I might see one of  the
crew again andstill not be rescued-"  She stopped herself. It was  not
fair for her to make Richard suffer. She walked over to him and forced
a smile.
    "I'm not usually this emotional," Nicole said. "And I  interrupted
your story right in the middle." She paused a second to wipe her eyes.
"You were telling me about the shark biots chasing the motorboat.  You
saw them first when you were about halfway across the sea?"
    "More or less,"  Richard replied. Her  disappointment had  subdued
him. He tried  a nervous  laugh. "Do you  remember, after  one of  the
simulations, when the review board criticized us for not having sent a
pilotless version of our motorboat into the water first, just to  make
sure that there wasn't something peculiar to the new design that would
disturb the  'ecological equilibrium'  in some  way? Well,  I  thought
their suggestion at the time was  ridiculous. Now I'm not so  certain.
Those shark biots hardly  bothered the Newton  vessels, but they  were
definitely angry about my high-speed motorboat."
    Richard and Nicole had sat down together on one of the gray  metal
boxes that dotted  the plaza  area. "I  managed to  dodge them  once,"
Richard continued, "but  I was extremely  lucky. When I  had no  other
choice I simply  jumped out and  swam. Fortunately for  me, they  were
mostly after the  boat-1 didn't  see one  again while  I was  swimming
until I was only a hundred meters from shore."
    "How long have you been inside Rama altogether now?" Nicole asked.
    "About seventeen hours. I left the Newton two hours after dawn.  I
spent too much damn time  trying to repair the communications  station
at Beta. But it was impossible."
    Nicole felt his flight suit. "Except  for your hair, I can't  even
tell you've been wet."
    Richard laughed. "Ob,  the miracles of  fabric engineering.  Would
you believe that this  suit was almost  dry by the  time I changed  my
thermals? By then I was having a hard time convincing even myself that
I had spent that twenty minutes swimming in the cold water." He looked
at his companion. She was loosening up very slowly. "But I'm surprised
at you, Cosmonaut  des Jardins.  You haven't  even asked  me the  most
important question. How did I know where you were?"
    Nicole had  pulled  out  her scanner  and  was  reading  Richard's
biometry.  Everything  was  within  tolerances,  despite  his   recent
harrowing swim.  She was  a little  slow to  understand his  question.
"Youknew where I was?" she said finally, knitting her brow. "I figured
you were just wandering around-"
    "Come on,  lady. New  York is  small, but  notthat small.  There's
twenty-five square  kilometers of  territory inside  these walls.  And
radio around here is completely  unreliable." He grinned. "Let's  see,
if I stood and called your name in each square meter, I would have  to
call  you  twenty-five   million  times.   At  one   call  every   ten
seconds-allowing myself time to listen for a response and move to  the
next square meter-that would be six  calls a minute. So it would  take
four million  minutes,  which is  slightly  more than  sixty  thousand
hours, or twenty-6ve hundred Earth days-"
    "Okay. Okay," Nicole interrupted. She was finally laughing.  "Tell
me how you knew where I was."
    Richard stood up.  "May I?"  he said  dramatically, extending  his
fingers toward the breast pocket of Nicole's flight suit.
    "I suppose so,"  she answered.  "Although I  can't imagine  what-"
Richard reached into her pocket and pulled out Prince Hal. "He led  me
to you," Wakefield  said. "You're  a good man,  my prince,  but for  a
while I thought you'd failed me."
    Nicole had no idea what Richard was talking about. "Prince Hal and
Falstaff have matching  navigation beacons," he  explained. "They  put
out fifteen strong pulses a second.  With Falstaff fixed in my hut  at
Beta and  with an  equivalent transceiver  over at  Alpha campsite,  I
could follow you by triangulation. So I knew exactly where you were-at
least in terms ofx-y coordinates. My simple tracking algorithm  wasn't
designed for excursions inz."
    "That's what an engineer would call  my visit to the avian  lair?"
Nicole said with another smile. "An excursion inz?" "That's one way of
describing it."
    Nicole shook her head. "I don't know about you, Wakefield. If  you
really knew where I was  all this time, why the  hell did you wait  so
long-"
    "Because we lost you, or thought  we had, before we found you  ...
after I came back to retrieve Falstaff."
    "Have I become a dullard in  the last week, or is this  roundabout
explanation incredibly confusing?"
    It was Richard's  turn to laugh.  "Maybe I should  try to make  my
presentation more orderly." He paused to arrange his mental notes.  "I
was really irritated," he  began, "back in  June when the  Engineering
Steering Group  decided  not  to  use  navigation  beacons  as  backup
personnel locators. I had argued, unsuccessfully, that there might  be
emergency  situations,  or  unforeseen  circumstances,  in  which  the
signal-to-noise ratio  on  the  regular  voice  link  would  be  below
threshold. So I equipped three of my own robots just in case . . ."
    Nicole  studied  Richard  Wakefield  while  he  talked.  She   had
forgotten that he was both amazing  and amusing. She was certain  that
if she asked the right questions, he could talk on this subject  alone
for a full hour.
    ". . . Then  Falstaff lost the signal,"  he was saying. "I  wasn't
present myself at  the time,  for I was  preparing to  come with  Hiro
Yamanaka to pick you and Francesca up in the helicopter, But  Falstaff
has a small recorder and timetags all the data. After you didn't  show
up, 1 replayed the  data from the recorder  and found that the  signal
had abruptly disappeared.
    "It came back on only briefly, while we were talking on the  radio
a few minutes later, but  several seconds after our last  conversation
the signal  was gone  for  good. The  signature suggested  a  hardware
failure to me. I thought Prince Hal had malfunctioned. When  Francesca
said that  you had  been  with her  up until  the  plaza, then  I  was
virtually certain that Prince Hal-"
    Nicole had only  been listening  with one  ear but  she bolted  to
attention   when   Richard   mentioned   Francesca.   "Stop,"   Nicole
interrupted, holding up her hand. "What did you say she told you?"
    "That you  and she  had left  the bam  together and  that you  had
walked away from her several minutes later to look for Takagishi-"
    "That's complete bullshit," Nicole said.
    "What do you mean?" Richard asked.
    "It's a lie. An absolute and total untruth. I fell into that pit I
told you about while Francesca was there,  or at least no more than  a
minute after she left. She never saw me again."
    Richard thought for  a moment.  "That explains  why Falstaff  lost
you. You were in the barn all  that time and the signal was  blocked."
Now it was his turn  to be puzzled. "But  why would Francesca make  up
such a story?"
    That's what I  would like  to know,Nicole  thought to  herself.She
must  have  poisoned  Borzov  on  purpose.  Otherwise  why  would  she
deliberately . . .
    "Was there something between the two of you?" Richard was  saying.
"I always thought I detected-"
    "Probably some jealousy,"  Nicole interrupted,  "going both  ways.
Francesca and I are light years apart."
    "You can say that again," Richard said with a chuckle. "I've spent
the better  part  of  a  year  giving off  signals  that  I  find  you
intelligent and interesting  and attractive. Yet  I've never  received
anything  but  a  restrained  and  courteous  professional   response.
Francesca, on the other hand, notices if you happen to even glance  at
her."
    "There are other, more  substantive differences," Nicole  replied,
not altogether  displeased that  Richard  had finally  verbalized  his
interest in her as a woman.
    There was a momentary pause in the conversation. Nicole glanced at
her watch. "But  I don't  want to spend  any more  time talking  about
Francesca Sabatini," she said, "it's going to be dark again in an hour
and we have an escape from this island to plan. We also have  certain,
uh, logistical  issues to  address,  such as  food, water,  and  other
unmentionable items that  made confinement in  a small pit  reasonably
disgusting."
    "I brought a portable hut-if we need one."
    "That's great/'  Nicole  replied.  "I'll  remember  that  when  it
rains." She reached  automatically into  her backpack  for some  manna
melon but did not pull it out. "By the way," she said to Richard, "did
you bring anyhuman food?"
    The hut came in handy when they were ready for sleep. They decided
to pitch it just to the side  of the central plaza. Nicole felt  safer
being close to  the avians. In  some sense they  were her friends  and
they might help if an emergency  arose. They were also the only  known
source of food.  Between them,  Richard and Nicole  had barely  enough
food and water to last for another two Raman days.
    Nicole had not  objected to Richard's  suggestion that they  share
the hut. He  had gallantly offered  to sleep outside,  "if that  would
make you more comfortable," but the huts were plenty large enough  for
two sleeping mats as  long as there were  no other furnishings.  Lying
about half a  meter apart  made their conversation  very easy.  Nicole
gave a detailed rendition of her  hours alone, omitting only the  part
about the vial and the vision. That was too personal for her to share.
Richard was fascinated by her entire story and absolutely intrigued by
the avians.
    "I mean, look," he said, propping  his head up on his elbow,  "try
to figure  out how  the hell  they got  here. From  what you've  said,
except for that  tank sentinel-and  I completely agree  with you  that
it's an anomaly-they're no more advanced than prehistoric man. What  a
boggle it would be to learn their secret.
    "You can't rule out completely that they're biots," he  continued,
barely able to contain his  enthusiasm. "They might not be  impressive
as biology, but Jesus, as artificial intelligence they would be  state
of the art." He  sat up on  his mat. "Just think  about what it  would
mean either  way.  We  must  find out  all  these  answers.  You're  a
linguist-maybe you could learn to talk to them."
    Nicole was amused. "Has it  occurred to you, Richard," she  asked,
"that all of this discussion will  be academic if nobody ever  rescues
us?"
    "A couple of times," Richard said with a laugh. He was lying  down
again. "That damn  Heilmann took me  aside, right before  I came  back
inside Rama,  and told  me that  I  was acting  'in violation  of  all
procedures' by returning here. He promised me that they would not come
after me underany circumstances."
    "So why did you come back?"
    "I'm not completely certain," he said slowly. "I know I wanted  to
pick up Falstaff and  see if, by some  wild happenstance, he had  ever
received any more  signals from your  beacon. But 1  think there  were
other reasons. The mission was becoming more politics than science. It
was obvious to me  that the bureaucrats on  Earth were going to  abort
the mission, 'for  security reasons,' and  the crew was  not going  to
return to Rama. I  knew the political  discussions would continue  for
another day or two." He paused a  second. "And I wanted one last  look
at the most incredible sight of my life."
    Nicole was quiet for a moment. "You obviously weren't afraid," she
said softly, "because you show no  sign of fear even now. Doesn't  the
thought of being left to die onboard Rama bother you at all?"
    "A little," Richard answered. "But dying in an exciting  situation
is much better than living in a boring one." Again he propped  himself
up on his  elbow. "I  have been looking  forward to  this mission  for
three years. I thought from the beginning that I had a good chance  of
being selected. Except for my robots and Shakespeare, there is nothing
in my life but my work. I have no family or friends to think of . . ."
    His voice trailed off. "And I'm as much afraid of going back as  I
am of  dying. At  least  Richard Wakefield,  Newton cosmonaut,  has  a
clearly defined purpose." He started to say something else but stopped
himself. Richard lay back down and closed his eyes.
    43EXOBIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY
    There's  another  reason  not  to  give  up  hope,"  Richard  said
cheerfully as soon as he  saw Nicole open her  eyes, "and I forgot  to
mention it last night."
    Nicole had always awakened very slowly. Even as a child. She liked
to savor the  last part of  her dream state  before confronting  harsh
reality. At home  Genevieve and Pierre  both knew not  to talk to  her
about anything important until after  she had had her morning  coffee.
She blinked at Richard,  who was shining his  small flashlight in  the
gap between them.
    "This space vehicle is now headed  for the Earth," he said.  "Even
if the Newton  leaves, there  might be another  human spacecraft  here
sooner or later."
    "What's that?" Nicole said, sitting up and rubbing her eyes.
    "In all the excitement last  night," Richard replied, "I left  out
one of the most important points.  The maneuver-I guess you missed  it
because you were unconscious at the bottom of that pit-put Rama on  an
Earth impact course. That made our evacuation imperative."
    Richard noticed that Nicole was staring  at him as if he had  lost
his mind. "The spaceship is still  on a hyperbola with respect to  the
Sun," he clarified, "but it's blasting full speed toward the Earth. We
will impact in twenty-three days."
    "Richard," Nicole said,  longing intensely for  that fresh cup  of
coffee, "I do not like jokes early  in the morning. If you have  spent
your energy making up-"
    "No, no," he interrupted. "I'm serious. It's true. Believe me."
    Nicole pulled out  her pocket  thermometer and  checked it.  "Then
tell me, my engineering genius, why  is the temperature in here  still
increasing? If we  are now going  away from the  Sun, shouldn't it  be
dropping?"
    "You're smarter than that, Nicole."  Richard shook his head.  "The
thermal input  from the  Sun on  the exterior  of Rama  diffuses  very
slowly through the outer shell and then into the interior. The thermal
conductivity is obviously very low. I wouldn't expect the temperatures
to reach a peak for another two weeks at least."
    Nicole remembered enough of her basic thermodynamics to realize he
was making  sense.  It  was  too early  in  the  morning  for  thermal
diffusion. Nicole struggled with the idea that Rama was now bound  for
the Earth, She  asked Richard for  a drink of  water.What is going  on
here? she thought.Why is Rama now headed for our planet?
    Richard must have been  reading her mind.  "You should have  heard
the silly discussions about  why Rama had  changed its trajectory  and
what it was likely  to do. There was  a seven-hour conference call  on
the subject."
    He laughed out loud. "The ISA has an employee-a Canadian, I think-
whose specialty is exobiological psychology. Can you believe it?  This
jerk actually participated in the conference call and offered insights
into the motives behind  the Raman maneuver."  Richard shook his  head
vigorously. "All bureaucracies are the  same. They drain the life  out
of the truly  creative people  and develop  mindless paper-pushers  as
their critical mass."
    "What was the  final result  of the  call?" Nicole  asked after  a
short silence.
    "Most of the  sane people guessed  that Rama would  go into  orbit
around the Earth  and conduct  passive remote  observations. But  they
were in the minority. Sanity and logic took a holiday, in my  opinion.
Even David Brown -who acted very strangely, it seemed to me, after  we
returned to the Newton-acknowledged that there was a high  probability
that Rama would  do something  hostile. He clarified  his position  by
stating that it wouldnot, in reality,  be a hostile act; however,  its
attempt to learn  more about the  Earth might result  in actions  that
would beperceived by us as hostile."
    The agitated Richard  was now  standing up. "Have  you ever  heard
such gobbledygook in  your life?  And Dr. Brown  was one  of the  more
coherent speakers.  The entire  ISA Advisory  Board was  polled as  to
which of the projected  scenarios each of them  favored. Do you  think
that bunch of plenipotentiaries could  respond simply with 'I  believe
in Option  A, direct  impact with  resultant destruction  and  climate
alteration/  or  'I  favor  Option  C,  Earth  orbit  with   bellicose
intentions'? Hell no!  Each one of  them had to  deliver a lecture  of
some kind. That  weird Dr. Alexander,  the one who  asked you all  the
questions after your  open biometry meeting  in November,, even  spent
fifteen minutes explaining how Rama's existence had exposed a flaw  in
the ISA charter. As  if anybody gave a  shit!" Richard sat down  again
and put his hands on his cheeks. "The whole thing was unbelievable."
    Nicole was now fully  awake. "I assume," she  said, sitting up  on
her mat, "judging  from your  obvious irritation,  that you  disagreed
with the consensus."
    Richard  nodded.  "Almost   three-fourths  of   the  large   group
participating in the call-which included all the Newton cosmonauts  as
well as most of the senior  scientists and executives in the  ISA-were
convinced that the  Raman maneuver  was likely  to be  harmful to  the
Earth in some significant way. Almost all of them focused on the  same
issue.  Since  the  first   Rama  apparently  ignored  our   existence
altogether, they argued, the fact that Rama II altered its  trajectory
to achieve a rendezvous with the  Earth shows that this spacecraft  is
operating under  different principles.  I  certainly agree  with  that
conclusion. But what I cannot  understand is why everyone  necessarily
assumes that the Raman action is  hostile. It seems just as likely  to
me that the aliens could be  motivated by curiosity, or even a  desire
to be our benefactors in some way."
    The British engineer  paused for a  moment to reflect,  "Francesca
says that the polls  on Earth are indicating  that a huge majority  of
the average people  as well, almost  ten to one  according to her,  is
terrified by Rama's approach. They  are clamoring for the  politicians
to do something."
    Richard opened the hut and walked out into the dark plaza. He idly
shone his flashlight on the octahedron. "At a second meeting  eighteen
hours later it was  decreed that the Newton  team would not go  inside
Rama again. Technically, I am not in violation of that order,  because
I left the Newton before the official proclamation. But it was obvious
that the order was coming."
    "While the leaders of the planet  Earth are discussing what to  do
with a spacecraft the  size of an asteroid  that is aimed directly  at
them," Nicole said as she walked  out into the plaza behind him,  "you
and I have  a more tractable  problem. We must  cross the  Cylindrical
Sea." She managed a wan smile.  "Shall we do a little exploring  while
we talk?"
    Richard directed his flashlight beam  into the bottom of the  pit.
The manna melon was clearly identifiable but the individual pieces  in
the pile of  jumbled metal were  very hard to  resolve. "So those  are
spare parts from a centipede biot?"
    Nicole nodded. They were kneeling side  by side on the lip.  "Even
in the daylight the  ends of the  pit are in shadows.  I needed to  be
certain that I wasn't looking at Takagishi's body."
    "I would  love to  see a  centipede biot  repair itself."  Richard
stood up and walked over to the wall of the barn. He knocked. "And the
material scientists  would love  this stuff.  Normal radio  waves  are
blocked both ways and you can't see in from the outside. Yet the  wall
is somehow  transparent if  you're inside  the barn  looking out."  He
turned to Nicole. "Bring your scalpel  over here. Let's see if we  can
cut off a piece."
    Nicole was trying to decide if  one of them should drop down  into
the pit and retrieve the melon. It wouldn't be too difficult, assuming
the suture line would hold. At  length she pulled out her scalpel  and
walked over beside Richard.
    "I'm not  certain we  should  do this,"  she said.  She  hesitated
before applying the scalpel to the barn wall. "In the first place, the
scalpel could be damaged. We might need it later. Second, uh, it might
be considered vandalism."
    "Vandalism?" he said rhetorically. Richard regarded Nicole with  a
peculiar look. "What a curiously homocentric concept." He shrugged his
shoulders and headed toward one end of the bam. "Never mind," he said,
"you're probably right about the scalpel."
    Richard had entered  some data  into his pocket  computer and  was
studying the small monitor when Nicole came over beside him. "You  and
Francesca were standing right about here, correct?" Nicole gave him an
affirmative reply. "Then you went back  into the bam to look into  one
of the pits?"
    "We've been over this before," Nicole replied. "Why are you asking
again?"
    "I think Francesca saw you fall into one of the pits and purposely
misled us with that  story about you wandering  off to search for  our
Japanese professor. She didn't want anybody to find you."
    Nicole stared at  Richard in  the dark. "I  agree," she  responded
slowly. "But why doyou think so?"
    "It's the only explanation that makes  any sense. I had a  bizarre
encounter with her right before I  came back inside. She came into  my
room under the pretense  of wanting an  interview, supposedly to  find
out why I was  returning to Rama. When  I mentioned Falstaff and  your
navigation beacon, she switched off her camera. Then she became  quite
animated and asked  me many detailed  technical questions. Before  she
left, she told me she was convinced  that none of us should ever  have
entered Rama in the first place. I thought she was going to beg me not
to go back.
    "I can understand  her not  wanting me to  find out  that she  had
tried to  maroon you  in the  pit," Richard  continued after  a  brief
pause. "What I can't  fathom is why  she left you  there in the  first
place."
    "You remember  the night  you explained  to me  why RoSur's  fault
protection had failed?" Nicole said after a moment's reflection. "That
same night  I also  asked you  and Janos  if either  of you  had  seen
General Borzov . . ."
    As they walked  back in  the direction  of the  central plaza  and
their hut,  Nicole spent  fifteen minutes  explaining to  Richard  her
entire hypothesis about the conspiracy.  She told him about the  media
contract, the drugs Francesca had given to both David Brown and Reggie
Wilson, and Nicole's  personal interactions with  all the  principals.
She did not  tell him  about the data  cube. Richard  agreed that  the
evidence was very compelling.
    "So you  think  she left  you  there in  the  pit to  avoid  being
unmasked as a conspirator?"
    Nicole nodded.
    Richard whistled. "Then  everything fits.  It was  apparent to  me
that Francesca was running  the show when we  returned to tie  Newton.
Both Brown and Heilmann were taking  orders from her." He put his  arm
around Nicole. "I wouldn't  want that woman as  my enemy. She  clearly
has no scruples whatsoever."
    44ANOTHER LAIR
    Richard and Nicole had bigger  concerns than Francesca. When  they
returned to the central plaza,  they found their hut had  disappeared.
Repeated  knocks  on  the  avian  cover  produced  no  response.   The
precariousness of their situation became clearer to both of them.
    Richard grew moody and  uncommunicative. He apologized to  Nicole,
saying that it  was a  characteristic of  his personality  for him  to
withdraw from  people  when  he  felt insecure.  He  played  with  his
computer for several hours, only  stopping occasionally to ask  Nicole
questions about the geography of New York.
    Nicole lay down  on her  sleeping mat and  thought about  swimming
across the Cylindrical Sea. She was not an exceptionally good swimmer.
During training it  had taken her  about fifteen minutes  to swim  one
kilometer. That had been in a  placid swimming pool. To cross the  sea
she would  be forced  to  swim five  kilometers through  cold,  choppy
water. And she might be accompanied by lovely creatures like the shark
biots.
    A  jolly  fat   man  twenty  centimeters   high  interrupted   her
contemplation. "Would you  like a  drink, fair  lass?" Falstaff  asked
her. Nicole  rolled over  and  studied the  robot  from up  close.  He
hoisted a large mug of fluid and drank it, spilling some on his beard.
He wiped it off with his sleeve  and then he burped. "And if you  want
nothing to drink," he  said in a heavy  British accent, thrusting  his
hand down into his codpiece, "then perhaps Sir John could teach you  a
thing or  two  between  the  sheets." The  tiny  face  was  definitely
leering. It was crude, but very funny.
    Nicole laughed. So did Falstaff. "I am not only witty in  myself,"
the robot said, "but the cause that wit is in other men."
    "You know,'* Nicole said to Richard, who was watching from several
meters away, "if you ever became tired of being a cosmonaut, you could
make millions in children's toys."
    Richard came over and  picked up Falstaff.  He thanked Nicole  for
her compliment. "As  I see it,  we have three  options," he then  said
very seriously. "We can swim the sea,  we can explore New York to  see
if we can forage enough material to construct some kind of boat, or we
can wait  here  until someone  comes.  I'm not  optimistic  about  our
chances in any of the cases."
    "So what do you suggest?"
    "I propose a compromise. When  it's light, let's carefully  search
the key areas of the city,  particularly around the three plazas,  and
see if we can find anything that could be used to build a boat.  We'll
allot one Raman day, maybe two,  to the exploration. If nothing  turns
up, well swim for it. I have no faith we'll ever see a rescue team."
    "Sounds all right to me.  But I would like  to do one other  thing
first. We  don't  have  a  lot  of food,  to  make  a  rather  obvious
understatement, I'd feel better if we pulled up the manna melon first,
before we  did any  more exploring.  That way  we could  be  protected
against any surprises."
    Richard agreed that establishing the food supply would probably be
a prudent initial  action. But he  didn't like the  idea of using  the
suture thread again. "You  were lucky in many  ways," he told  Nicole.
"Not only  did  the line  not  break, it  didn't  even slip  off  that
waistband you made. However, it did cut completely through your gloves
in two places and almost through the waistband."
    "You have another idea?" Nicole asked.
    "The lattice material is the obvious choice," Richard replied. "It
should be perfect, provided that  we don't have any trouble  obtaining
it. Then I can go down in the pit and spare you the trouble-"
    "Wrong," Nicole interrupted.  She smiled. "With  all due  respect,
Richard, now  is not  the time  for any  macho derring-do.  Using  the
lattice is a great idea. But you're too heavy. If something  happened,
I would  never  be able  to  pull you  out."  She patted  him  on  the
shoulder. "And I hope it doesn't hurt your feelings, but I'm  probably
the more athletic of the two of us."
    Richard feigned hurt pride.  "But whatever happened to  tradition?
The man always performs  the feats of  physical strength and  agility.
Don't you remember your childhood cartoons?"
    Nicole laughed heartily.  "Yes, my dear,"  she said lightly.  "But
you aren't Popeye. And I'm not Olive Oyl."
    "I'm not certain I can deal with this," he said, shaking his  head
vigorously. "To  discover  at the  age  of thirty-four  that  I'm  not
Popeye. . . . What a blow to my self-image." He cuddled Nicole gently.
"What do you  say?" he continued.  "Should we try  to sleep some  more
before it's light?"
    Neither of them was able to sleep. They lay side by side on  their
mats in the open  plaza, each occupied with  his own thoughts.  Nicole
heard Richard's body move. "You're awake too?" she said in a whisper.
    "Yeah," he answered. "I've  even counted Shakespearean  characters
with no success. I was up to more than a hundred."
    Nicole propped herself  up on  an elbow and  faced her  companion.
"Tell me, Richard," she said,  "where did this preoccupation of  yours
with Shakespeare come from? I know you grew up in Stratford, but  it's
hard for  me  to  imagine how  an  engineer  like you,  in  love  with
computers and  calculations and  gadgets, could  become so  fascinated
with a playwright."
    "My therapist told me it  was an 'escapist compulsion,' "  Richard
replied a few seconds  later. "Since I didn't  like the real world  or
the people in it, he said, I made up another one. Except that I didn't
create it from scratch. I  just extended a wonderful universe  already
fabricated by a genius.
    "Shakespeare was my God," Richard continued after a moment.  "When
I was nine or ten,  I would stop in that  park along the Avon-the  one
beside all the theaters,  with the statues  of Hamlet, Falstaff,  Lady
Macbeth, and  Prince  Hal-and  spend the  afternoon  hours  making  up
additional stories about my  favorite characters. That  way I put  off
going home until the last possible  moment. I dreaded being around  my
father. ... I never knew what he would do-
    "But you don't  want to  hear this,"  Richard interrupted  himself
suddenly, "everyone has  memories of  childhood pain.  We should  talk
about something else."
    "We should talk about  whatever we're feeling," Nicole  responded,
surprising even herself. "Which  is something I  hardly ever do,"  she
added softly.
    Richard turned and looked in  her direction, He extended his  hand
slowly. She gently wrapped  her 6ngers around  his. "My father  worked
for British Rail,"  he said. "He  was a very  smart man, but  socially
clumsy, and he  had difficulty  finding a job  that fit  him after  he
finished the university at Sussex. Times were still tough. The economy
had just started to recover from The Great Chaos. . . .
    "When my mother told him that she was pregnant, he was overwhelmed
by the  responsibility  of  it  all. He  looked  for  a  safe,  secure
position. He had always  scored well on tests  and the government  had
forced all the national transportation monopolies, including the  rail
system, to  staff positions  based on  objective test  results. So  my
father became the manager of operations at Stratford.
    "He hated the job. It was  boring and repetitive, no challenge  at
all for a man who had an honors degree. Mother told me that when I was
very small he  applied for other  positions, but he  always seemed  to
botch the interviews. Later on, when I was older, he never even tried.
He sat  at home  and complained.  And drank.  And then  made  everyone
around him miserable."
    There was  a long  silence. Richard  was having  a difficult  time
struggling with the demons of his childhood. Nicole squeezed his hand.
"I'm sorry," she said.
    "So wasI," Richard replied  with a slight break  in his voice.  "I
was just a small child with an incredible sense of wonder and love  of
life. I would come home enthusiastic about something new I had learned
or something that had happened at school, and my Dad would just growl.
    "Once, when I was only eight, I came home from school in the early
afternoon and I got into an argument with him. It was his day off  and
he had been drinking, as usual. Mother  was out at the store. I  don't
remember what it was about  now, but I do  recall telling him that  he
was wrong about some trivial fact. When I continued to argue with him,
he suddenly hit me in the nose with all his might. I fell against  the
wall with my broken nose gushing blood. From that time on, until I was
fourteen and felt I could protect myself, I never walked in that house
when he was there unless I was certain that my mother was home."
    Nicole tried to  imagine an adult  man slugging an  eight-year-old
child.What kind of  human being could  break his own  son's nose?  she
wondered.
    "I had  always  been  very  shy," Richard  was  saying,  "and  had
convinced myself that I had  inherited my father's social  clumsiness,
so I didn't  have many friends  my own  age. But I  still yearned  for
human interaction/' He looked over at Nicole and paused,  remembering,
"I made Shakespeare's characters  my friends. I  read his plays  every
afternoon in the park and immersed myself in his imaginative world.  I
even memorized  entire scenes.  Then I  talked to  Romeo or  Ariel  or
Jaques while I was walking home."
    It was not difficult for Nicole to visualize the rest of Richard's
story. /can  picture  you  as  an  adolescent,  she  thought.Solitary,
awkward, emotionally repressed. Your  obsession with Shakespeare  gave
you an escape from  your pain. All the  theaters were near your  home.
You saw your friends become alive on the stage.
    On impulse Nicole leaned  over and kissed  Richard lightly on  the
cheek. "Thanks for telling me," she said.
    As soon as it was daylight they walked over to the lattice. Nicole
was surprised to  find that the  incisions she had  made when she  had
freed the  avian had  all been  repaired. The  lattice was  like  new.
"Obviously a repair biot has already been here," Richard commented, no
longer extremely  impressed  after  all the  wonders  he  had  already
witnessed-
    They cut off several  long strands of the  lattice and headed  for
the bam. On the way Richard tested the elasticity of the material.  He
found that  it stretched  about fifteen  percent and  always  restored
itself, albeit  very slowly  at  times, to  its original  length.  The
restoration time varied significantly, depending on how long the piece
had been fully stretched. Richard had already begun his examination of
the inside structure of the cord when they arrived at the barn.
    Nicole did not  waste any time.  She tied one  end of the  lattice
material around  a stumpy  object just  outside the  barn and  lowered
herself down the  wall. Richard's  function was to  make certain  that
nothing untoward occurred and to be  available if there was some  kind
of an emergency. Down in the  bottom of the pit Nicole shuddered  once
as she remembered  how helpless  she had felt  there just  a few  days
earlier. But she quickly turned her attention to her task, inserting a
makeshift handle  made from  her medical  probes deep  into the  manna
melon and then securing the other  end of the handle to her  backpack.
Her ascent was vigorous and uneventful.
    "Well." She  smiled at  Richard as  she handed  him the  melon  to
carry. "Should we now continue with Plan A?"
    "Roger," he replied.  "Now we know  where our next  ten meals  are
coming from."
    "Nine," Nicole  corrected  with  a  laugh.  "I've  made  a  slight
adjustment in the estimate now that  I've watched you eat a couple  of
times."
    Richard and Nicole  marched quickly  from the bam  to the  western
plaza. They crisscrossed the  open area and  combed the narrow  alleys
nearby, but they did  not find anything that  would help them build  a
boat. Richard did have an encounter with a centipede biot, however, in
the middle of their  search one had entered  the plaza and then  moved
diagonally across it. Richard had done everything possible,  including
lying in front of it and beating  it over the head with his  backpack,
to try to induce the biot to stop. He had not been successful.  Nicole
was laughing at him when Richard returned, a little frustrated, to her
side.
    "That centipede is absolutely  useless," he complained. "What  the
hell is it for? It's not carrying  anything. It has no sensors that  I
can see. It just travels merrily along."
    "The technology  of  an advanced  extraterrestrial  species,"  she
reminded  Richard   of  one   of  his   favorite  quotes,   "will   be
indistinguishable from magic." "But that damn centipede's not  magic,"
he replied,  a  little annoyed  at  Nicole's laughter,  "it's  goddamn
stupid!"
    "And what would you have done if it had stopped?" Nicole inquired.
"Why, I would  have examined it,  of course. What  did you think?"  "I
think we'd be better off concentrating our energy in other areas," she
replied. "I don't imagine a centipede biot is going to help us get off
this island."
    "Well," Richard  said  a little  brusquely,  "it's obvious  to  me
already we're going about this process  all wrong. We're not going  to
find  anything  on  the  surface.  The  biots  probably  clean  it  up
regularly. We should be looking for  another hole in the ground,  like
the avian's lair. We can use  the multispectral radar to identify  any
places where the ground is not solid."
    It took them a long time to  find the second hole, even though  it
was not more than  two hundred meters from  the center of the  western
plaza. At first Richard and Nicole were much too restrictive in  their
search. After an hour, though, they finally convinced themselves  that
the ground  underneath  the  plaza area  was  solid  everywhere.  They
expanded their search to include  the small streets and lanes  nearby,
off the concentric avenues. On a dead-end alley with tall buildings on
three sides, they found another covering in the center of the road. It
was not camouflaged in any way. This second cover was the same size as
the one at the avian lair, a rectangle ten meters long and six  meters
wide.
    45NIKKI
    “Do you  think the  avian cover  opens in  the same  way?"  Nicole
asked, after  Richard had  very carefully  searched the  environs  and
found a flat plate on one  of the buildings that looked decidedly  out
of place. Pressing  hard against  the plate  had caused  the cover  to
open.
    "Probably," he answered. "Well have  to go back and check."  "Then
these places are not very secure," Nicole said. The two of them walked
back onto the  street and knelt  down to  look in the  hole. A  broad,
steep ramp  descended  from  beside  them  and  disappeared  into  the
darkness below. They could only see about ten meters into the hole.
    "It looks  like  one  of  those  ancient  parking  lots,"  Richard
remarked. "Back when  everybody had  automobiles." He  stepped on  the
ramp. "It even feels like concrete."
    Nicole watched as her companion  moved slowly down the ramp.  When
Richard's head was below the ground level, he turned and spoke to her.
"Aren't you coming?" he asked. He had switched on his flashlight  beam
and had illuminated a small landing another few meters below.
    "Richard," Nicole  said from  above. "I  think we  should  discuss
this. I don't want to be stuck-"
    "Ah-ha!" Richard  exclaimed. As  soon as  his foot  hit the  first
landing, some lights around  him automatically lit  the next phase  of
the descent. "The ramp doubles back," he shouted, "and continues down.
Looks just the same." He turned and disappeared from Nicole's field of
view.
    "Richard," Nicole  now yelled,  a  little exasperated,  "will  you
please stop for a minute? We must talk about what we're doing."
    A few seconds  later Richard's  smiling face  reappeared. The  two
cosmonauts discussed their options. Nicole insisted that she was going
to stay outside, in  New York, even if  Richard was going to  continue
with his  exploration.  At  least  that way,  she  argued,  she  could
guarantee that they would not be stranded in the hole.
    While she was talking, Richard  was standing on the first  landing
and surveying the  area around him.  The walls were  made of the  same
material Nicole  had found  in  the avian  lair. Small  strip  lights,
looking not unlike normal fluorescent  lights on Earth, ran along  the
wall to illuminate the path.
    "Move away just a second, will you?" Richard shouted in the middle
of their conversation.
    At first  puzzled, Nicole  backed away  from the  entrance to  the
rectangular hole.  "Farther," she  heard Richard  yell. Nicole  walked
over and stood against one of the surrounding buildings.
    "Is this  far enough?"  she had  just finished  shouting when  the
covering on the hole began to  close. Nicole ran forward and tried  to
stop the motion of  the cover, but it  was much too heavy.  "Richard,"
she cried as the hole disappeared beneath her.
    Nicole pounded on  the cover  and remembered her  own feelings  of
frustration when she had  been locked in the  avian lair. She  quickly
ran back over  to the building  and pressed the  embedded flat  panel.
Nothing happened. Almost a minute  passed. Nicole became anxious.  She
ran back into the street and called for her colleague.
    "I'm right here,  under the cover,"  he answered, bringing  Nicole
considerable relief. "I found another plate near the first landing and
pressed it. I think it  toggles the cover closed  or open, but it  may
have a timing delay constraint. Give  me a few minutes. Don't you  try
to open the cover. And don't stand too near it."
    Nicole backed away and waited.  Richard had been correct.  Several
minutes later the cover opened and he emerged from the hole with a big
grin on his face. "See," he said, "I told you not to worry. . . .  Now
what's for lunch?"
    As they descended  the ramp,  Nicole heard the  familiar sound  of
running water.  In  a  little  room about  twenty  meters  behind  the
landing, they found the identical piping and cistern that had been  in
the avian lair. Richard and Nicole  both filled their flasks with  the
fresh, delicious water.
    Outside the room there were  no horizontal tunnels leading off  in
both directions,  only  another  descending ramp  dropping  five  more
meters beneath  the floor.  Richard's flashlight  beam crawled  slowly
across the dark  walls near the  water room. "Look  here, Nicole/'  he
said, pointing  at  what  was  a very  subtle  variation  in  building
material. "See, it arches around to the other side."
    She followed his beam as it  inscribed a long circular arc on  the
wall. "It looks as if there were at least two phases of construction."
    "Exactly," he replied. "Maybe  there were horizontal tunnels  here
as well, at least in the  beginning, and they were sealed off  later."
Neither of them said  anything else as  they continued their  descent.
Back and forth went the  identical ramps. Whenever Richard and  Nicole
touched a new landing, the next descending ramp was illuminated.
    They were fifty  meters underneath the  surface when the  ceilings
above them opened up and the  ramps terminated in a large cavern.  The
circular floor of the cave  was about twenty-five meters in  diameter.
There were four dark tunnels, five meters in height and equally spaced
at ninety degrees around the circle, that exited from the cavern.
    "Eenie, Meenie, Mynie, Moe," Richard said.
    "I'll take  Moe,"  Nicole  said.  She headed  toward  one  of  the
tunnels. When she was within a few meters of the entrance, the  lights
in the near portion of the tunnel switched on.
    This time  it  was  Richard's  turn  to  be  hesitant.  He  stared
cautiously into  the  tunnel and  made  some quick  entries  into  his
computer. "Does it look  to you as if  this tunnel curves slightly  to
the right? See, there at the end of the lights?"
    Nicole nodded. She looked over  Richard's shoulder to see what  he
was doing. "I'm making a map,"  he said in response to her  curiosity.
"Theseus had string and Hansel and Gretel had bread. We have them both
beat. Aren't computers wonderful?"
    She smiled. "So what's  your guess?" Nicole  said while they  were
walking along in the near part of  the tunnel. "Will it be a  Minotaur
or a gingerbread house with a wicked witch?"
    We should be so lucky,Nicole  thought. Her fear was increasing  as
they penetrated deeper and deeper  into the tunnel. She recalled  that
awful moment of terror in  the pit when she  had first seen the  avian
hovering over her with its beak and talons extending in her direction.
An icy  chill  ran down  her  spine.There it  is  again, she  said  to
herself,that feeling that something terrible is going to happen.
    She stopped. "Richard," she  said, "1 don't  like this. We  should
turn back-"
    They  both   heard  the   noise   at  the   same  time.   It   was
definitelybehind them, back  in the  vicinity of  the circular  cavern
they had  just left-  It sounded  like hard  brushes dragging  against
metal.
    Richard and Nicole huddled together.  "That's the same sound,"  he
whispered, "that I heard the first night in Rama, when we were at  the
walls of New York."
    The tunnel  behind them  curved slightly  to the  left. When  they
looked back in  that direction, the  lights were off  at the limit  of
their vision.  The second  time they  heard the  sound, however,  some
lights came on in the  far distance almost simultaneously,  indicating
something was near the entrance to their tunnel.
    Nicole bolted. She must have  covered the next two hundred  meters
in thirty seconds, despite  her Bight suit  and backpack. She  stopped
and waited for Richard. Neither of  them heard the sound again and  no
new lights were illuminated in the distant reaches of the tunnel.
    "I'm  sorry,"  Nicole  said  when  Richard  finally  arrived.   "I
panicked. I think I've been in this alien wonderland too long."
    "Jesus," Richard responded with  a disapproving frown. 'Ive  never
seen anybody run that  fast." His frown changed  into a smile.  "Don't
feel bad,  Nikki," he  said. "I  was scared  shitless too.  But I  was
frozen in place."
    Nicole continued taking deep breaths and stared at Richard.  "What
did you call me?" she asked, somewhat belligerently.
    "Nikki," he replied. "I thought it was time for me to have my  own
special name for you. Don't you like it?"
    Nicole was speechless for ten full seconds. Her mind was  millions
of kilometers and fifteen years away, in a hotel suite in Los Angeles,
her  body  experiencing  wave  after  wave  of  pleasure.  "That   was
remarkable, Nikki,  truly  wonderful,"  the prince  had  said  several
minutes later. She had told Henry  on that night fifteen years  before
not to  call her  Nikki,  that it  sounded like  a  name for  a  buxom
showgirl or a tart.
    Richard was snapping  his fingers  in front of  her face.  "Hello,
hello. Anybody home?"
    Nicole smiled. "Sure, Richard," she replied. "Nikki's just fine-as
long as you don't use it all the time."
    They continued to walk slowly along the tunnel. "So where did  you
go back there?" Richard asked.
    Somewhere I can never tell you about,Nicole mused-Because each  of
us is the sum  of all we  have ever experienced.  Only the very  young
have a clean slate. The rest  of us must live forever with  everything
we have ever been.  She slid her arm  through Richard's.And must  have
the good sense to know when to keep it private.
    The tunnel seemed endless. Richard  and Nicole had almost  decided
to turn around when they came to  a dark entryway off to their  right.
With no  hesitation  they  both  walked inside.  The  lights  came  on
immediately. Inside the  room, on the  big wall to  the left of  them,
were twenty-five flat  rectangular objects, arranged  in five  orderly
rows with  five columns  each.  The opposite  wall was  empty.  Within
seconds  after   their   entrance,   the  two   cosmonauts   heard   a
high-frequency squeaky  sound coming  from  the ceiling.  They  tensed
briefly, but relaxed as the squeaking continued and there were no  new
surprises.
    They held hands and walked to one end of the long narrow room. The
objects on the  wall were  photographs, most of  them recognizable  as
having been taken somewhere inside Rama. The great octahedron near the
central plaza was  featured in  several of the  photos. The  remaining
pictures were a balance  between scenes of the  buildings of New  York
and wide-angle shots of panoramas around the interior of Rama.
    Three of the photographs were particularly fascinating to Richard.
They  depicted  sleek,   aerodynamically  curved   boats  plying   the
Cylindrical Sea; in one of the  photographs a great wave was about  to
crash over  the top  of a  large  boat. "Now  there's what  we  need,"
Richard said to Nicole excitedly. "If  we could find one of them,  our
troubles would be over."
    The squeaking above them continued with very little modulation.  A
spotlight moved from picture  to picture at moments  when there was  a
pause in the  squeak. Nicole  and Richard easily  concluded that  they
were in a museum on some kind of tour, but there was nothing else they
could know for  certain. Nicole  sat down  against a  side wall.  "I'm
having a lot of trouble with all this," she said. "I feel totally  out
of control."
    Richard sat down beside  her. "Me too," he  said, nodding. "And  I
just arrived in New York. So I  can imagine what all this is doing  to
you."
    They were  silent for  a moment.  "You know  what bothers  me  the
most?" Nicole said, trying to give some expression to the helplessness
she was feeling. "It's how very little I understood and appreciated my
own ignorance.
    Before I  came  on this  voyage,  I  thought I  knew  the  general
dimensions of  the  relationship  between my  own  knowledge  and  the
knowledge of mankind. But what is staggering about this mission is how
very small theentire  range of  human knowledge might  be compared  to
whatcould be known. Just think, the sum of everything all human beings
know or have ever  known might be nothing  more than an  infinitesimal
fraction of theEncyclopedia Galactica-"
    "It is really frightening," Richard interrupted  enthusiastically.
"And thrilling  at the  same  time. .  . .  Sometimes  when I'm  in  a
bookstore or a library, I am overwhelmed  by all the things that I  do
not know. Then I am seized by a powerful desire to read all the  boob,
one by one. Imagine what  it would be like  to be in thetrue  library,
one that combined the knowledge of all the species in the universe.  .
. . The very thought makes me woozy."
    Nicole turned to him  and slapped his  leg. "All right,  Richard,"
she said jokingly, changing the mood, "now that we have reaffirmed how
incredibly stupid we are,  what's our plan? I  figure we have  already
covered about a kilometer in this tunnel. Where do we go from here?"
    "I propose we walk another fifteen minutes in the same  direction.
In my  experience tunnels  always  lead someplace.  If we  don't  find
anything, we'll turn around."
    He helped Nicole up and gave her a small hug. "All right,  Nikki,"
he said with a wink. "Half a league onward."
    Nicole frowned and shook her head. "Twice is enough for one  day,"
she said, extending her hand toward Richard.
    46THE BETTER PART OF VALOR
    The huge circular hole below them extended into the darkness. Only
the top five meters of the shaft were lit. Metal spikes, about a meter
long, protruded from the  wall, each separated  from its neighbors  by
the same distance.
    "This is  definitely  the  destination of  the  tunnels,"  Richard
muttered to himself.  He was having  some difficulty integrating  this
huge, cylindrical  hole with  its  walls of  spikes into  his  overall
conception of  Rama. He  and Nicole  had walked  around the  perimeter
twice. They  had  even backtracked  several  hundred meters  down  the
other, adjacent tunnel,  concluding from its  slight curvature to  the
right that it had probably originated at the same cavern as the tunnel
they had followed earlier.
    "Well," Richard said at length, shrugging his shoulders, "here  we
go," He put his right foot on one of the spikes to test its ability to
hold his weight. It was firm. He moved his left leg down to another of
the spikes  and descended  one more  level with  his right  leg.  "The
spacing is  nearly perfect,"  he said,  glancing back  at Nicole.  "It
shouldn't be a difficult climb."
    "Richard Wakefield," Nicole said  from the rim  of the hole,  "are
you trying to tell me that you  intend to climb down into that  chasm?
And that you expect me to follow?"
    "I don't expect  anything of you,"  he replied. "But  I can't  see
turning back now. What's our alternative?  Should we go back down  the
tunnel to the ramps and exit? For what? To see if anyone has found  us
yet? You saw the photographs of the boats. Maybe they're right here at
the bottom. Maybe there's  even a secret  river that runs  underground
into the Cylindrical Sea." "Maybe,"  Nicole said, starting to  descend
slowly now  that  Richard's progress  had  triggered another  bank  of
lights below them, "one of those things that made the bizarre noise is
waiting for us down at the bottom."
    "I'll find  out,"  Richard  said. "Hallooo,  down  there.  We  two
human-type beings are coming down." He waved and momentarily lost  his
balance.
    "Don't be a show-off,"  Nicole said, coming  down beside him.  She
paused to catch her breath and look around. Her two feet were  resting
on spikes and she  was holding tightly to  two others with her  hands.
/must be insane, she  said to herself, just  look at this place.  It's
easy to imagine a hundred gruesome deaths.Richard had dropped down  to
another pair of spikes.And look at him. Is he totally immune to  fear?
Or just reckless? He actually seems to be enjoying all this.
    The third bank  of lights  illuminated a lattice  on the  opposite
wall below  them. It  was hanging  among all  the spikes  and, from  a
distance in the dim light,  looked startlingly like a smaller  version
of the object  that had been  attached to the  two skyscrapers in  New
York. Richard  hurried around  the cylinder  to examine  the  lattice.
"Come over here," he  shouted at Nicole. "I  think it's the same  damn
material."
    The lattice was anchored to the wall by small bolts. At  Richard's
insistence, Nicole cut off a piece and handed it to him. He  stretched
it and watched it regain its shape. He studied its internal structure.
"Itis the same stuff,"  he said. His brow  knitted into furrows.  "But
what the hell does it mean?"
    Nicole stood beside  him and  idly shone her  flashlight into  the
depths below them. She  was about to suggest  that they climb out  and
head for more familiar terrain when  she thought she saw a  reflection
from a  floor about  twenty meters  below. "I'm  going to  make you  a
proposition," Nicole  said to  Richard.  "While you're  studying  that
lattice cord, I'll drop  down another several meters.  We may be  near
the bottom of this bizarre well of spikes, or whatever it is. If  not,
then we'll abandon this place."
    "All right," Richard said absentmindedly. He was already  involved
in his examination  of the lattice  cord using the  microscope he  had
taken from his backpack.
    Nicole nimbly descended to the  floor. "I guess you'd better  come
down," she called to Richard. "There  are two more tunnels, one  large
and one small.  Plus another hole  in the center-"  He was beside  her
immediately. He had  climbed down  as soon as  he had  seen the  lower
platform illuminated by lights.
    Richard and Nicole were now standing on a ledge three meters  wide
at the bottom of the spiked  cylinder. The ledge formed a ring  around
another smaller descending hole  that also had  spikes growing out  of
its walls. To their left and right, dark arched tunnels were cut  into
the rock or  metal that  was the  base construction  material for  the
extensive underground world. The tunnel on their left was five to  six
meters high; the  tiny tunnel on  the opposite side,  one hundred  and
eighty degrees around the ring, was only half a meter tall.
    Running out of  each of the  two tunnels, and  penetrating half  a
ledge-width into the ring, were  two small parallel strips of  unknown
material that were fastened to the  floor. The strips were very  close
together in the smaller  tunnel and more widely  spaced in the  other.
Richard was sitting on his knees examining the strips in front of  the
large tunnel when  he heard  a distant  rumble. "Listen,"  he said  to
Nicole, as  the  two  of  them  instinctively  backed  away  from  the
entrance.
    The rumbling increased  and changed  into a whining  sound, as  if
something were moving swiftly through the air. Far off in the  tunnel,
which ran straight  as an  arrow, Richard  and Nicole  could see  some
lights switch on. They  tensed. They didn't need  to wait long for  an
explanation. A vehicle  that resembled  a hovering  subway burst  into
view and sped toward them, stopping suddenly with its front edge  just
over the farthest extension of the strips on the floor.
    Richard and Nicole had recoiled as the vehicle had hurtled  toward
them. Both were dangerously close to the edge of the ring. For several
seconds they stood in silence,  each staring at the aerodynamic  shape
hovering in front of them. Then they looked at each other and  laughed
simultaneously. "Okay,"  Nicole  said  nervously,  "I  get  it.  We've
crossed into  some new  dimension.  In this  one  it's just  a  little
difficult to find the subway station. . . . This is so totally absurd.
We climb down a  spiked barrel and  end up in a  Metro station. ...  I
don't know  about you,  Richard,  but I've  had  enough. I'll  take  a
fewnormal avians and manna melon any day of the week. . . ."
    Richard had walked over beside the vehicle. A door in the side had
opened and they could both see the lit interior. There were no  seats,
only thin cylindrical poles,  spaced in no  obvious pattern, that  ran
the three meters  from the ceiling  to the floor.  "It can't go  far,"
Richard said, sticking his head inside  the door but leaving his  feet
on the ledge outside. "There's no place to sit down/'
    Nicole came over to inspect for  herself. "Maybe they have no  old
or crippled people-and the grocery stores are all close to home."  She
laughed again as Richard leaned farther  into the car so he could  see
the ceiling and walls more clearly.  "Don't get any crazy ideas,"  she
said. "It would be certifiably insane for us to climb aboard that car.
Unless we were out of food and it was our last hope."
    "I  guess  you're  right,"  Richard  replied.  He  was  definitely
disappointed as  he  withdrew  from  the  subway  car.  "But  what  an
amazing-" He stopped himself in midsentence. He was staring across the
platform at the opposite  side of the ledge.  There, in the middle  of
the now illuminated entrance to the tiny tunnel, an identical vehicle,
one-tenth the  size of  the one  next to  them, was  hovering off  the
floor. Nicole followed Richard's gaze.
    "That must  be  the road  to  Lilliput over  there"  Nicole  said.
"Giants descend  another floor  and  normal-size creatures  take  this
subway. It's all very simple."
    Richard walked swiftly around the ring. "That's perfect," he  said
out loud, taking off his backpack  and setting it on the ledge  beside
him. He began to rummage in one of the large pockets.
    "What are you doing?" Nicole asked.
    Richard pulled two tiny figures out of the pack and showed them to
her. "It's perfect," he repeated, his excitement unmistakable. "We can
send Prince Hal and Falstaff. I'll  only need a few minutes to  adjust
their software."
    Already Richard had spread  his pocket computer  out on the  ledge
beside the robots and  was busily working away.  Nicole sat down  with
her back against  the wall  between two  spikes. She  glanced over  at
Richard.He is truly a rare species, she said with admiration, thinking
back over  their  hours  together.A  genius,  that's  obvious.  Almost
without guile or meanness. And  somehow he has retained the  curiosity
of a child.
    Nicole suddenly felt very tired. She smiled to herself as she  was
watching Richard. He was absorbed in his work. Nicole closed her  eyes
for a moment.
    "I'm sorry  that I  took so  long," Richard  was saying.  "I  kept
thinking of new things  to add and I  needed to rearrange the  linkage
..."
    Nicole woke up from  her nap very slowly.  "How long have we  been
here?" she said as she yawned.
    "A  little  over  an  hour/'  Richard  answered  sheepishly.  "But
everything is  all set.  I'm ready  to put  the boys  in the  subway."
Nicole glanced  around  her.  "Both  the cars  are  still  here,"  she
commented.
    "I think they work like  all the lights. I  bet they will stay  in
the station as long as we're on the platform."
    Nicole stood up and stretched. "So here's the plan/' Richard said.
"I have the controlling transceiver in my hand. Hal and Sir John  each
have audio,  video,  and  infrared  sensors  that  will  acquire  data
continuously. We can choose which channel to monitor on our  computers
and send new commands as necessary."
    "But  will  the  signals  penetrate  the  walls?"  Nicole   asked,
remembering her experience inside the barn.
    "As long as they don't have  to travel through too much  material.
The system  is  way  overdesigned  in terms  of  signal  to  noise  to
accommodate some attenuation. . . . Besides, the large subway came  at
us along a straight line. I'm hoping this one will be similar."
    Richard gingerly  set  the  two  robots  down  on  the  ledge  and
commanded them to walk toward the  subway. Doors opened on both  sides
as they drew near. "Remember me to Mistress Quickly," Falstaff said as
he climbed aboard. "She was a stupid lass, but with a good heart."
    Nicole gave  Richard a  puzzled glance.  "I didn't  overwrite  all
their earlier programming," he said with  a laugh. "From time to  time
they will probably make some absurd random comments."
    The two robots stood  on the subway for  a minute or two.  Richard
hastily checked their sensors and made one more set of calibrations on
the monitor. At  length the doors  of the subway  closed, the  vehicle
watted for  another ten  seconds, and  then it  rushed away  into  the
tunnel.
    Richard commanded Falstaff to  face the front,  but there was  not
much to be seen out the window.  It was a surprisingly long ride at  a
very high speed. Richard estimated that the little subway had traveled
more than a kilometer before it finally slowed to a stop.
    Richard waited  before  commanding the  two  robots to  leave  the
subway. He wanted  to make certain  that they  did not get  off at  an
intermediate stop. However, there was no need to worry: the first full
set of  imaging data  from Prince  Hal and  Falstaff showed  that  the
subway had indeed reached the end of the line.
    The two robots walked around the flat platform beside the  vehicle
and photographed more  of their surroundings.  The subway station  had
arches and columns,  but it  was basically one  long, connected  room.
Richard estimated from the  images that the  ceiling height was  about
two meters. He  commanded Hal and  Falstaff to follow  a long  hallway
that moved off to the left, perpendicular to the subway track.
    The hallway terminated in front of another tunnel, this one barely
five centimeters high. As  the robots examined  the Boor, finding  two
tiny strips  extending almost  to their  feet, a  subway of  minuscule
proportions arrived  in  the station.  With  its doors  open  and  its
interior lit, Richard and Nicole could see that the new subway car was
identical, except for its size, to the two they had seen before.
    The cosmonauts  were  sitting together  with  their knees  on  the
ledge, both  avidly  watching  the  small  computer  monitor.  Richard
commanded Falstaff to take  a picture of Prince  Hal standing next  to
the tiny  subway.  "The car  itself,"  Richard said  to  Nicole  after
studying the image, "is less  than two centimeters tall. What's  going
to ride in it? Ants?"
    Nicole shook her head and said nothing. She was feeling bewildered
again. At  that  moment  she  was  also  thinking  about  her  initial
reactions to  Rama.Never  in  my  wildest  imagination,  she  thought,
recalling her awe  at that  first panoramic sight,did  I foresee  that
there would  be so  many  new mysteries.  The first  explorers  hardly
scratched the surface-
    "Richard," Nicole said, interrupting her own thoughts.
    He commanded the  robots to walk  back down the  hallway and  then
glanced up from the monitor. 'Yes?" he said.
    "How thick is the outer shell of Rama?"
    "I think the ferry covers  about four hundred meters  altogether,"
he said with a slightly puzzled expression. "But that's at one of  the
ends. We  have no  definite way  of  knowing how  thick the  shell  is
anywhere else.  Norton  and  crew  reported  that  the  depth  of  the
Cylindrical Sea was highly variable-as little as forty meters in  some
places and  as much  as  a hundred  and  fifty elsewhere.  That  would
suggest to me a shell thickness of several hundred meters at least."
    Richard checked the monitor quickly. Prince Hal and Falstaff  were
almost back at the station where  they had climbed off the subway.  He
transmitted a stop command and turned to Nicole. "Why are you  asking?
It's not like you to ask idle questions."
    "There's obviously an entire  unexplored world down here,"  Nicole
replied. "It would take a lifetime-"
    "We don't have  that long,"  Richard broke  in with  a laugh.  "At
least not  a  normal  lifetime. .  .  .  But back  to  your  thickness
question, remember the entire Southern Hemicylinder has a floor  level
four hundred and  fifty meters above  the north. So  unless there  are
some major structural irregularities-and we certainly haven't seen any
from the outside-the thickness should be substantially greater in  the
south."
    Richard waited for  Nicole to say  something additional. When  she
remained silent for several seconds, he turned back to the monitor and
continued his surrogate exploration with the robots.
    There had  been a  good  reason for  Nicole's question  about  the
thickness of the shell. She had a  picture in her mind that she  could
not shake. Nicole was imagining coming to the end of one of these long
underground tunnels, opening  a door,  and then being  blinded by  the
light of the Sun.Wouldn't it be incredible, she was thinking,to be  an
intelligent creature living in this maze of dim light and tunnels  and
then, by  chance, to  stumble onto  something that  would  irrevocably
change your entire concept of the Universe? How could you return-
    "Now what  in  the world  is  that?" Richard  was  asking.  Nicole
stopped her mental drifting and focused on the monitor. Prince Hal and
Falstaff had entered a  large room at the  opposite end of the  subway
station and  were standing  in  front of  a conglomeration  of  loose,
spongelike webbing. The infrared  image of the  scene showed a  nested
sphere,  inside  the  web,  that  was  radiating  heat.  At   Nicole's
suggestion, Richard commanded the robots to walk around the object and
survey the rest of this new domain.
    The room was immense. It  extended into the distance farther  than
the resolution of the video devices carried by the robots. The ceiling
was about twenty meters high and the two side walls were separated  by
more than  fifty  meters.  Several  other  similar  spherical  objects
encased in spongy masses could be seen scattered about the room in the
distance. A lattice, stretching almost all the way across the room but
stopping five meters above the floor, dangled from the high ceiling in
the foreground. Another  lattice could barely  be discerned a  hundred
meters or so behind the first one.
    Richard and Nicole discussed what the robots should do next. There
were no other exits from either the subway station or the large  room.
A panoramic image around the room revealed nothing nearby of  interest
except the sphere embedded  in its spongy  exterior, Nicole wanted  to
bring the  robots  back  and  leave  the  lair  altogether.  Richard's
curiosity demanded  at least  a cursory  investigation of  one of  the
spherical objects.
    The two robots were  able, with some  difficulty, to climb  around
and through the webbed material to reach the sphere in the center. The
ambient temperature increased as  they neared the  sphere. One of  the
purposes of the external material was clearly to absorb heat. When the
robots reached the  nested sphere, their  internal monitors flashed  a
warning that the  outside temperatures exceeded  their safe  operating
limits.
    Richard moved quickly. Directing the robots on a nearly continuous
basis, he determined  that the sphere  was virtually impenetrable  and
was probably made  of a thick  metal alloy with  a very hard  surface.
Falstaff banged  on  the  sphere  several  times  with  his  arm;  the
resulting sound  damped  quickly,  indicating  the  sphere  was  full,
possibly with a liquid. The two  robots were weaving their way out  of
the sponge webbing  when their audio  systems picked up  the sound  of
brushes dragging against metal.
    Richard tried to speed up their  escape. Hal was able to  increase
his pace but Falstaff, whose subsystem temperatures had risen too high
during his proximity to the sphere, was prevented by his own  internal
processor  logic  from  accelerating  his  actions.  The  brush  sound
continued to grow louder.
    The computer monitor on the  ledge between the two cosmonauts  was
changed to split screen.  Prince Hal reached the  edge of the  sponge,
hit the  floor, and  headed for  the subway  without waiting  for  his
companion. Falstaff continued to climb  slowly through the webbing.  "
Tis too much work for a drinking man," he mumbled, as he crawled  over
another barrier.
    The dragging metal  sound abruptly stopped  and Falstaff's  camera
recorded an  image  of a  long,  skinny  object with  black  and  gold
stripes. Moments later  the camera  frame went  to all  black and  the
little robot's "Terminal Fault Imminent" alarm began to sound. Richard
and Nicole had one more fleeting  glimpse of a picture from  Falstaff;
it showed what might  have been a  giant eye, from  up close, a  black
gelatinous mixture tinged with blue.  Then all transmissions from  the
robot, including emergency telemetry, abruptly ceased.
    Meanwhile Hal had entered the  waiting subway. During the  several
seconds before the subway left the station, the ominous dragging sound
was heard  again.  But the  subway  departed anyway,  with  the  robot
inside, and  started  speeding  through  the  tunnel  toward  the  two
cosmonauts. Richard and Nicole breathed a sigh of relief.
    Not more than a second later a loud sound like breaking glass  was
picked up by Prince Hal's audio system. Richard commanded the robot to
turn in the  direction of the  sound and Hal's  camera photographed  a
solitary black and gold  tentacle in midair.  The tentacle had  broken
the window and was  moving inexorably toward  the robot. Both  Richard
and Nicole realized what was happening  at the same moment. The  thing
was on top of the subway! And it was coming toward them!
    Nicole was climbing the spikes in a flash. Richard wasted  several
valuable seconds picking up his  computer monitor and putting all  his
equipment in  the  backpack.  He heard  Prince  Hal's  Terminal  Fault
Imminent alarm  when he  was  halfway up  the spikes.  Richard  turned
around to look just as the subway pulled into the tunnel below him.
    What he saw made his  blood run cold. On top  of the subway was  a
large dark creature whose central body, if that's indeed what it  was,
was flattened  against the  roof. Striped  tentacles extended  in  all
directions. Four of  them had  pierced the  windows of  the train  and
grabbed the  robot.  The thing  quickly  climbed off  the  subway  and
wrapped one of its eight  tentacles around the lowest spikes.  Richard
didn't watch anymore.  He clambered up  the rest of  the cylinder  and
started racing through the tunnel at  the top, following the steps  of
Nicole far ahead of him in the distance.
    As he ran, Richard noticed that the tunnel was curving slightly to
the right. He reminded himself that even though this was not the  same
tunnel they had used before, it  should still lead them to the  ramps.
After several hundred meters Richard  stopped to listen for the  sound
of his pursuer.  He heard  nothing. Richard  had just  taken two  deep
breaths and started  to run again  when his ears  were assaulted by  a
terrible wail in front of him.  It was Nicole.Oh shit, he thought,  as
he rushed forward to find her.
    47PROGRESSIVE MATRICES
    Never, never in my entire life,"  Nicole said to Richard, "have  I
ever seen anything that  terrified me like  that." The two  cosmonauts
were sitting  with  their backs  against  the  bottom of  one  of  the
skyscrapers surrounding  the  western  plaza.  They  were  both  still
breathing heavily, exhausted from their frantic escape. Nicole took  a
long drink of water.
    "I had just started  to relax/' she continued.  "I could hear  you
behind me -and nothing else. I decided I would stop in the museum  and
wait for you to catch up. It hadn't yet occurred to me that we were in
the 'other' tunnel.
    "It should have been obvious,  of course, because the opening  was
on the wrong side. But I wasn't thinking logically at the moment. .  .
. Anyway, I stepped inside the room, the lights came on, and there  he
was, not more than three meters in front of me. I thought my heart had
stopped altogether. . . ."
    Richard remembered Nicole running into his arms in the tunnel  and
sobbing for several seconds. "It's Takagishi . . . stuffed like a deer
or a tiger ... in the opening to the right," she had said in fits  and
starts. After Nicole had regained her  composure, the two of them  had
walked back down  the tunnel  together. Inside  the opening,  standing
upright just opposite the  entrance, Richard had  been shocked to  see
Newton cosmonaut Shigeru Takagishi. He was dressed in his flight  suit
and looked exactly as he  had the last time they  had seen him at  the
Beta campsite. His  face was fixed  in a pleasant  smile and his  arms
were at his sides.
    "What the hell?" Richard had  said, blinking twice, his  curiosity
only slightly stronger than his  terror. Nicole had averted her  eyes.
Even though she had seen the  sight before, the stuffed Takagishi  was
much too lifelike for her.
    They had  only  stayed in  the  large  room for  a  minute.  Alien
taxidermy had also performed  wonders on an avian  with a broken  wing
that was hanging from the ceiling next to Takagishi. Against the  wall
behind the Japanese scientist  was Richard and  Nicole's hut that  had
disappeared the day before. The  hexagonal electronics board from  the
Newton portable science station was  on the floor next to  Takagishi's
feet, not far from a full-scale model of a bulldozer biot. Other  biot
replicas were scattered around the room.
    Richard had started to study the varied collection of biots in the
room when they had  faintly heard the  familiar dragging noise  coming
from behind them  in the tunnel.  They had not  wasted any more  time.
Their flight down the tunnel and up the ramps had been broken only  by
a brief stop at the cistern to replenish their supply of fresh water.
    "Dr. Takagishi was a gentle, sensitive man," Nicole was saying  to
Richard, "with passionate feelings about his work. Just before  launch
I visited him in Japan and he  told me that his lifelong ambition  had
been to explore a second Rama spacecraft."
    "It's a shame  he had to  die such an  unpleasant death,"  Richard
grimly replied. "I guess that octospider, or one of its friends,  must
have dragged  him down  here for  a visit  to the  taxidermist  almost
immediately. They certainly wasted no time putting him on display."
    "You know, I don't think they killed him," Nicole said. "Maybe I'm
hopelessly naive, but I  didn't see any evidence  of foul play in  his
... his statue."
    "You think  they  just  scared him  to  death?"  Richard  retorted
sarcastically.
    "Yes," said Nicole firmly. "At least it's possible." She spent the
next five minutes explaining Takagishi's heart situation to Richard.
    "I'm surprised at  you, Nicole/' Richard  replied after  listening
carefully to her disclosure. "I had  you figured all wrong. I  thought
you were Miss Prim  and Proper, play  it by the rules  all the way.  I
never gave you credit for having a mind of your own. Not to mention  a
strong streak of compassion."
    "In this instance it's  not clear that either  was an asset. If  I
had faithfully enforced the rules, Takagishi would be alive and living
with his family in Kyoto."
    "And he would have missed the singular experience of his life .  .
. which brings me to an  interesting question, my dear doctor.  Surely
you are aware, as we sit here, that the odds do not favor our  escape.
We are both likely to die without ever seeing another human face.  How
do you feel about that? Where  does your death-or any death, for  that
matter-fit into your overall scheme of things?"
    Nicole looked at Richard.  She was surprised by  the tenor of  his
question. She  tried without  success to  read the  expression on  his
face. "I'm  not  afraid,  if  that's  what  you  mean,"  she  answered
carefully. "As a doctor I've thought often about death. And of  course
since my mother  died when I  was very young,  even as a  child I  was
forced to have some perspective on the subject."
    She paused for a moment. "For myself, I know that I would like  to
stay alive until Genevieve is grown-so that I can be a grandmother  to
her children. But just  being alive is not  the most important  thing.
Life must have quality to be  worthwhile. And to have quality we  must
be willing to take a few risks. .  . . I'm not being very focused,  am
I?"
    Richard smiled- "No," he said, "but I like your general drift. You
have mentioned the key word. Quality.  . . . Have you ever  considered
suicide?" he asked suddenly.
    "No/' Nicole  replied, shaking  her head.  "Never. There's  always
been too much to live for."There must be some reason for his question,
she was thinking. "What  about you?" she said  after a short  silence,
"did you  think  about suicide  during  any  of that  pain  with  your
father?"
    "No, strangely enough," he  answered. "My father's beatings  never
made me lose my zest for life. There was too much to learn. And I knew
that I would outgrow  him and be  on my own  eventually." There was  a
long pause before he continued. "But  there was one period in my  life
when I did  seriously consider  suicide," Richard said.  "My pain  and
anger were so great that I did not think I could endure them."
    He became silent, locked in his thoughts. Nicole waited patiently.
Eventually she slipped  her arm  through his. "Well,  my friend,"  she
said lightly, "you  can tell  me about it  someday. Neither  of us  is
accustomed to sharing our deepest secrets. Maybe in time we can learn.
I'm going to start by  telling you why I believe  we are not going  to
die and why I think  we should go over to  search the area around  the
eastern plaza next."
    Nicole had  never told  anyone,  not even  her father,  about  her
"trip" during  the Poro.  Before  she finished  telling her  story  to
Richard, not only  had Nicole covered  what had happened  to her as  a
seven-year-old at the Poro,  but also she had  recounted the story  of
Omeh's visit to Rome, the Senoufo prophecies about the "woman  without
companion" who scatters her progeny "among the stars," and the details
of her vision after drinking the vial at the bottom of the pit.
    Richard was speechless. The entire  set of stories was so  foreign
to his mathematical mind that  he did not even  know how to react.  He
stared at Nicole with awe and amazement. At length, embarrassed by his
silence, he started to speak. "I don't know what to say . . ."
    Nicole put  her  fingers to  his  lips.  "You don't  need  to  say
anything/' she said. "I  can read your reaction  in your face. We  can
talk about it tomorrow, after you've had some time to think about what
I told you."
    Nicole yawned and looked at her watch. She pulled her sleeping mat
out of her backpack  and unrolled it on  the ground. "I'm  exhausted,"
she said to Richard. "Nothing like a little terror to produce  instant
fatigue. I'll see you in four hours."
    "We've been searching now  for an hour and  a half," Richard  said
impatiently. "Look at this map.  There's no place within five  hundred
meters of the plaza center that we haven't covered at least twice."
    "Then  we're  doing  something  wrong,"  Nicole  replied.   "There
werethree heat sources in my vision." Richard frowned. "Or be logical,
if you  prefer.  Wliy  would  there  be  three  plazas  and  only  two
underground lairs? You said yourself that the Ramans always followed a
reasonable plan."
    They were  standing in  front  of a  dodecahedron that  faced  the
eastern plaza.  "And  another  thing,"  Richard  growled  to  himself,
"what's the  purpose of  all these  damn polyhedrons?  There's one  in
every sector and the  three biggest are  in the plazas. .  . . Wait  a
minute," he said, as his eyes went from one of the twelve faces of the
dodecahedron to an opposite skyscraper.  His head then turned  quickly
around the plaza.  "Could it be?"  he said. "No,"  he answered,  "that
would be impossible."
    Richard saw that Nicole was staring  at him. "I have an idea,"  he
said excitedly. "It may be completely farfetched. ... Do you  remember
Dr. Bardolini and his progressive matrices?  With the dolphins? . .  .
What if the  Ramans also left  a pattern  here in New  York of  subtle
differences that change from plaza to plaza and section to section?  .
. . Look, it's no crazier than your visions."
    Already Richard was on his knees  on the ground, working with  his
maps of New York, "Can I use  your computer too?" he said to Nicole  a
few minutes later. "That will speed up the process."
    For hours Richard Wakefield sat beside the two computers, mumbling
to himself and trying to solve the puzzle of New York. He explained to
Nicole, when he took  a break for dinner  at her insistence, that  the
location of the third underground hole could only be determined if  he
thoroughly  understood   the  geometric   relationships  between   the
polyhedrons, the  three plazas,  and all  the skyscrapers  immediately
opposite the principal faces  of the polyhedrons in  each of the  nine
sectors. Two  hours before  dark Richard  dashed off  hurriedly to  an
adjacent section to obtain extra data  that had not yet been  recorded
on their computer maps.
    Even after dark he  did not rest. Nicole  slept the first part  of
the fifteen-hour night. When she  awoke after five hours, Richard  was
still working feverishly on  his project. He  didn't even hear  Nicole
clear her  throat.  She  arose  quietly  and  put  her  hands  on  his
shoulders. "You must get some sleep, Richard," she said quietly,
    "I'm almost there," he said. She saw the bags under his eyes  when
he turned around. "No more than another hour."
    Nicole returned to her  mat. When Richard  awakened her later,  he
was full of enthusiasm. "Wouldn't you  know it?" he said with a  grin.
"There are three possible solutions, each of which is consistent  with
all the patterns."  He paced for  almost a minute.  "Could we go  look
now?" he then said pleadingly. "I don't think I can sleep until I find
out."
    None of Richard's three  solutions for the  location of the  third
lair was close  to the  plaza. The nearest  one was  over a  kilometer
away, at the edge of New  York opposite the Northern Hemicylinder.  He
and Nicole  found nothing  there. They  then marched  another  fifteen
minutes in the dark to the second possible location, a spot very  near
the southeast comer of  the city. Richard and  Nicole walked down  the
indicated street and found the covering in the exact spot that Richard
had predicted. "Hallelujah,"  he shouted, spreading  out his  sleeping
mat beside the cover. "Hooray for mathematics."
    Hooray for Omeh,Nicole thought. She  was no longer sleepy but  she
wasn't anxious to  explore any  new territory in  the dark.What  comes
first, she asked herself after they  had returned to camp and she  was
lying awake on her mat,intuition or  mathematics? Do we use models  to
help us  find the  truth? Or  do we  know the  truth first,  and  then
develop the mathematics to explain it?
    They were  both  up  at  daylight. "The  days  are  still  growing
slightly shorter,"  Richard  mentioned  to Nicole.  "But  the  sum  of
daytime and nighttime is remaining  constant at forty-six hours,  four
minutes, and fourteen seconds."
    "How long before we reach the  Earth?" Nicole inquired as she  was
stuffing her sleeping mat into its protective package.
    'Twenty Earth days and three  hours," he replied after  consulting
his computer. "Are you ready for another adventure?"
    She nodded. "I presume you also know where to find the panel  that
opens this cover?"
    "No, but I bet it's not  hard to find," he said confidently.  "And
after we  find this  one, the  avian lair  opening will  be duck  soup
because we'll have the whole pattern."
    Ten minutes later Richard  pushed on a metal  plate and the  third
covering swung open. The descent into this third hole was down a  wide
staircase broken by occasional landings. Richard took Nicole's hand as
they walked down the stairs. They used their flashlights to find their
way, as no lights illuminated their descent.
    The water room was in the  same place as in the other  underground
lairs. There were  no sounds in  the horizontal tunnels  that led  off
from the central stairway at either  of the two main levels. "I  don't
think anyone lives here," Richard said.
    "At least not yet," Nicole answered.
    48WELCOME EARTHLINGS
    Richard was  puzzled.  In  the  first room  off  one  of  the  top
horizontal tunnels he had  found an array of  strange gadgets that  he
had decoded in  less than an  hour. He  now knew how  to regulate  the
lights and  temperature  throughout  each particular  portion  of  the
underground lair. But  if it  was that easy,  and all  the lairs  were
similarly constructed, why did the avians not use the lights that  had
been provided? While they were eating breakfast Richard quizzed Nicole
about the details of the avian lair.
    "You're overlooking more fundamental issues/' Nicole said, as  she
took a  bite of  manna melon.  "The avians  aren't that  important  by
themselves. The real question  is, where are the  Ramans? And why  did
they put these holes under New York in the first place?"
    "Maybe they're  all  Ramans,"  Richard replied.  "The  biots,  the
avians, the octospiders-maybe they all  came originally from the  same
planet. At the beginning  they were all one  happy family. But as  the
years and generations  passed, different species  evolved in  separate
ways. Individual lairs were constructed and the-"
    "There  are  too  many   problems  with  that  scenario,"   Nicole
interrupted. "First, the biots are definitely machines. The avians may
or may not  be. The  octospiders almost certainly  aren't, although  a
technological level  that could  create this  spaceship in  the  first
place might have progressed further in artificial intelligence than we
can possibly imagine.  My intuitive  sense, however,  says that  those
things are organic."
    "We humans would  never be  able to distinguish  between a  living
creature and a versatile machine created by a truly advanced species."
    "I agree with that. But we can't possibly resolve this argument by
ourselves. Besides, there is another  question that f want to  discuss
with you."
    "What's that?" Richard asked.
    "Did the avians and the octospiders and these underground  regions
exist also  on Rama  I?  If so,  how did  the  Norton crew  miss  them
altogether? If not, why are they on this spacecraft and not the  first
one?"
    Richard was  quiet  for  several  seconds.  "I  see  where  you're
heading," he said  finally. "The fundamental  premise has always  been
that the  Rama  spacecraft were  created  millions of  years  ago,  by
unknown beings from another region of  the galaxy, and that they  were
totally uninvolved with and disinterested in whatever they encountered
during their trek. If they were  created that long ago, why would  two
vehicles that were presumably  built at virtually  the same time  have
such striking differences?"
    "I'm starting to believe that our colleague from Kyoto was right,"
Nicole answered. "Maybe thereis a meaningful pattern to all this.  I'm
fairly confident that the Norton crew was thorough and accurate in its
survey and that all  the distinctions between Rama  I and Rama II  are
indeed real. As  soon as we  acknowledge that the  two spacecraft  are
different, we face a more difficult issue.Why are they different?"
    Richard had finished eating  and was now pacing  in the dimly  lit
tunnel. "There was a discussion just  like this before it was  decided
to abort the mission. At the teleconference the main question was, why
did the Ramans change course to  encounter the Earth? Since the  first
spacecraft had not done so, it was considered hard evidence that  Rama
II was different. And  the people participating  in that meeting  knew
nothing of the avians or octospiders/'
    "General Borzov  would have  loved the  avians," Nicole  commented
after a  short  silence. "He  thought  that flying  was  the  greatest
pleasure in the world." She laughed. "He once told me that his  secret
hope in life was that reincarnation was on the level and that he would
come back as a bird."
    "He  was  a   fine  man,"  Richard   said,  stopping  his   pacing
momentarily. "I  don't  think we  ever  properly appreciated  all  his
talents."
    As Nicole replaced  part of the  manna melon in  her backpack  and
prepared to continue  the exploration, she  smiled at her  peripatetic
friend. "One more question, Richard?"
    He nodded.
    "Do you  think  we've met  any  Ramans yet?  By  that I  mean  the
creatures who made this vehicle. Or any of their descendants."
    Richard shook  his head  vigorously.  "Absolutely not/'  he  said.
"Maybe we've met some of their  creations. Or even other species  from
the same planet. But we haven't seen the main characters yet."
    They found the White Room off  to the left of a horizontal  tunnel
at the second level below the surface. Until then the exploration  had
been almost boring. Richard  and Nicole had  walked down many  tunnels
and had peered into one empty room after another. Four times they  had
found a  set of  gadgets for  regulating the  lights and  temperature.
Until they  reached the  White Room,  they had  seen nothing  else  of
interest.
    Both Richard and Nicole were  astonished when they entered a  room
whose walls were painted a crisp white. In addition to the paint,  the
room was fascinating  because one  corner was  cluttered with  objects
that turned out, on closer inspection, to be quite familiar. There was
a comb and  a brush,  an empty  lipstick container,  several coins,  a
collection of  keys,  and  even  something that  looked  like  an  old
walkie-talkie. In another pile  there was a ring  and a wristwatch,  a
tube of  toothpaste, a  nail file,  and a  small keyboard  with  Latin
letters. Richard and  Nicole were  stunned. "Okay,  genius," she  said
with a wave of her hand. "Explain all this, if you can."
    He picked up the tube of toothpaste, opened the cap, and squeezed.
A white  material came  out. Richard  put his  finger in  it and  then
placed the finger  in his  mouth. "Yuck,"  he said,  spitting out  the
paste. "Bring your mass spectrometer over here."
    While Nicole was examining  the toothpaste with her  sophisticated
medical instruments, Richard picked up each of the other objects.  The
watch in particular fascinated him. It was indeed keeping proper time,
second by second, although its reference point was completely unknown.
"Did you ever go to the space museum in Florida?" he asked Nicole.
    "No," she answered distractedly.
    "They had a display of the common objects taken by the crew on the
first Rama  mission. This  watch looks  exactly like  the one  in  the
display-I remember  it well  because I  bought a  similar one  in  the
museum shop/'
    Nicole walked over with  a puzzled look on  her face. "This  stuff
isn't toothpaste, Richard. I  don't know what it  is. The spectra  are
astonishing, with an abundance of super-heavy molecules."
    For several  minutes  the  two  cosmonauts  rummaged  in  the  odd
collection of items,  trying to make  some sense out  of their  latest
discovery. "One  thing is  certain,"  Richard said  as he  was  trying
unsuccessfully to  open  up  the  walkie-talkie,  "these  objects  are
definitely associated with  human beings. There's  simply too many  of
them for some kind of strange interspecies coincidence."
    "But how did they get here?"  Nicole asked. She was trying to  use
the brush  but  its bristles  were  far too  soft  for her  hair.  She
examined it  in  more  detail.  "This is  not  really  a  brush,"  she
announced. "Itlooks  like a  brush, andfeels  like a  brush, but  it's
useless in the hair."
    She bent down and picked up the nail file. "And this can't be used
to file any human's  fingernails." Richard came over  to see what  she
was talking about. He was still struggling with the walkie-talkie.  He
dropped it in disgust and took the nail file that Nicole had  extended
toward him.
    "So these things  look human,  but aren't?" he  said, pulling  the
file  against  the  end  of  his  longest  fingernail.  The  nail  was
unchanged. Richard  gave the  file back  to Nicole.  "What's going  on
here?" he shouted in a frustrated tone.
    "I remember reading  a science fiction  novel while I  was at  the
university,"  Nicole  said   a  few  seconds   later,  "in  which   an
extraterrestrial species learned  about human beings  solely from  our
earliest television programs. When they  finally met us, they  offered
cereal boxes and soaps  and other objects the  aliens had seen on  our
television commercials. The packages  were all properly designed,  but
the contents were either nonexistent or absolutely wrong."
    Richard had not been  listening carefully to  Nicole. He had  been
fiddling with the keys and surveying the collection of objects in  the
room. "Now what do all these  things have in common?" he said,  mostly
to himself.
    They both arrived at the same answer several seconds later.  "They
were all  carried by  the Norton  crew," Richard  and Nicole  said  in
unison.
    "So  the  two  Rama  space   vehicles  must  have  some  kind   of
communication linkup/' Richard said.
    "And these objects have been planted  here on purpose, to show  us
that the visit to Rama I was observed and recorded."
    "The spider  biots that  inspected the  Norton campsites  and  the
equipment must have contained imaging sensors."
    "And all of these things were fabricated from pictures transmitted
from Rama I to Rama II."
    After Nicole's  last  comment  both  of  them  were  silent,  each
following his own thought  pattern. "But why do  they want us to  know
all this? What is it we're supposed  to do now?" Richard stood up  and
began to pace around the room. Suddenly he started laughing. "Wouldn't
it be amazing," he said, "if David  Brown was right after all, if  the
Ramans really were  completely disinterested in  anything they  found,
but programmed their space vehicles toact interested in any  visitors?
They  could  flatter  whatever  species  they  encountered  by  making
midcourse corrections  and  by  fashioning  simple  objects.  What  an
incredible irony. Since all  immature species are probably  hopelessly
self-centered, the  visitors  to  the Raman  craft  would  be  totally
occupied trying to understand an assumed message-"
    "I think you're getting carried away," Nicole interrupted. "All we
know at  this  point  is  that  this  spacecraft  apparently  received
pictures from  Rama  I,  and that  reproductions  of  small,  everyday
objects that were carried by the Norton crew have been placed here  in
this room for us to find."
    "I wonder  if the  keyboard  is as  useless as  everything  else/'
Richard said as he picked it up.  He spelled the word "Rama" with  the
keys. Nothing happened. He tried "Nicole." Still nothing.
    "Don't you remember how the old models worked?" Nicole said with a
grin. She took the keyboard. "They all had a separate power key."  She
pressed the  unmarked button  in  the upper  right-hand comer  of  the
keyboard. A portion of the opposite wall slid away, revealing a  large
black square area about one meter on a side.
    The small keyboard was based on the ones that had been attached to
the portable computers on the first Rama mission. It had four rows  of
twelve characters, with an extra power button in the upper  right-hand
corner. The twenty-six  Latin letters, ten  Arabic numerals, and  four
mathematical operands were marked on forty of the individual keys. The
other eight keys contained either dots or geometrical figures on their
surfaces and, in addition,  could be set in  either an "up" or  "down"
position. Richard and Nicole quickly  learned that these special  keys
were the true controls  of the Raman system.  By trial and error  they
also discovered that  the result from  striking any individual  action
key was a function  of the positioning of  theother seven keys.  Thus,
pressing any  specific  command  key  could produce  as  many  as  128
different results.  Altogether, then,  the system  provided for  1,024
separate actions that could be initiated from the keyboard.
    Making a  command  dictionary  was a  laborious  process.  Richard
volunteered for the duty. Using their own computers to keep notes,  he
began the  process  of  developing  the rudiments  of  a  language  to
translate  the  special  keyboard  commands.  The  initial  goal   was
simple-to be able  to use the  Raman computer like  one of their  own.
Once the translation was  developed, any given  input into the  Newton
portable computers would contain, as part  of its output, what set  of
key impressions on the Raman board would produce a similar response on
the square black screen.
    Even with Richard's intelligence and computer expertise, the  task
was a formidable one. It was  also not something that could easily  be
shared. At Richard's suggestion, Nicole climbed out of the lair  twice
during the first Raman day they were in the White Room. Both times she
took long walks around New York, casting her eyes to the sky from time
to time to look for a helicopter. On the second excursion Nicole  went
back to the barn where she had fallen in the pit. Already so much  had
happened that her  frightening experience  at the  bottom seemed  like
ancient history.
    She thought often  about Borzov,  Wilson, and  Takagishi. All  the
cosmonauts had  known  when  they  left  the  Earth  that  there  were
uncertainties in the mission. They had trained often to handle vehicle
emergencies, problems with their own spacecraft that might prove to be
life threatening ... but none of them had actually believed that there
would be any fatalities on the mission. //Richard and I perish here in
New York, Nicole remarked  to herself,then almost  half the crew  will
have died. That  will be the  worst disaster since  we started  flying
piloted missions again.
    She was standing outside the bam,  in almost the exact spot  where
she and Francesca had talked to  Richard on the communicator the  last
time.So why  did you  lie, Francesca?  Nicole wondered.Did  you  think
somehow my disappearance would silence all suspicion?
    On the final  morning at  the Beta  campsite, before  she and  the
others had set out to look  for Takagishi, Nicole had transmitted  all
the notes in her own portable computer in Rama through the  networking
system to the desktop in  her room on the  Newton. At the time  Nicole
had made the data transfer to give herself extra memory, if she should
need it, in her traveling computer.But it's all there, she recalled,if
some diligent detective  ever looks  for it The  drugs, Jason's  blood
pressure, even  a cryptic  reference to  the abortion.  And of  course
Richard's solution to the RoSur malfunction.
    On her two walks  Nicole saw several centipede  biots, and even  a
bulldozer once, at  the far limit  of her vision.  She didn't see  any
avians and neither heard  nor saw an  octospider.Maybe they only  come
out at night, she mused as she returned to have dinner with Richard.
    49INTERACTION
    We're almost  out  of food,"  Nicole  said. They  packed  up  what
remained of the manna melon and stuffed it in Richard's backpack.
    "I know," he replied. "I have a plan for you to obtain some more."
    "Me?"asked Nicole. "Why is it my job?"
    "Well, first of  all, it  only requires one  person. Working  with
graphics on the Raman computer gave me the idea. Second, I can't spare
the time. I  think I'm  on the verge  of breaking  into the  operating
system. There  are about  two hundred  commands that  I can't  explain
unless they allow entry into another level, some kind of higher  order
space in the hierarchy."
    Richard had  explained to  Nicole during  dinner that  he had  now
figured out how to use  the Raman computer like  one on the Earth.  He
could store  and  retrieve data,  perform  mathematical  computations,
design graphics, even create  new languages. "But  I haven't begun  to
tap its potential," he had said. "Tonight and tomorrow I must discover
more of its secrets. We're running out of time."
    His plan for obtaining food was, indeed, deceptively simple. After
the long Raman night (during which  Richard could not have slept  more
than three  hours),  Nicole  walked  over  to  the  central  plaza  to
implement the plan. Based on his progressive matrix analysis,  Richard
gave her three possible locations for  the panel to open the  covering
above the avian  lair. He  was so confident  of his  analysis that  he
wouldn't even discuss what she should do if she didn't find the plate.
Richard was correct. Nicole  found the panel  easily. Then she  opened
the cover  and  shouted  down  the vertical  corridor.  There  was  no
response.
    She shone her  flashlight into  the darkness below  her. The  tank
sentinel was on  duty, going  to and fro  in front  of the  horizontal
tunnel that led  past the  water room.  Nicole shouted  again. If  she
could avoid it, she did not want  to descend even to the first  ledge.
Even though Richard had assured her he would come to her rescue if she
was overdue, Nicole  did not relish  the prospect of  being hemmed  in
with the avians again.
    Was that a  distant jabbering  she heard? Nicole  thought so.  She
took one of the coins that she had found in the White Room and dropped
it into the  vertical corridor. It  sailed far down,  hitting a  ledge
somewhere near  the  second  main  level. This  time  there  was  loud
jabbering. One of the avians flew up into her flashlight beam and over
the tank sentinel's head. Moments later  the cover began to close  and
Nicole had to move away.
    She had  discussed this  contingency with  Richard. Nicole  waited
several minutes and then pushed the panel again. When she yelled  into
the depths of the avian lair  the second time, there was an  immediate
response. This time  her friend, the  black velvet avian,  flew up  to
within five meters of the surface and jabbered at her. It was clear to
Nicole that she  was being told  to go away.  Before the avian  turned
around, however, Nicole pulled out her computer monitor and  activated
a stored program. Two manna melons  appeared on the screen in  graphic
depiction. As the avian watched, the melons became colored and then  a
neat incision displayed the texture and color inside one of them.
    The black velvet avian  had flown up closer  to the opening for  a
better look. Now  it turned and  screeched back into  the dark  below.
Within seconds a second familiar bird,  the likely mate for the  black
velvet one, flew up  and landed on the  first ledge below the  ground-
Nicole repeated the display. The two birds talked and then flew deeper
into the lair.
    Minutes went by. Nicole could  hear occasional jabbering from  the
depths of  the corridor.  At  length her  two friends  returned,  each
carrying a small manna melon in  its talons. They landed in the  plaza
near the opening. Nicole walked over toward the melons, but the avians
continued to clutch them.  What followed was  (Nicole assumed) a  long
lecture. The two birds jabbered both individually and together, always
looking at her and often tapping on the melons. Fifteen minutes later,
apparently satisfied  that they  had communicated  their message,  the
avians took flight, swooped around the plaza, and vanished into  their
lair.
    I think they  were telling  me that  melons are  in short  supply,
Nicole thought as she walked back toward the eastern plaza. The melons
were heavy. She  had one in  each of  the two backpacks  that she  had
emptied that morning before  she left the White  Room. Ormaybe that  I
should not disturb them in the future. Whatever it was, we will not be
welcome anymore.
    She thought that Richard  would be ecstatic  when she returned  to
the White  Room. He  was, but  not  because of  Nicole and  the  manna
melons. He had a grin  on his face from one  ear to the other and  was
holding one hand behind his back. "Wait until I show you what I have,"
he said as  Nicole unloaded  the backpacks. Richard  brought his  hand
around in front of  him and opened it.  The hand contained a  solitary
black ball about ten centimeters in diameter.
    "I'm nowhere  near  figuring  out  all  the  logic,  or  How  much
information can  go  in  the  request,"  Richard  said.  "But  I  have
established a  fundamental  principle.  We can  ask  for  and  receive
'things' using the computer."
    "What do you mean?"  Nicole asked, still  not certain why  Richard
was so excited about a small black ball.
    "They made this  for me,"  he said,  handing her  the ball  again.
"Don't you understand? Somewhere here they have a factory and can make
things for us."
    "Then maybe 'they,'  whoever they  are, can start  making us  some
food," said Nicole. She was a little annoyed that Richard had  neither
congratulated her nor thanked her for the melons. "The avians are  not
likely to give us any more."
    "It will be no problem," Richard said. "Eventually, once we  learn
the full range of the  request process, we may  be able to order  fish
and chips, steak and potatoes, anything, as long as we can state  what
we want in unambiguous scientific terms."
    Nicole stared at her friend.  With his unkempt hair, his  unshaven
face, the bags under  his eyes, and  his wild grin,  he looked at  the
moment like a fugitive  from an insane  asylum. "Richard," she  asked,
"will you slow down a little? If you've found the Holy Grail, can  you
at least spend a second explaining it to me?"
    "Look at  the screen,"  he  said, Using  the  keyboard he  drew  a
circle, then scratched it out and made a square. In less than a minute
Richard had carefully drawn  a cube in three  dimensions. When he  was
finished with  the graphics,  he  put the  eight  action keys  into  a
predetermined configuration and  then pressed the  key with the  small
rectangle designator. A set of  strange symbols appeared on the  black
monitor. "Don't worry," Richard said, "we don't need to understand the
details. They are  just asking for  the dimensional specifications  on
the cube."
    Richard next made a string of entries from the normal alphanumeric
keys. "Now," he said, turning back to face Nicole, "if I have done  it
correctly, we will have  a cube, made from  the same material as  that
ball, in about ten minutes."
    They ate some of  the new melon while  they waited. It tasted  the
same as  the others.Steak  and potatoes  would be  unbelievably  good,
Nicole was thinking, when suddenly the end wall lifted up half a meter
above the floor and a black cube appeared in the gap.
    "Wait a minute, don't touch it  yet," Richard said as Nicole  went
over to investigate.  "Look here!"  He shone his  flashlight into  the
darkness behind the cube. "There are vast tunnels beyond these walls,"
he said, "and they must lead to factories so advanced we couldn't even
recognize them. Imagine! They can even make objects on request."
    Nicole was beginning  to understand why  Richard was so  ecstatic.
"We now have the capability to  control our own destiny in some  small
way," he continued, "If I can break the code fast enough, we should be
able to request food, maybe even what we need to build a boat."
    "Without loud motors, I hope," quipped Nicole.
    "No motors," agreed Richard. He finished his melon and turned back
to the keyboard.
    Nicole was becoming worried. Richard had succeeded in making  only
one new breakthrough  in a  full Raman  day. All  he had  to show  for
thirty-eight hours of work (he had  only slept eight hours during  the
entire period)  was one  new  material. He  could make  "light"  black
objects like the first ball, whose specific gravity was close to balsa
wood, or he could make "heavy" black objects of density similar to oak
or pine. He was wearing himself out  with his work. And he could  not,
or would not, share any of the load with Nicole.
    What if his  first discovery  was just blind  luck?Nicole said  to
herself as she  climbed the stairs  for her dawn  walk.Or what if  the
system cannot make anything but two kinds of black objects? She  could
not help worrying  about wasted time.  It was only  sixteen more  days
until Rama would encounter  the Earth. There was  no sign of a  rescue
team. At the back  of her mind  was the thought  that perhaps she  and
Richard had been abandoned altogether.
    She had tried to  talk to Richard about  their plans the  previous
evening, but he had  been exhausted. Richard  hadn't responded in  any
way when Nicole  had mentioned  to him  that she  was very  concerned.
Later, after she had  carefully outlined all  their options and  asked
his opinion about what they should do, she noticed that he had  fallen
asleep. When Nicole awakened  after a brief  nap herself, Richard  was
already working again at the keyboard and refused to be distracted  by
either breakfast or conversation. Nicole had stumbled over the growing
array of black objects on the floor  as she had exited the White  Room
for her early morning exercise.
    Nicole was feeling very  lonely. The last  fifty hours, which  she
had spent mostly by herself, had  passed very slowly. Her only  escape
had been  the pleasure  of reading.  She had  the text  of five  books
stored in  her computer.  One was  her medical  encyclopedia, but  the
other  four  were   all  for   recreation.  /bet   all  of   Richard's
discretionary memory is  filled with Shakespeare,  she thought as  she
sat  on  the  wall  surrounding  New  York.  She  stared  out  at  the
Cylindrical Sea. In the far distance, barely visible in her binoculars
through the mist  and clouds, she  could see the  northern bowl  where
they had entered Rama the first time.
    She had  two  of  her  father's novels  stored  in  the  computer.
Nicole's personal favorite wasQueen for All Ages, the story of Eleanor
of Aquitaine's younger  years, beginning with  her adolescence at  the
ducal court in Poitiers, The  story line followed Eleanor through  her
marriage to Louis Capet of France, their crusade to the Holy Land, and
her extraordinary personal appeal for an annulment from Pope Eugenius.
The novel culminated with Eleanor's  divorce from Louis and  betrothal
to the young and exciting Henry Plantagenet.
    The other Pierre des  Jardins novel in  her computer's memory  was
his universally acclaimed  chef d'oeuvre,I  Richard Coeur  de Lion,  a
mixture of first-person diary and  interior monologue, set during  two
winter weeks at the end of  the twelfth century. In the novel  Richard
and his  soldiers, embarked  on another  crusade, are  quartered  near
Messina under the protection of the Norman king of Sicily, While there
the famous warrior-king and homosexual son of Eleanor of Aquitaine and
Henry Plantagenet, in a burst  of self-examination, relives the  major
personal and historical events of his life.
    Nicole remembered  a  long  discussion with  Genevieve  after  her
daughter had read /Richard the previous summer. The young teenager had
been fascinated by the story, and  had surprised her mother by  asking
extremely intelligent  questions. Thoughts  of Genevieve  made  Nicole
wonder what  her daughter  might  be doing  at  Beauvois at  the  very
moment.They have told  you that I  have disappeared, Nicole  surmised.
What does the military call it? Missing in action?
    In her mind's eye Nicole could  see her daughter riding home  from
school each day on her  bicycle. "Any news?" Genevieve would  probably
say to her grandfather as she crossed the portal of the villa.  Pierre
would just shake his head sorrowfully.
    It has been two weeks now since anyone has officially seen me.  Do
you still have hope, my darling daughter?The bereft Nicole was  struck
by an  overwhelming  desire  to  talk  to  Genevieve.  For  a  moment,
suspending reality,  Nicole could  not accept  the fact  that she  was
separated from her daughter by millions  of kilometers and had no  way
to communicate  with  her. She  rose  to  return to  the  White  Room,
thinking in her  temporary confusion  that she  could phone  Genevieve
from there.
    When  her  sanity  returned  several  seconds  later,  Nicole  was
astonished at how easily  her mind had tricked  itself. She shook  her
head and sat  down on the  wall overlooking the  Cylindrical Sea.  She
remained on the wall for almost two hours, her thoughts roaming freely
over a variety of subjects. Toward the  end of the time, when she  was
preparing to return  to the White  Room, her mind  focused on  Richard
Wakefield. /have tried,  my British  friend, Nicole  said to  herself.
/have been more  open with you  than with anyone  since Henry. But  it
would be just my luck to be here with someone even less trusting  than
myself.
    Nicole was feeling an  undefined sadness as  she trekked down  the
stairs to the second level and turned right at the horizontal  tunnel.
Her sadness  changed to  surprise  when she  entered the  White  Room.
Richard jumped up from  his small black chair  and greeted her with  a
hug. He  had shaved  and brushed  his hair.  He had  even cleaned  his
fingernails. Laid out on the black table in the middle of the room was
a neatly sectioned manna melon. One piece sat on each of the two black
plates in front of the chairs.
    Richard pulled out her chair and indicated for Nicole to sit down.
He went around the table  and sat in his  own seat. He reached  across
the table and took both of  Nicole's hands. "I want to apologize,"  he
said with great intensity, "for being such a boor. I have behaved very
badly these last few days.
    "I have thought of  thousands of things to  tell you during  these
hours I've been  waiting," he continued  hesitantly, a strained  smile
playing across his  lips, "but I  can't remember most  of them. ...  I
know I wanted  to explain  to you how  very important  Prince Hal  and
Falstaff were to me. They were my closest friends. ... It has not been
easy for me to deal with their deaths. My grief is still very intense.
. . ."
    Richard took a drink of water and swallowed. "But most of all," he
said, "I'm sorry that  I have not told  you what a spectacular  person
you are. You are intelligent, attractive, witty,  sensitive-everything
I ever dreamed of finding in a woman. Despite our situation, I've been
afraid to tell you how I felt. I guess my fear of rejection runs  very
deep."
    Tears welled out of the comer  of Richard's eyes and ran down  his
cheeks.  He  was  trembling  slightly.  Nicole  could  tell  what   an
incredible effort  it had  been  for him.  She  brought his  hands  up
against her cheeks. "I think you're very special too," she said.
    50HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL
    Richard continued to work with  the Rama computer, but he  limited
himself to short sessions and involved Nicole whenever he could.  They
took walks together and chatted like old friends. Richard  entertained
Nicole by acting  out entire scenes  from Shakespeare. The  man had  a
prodigious memory. He  tried to  play both  sides in  the love  scenes
fromRomeo and  Juliet, but  every  time he  broke into  his  falsetto,
Nicole would erupt with laughter.
    One night they  talked for over  an hour about  Omen, the  Senoufo
tribe, and Nicole's visions. "You  understand that it's difficult  for
me to accept the physical reality  of some of these stories,"  Richard
said, attempting to qualify his curiosity. "Nevertheless, I admit that
I find them absolutely fascinating." Later he showed keen interest  in
analyzing all the symbolism in her visions.
    It was obvious that  he acknowledged Nicole's mystical  attributes
as just another component in her rich personality.
    They slept nuzzling together before they made love. When they  did
finally have intercourse, it was gentle and unhurried, surprising both
of them with its ease and satisfaction. A few nights later, Nicole was
lying with her head on Richard's chest, quietly drifting in and out of
sleep. He was in  deep thought. "Several days  ago," he said,  nudging
her awake,  "back before  we became  so intimate,  I told  you that  I
considered committing suicide once. At the  time I was afraid to  tell
you the story. Would you like to hear it now?"
    Nicole opened her eyes.  She rolled over and  put her chin on  his
stomach. "Uh-huh," she said. She reached up and kissed him on the eyes
before he began his tale.
    "I guess you know I was married  to Sarah Tydings when both of  us
were very young," he  began. "It was also  before she was famous.  She
was in her first year with the Royal Shakespeare Company and they were
performingRomeo and Juliet, As You Like It, andCymbeline in  repertory
at Stratford. Sarah was Rosalind and Juliet and fantastic at both.
    "She was eighteen at the time, just out of school. I fell in  love
with her the first night I saw her as Juliet. I sent her roses in  the
dressing room every evening and used most of my savings to see all the
performances. We had two  long dinners together  and then I  proposed.
She accepted more from astonishment than love.
    "I went to graduate school at Cambridge after the summer was over.
We lived in a modest flat and she commuted to the theater in London. I
would go  with her  whenever  I could,  but  after several  months  my
studies demanded more of my time."
    Richard stopped his narrative and glanced down at Nicole. She  had
not moved. She was lying partially across him, a smile of love on  her
face. "Go on," she said softly.
    "Sarah  was  an  adrenaline  junkie.  She  craved  excitement  and
variety. The mundane  and tedious angered  her. Grocery shopping,  for
example, was a colossal bore. It was just too much trouble for her  to
turn on the set and decide what  to order. She also found any kind  of
schedule incredibly constraining.
    "Lovemaking had  to be  performed in  a different  position or  be
accompanied by some different music  every time; otherwise it was  old
hat. For a while  I was creative  enough to satisfy  her. I also  took
care of  all  the routine  tasks  to free  her  from the  drudgery  of
housework. But there were only so  many hours in the day.  Ultimately,
despite my considerable abilities, my graduate studies began to suffer
because I was spending all my energy making life interesting for her.
    "After we had been married for a year, Sarah wanted to rent a flat
in London, so  that she  didn't need to  make the  long commute  every
night after a performance.  Actually she had  already been spending  a
couple of nights a week in London, ostensibly with one of her  actress
friends. But her career was soaring and we had plenty of money, so why
should I say no?
    "It was not  long before  rumors about her  behavior became  quite
widespread. I  chose  to  ignore  them, fearing,  I  guess,  that  she
wouldn't deny them if I asked her.  Then one night, late, while I  was
studying for an examination, I received a phone call from a woman. She
was very polite, although obviously  distraught. She told me that  she
was the wife of the actor Hugh Sinclair, and that Mr. Sinclair-who  at
that time was starring with Sarah in the American dramaIn Any  Weather
-was having an affair  with my wife.  'In fact,' she  told me, 'he  is
over at your wife's flat at  this very moment.' Mrs. Sinclair  started
crying and then hung up."
    Nicole reached up  and softly  caressed Richard's  cheek with  her
hand. "I felt as if my  chest had exploded," he said, remembering  the
pain. "I was angry, terrified, frantic. I went to the station and took
the late train to London. When the taxi dropped me at Sarah's place, I
ran to the door.
    "I did not knock. I bolted up the stairs and found the two of them
sleeping naked in the bed. I picked Sarah up and flung her against the
wall- I can  still remember the  sound of her  head smashing into  the
mirror. Then I fell on him in a rage, punching his face over and over,
until it was nothing but a mass of blood. It was awful. . . ."
    Richard stopped himself and began  to cry noiselessly. Nicole  put
her arms  around  his  heaving  chest and  wept  with  him.  "Darling,
darling," she said.
    "I was an animal," he cried. "I was worse than my father ever was.
I would have killed them  both if the people  in the next flat  hadn't
restrained me."
    Neither of them  said anything for  several minutes. When  Richard
spoke again his voice was subdued, almost remote. "The next day, after
the  police   station  and   the  tabloid   reporters  and   all   the
recriminations with Sarah, I wanted to kill myself. I would have  done
it, too,  if  I  had owned  a  gun.  I was  considering  the  gruesome
alternatives-pills, slitting my wrists with a razor blade, jumping off
a bridge-when another student called to ask me a detailed question  on
relativity. There was no way, after fifteen minutes of thinking  about
Mr. Einstein,  that  suicide  was  still  a  viable  option.  Divorce,
certainly. Celibacy, highly likely. But death was out of the question.
I  could  never  have  prematurely  terminated  my  love  affair  with
physics." His voice trailed off.
    Nicole wiped her eyes and placed her hands in his. She leaned  her
naked body across Richard's and kissed him. "I love you," she said.
    Nicole's sounding alarm  indicated that it  was daylight again  in
Rama.Ten more days, she noted  after a quick mental calculation.We  'd
better have a serious talk now,
    The alarm had awakened  Richard as well. He  turned and smiled  at
his sleeping partner. "Darling," Nicole said, "the time has come-"
    "The walrus said, to speak of many things."
    "Come on now, be  serious. We have to  decide what we're going  to
do. It's fairly obvious that we're not going to be rescued."
    "I agree," said Richard. He sat up and reached across Nicole's mat
for his shirt. "I have been dreading this moment for days. But I guess
we have finally reached  the point where  we should consider  swimming
across."
    "You don't think there's  any chance of making  a boat out of  our
black stuff?"
    "No," he answered. "One  material is too light  and the other  too
heavy. We could probably build a hybrid that would be seaworthy,if  we
had some  nails, but  without any  sails we  would still  have to  row
across. . . . Our best bet is to swim."
    Richard stood up and walked over to the black square on the  wall.
"My fancy plans didn't pan out,  did they?" He thumped lightly on  the
square. "And I was going  to produce steak and  potatoes as well as  a
boat."
    "The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley."
    "What a  weird  poet  old  Scottish  Robbie  was.  I  never  could
understand what people saw in him."
    Nicole  finished  dressing  and  started  doing  some   stretching
exercises. "Whew," she  said, "I'm  out of  shape. I  haven't had  any
heavy physical  activity in  days."  She smiled  at Richard,  who  was
looking at  her coyly."That  doesn't count,"  she added,  shaking  her
head.
    "It's almost the only exercise  I've ever liked," Richard  replied
with a grin.  "I used  to hate  it at the  academy when  we had  those
special physical training weekends."
    Richard had laid out  small portions of manna  melon on the  black
table, "Three more meals after this one," he said without emotion.  "I
guess we swim before it's dark again."
    "You don't want to go this morning?" Nicole asked.
    "No," he replied. "Why  don't you go survey  the coast and pick  a
spot. I  found  something last  night  on  the computer  that  has  me
baffled. It won't give us food or sailboats, but it looks as if I  may
have finally broken through into another kind of structure."
    After breakfast, Nicole kissed Richard good-bye and wandered up to
the surface. It did not take her long to reconnoiter the coast.  There
really were no reasons to pick one embarkation point over another. The
grim reality of the  coming swim oppressed  Nicole.The odds are  good,
she told herself,that neither Richard nor  I will be alive when it  is
dark again in Rama.
    She tried to imagine what it would be like to be eaten by a  shark
biot. Would it be a  quick death? Or would  you drown aware that  your
legs had just been  amputated? Nicole shuddered  at the idea.Maybe  we
should try to obtain another melon. .  . . She knew that was  useless.
Sooner or later, they had to swim.
    Nicole turned her  back on the  sea.At least these  last few  days
have been good,  she said  to herself,  not wanting  to think  anymore
about their predicament.He has been  an excellent companion. In  every
way. She  allowed  herself the  momentary  luxury of  recalling  their
shared pleasure. Then  Nicole smiled and  started walking back  toward
the lair.
    "But what am I looking at?" Nicole asked as another image  flashed
up on the black square.
    "I'm not completely certain," Richard replied. "All I know is that
I have tapped into  a long list  of some kind.  You remember that  one
particular command configuration  that produces the  lines of  symbols
that look like Sanskrit? Well,  I was scrolling through the  gibberish
and eventually I noticed a pattern. I stopped at the beginning of  the
pattern, changed the position of the last three keys, and then hit the
double dot again. Suddenly an image was on the screen. And every  time
I hit an alphanumeric, the picture changed."
    "But how do you know you're looking at sensor output?"
    Richard entered a  command and there  was a change  in the  image.
"Occasionally I see  something I  recognize," he said.  "Look at  that
one, for example.  Couldn't that be  the Beta stairway  viewed from  a
camera in the middle of the Central Plain?"
    Nicole studied the picture. "Possibly," she said, "but I don't see
how you could ever tell for certain."
    Richard commanded  the  screen to  change  again. The  next  three
pictures were unintelligible. The fourth one showed a feature tapering
to a point at the top of the frame. "And that one," he said. "Couldn't
it be one of the little horns, as  seen from a sensor near the top  of
the Big Horn?"
    No matter how hard she tried, Nicole could not visualize what  the
view would be like from  the top of the giant  spire in the center  of
the southern bowl.  Richard continued  to flip  through the  pictures.
Only about one in  five was even partially  clear. "Somewhere in  this
system there must be some enhancement algorithms," he said to himself.
"Then I can sharpen up all the images."
    Nicole could tell  that Richard  was about to  begin another  long
work session. She walked over to him and put her arms around his neck.
"Could I talk you into a little distraction first?" she said, reaching
up and kissing him on the mouth.
    "I guess so," he replied, dropping  the keyboard on the Boor.  "It
will probably be good for me to clear my mind."
    Nicole was in the middle of a beautiful dream. She was home  again
at her villa in Beauvois. Richard was sitting beside her on the  couch
in the living room and was  holding her hand. Her father and  daughter
were opposite them in the soft chairs.
    Her dream was  broken by  Richard's insistent  voice. When  Nicole
opened her eyes her lover was  standing over her, his voice  crackling
with  excitement.  "Wait  until  you  see  this,  darling/'  he  said,
extending a hand to  pull her up. "It's  fantastic! Somebody is  still
here."
    Nicole shook the dream from her mind and looked over at the  black
square where  Richard was  pointing. "Can  you believe  it?" he  said,
jumping up and down. "There's no  doubt about it The military ship  is
still docked,"
    Only then did Nicole realize that she was looking at a picture  of
the outside of Rama.  She blinked her eyes  and listened to  Richard's
rambling explanation. "Once I figured out the code for the enhancement
parameters, almost every frame  became clear. That  set of pictures  I
showed you  earlier must  be  the real-time  output from  hundreds  of
Rama's imaging sensors. And I think  I have figured out how to  access
the other sensor data bases as well."
    Richard was exultant. He threw  his arms around Nicole and  lifted
her off the ground.  He hugged and kissed  her and bounced around  the
room like a lunatic.
    When he finally calmed down a  little, Nicole spent almost a  full
minute studying the image that was  projected on the black square.  It
was definitely the Newton military ship; she could read the  markings.
"So the science spacecraft has gone home," she commented to Richard.
    "Yes," he answered, "as I expected. I was afraid they wouldboth be
gone and that after  we swam across the  sea, we would find  ourselves
still trapped, this time in a larger prison."
    The same concern had bothered Nicole. She smiled at Richard. "It's
relatively  straightforward,  then,  isn't  it?  We  swim  across  the
Cylindrical Sea  and  walk over  to  the chairlift.  Someone  will  be
waiting for us at the top."
    Nicole  started  packing   her  belongings.  Richard,   meanwhile,
continued to flash new images on the screen. "What are you doing  now,
darling?" Nicole asked gently.  "I thought we were  going to make  our
swim."
    "I haven't  made a  full  pass through  the  sensor list  since  I
located the enhancement parameters," Richard replied. "I just want  to
make certain we're not  missing anything critical.  It will only  take
another hour or so."
    Nicole stopped packing and sat down in front of the screen  beside
Richard. The  pictures were  indeed  interesting. Some  were  exterior
shots,  but  most  were  images  of  different  regions  inside  Rama,
including the underground lairs. One magnificent photo was taken  from
the top  of the  large room  where  the hot  spheres in  their  sponge
webbing rested on the floor beneath the hanging lattices. Richard  and
Nicole watched the  picture for a  moment, hoping to  see a black  and
gold octospider, but they detected no movement.
    They were near the  end of the  list when an  image of the  bottom
third of the Alpha  stairway stunned them  both. There, climbing  down
the stairs, were four human figures in space suits. Richard and Nicole
watched the figures descend  for five seconds  and then exploded  with
joy . "They're coming!" Richard said, throwing his arms into the  air.
"We're going to be rescued!"
    51ESCAPE HARNESS
    Richard was becoming impatient. He and Nicole had been standing on
the walls of New York  for over an hour,  scanning the skies for  some
sign of a helicopter. "Where the hell are they?" he grumbled. "It only
takes fifteen minutes by  rover from the bottom  of Alpha stairway  to
the Beta campsite."
    "Maybe they're looking somewhere else," Nicole said encouragingly.
    "That's ridiculous!' Richard said. "Surely  they would go to  Beta
first- and even  if they  couldn't repair  the comm  system, at  least
they'd find my last message. I said I was taking one of the motorboats
to New York."
    "They probably know that there's no place for a helicopter to land
in the city. They may be coming across in a boat themselves."
    "Without first seeing if they  could spot us from the  helicopter?
That's unlikely." Richard turned his eyes to the sea and searched  for
a sail. "A boat A boat. My kingdom for a boat."
    Nicole laughed but Richard barely managed a little smile. "Two men
could assemble the  sailboat in the  supply hut at  Beta in less  than
thirty minutes," he fretted. "Dammit, what's holding them up?"
    In his  frustration Richard  switched on  the transmitter  in  his
communicator. "Now hear this,  you guys. If  you're anywhere near  the
Cylindrical Sea, identify yourselves. And  then hurry your asses  over
here. We're standing on the wall and we're tired of waiting."
    There was no response- Nicole sat down on the wall. "What are  you
doing?" Richard asked.
    "I think you're worrying  enough for both  of us," she  responded.
"And I'm tired of standing up  and waving my arms." She stared  across
the Cylindrical  Sea.  "It  would  be so  much  easier,"  Nicole  said
wistfully, "if we could just fly across ourselves."
    Richard cocked his  head to one  side and looked  at her. "What  a
great idea," he said several seconds later. "Why didn't we think of it
before?" He immediately sat down  and started doing some  calculations
on his  computer. "Cowards  die many  times before  their deaths,"  he
mumbled to himself, "the valiant never taste of death but once."
    Nicole watched her friend  furiously pounding his keyboard.  "What
are you doing, dear?" she inquired, glancing over his shoulder at  the
computer monitor.
    "Three!" he shouted, after finishing a computation. "Three  should
be enough." Richard looked up at  the puzzled Nicole. "Do you want  to
hear the most  outrageous plan  in interplanetary  history?" he  asked
her.
    "Why not?" she said with a doubtful smile.
    "We are  going to  build ourselves  harnesses out  of the  lattice
material and the  avians are going  to fly us  across the  Cylindrical
Sea."
    Nicole stared at  Richard for  several seconds.  "Assuming we  can
make the harnesses," she said skeptically, "how do we talk the  avians
into doing their part?"
    "We convince  them  it's  in their  own  best  interest,"  Richard
replied. "Or alternatively we threaten them  in some way. ... I  don't
know, you can work on that issue."
    Nicole was incredulous. "Anyway," Richard continued, grabbing  her
hand and walking down the wall, "it beats standing around here waiting
for the helicopter or the boat."
    Five hours later there was still no sign of the rescue team.  When
they had finished making the harnesses, Richard had left Nicole at the
wall and gone back to the White  Room to check through the sensor  set
again. He returned with the news that he thought he had seen the human
figures in the vicinity of the Beta campsite, but that the  resolution
on that  particular frame  had been  very poor.  As they  had  agreed,
Nicole had been calling every half hour on the communicator. There had
been no response.
    "Richard," she said, while he was programming some graphics on his
computer, "why do you think the rescue team was using the stairway?"
    "Who knows?" he  replied. "Maybe the  chairlift malfunctioned  and
there were no engineers left."
    "It seems strange  to me,"  Nicole mused.Something  about this  is
bothering me, she thought,but I don't dare share it with Richard until
I can explain it  He doesn't believe in  intuition. Nicole glanced  at
her watch.It's a good thing we rationed the melon. If the rescue  team
doesn't show  up  and this  wild  scheme  doesn't work,  we  won't  be
swimming until next daylight,
    "Preliminary design  complete,"  Richard stated  emphatically.  He
waved to Nicole  to join him.  "If you approve  the line drawing,"  he
said, pointing at the monitor in  his hand, "then I will proceed  with
the detailed graphics."
    In the  picture three  large avians,  each with  one line  wrapped
around its  body, were  flying  in formation  across a  sea.  Dangling
underneath them, and attached by three lines, was a stick figure human
being sitting in a  flimsy barness. "Looks good  to me," said  Nicole,
never thinking for a minute that such an event would actually happen.
    "I can't believe we're doing  this," Nicole remarked, pushing  the
plate to open the avian lair for the second time.
    Their first attempt to renew contact had resulted in the  expected
cold shoulder. This second  time it was Richard  who shouted into  the
avian lair. "Listen  to me, you  avians/' he growled  in his  fiercest
voice, "I need to talk to you.  Rightnow. Get up here on the  double."
Nicole had to restrain a laugh.
    Richard began dropping black objects into the lair. "See," he said
with a grin, "I knew these  damn things would be good for  something."
Eventually they could hear some activity at the bottom of the vertical
corridor. The same pair of avians they had seen before flew up to  the
top of the lair and started screeching at Richard and Nicole. They did
not even look at the monitor when  Richard held it out for them.  When
they were finished screeching, the pair flew over the top of the  tank
sentinel and the cover closed again.
    "It's no use, Richard," Nicole said when he asked her to open  the
cover a third  time. "Even  our friends  are against  us." She  paused
before pressing the  plate. "What are  we going to  do if they  attack
us?"
    "They won't attack," Richard said,  indicating for Nicole to  open
the cover. "But just in  case, I want you to  stay over there. I  will
deal with our feathered friends."
    There was jabbering from the lair as soon as the cover opened  the
third time.  Richard immediately  started shouting  back and  pitching
black objects down the corridor. One of them hit the tank sentinel and
prompted a small explosion, like a gunshot.
    The two familiar  avians flew up  to the opening  and screamed  at
Richard. Three or four of their  comrades were just behind. The  noise
was unbelievable.  Richard did  not  back down.  He kept  yelling  and
pointing at the  computer monitor. Finally  he was able  to get  their
attention.
    The group of avians  watched the graphic  depiction of the  flight
across the sea. Richard then held up one of the harnesses in his  left
hand and  started  running the  demonstration  on his  monitor  again.
Frantic conversation among  the avians  ensued. At  the end,  however,
Richard sensed that he had  lost. As a pair  of the other avians  flew
over the top of the tank sentinel, Richard climbed down into the lair,
onto the first ledge. "Hold it," he shouted at the top of his lungs.
    The mate of the black velvet avian lunged forward, its threatening
beak no more than a meter from Richard's face. The noise from all  the
screeching and jabbering was deafening. Richard was undaunted. Despite
the avian protests, he descended to the second ledge. Now he would not
be able to escape if the cover started to close.
    Again he held up the harness and pointed at the monitor. A  chorus
of screeches told  him the response.  Then, above the  avian howl,  he
heard another sound, like a Klaxon alarm announcing a fire drill at  a
school or  hospital.  All the  avians  immediately calmed  down.  They
settled quietly on the ledges and stared down at the tank sentinel.
    The lair was strangely silent.  After a few seconds Richard  heard
the beating  of wings  and moments  later a  new avian  flew into  the
vertical corridor. It  rose slowly up  to his level  and hovered  just
opposite him. It had a gray velvet body and sharp gray eyes. Two thick
rings of bright cherry red were wrapped around its neck.
    The creature studied Richard and landed on the ledge opposite him,
across the corridor. The avian that had been in that spot scurried out
of the way.  When the gray  velvet bird  spoke, it was  soft and  very
clear. After the speech was finished,  the black velvet avian flew  up
beside the new  arrival and  apparently explained  the furor.  Several
times the two avians stared across at Richard. The last time, thinking
that perhaps their  nodding heads  were a cue,  Richard displayed  the
graphic flight one more time and held up the harnesses. The bird  with
the cherry rings flew over beside him for a closer look.
    Thecreature made a  sudden movement, frightening  Richard, and  he
nearly fell  off the  ledge. What  may have  been avian  laughter  was
silenced by a  few words  from the gray  velvet leader,  who then  sat
quite still, as if it were thinking, for over a minute. At length  the
avian leader gestured toward Richard  with one talon, opened its  huge
wings, and soared out through the opening into daylight.
    For several seconds Richard did not move. The great creature  rose
up, up into the sky  above the lair and was  soon followed by the  two
more familiar  avians. Moments  later Nicole's  head appeared  in  the
opening. "Are you coming?"  she asked. "I don't  know how you did  it,
but it looks as if our friends are ready."
    52FLIGHT 302
    Richard  pulled  the  harness  tight  around  Nicole's  waist  and
buttocks. "Your feet will  dangle," he said, "and  at first, when  the
lattice cord  is stretching,  you will  have the  feeling that  you're
falling."
    "What if I hit the water?" Nicole asked.
    "You have to trust the avians  to By high enough that you  won't/'
Richard replied. "I  think they're quite  intelligent, especially  the
one with the red rings."
    "Do you think it's the king?" Nicole asked, adjusting the  harness
for comfort.
    "Probably their  equivalent," Richard  answered. "He  has made  it
clear from the beginning that he intends  to fly in the middle of  the
formation."
    Richard walked  up the  steep incline  to the  wall, carrying  all
three harness  lines in  his hands.  The avians  were sitting  quietly
together, staring  out at  the sea.  They acquiesced  as he  tied  the
harness around their midsections, just behind the backs of the  wings.
Then they watched  his computer monitor  as he again  showed them  the
graphics of the takeoff. The avians were to lift off together, slowly,
pull the harness lines taut directly over Nicole's head, and then lift
her straight up before flying north across the sea.
    He checked  that  the  knots  were secure  and  then  returned  to
Nicole's side at the  bottom of the incline.  She was only about  five
meters from the water. "If, by  some chance, the avians do not  return
for me," Richard  told her,  "don't wait  forever. Once  you find  the
rescue team, assemble the sailboat and come across. I will be down  in
the White Room."  He took  a deep breath.  "Be safe,  my darling,"  he
added. "Remember that I love you."
    Nicole could tell from the pounding  of her heart that the  moment
of takeoff had finally arrived. She kissed Richard slowly on the lips.
"And I love you," she murmured.
    When they broke their embrace, Richard waved at the avians on  the
wall. The  gray velvet  avian  cautiously rose  in the  air,  followed
immediately by its two companions. They hovered in formation  directly
over Nicole. She felt the three  lines pull tight and was  momentarily
lifted into the air.
    Seconds later, as the  elastic cord began  to stretch, Nicole  was
falling toward the ground again.  The avians flew higher, heading  out
over the water, and Nicole  felt as if she  were a yo-yo, bouncing  up
and down as the cord would stretch and then contract with a jerk  when
the avians rose swiftly to a higher altitude.
    !t was  an  exciting flight.  She  touched the  water  once,  just
barely, while  she  was still  close  to shore.  She  was  temporarily
frightened, but the  avians lifted  her quickly  before anything  more
than her  feet  were  wet. Once  the  lattice  cord was  at  its  full
extension, the ride was fairly smooth. Nicole sat in her harness,  her
hands holding on to  two of the three  lines, her feet dangling  below
her about eight meters from the tops of the waves.
    The middle of the sea was quite calm. About halfway across  Nicole
saw two great, dark  figures swimming along  beneath her, parallel  to
her course. She was certain they  were shark biots. She also  detected
two or  three other  species in  the water,  including one,  long  and
skinny like an eel, that reared itself out of the sea and watched  her
fly by.Whew, Nicole  thought as she  surveyed the water,I'm  certainly
glad that I didn't swim.
    The landing was easy.  Nicole had been  concerned that the  avians
might not realize there was a  fifty-meter cliff on the opposite  side
of the sea. She needn't have  worried. As they approached landfall  in
the  Northern  Hemi-cylinder,  the   avians  gently  increased   their
altitude. Nicole was set down gingerly about ten meters from the edge.
    The huge birds landed close by. Nicole climbed out of her  harness
and walked over to the avians. She thanked them profusely and tried to
pat them on the backs  of their heads, but  they jerked away from  her
touch. The creatures rested for several minutes and then, at a  signal
from their leader, they flew off across the sea toward New York.
    Nicole was surprised at the  intensity of her emotions. She  knelt
down and kissed the ground. It was only then that she realized she had
never really expected to  escape safely from New  York. For a  moment,
before she started searching for the rescue team with her  binoculars,
she reviewed everything that  had happened to  her since that  fateful
crossing in the icemobile.Before New York is a lifetime ago, she  said
to herself.Now everything has changed.
    Richard untied the harness from the avian leader and dropped it on
the ground. All the  birds were now free.  The creature with the  gray
velvet body craned its neck around to see if Richard was finished. The
rich cherry red of  its rings was even  clearer in the full  daylight.
Richard wondered  about the  rings and  what they  signified,  knowing
there was  a high  likelihood  he would  never see  these  magnificent
aliens again.
    Nicole came  over  beside Richard.  When  he had  landed  she  had
embraced him  passionately. The  avians had  boldly stared,  signaling
their curiosity.They too, Nicole  thought,must be wondering about  us.
The linguist in her imagined what it would be like actually to talk to
an extraterrestrial species, to begin to understand how an  altogether
different intelligence might operate. . .
    "I wonder how we say good-bye and thank you," Richard was saying.
    "I don't know," Nicole replied, "but it would be nice-"
    She stopped to watch the avian leader. It had called the other two
creatures to come beside it and  the three birds were standing  facing
Richard and Nicole. On a signal they all spread their wings, to  their
full extent, and  formed into a  circle. They turned  around one  full
revolution and then fell back into a straight line facing the humans.
    "Come on," Nicole said. "We can do that."
    Nicole and Richard  stood side by  side, their arms  outstretched,
and faced their avian friends. Nicole  then put her arms on  Richard's
shoulders and  led  him through  a  circular turn.  Richard,  who  was
sometimes not very graceful, stumbled once but managed to complete the
movement. Nicole imagined that the  avian leader was smiling when  she
and Richard straightened out after their revolution.
    The three avians took off seconds later. Higher and higher in  the
sky they rose, until they were  at the limit of Nicole's vision.  Then
they flew south, across the sea toward home.
    "Good luck," Nicole whispered as they departed.
    The rescue team was not in  the vicinity of the Beta campsite.  In
fact, Richard  and Nicole  had not  seen  any sign  of them  during  a
thirty-minute drive in the  rover along the  coast of the  Cylindrical
Sea. "These guys must really be stupid," Richard groused. "My  message
was in plain view there  at Beta. Could it  be that they haven't  even
come down this far yet?"
    "It's less than three hours until dark," Nicole replied. "They may
have returned to the Newton already."
    "All right, then, to hell with them," Richard said. "Let's have  a
bite to eat and then head for the chairlift."
    "Do you think we should save any of the melon?" Nicole asked a few
minutes later,  while they  were eating.  Richard gave  her a  puzzled
glance. "Just in case," she added.
    "Just in case what?" Richard rejoined. "Even if we don't find that
idiotic rescue bunch and  must climb all  the stairs ourselves,  we'll
still be out of here right after dark. Remember, we become  weightless
again at the top of the stairway."
    Nicole smiled. "I  guess I'm naturally  more cautious," she  said.
She put several bites of melon back into her pack.
    They had driven three-fourths of the way toward the chairlift  and
the Alpha stairway when they spotted  the four human figures in  space
suits. It  looked  as  if  they were  leaving  the  conglomeration  of
buildings that had  been designated  as the Raman  Paris. The  figures
were walking in the opposite direction from the rover.
    "I told you the guys were idiots," Richard exclaimed. "They  don't
even have  the sense  to take  off their  space suits.  It must  be  a
special team, sent up in the spare Newton vehicle just to find us  and
bring us back."
    He steered the rover across the Central Plain in the direction  of
the humans. Richard and  Nicole both started  shouting when they  were
within a hundred  meters, but  the men  in the  space suits  continued
their slow procession toward the west- "They probably can't hear  us,"
Nicole offered. "They  still have on  their helmets and  communication
gear."
    A frustrated  Richard  drove  up  to within  five  meters  of  the
single-file line, stopped the rover, and jumped out in a hurry. He ran
quickly around to the  leader, shouting all the  way. "Hey, guys,"  he
yelled. "We're here, behind you. All you have to do is turn around-"
    Richard stopped cold as he stared  at the blank expression of  the
man in the  lead. He  recognized the face.  Jesus, it  was Norton!  He
shuddered involuntarily as a tingle ran down his spine. Richard barely
jumped out of the  way as the four-man  procession walked slowly  past
him. Numb from the  shock, he quietly studied  the other three  faces,
none of which changed expression as they marched past. They were three
other cosmonauts from the Rama I crew.
    Nicole was at his side only seconds after the final figure  passed
him. "What's the matter?" she said. "Why didn't they stop?" The  blood
had all drained out of Richard's face. "Darling, are you all right?"
    "They're biots," Richard mumbled. "Goddamn human biots."
    "Whaaat?"Nicole replied, a streak of terror in her voice. She  ran
quickly to the  head of the  line and  stared at the  face behind  the
helmet glass. It  was definitely  Norton. Every feature  of the  face,
even the color  of the eyes  and the slight  mustache, was  absolutely
perfect. But the eyes didn't say anything.
    The motion  of the  body, too,  now that  she noticed  it,  seemed
artificial. Each pair of steps was a repeated pattern. There were only
slight variations  from  figure  to figure.Richard  is  right,  Nicole
thought.These are  human biots.  They  must have  been made  from  the
images, just  like the  toothpaste and  the brush.  A momentary  panic
swelled in  her  chest.But we  don't  need  a rescue  team,  she  told
herself, calming her anxiety.The military ship is still docked at  the
top of the bowl.
    Richard was stunned by the discovery of the human biots. He sat in
the rover for several minutes, unwilling to drive, asking questions of
Nicole and  himself that  he  could not  possibly have  answered.  "So
what's going on  here?" he said  over and over  again. "Are all  these
biots based on real species, found somewhere in the universe? And  why
are they being fabricated in the first place?"
    Before they drove  over to  the chairlift,  Richard insisted  that
they both shoot many minutes of video footage of the human biots. "The
avians and octospiders are fascinating," he said as he took a  special
close-up of "Norton's" leg motion,  "but this tape will blow  everyone
away."
    Nicole reminded him that it was less than two hours until dark and
that it still might be necessary for them to climb the Stairway of the
Gods. Satisfied  that  he  had recorded  the  bizarre  procession  for
posterity, Richard slid into the driver's seat of the rover and headed
toward the Alpha stairway.
    There was no need to perform any tests to see if the chairlift was
working properly; it was running when they drove up beside it. Richard
jumped out of the rover and ran into the control room.
    "Someone's coming down," he said, pointing up the lift.
    "Or something," Nicole said grimly.
    The five-minute wait  seemed like  an eternity.  At first  neither
Richard nor Nicole  said anything. Later,  however, Richard  suggested
that maybe they should sit in the rover in case they needed to make  a
quick escape.
    Each of  them  trained binoculars  on  the long  cable  stretching
upward to the heavens. "It's a man!" cried Nicole.
    "It's General O’Toole!" said Richard a few moments later.
    Indeed it was.  General Michael Ryan  O’Toole, American air  force
officer, was descending in the chairlift. He was still several hundred
meters above Richard  and Nicole, but  had not yet  seen them. He  was
busy studying with his  binoculars the beauty  of the alien  landscape
around him.
    General O’Toole had  been preparing  to leave Rama  for the  final
time when, as he rode up in the chairlift, he had spotted what  looked
like three birds flying far to the south in the Rama sky. The  general
had decided to return to  see if he could  find those birds again.  He
was unprepared  for  the joyous  greeting  that awaited  him  when  he
reached the bottom of his ride.
    53TRINITY
    When Richard Wakefield had left the Newton to go back inside Rama,
General O’Toole had  been the last  crew member to  say good-bye.  The
general had waited patiently while  the other cosmonauts had  finished
their conversations with Richard. "You're  really certain you want  to
do this?" Janos Tabori had said  to his British friend. "You know  the
full committee is going to declare Rama off limits within hours."
    "By then"-Richard had  grinned at Janos-"I  will be on  my way  to
Beta. Technically I will not have violated their order."
    "That's bullshit," Admiral Heilmann had interjected tersely.  "Dr.
Brown and I are in  charge of this mission. We  have both told you  to
stay onboard the Newton."
    "And I've told you  several times," Richard  said firmly, "that  I
left some personal items  inside Rama that are  very important to  me-
Besides, you know as well as I  do that there's nothing for any of  us
here to do over the  next couple of days.  Once the abort decision  is
definitely made, all the  major scheduling activities  will be on  the
ground. We will be told when to undock and head for Earth."
    "I will remind  you, one  more time," Otto  Heilmann had  replied,
"that I consider what you are doing an act of insubordination. When we
return to Earth I intend to prosecute to the fullest-"
    "Save it,  will  you, Otto?"  Richard  interrupted. There  was  no
rancor in his tone. He adjusted his  space suit and started to put  on
his helmet. As always Francesca was  recording the scene on her  video
camera. She had been strangely  silent since her private  conversation
with Richard an hour earlier. She seemed detached, as if her mind were
somewhere else.
    General O’Toole walked up  to Richard and  extended his hand.  "We
haven't spent  much  time together,  Wakefield,"  he said,  "but  I've
admired your  work. Good  luck in  there. Don't  take any  unnecessary
chances."
    Richard had been  surprised by  the general's warm  smile. He  had
expected the  American military  officer to  try to  talk him  out  of
leaving. "It's magnificent in Rama, General," Richard had said.  "Like
a combination of the Grand Canyon,  the Alps, and the Pyramids all  at
once."
    "We've lost four crew members  already," O’Toole replied. "I  want
to see you back here safe and sound. God bless you."
    Richard finished shaking  the general's hand,  put on his  helmet,
and stepped across into the airlock. Moments later, when Wake6eld  was
gone, Admiral  Heilmann was  critical of  General O’Toole's  behavior.
"I'm disappointed in you, Michael," he said. "From that warm  send-off
the young man might have concluded  that you actually approved of  his
action."
    O’Toole faced the German  admiral. "Wakefield has courage,  Otto,"
he said.  "And conviction  as well,  He is  not afraid  of either  the
Ramans or  the  ISA  disciplinary  process.  I  admire  that  kind  of
self-confidence."
    "Nonsense," Heilmann  rejoined. "Wakefield  is a  brash,  arrogant
schoolboy. You know  what he  left inside?  A couple  of those  stupid
Shakespearean robots. He just doesn't like taking orders. He wants  to
do what's uppermost on his own personal agenda."
    "That makes him a  lot like the rest  of us," Francesca  remarked.
The room was quiet for a moment. "Richard is very smart," she said  in
a subdued tone. "He probably has reasons for going back into Rama that
none of us understand."
    "I just hope  he comes back  before dark, as  he promised,"  Janos
said. "I'm not certain I could stand to lose another friend."
    The cosmonauts filed out of the atrium into the hallway.  "Where's
Dr. Brown?" Janos asked Francesca as he walked along beside her.
    "He's with Yamanaka and Turgenyev. They're reviewing possible crew
assignments for the  trip home.  As shorthanded as  we are,  a lot  of
cross training will be necessary before we leave." Francesca  laughed.
"He even asked me if I could be a backup navigation engineer. Can  you
imagine that?"
    "Easily," Janos  replied. "You  probably could  learn any  of  the
engineering assignments at this point."
    Behind them Heilmann and O’Toole shuffled down the corridor.  When
they reached the hall  leading to the  private crew quarters,  General
O’Toole started to leave. "Just a minute," Otto Heilmann said. "I need
to talk to you about something else. This damn Wakefield thing  almost
made it slip my mind. Can you come to my office for an hour or so?"
    "Essentially," Otto  Heilmann said,  pointing at  the  unscrambled
cryptogram on the  monitor, "this  is a  major change  to the  Trinity
procedure. It's not surprising. Now that we know much more about Rama,
you would expect the deployment to be somewhat different."
    "But  we  never  anticipated  using  all  five  weapons,"  O’Toole
responded. "The  extra  pair  were  only loaded  onboard  in  case  of
failures. That much megatonnage could vaporize Rama."
    "That's the intent," Heilmann said. He  sat back in his chair  and
smiled. "Just between us chickens/' he said, "I think there's a lot of
pressure on the general staff down  there. The feeling is that  Rama's
capabilities were vastly underrated initially."
    "But why do they want to put the two largest weapons in the  ferry
passageway? Surely  one  of the  bombs  would accomplish  the  desired
result."
    "What if it  didn't explode  for some reason?  There has  to be  a
backup." Heilmann leaned forward  eagerly on his  desk. "I think  this
change to the procedure clearly defines  the strategy. The two at  the
end will ensure that the structural  integrity of the vehicle will  be
absolutely  destroyed-that's  essential  to   guarantee  that  it   is
impossible for Rama to maneuver again after the blast. The other three
bombs are scattered around the interior  to make certain that no  part
of Rama is  safe. It's  equally important that  the explosions  should
result in enough velocity  change that all  the remaining pieces  miss
the Earth."
    General O’Toole constructed a mental image of the giant spacecraft
being annihilated  by  five  nuclear  bombs. It  was  not  a  pleasant
picture. Once, fifteen years  before, he and  twenty other members  of
the COG general  staff had  flown into the  South Pacific  to watch  a
hundred-kiloton weapon explode. The  COG system engineering  personnel
had convinced the  political leaders,  and the world  press, that  one
nuclear test was necessary "every twenty  years or so" to ensure  that
all the old weapons would indeed fire in an emergency. O'Toole and his
team had observed the  demonstration, ostensibly to  learn as much  as
possible about the effects of nuclear weapons.
    General  O'Toole   was  deep   in   his  memory,   recalling   the
spine-tingling horror of  that fireball rising  in the peaceful  South
Pacific sky. He was  not aware that Admiral  Heilmann had asked him  a
question. "I'm sorry, Otto," he said. "I was thinking about  something
else."
    "I had  asked  you how  long  you thought  it  might take  to  get
approval for Trinity."
    "You mean in our case?" O'Toole said with disbelief.
    "Of course," Heilmann responded.
    "I can't  imagine it,"  O'Toole said  quickly, "The  weapons  were
included in  the  mission  manifest solely  to  guard  against  openly
hostile  actions  by  the  Ramans.   I  even  remember  the   baseline
scenario-an  unprovoked  attack  against   the  Earth  by  the   alien
spacecraft, using high-technology weapons  beyond the capabilities  of
our defenses. The current situation is altogether different."
    The German admiral  studied his American  colleague. "No one  ever
envisioned the Rama spacecraft on a collision course with the  Earth/'
Heilmann said. "If it does not alter its trajectory, it will gouge  an
enormous  hole  in  the  surface  and  kick  up  such  dust  that  the
temperatures will drop all  over the world for  several years. ...  At
least, that's what the scientists say,"
    "But that's  preposterous," O'Toole  argued.  "You heard  all  the
discussion during  the  conference  call. No  rational  person  really
believes that Rama will actually hit the Earth."
    "Impact is only one of several disaster scenarios. What would  you
do if you were chief of staff? Destroying Rama now is a safe solution.
Nobody loses."
    Visibly  shaken  by  the  conversation,  Michael  O'Toole  excused
himself from  the meeting  with Admiral  Heilmann and  headed for  his
room. For the first  time in his entire  association with the  .Newton
mission, O'Toole thought that he might actually be ordered to use  his
RQ code to activate the weapons. Never before, never for a moment, had
he considered that the  bombs in the metal  containers at the back  of
the military ship were anything more  than a palliative for the  fears
of the civilian politicians.
    Sitting at  the  computer  terminal in  his  room,  the  concerned
O'Toole recalled  the  words  of Armando  Urbina,  the  Mexican  peace
activist who  had advocated  a total  dismantling of  the COG  nuclear
arsenal. "As we have seen both at Rome and Damascus," Senor Urbina had
said, "if the weapons exist,  they can be used.  Only if there are  no
weapons at all  can we guarantee  that human beings  will never  again
suffer the horror of nuclear devastation."
    Richard Wakefield did not return before the Raman nightfall. Since
the communication station at Beta  had been knocked out of  commission
by the  hurricane  (the  Newton  had  monitored  the  breakup  of  the
Cylindrical Sea  and  the onset  of  the windstorm  through  telemetry
relayed by Beta  before it  was silenced),  Richard had  moved out  of
communications range when he was halfway across the Central Plain. His
last transmission  to Janos  Tabori, who  had volunteered  to man  the
commlink, had been typically Wakefield. As the signal from inside Rama
was fading, Janos, in  a lighthearted tone, had  asked Richard how  he
wanted to be remembered  "to your fans" in  case he was "swallowed  by
the Great Galactic Ghoul."
    "Tell them that I  loved Rama not wisely,  but too well,"  Richard
had shouted into his communicator.
    "What's that?" Otto  Heilmann Had  puzzled. The  admiral had  come
looking for Janos to discuss a Newton engineering problem.
    "He killed her," Janos had said, trying without success to lock up
the signal again.
    "Who killed-What are you talking about?"
    "It's not important," Janos had  answered, spinning around in  his
chair and floating into  the air. "Now,  what can I  do for you,  Herr
Admiral?"
    Richard's failure  to  return  was not  considered  serious  until
several hours after the following Raman dawn. The cosmonauts remaining
on the Newton had convinced themselves the night before that Wakefield
had become  absorbed in  some  task ("Probably  fixing the  Beta  comm
station," Janos had  offered), had  lost track  of the  time, and  had
decided not to  take a  solitary ride  out in  the dark.  But when  he
didn't return in the morning, a feeling of gloom began to pervade  the
conversation of the crew.
    "I don't  know  why  we  won't admit  it,"  Irina  Turgenyev  said
suddenly during a  period of  quiet at dinnertime.  "Wakefield is  not
coming back either. Whatever got Takagishi and des Jardins got him  as
well."
    "That's ridiculous, Irina," Janos replied heatedly.
    "Da,"she remarked. "That's what you've always said. Ever since the
beginning when  General Borzov  was  cut to  pieces.  Then it  was  an
accident that the  crab biot  attacked Wilson.  Cosmonaut des  Jardins
disappears down an alley-"
    "Coincidence," Janos shouted, "all coincidence!"
    "You're stupid, Janos," Irina  shouted back. "You trust  everybody
and everything. We should blow the damn thing to pieces before it does
any more-"
    "Stop, stop, you two!" David Brown  said loudly as the two  Soviet
colleagues continued to argue.
    "All right,  now,"  added General  O’Toole.  "We're all  a  little
tense. There's no need for us to quarrel."
    "Will anyone be going in to look for Richard?" the emotional Janos
asked no one in particular.
    "Who would be crazy enough-" Irina began to respond.
    "No," interrupted Admiral  Heilmann firmly. "I  told him that  his
visit was unauthorized and that we would not come after him under  any
circumstances. Besides, Dr. Brown and the  two pilots tell me that  we
can  barely  fly  the  two   Newton  ships  home  with  the   manpower
remaining-and their analysis assumed Wake6eld  was with us. We  cannot
take any more risks."
    There was a long  and somber silence at  the dinner table. "I  had
planned to tell  everyone when the  meal was over,"  David Brown  then
said, standing up beside  his chair, "but  it looks to  me as if  this
group could  use some  good news  now.  An hour  ago we  received  our
orders. We're to depart for Earth at  1-14 days, a little over a  week
from now. Between now and then we will cross train the personnel, rest
for the voyage home, and make certain that all the Newton  engineering
systems are working properly."
    Cosmonauts Turgenyev,  Yamanaka, and  Sabatini all  shouted  their
approval. "If we're going to  leave without returning to Rama,"  Janos
inquired, "why are we  waiting so long? Surely  we can be well  enough
prepared in three or four days."
    "As I  understand  it,"  Dr.  Brown  replied,  "our  two  military
colleagues have a special task that will occupy most of their time-and
some of ours-for much of the next three days." He glanced over at Otto
Heilmann. "Do you want to tell them?"
    Admiral Heilmann stood  up at his  place. "I need  to discuss  the
details first  with General  O’Toole,"  he said  in a  ringing  voice.
"We'll explain it to everyone else in the morning."
    O’Toole didn't need Otto Heilmann to show him the message that had
been received only  twenty minutes before.  He knew what  it said.  In
compliance with  the procedure,  there were  only three  words:proceed
with trinity.
    54ONCE A HERO
    Michael O’Toole could not sleep.
    He tossed and turned, switched on his favorite music, and repeated
both the "Hail Mary" and "Our Father" litanies over and over.  Nothing
worked. He longed  for a  distraction, something that  would make  him
forget his responsibilities and allow his soul some repose.
    Proceed with Trinity,he  thought to himself  at last, focusing  on
the true cause of  his disquiet. What exactly  did that mean? Use  the
teleoperator forklifts, open  up the containers,  pick up the  weapons
(they were about the size of refrigerators), check out the subsystems,
put the bombs in a pod, carry  them over to the Rama seal, ferry  them
to the heavy load elevator . . .
    And what else?he thought.  One more thing.  It wouldn't take  much
more than  a  minute at  each  weapon, but  it  was by  far  the  most
important. Each bomb had a redundant pair of tiny numerical  keyboards
on its side. He and Admiral Heilmann each had to use the keyboards  to
input a special sequence of digits,  an RQ code it was called,  before
the weapons could be  activated. Without those  codes the bombs  would
remain absolutely dormant, forever. The original debates over  whether
or not  to  include  nuclear  weapons in  the  limited  Newton  supply
manifest had echoed through the corridors of COG military headquarters
in Amsterdam for several  weeks. The ensuing vote  had been close.  It
was decided that the  Newton would carry the  nuclear weapons, but  to
alky widespread concerns  it was  also decided  to implement  rigorous
safety measures that would guard against their unwarranted use.
    During these same  meetings, the COG  military leadership  avoided
public outcry by placing a top secret classification on the fact  that
the Newton was transporting nuclear bombs to its rendezvous with Rama.
Not even the civilian members of  the Newton crew had been told  about
the existence of the weapons.
    The secret  working group  on Trinity  safety procedures  had  met
seven times at four different locations around the world prior to  the
Newton launch.  To  make the  deployment  process immune  to  untoward
electronic inputs,  manual action  had been  chosen as  the method  of
activation for  the nuclear  weapons. Thus  neither a  lunatic on  the
Earth nor  a frightened  cosmonaut  on the  Newton could  trigger  the
process with a  simple electronic  command. The current  COG chief  of
staff,  a  brilliant  but   passionless  disciplinarian  named   Kazuo
Norimoto,  had  expressed  concern  that  without  electronic  command
capability the military was unduly dependent upon the humans  selected
for the  mission. He  had been  persuaded, however,  that it  was  far
better to depend on the Newton military officers than to worry about a
terrorist or  fanatic somehow  gaining  possession of  the  activation
code.
    But what if  one of the  Newton military officers  were seized  by
panic? How could the system be  protected against a unilateral act  of
nuclear warfare  by  a crew  member?  When all  the  discussions  were
completed, the resultant  safety system was  relatively simple.  There
would be three military officers in the crew. Each of them would  have
an RQ code known only to himself. Manual input of any two of the  long
numerical sequences would arm the nuclear devices. The system was thus
protected against either a recalcitrant  officer or a frightened  one.
It sounded like a foolproof system.
    But our current situation was never considered in the  contingency
analyses,O'Toole thought as  he lay  in his  bed.In the  event of  any
dangerous action, either military or civilian, each of us was supposed
to designate  an alternate  to  leant our  code.  But who  would  have
thought that an  appendectomy was  dangerous? Valeriy's  RQ died  with
him. Which means the system now requires two for two.
    O'Toole rolled over on  his stomach and  pressed his face  against
the pillow. He  now clearly  understood why  he was  still awake.If  I
don't input  my code  those  bombs cannot  be  used. He  remembered  a
luncheon on the military  ship with Valeriy  Borzov and Otto  Heilmann
during the leisurely cruise toward Rama. "It's a perfect set of checks
and balances," the Soviet  general had joked,  "and probably played  a
role in our individual selections. Otto would pull the trigger at  the
slightest  provocation  and  you,  Michael,  would  agonize  over  its
morality even if your life were threatened. I'm the tiebreaker."
    But you are dead,General O'Toole said to himself,and we have  been
ordered to activate the bombs. He rose from the bed and walked over to
his desk. As he had  done all his life  when facing a tough  decision,
O’Toole pulled a small  electronic notebook from  his pocket and  made
two short lists, one summarizing the reasons for following his  orders
to destroy Rama and the other presenting arguments against it. He  had
no strictly  logical reasons  to  oppose the  destruction  command-the
giant vehicle was  probably a lifeless  machine, his three  colleagues
were almost certainly dead, and there was a nontrivial implied  threat
to the Earth. But still  O’Toole hesitated. There was something  about
committing  such   a  flagrantly   hostile  act   that  offended   his
sensibilities.
    He returned to his  bed and rolled over  on his back.Dear God,  he
prayed, staring at the ceiling,how can  I possibly know what is  right
in this situation? Please show me the way.
    Only thirty seconds after his morning alarm, Otto Heilmann heard a
soft knock on his door. General  O’Toole walked in moments later.  The
American was already dressed for the day. "You're up early,  Michael,"
Admiral Heilmann said, fumbling for  his morning coffee that had  been
automatically heating for five minutes already.
    "I wanted to talk to you," O’Toole said pleasantly. He courteously
waited for Heilmann to pick up his coffee packet.
    "What is it?" the admiral asked.
    "I want you to call off the meeting this morning."
    "Why?" Heilmann replied. "We need some assistance from the rest of
the crew, as you and I discussed last night. The longer we wait to get
started, the more chance we will delay our departure."
    "I'm not ready just yet," O’Toole said.
    Admiral Hermann's  brow furrowed.  He  took a  long sip  from  his
coffee and studied his companion. "I see," he said quietly. "And  what
else is needed before you will be ready?"
    "I  want  to  talk  to  someone,  General  Norimoto  perhaps,   to
understand why we are destroying Rama.  I know you and I talked  about
it yesterday, but I  want to hear the  reasons from the person  giving
the order."
    "It  is  a  military  officer's  duty  to  follow  orders.  Asking
questions could be viewed as a disciplinary breach-"
    "I understand all that, Otto,"  O’Toole interrupted, "but this  is
not a battlefield  situation. I  am not  refusing to  comply with  the
order. 1 just  want to be  certain . .  ." His voice  trailed off  and
O’Toole stared off in the distance.
    "Certain of what?" Heilmann asked.
    O’Toole took  a deep  breath. "Certain  that I'm  doing the  right
thing."
    A video conference with Norimoto was arranged and the Newton  crew
meeting was  delayed.  Since  it  was  the  middle  of  the  night  in
Amsterdam, it was some time  before the encoded transmission could  be
translated and presented  to the COG  chief of staff.  In his  typical
manner, General Norimoto then requested several more hours to  prepare
his response, so that he could obtain "staff consensus" on what he was
going to say to O’Toole.
    The general  and Admiral  Heilmann were  sitting together  in  the
Newton military  control center  when the  transmission from  Norimoto
began. General Norimoto was dressed  in his full military uniform.  He
did not  smile when  he greeted  the Newton  officers. He  put on  his
glasses and read from a prepared text.
    "General  O’Toole,  we  have  carefully  reviewed  the   questions
contained in your last transmission.  All your concerns were  included
on the issues list that was discussed here on Earth before we  reached
the decision  to proceed  with Trinity.  Under the  unique  provisions
contained in the ISA-COG operating protocols, you and the other Newton
military  personnel  are  temporarily   part  of  my  special   staff;
therefore,  I  am  your  commanding  officer.  The  message  that  was
transmitted to you should be treated as an order."
    General  Norimoto   managed   just   a   glimmer   of   a   smile.
"Nevertheless," he continued reading, "because of the significance  of
the action contained in your order and your obvious concern about  its
repercussions, we have prepared  three summary statements that  should
help you to understand our decision:
    "One: We do not know  if Rama is hostile  or friendly. We have  no
way of obtaining additional data to resolve the issue.
    "Two: Rama  is hurtling  toward Earth.  It might  impact our  home
planet, take hostile action once it's in our neighborhood, or  perform
benign activities that we can't define.
    "Three: By implementing  Trinity when  Rama is still  ten or  more
days away, we can  guarantee the safety of  the planet, regardless  of
Rama's intentions or future actions."
    The general paused for the briefest of moments. "That is all,"  he
then concluded. "Proceed with Trinity."
    The screen  went  black,  "Are you  satisfied?"  Admiral  Heilmann
asked.
    "I guess so/' O’Toole  said with a sigh.  "I didn't hear  anything
new, but I shouldn't have expected anything else."
    Admiral Heilmann  looked at  his watch.  "We've wasted  almost  an
entire day," he said. "Should we have the crew meeting after dinner?"
    "I'd rather not," O’Toole replied. "This episode has exhausted  me
and I hardly slept  at all last  night. I'd prefer  to wait until  the
morning."
    "All right," Heilmann said after a pause. He stood up and put  his
arm on  O’Toole's  shoulder.  "We'll get  started  first  thing  after
breakfast."
    In the morning General O’Toole  did not attend the scheduled  crew
meeting. He phoned Heilmann and asked the admiral to proceed with  the
discussion without him. O’Toole's  excuse was that  he had a  "vicious
stomach upset." He  doubted if  Admiral Heilmann  really believed  his
explanation, but it didn't really matter.
    O’Toole watched and listened to  the meeting on the video  monitor
in his room, never interrupting or adding to the proceedings. None  of
the other cosmonauts seemed particularly surprised that the Newton was
carrying a nuclear arsenal. Heilmann did a thorough job of  explaining
what was to be done. He enlisted  the help of Yamanaka and Tabori,  as
he and O’Toole had discussed, and  outlined a sequence of events  that
would be complete with the weapons deployed inside Rama in seventy-two
hours. That would  leave the crew  another three days  to prepare  for
departure.
    "When will the bombs detonate?" Janos Tabori asked nervously after
Admiral Heilmann was finished.
    "They will  be set  to  explode sixty  hours after  our  scheduled
departure. According to the analytical models, we should be out of the
debris field in twelve hours, but for safety we have specified, in our
procedure, that the  weapons will  not be  exploded unless  we are  at
least twenty-four hours away. ... If our departure is delayed  because
of some  crisis,  we  can  always overwrite  the  detonation  time  by
electronic command."
    "That's reassuring" Janos remarked.
    "Any more questions?" Heilmann asked.
    "Just one,"  Janos said.  "As long  as we're  inside Rama  putting
these things in their proper locations,  I assume that it's all  right
if we  look  around  for  our  lost  friends.  In  case  they  may  be
wandering-"
    "The timeline  is  very  tight,  Cosmonaut  Tabori,"  the  admiral
replied, "and the deployment itself, inside the structure, only  takes
a few  hours.  Unfortunately,  due  to  our  delays  in  starting  the
procedure, we will  place the  weapons in  their designated  positions
during the time that Rama is dark."
    Great,O’Toole thought in his  room,that's something else that  can
be blamed on me. All in all, though, he felt that Admiral Heilmann had
handled the meeting very well,ft -was nice of Otto not to say anything
about the code,  O’Toole told  himself.He probably  figures I'll  come
around. And he's probably right.
    When O’Toole woke up from a short nap it was past lunchtime and he
had a ravenous appetite.  There was nobody in  the dining room  except
Francesca Sabatini; she  was finishing  her coffee  and studying  some
kind of engineering data on a nearby computer monitor.
    "Feeling better, Michael?" she said when she saw him.
    He nodded. "What are you reading?" O’Toole asked.
    "I'm looking at the executive software manual," Francesca replied.
"David is very concerned that without Wakefield we won't even know  if
the Newton software is  working properly or not.  I'm learning how  to
read the self-test diagnostic output."
    "Whew," O’Toole whistled. "That's pretty heavy for a journalist."
    "It's really not that complicated/'  Francesca said with a  laugh.
"And it's  extremely logical.  Maybe  in my  next  career I'll  be  an
engineer."
    O’Toole made himself a sandwich, picked up a package of milk,  and
joined Francesca  at  the  table.  She put  a  hand  on  his  forearm.
"Speaking of  next careers,  Michael, have  you given  any thought  to
yours?"
    He looked at her quizzically, "What are you talking about?"
    "I'm trapped in the usual professional dilemma, my dear friend. My
duties as a journalist are in direct conflict with my feelings."
    O’Toole stopped chewing. "Heilmann told you?"
    She nodded.  "I'm not  stupid,  Michael. I  would have  found  out
sooner or  later. And  this is  a big,  big story.  Maybe one  of  the
biggest of the mission. Can't you see the trailer on the nightly news?
'American general refuses to follow order to destroy Rama. Tune in  at
five.'"
    The general  became defensive.  "I  haven't refused.  The  Trinity
procedure does  not call  for me  to  input my  code until  after  the
weapons are out of the containers-"
    "-and ready for placement in the pods," Francesca finished. "Which
is about eighteen hours from now.  Tomorrow morning, as near as I  can
figure. ... I plan to  be on hand to  record the historic event."  She
rose from the table, "And Michael, in case you're wondering, I haven't
mentioned your call to Norimoto in any  of my reports. I may refer  to
your conversation with him in my memoirs, but I won't publish them for
at least five years "
    Francesca turned and  looked directly in  O’Toole's eyes.  "You're
about to crap in your mess kit,  my friend. You will go from being  an
international hero to a bum  overnight. I hope you've considered  your
decision very very carefully."^
    55THE VOICE OF MICHAEL
    General O’Toole spent the afternoon  in his room, watching on  the
video monitor as Tabori and Yamanaka checked out the nuclear  weapons.
He was excused, on the basis  of his presumed stomach upset, from  his
assigned task of checking out the weapon subsystems. The procedure was
surprisingly straightforward;  no one  would have  suspected that  the
cosmonauts were initiating  an activity designed  to destroy the  most
impressive work of engineering ever seen by humans.
    Before dinner O’Toole placed  a call to his  wife. The Newton  was
rapidly  approaching  the  Earth  now  and  the  delay  time   between
transmission and  reception  was under  three  minutes.  Old-fashioned
two-way conversations were even possible.  His talk with Kathleen  was
cordial and mundane. General O’Toole thought briefly about sharing his
moral dilemma with his wife, but  he realized that the videophone  was
not secure  and decided  against it,  They both  expressed  excitement
about being reunited again in the very near future.
    The general ate  dinner with  the crew. Janos  was in  one of  his
boisterous moods,  entertaining  the  others with  stories  about  his
afternoon with "the bullets,"  as he insisted  on calling the  nuclear
bombs. "At one point," Janos said to Francesca, who had been  laughing
nonstop since his  narrative began,  "we had all  the bullets  lightly
anchored to the floor and lined up  in a row, like dominoes. I  scared
the shit out of  Yamanaka. I pushed  the front one  over and they  all
fell, clang,  bang, in  every direction.  Hiro was  certain they  were
going to explode."
    "Weren't  you  worried  that   you  might  injure  some   critical
components?" David Brown asked.
    "Nope," Janos replied. "The  manuals that Otto  gave me said  that
you couldn't hurt those things if you dropped them from the top of the
Trump Tower. Besides," he added,  "they aren't even armed yet.  Right,
Herr Admiral?"
    Heilmann nodded  and Janos  launched into  another story.  General
O’Toole drifted away,  into his own  mind, struggling impossibly  with
the relationship between those metal objects in the military ship  and
the mushroom-shaped cloud in the Pacific. . . .
    Francesca interrupted his  reverie. "You  have an  urgent call  on
your private line, Michael," she said. "President Bothwell will be  on
in five minutes."
    The conversation at the table  stopped. "Well," said Janos with  a
grin, "you must be some special  person. It's not just everybody  that
receives a call from Slugger Bothwell."
    General O’Toole excused himself politely  from the table and  went
to his room.He must know, he was thinking as he waited impatiently for
the call to connect.But  of course. He's the  president of the  United
States.
    O’Toole had  always been  a baseball  fan and  his favorite  team,
naturally enough,  was the  Boston  Red Sox.  Baseball had  gone  into
receivership at the  height of  The Great Chaos,  in 2141,  but a  new
group of owners had put the leagues back in business four years later.
When Michael was six, in 2148, his father had taken him to Fenway Dome
to watch a game between the Red Sox and the Havana Hurricanes. It  was
the beginning of a lifelong love affair for O’Toole.
    Sherman Bothwell  had  been  a  left-handed,  power-hitting  first
baseman for the Red Sox between  2172 and 2187. He had been  immensely
popular.  A  Missouri   boy  by   birth,  his   genuine  modesty   and
old-fashioned dedication to hard work  were as exceptional as the  527
home runs he had  hit during his sixteen  years in the major  leagues.
During the last year of his baseball career, Bothwell's wife had  died
in a  terrible boating  accident. Sherman's  uncomplaining courage  in
facing the responsibility of raising  his children as a single  parent
was applauded in every American home.
    Three years  later,  when  he married  Linda  Black,  the  darling
daughter of the governor of Texas, it was obvious to many people  that
old Sherman had a  political career in mind.  He advanced through  the
ranks with great speed. First  lieutenant governor, then governor  and
presidential hopeful. He was elected to the White House by a landslide
in 2196; it was anticipated that he would soundly defeat the Christian
Conservative candidate in the forthcoming general election of 2200.
    "Hello, General  O'Toole,"  the man  in  the blue  suit  with  the
friendly smile said  when the  screen was  no longer  blank. "This  is
Sherman Bothwell, your president."
    The president was  using no  notes. He  was leaning  forward in  a
simple chair, his elbows resting on his thighs and his hands folded in
front of him.  He was  talking as if  he were  sitting beside  General
O'Toole in someone's cozy living room.
    "I have been following your Newton mission with great  interest-as
has everybody in  my family,  including Linda and  the four  kids-ever
since you launched.  But I  have beenespecially  attentive these  last
several weeks, as  the tragedies have  rained down upon  you and  your
courageous colleagues. My, my. Who would have ever thought that such a
thing as that Rama ship could exist? It is truly staggering . . .
    "Anyway, I understand from our COG representatives that the  order
has been given to destroy Rama.  Now, I know that decisions like  that
are not made lightly, and that it places quite a large  responsibility
on folks  like  yourself. Nevertheless,  I'm  certain it's  the  right
action.
    "Yessirree, I  know  it's  correct. Why,  you  know,  my  daughter
Courtney- that's  the  eight-year-old-she  wakes  up  with  nightmares
almost every  night. We  were watching  when you  all were  trying  to
capture thatbiot, the  one that  looked like a  crab, and  my, it  was
positively  awful.  Now,  Courtney   knows-it's  been  all  over   the
television-that Rama  is  headingdirectly for  the  Earth and  she  is
really scared. Terrified. She thinks the whole country will be overrun
by those crab things and that she and all her friends will be  chopped
up just like journalist Wilson.
    "I'm telling you all this, General, because I know you're facing a
big decision. And I've heard on the grapevine that you may be hesitant
to destroy that humongous spacecraft and all its wonders. But General,
I've told Courtney about you. I've told her that you and your crew are
going to blow Rama  to smithereens long before  it reaches the  Earth,
"That's why 1 called. To tell you that I'm counting on you. And so  is
Courtney."
    General O'Toole had  thought, before listening  to the  president,
that he might take advantage of the call and lay his dilemma in  front
of the leader of  the American people. He  had imagined that he  might
even question  Slugger Bothwell  about the  nature of  a species  that
destroys to protect against an  unlikely downside risk. But after  the
practically perfect short speech from the ex-6rst baseman, O'Toole had
nothing to say. After all,  how could he refuse  to respond to such  a
plea? All the Courtney Bothwells on the entire planet were counting on
him.
    After sleeping for five hours  O'Toole awakened at three  o'clock.
He was aware  that the most  important action of  his life was  facing
him. It seemed  to him  that everything  he had  done-his career,  his
religious studies, even his  family activities-had been preparing  him
for this moment. God had trusted  him with a monumental decision.  But
what did God  want him to  do? His forehead  broke out in  a sweat  as
O'Toole knelt before the image of  Jesus on the cross that was  behind
his desk.
    Dear Lord,he said, clasping his hands earnestly,my hour approaches
and I still do not  see Thy will clearly. It  would be so easy for  me
just to  follow my  orders and  do what  everyone wants.  Is that  Thy
desire? How can I know for certain?
    Michael O'Toole closed  his eyes  and prayed for  guidance with  a
fervor surpassing any he  had ever felt previously.  As he prayed,  he
recalled another time, years  before, when he had  been a young  pilot
working as  part  of  a temporary  peacekeeping  force  in  Guatemala.
O'Toole and his men had awakened  one morning to find their small  air
base in the jungle completely surrounded by the right-wing  terrorists
that were trying to bring  the fledgling democratic government to  its
knees. The  subversives  wanted the  planes.  In exchange  they  would
guarantee safe passage to O'Toole and his men.
    Major O'Toole had  taken fifteen  minutes to  deliberate and  pray
before deciding to fight it out. In the ensuing battle the planes were
destroyed and almost half his men were killed, but his symbolic  stand
against terrorism  emboldened the  young  government and  many  others
throughout Central  America at  a time  when the  poor countries  were
struggling desperately  to  overcome the  ravages  of two  decades  of
depression. O'Toole had been awarded  the Order of Merit, the  highest
COG military accolade, for his exploits in Guatemala.
    Onboard the Newton years later, General O’Toole's decision process
was much less straightforward.  In Guatemala the  young major had  not
had any  questions about  the morality  of his  actions His  order  to
destroy Rama, however, was altogether different. In O’Toole's opinion,
the alien  ship  had  not  taken any  overtly  bellicose  actions.  In
addition, he knew that the order  was based primarily on two  factors:
fear of what Ramamight do and the uproar of xenophobic public opinion.
Historically,  both   fear  and   public  opinion   were   notoriously
unconcerned about morality. If somehow he could learn what Rama's true
purpose was, then he could . , .
    Below the painting of Jesus  on the desk in  his room was a  small
statue of a young man  with curly hair and  wide eyes. This figure  of
St. Michael of Siena had accompanied  O’Toole on every journey he  had
made since his  marriage to Kathleen.  Seeing the statue  gave him  an
idea. General O’Toole reached into one of the desk drawers and  pulled
out an  electronic template.  He switched  on the  power, checked  the
template menu, and accessed a concordance indexing the sermons of  St.
Michael.
    Under the  word "Rama,"  the  general found  a host  of  different
references in the concordance. The one that he was looking for was the
only one  marked in  a  bold font.  That  specific reference  was  the
saint's famous "Rama  sermon," delivered in  camp to a  group of  five
thousand of Michael's  neophytes three weeks  before the holocaust  in
Rome. O’Toole began to read.
    "As the topic for my talk to  you today, I am going to address  an
issue raised by Sister Judy in  our council, namely what is the  basis
for my  statement that  the  extraterrestrial spacecraft  called  Rama
might well have been  the first announcement of  the second coming  of
Christ. Understand that at this point  I have had no clear  revelation
one way  or the  other; God  has, however,  suggested to  me that  the
heralds of Christ's next coming will  have to be extraordinary or  the
people on  Earth  will not  notice.  A  simple angel  or  two  blowing
trumpets in the heavens won't suffice. The heralds must do things that
are truly spectacular to engage attention,
    "There is a precedent, established in the old testament prophecies
foretelling  the   coming  of   Jesus,  of   prophetic   announcements
originating in the heavens. Elijah's chariot was the Rama of its time.
It was, technologically speaking, as much beyond the understanding  of
its observers  as Rama  is today.  In that  sense there  is a  certain
conforming pattern, a  symmetry that  is not  inconsistent with  God's
order.
    "But what I think is most  hopeful about the arrival of the  first
Rama spacecraft eight years ago-and I  say first because I am  certain
there will be others-is that it forces humanity to think of itself  in
an extraterrestrial perspective. Too often we limit our concept of God
and, by implication, our own spirituality. We belong to the  universe.
We are its children. It's just  pure chance that our atoms have  risen
to consciousness here on this particular planet.
    "Rama forces us to think of  ourselves, and God, as beings of  the
universe. It is a tribute to His intelligence that He has sent such  a
herald at this  moment. For  as I  have told  you many  times, we  are
overdue for our final evolution, our recognition that the entire human
race is  but a  single organism.  The appearance  of Rama  is  another
signal that it is time for us to change our ways and begin that  final
evolution."
    General O’Toole put down the template and rubbed his eyes. He  had
read the sermon before-right before his meeting with the pope in Rome,
in fact -but somehow it had not  seemed as significant then as it  did
now.So which are you, Rama?  he thought.A threat to Courtney  Bothwell
or a herald of Christ's second coming?
    During  the  hour  before  breakfast  General  O’Toole  was  still
vacillating. He genuinely  did not  know what his  decision would  be.
Weighing heavily  upon him  was the  fact that  he had  been given  an
explicit order by his commanding officer. O’Toole was well aware  that
he had sworn, when he had received his commission, not only to  follow
orders, but also to protect the Courtney Bothwells of the planet.  Did
he have any evidence that this particular order was so immoral that he
should abrogate his oath?
    As long as he thought  of Rama as only a  machine, it was not  too
difficult for  General O’Toole  to  countenance its  destruction.  His
action would not,  after all, kill  any Ramans. But  what was it  that
Wakefield had  said?  That  the  Raman  spaceship  was  probably  more
intelligent than  any  living  creatures  on  Earth,  including  human
beings? And  shouldn't superior  machine intelligence  have a  special
place among God's creations, perhaps even above lower life forms?
    Eventually General O’Toole succumbed to fatigue. He simply had  no
energy left  to deal  with the  unending stream  of questions  without
answers. He  reluctantly  decided to  cease  his internal  debate  and
prepared to implement his orders.
    His first  action was  to  rememorize his  RQ code,  the  specific
string of fifty integers between zero and nine that was known only  by
him and  the  processors  inside  the  nuclear  weapons.  O’Toole  had
personally entered  his code  and checked  that it  had been  properly
stored in  each of  the weapons  before the  Newton mission  had  been
launched from Earth.  The string of  digits was long  to minimize  the
probability of its being duplicated by a repetitive, electronic search
routine. Each of the  Newton military officers  had been counseled  to
derive a sequence  that met two  criteria: The code  should be  almost
impossible to forget and should not be something straightforward, like
all the  phone numbers  in the  family, that  an outside  party  might
figure out easily from the personnel files.
    For sentimental reasons, O’Toole had wanted nine of the numbers in
his code to be his birthdate, 3-29-42, and the birthdate of his  wife,
2-7-46. He knew that any decryption specialist would immediately  look
for such  obvious selections,  so  the general  resolved to  hide  the
birthdates in the  fifty digits.  But what about  the other  forty-one
digits? That particular number, forty-one, had intrigued O’Toole  ever
since a beer and pizza party during his sophomore year at MIT. One  of
his associates then, a brilliant  young number theorist whose name  he
had long  forgotten, had  told  O'Toole in  the  middle of  a  drunken
discussion that  forty-one was  a "very  special number,  the  initial
integer in the longest continuous string of quadratic primes."
    O'Toole never fully  comprehended what  exactly was  meant by  the
expression "quadratic  prime." However,  he  did understand,  and  was
fascinated by, the fact that the string 41, 43,47, 53, 61, 71,  83,97,
where each successive number was computed by increasing the difference
from the previous number by two, resulted in exactly forty consecutive
prime numbers. The sequence of primes ended only when the  forty-first
number in the string  turned out to  be a nonprime, namely  41 X 41  =
1681. This little known piece  of information O'Toole had shared  only
one time  in his  life,  with his  wife  Kathleen on  her  forty-first
birthday, and he had received such  a lackluster response that he  had
never told anybody about it again,
    But it  was  perfect  for  his secret  code,  particularly  if  he
disguised it  properly.  To  build  his  fifty-digit  number,  General
O'Toole first constructed a sequence of forty-one digits, each  coming
from the sum of the first two digits in the corresponding term in  the
special quadratic prime sequence beginning  with 41. Thus "5" was  the
initial digit, representing 41, followed by "7" for 43, "1" for 47  (4
+ 7 = 11 and then truncate),  "8" for 53, etc. O'Toole next  scattered
the numbers of the two birthdates using an inverse Fibonacci  sequence
(34, 21,13,8, 5,  3, 2,1,1) to  define the locations  of the nine  new
integers in the original forty-one-digit string.
    It was not easy to commit the sequence to memory, but the  general
did not want to write it down and carry it with him to the  activation
process. If his code were written down, then anyone could use it, with
or without his  permission, and his  option to change  his mind  again
would be  precluded. Once  he had  rememorized the  sequence,  O’Toole
destroyed all his  computations and went  to the dining  room to  have
breakfast with the rest of the cosmonauts.
    "Here's a copy  of my code  for you, Franceses,  and one for  you,
Irina, and the final one goes to Hiro Yamanaka. Sorry, Janos," Admiral
Heilmann said with  a big smile,  "but I'm all  out of bullets.  Maybe
General O'Toole will let you enter his code into one of the bombs."
    "It's all right, Herr Admiral," Janos said wryly. "Some privileges
in life I can do without."
    Heilmann was making a big production out of activating the nuclear
weapons, He had had his fifty-digit number printed out multiple  times
and had enjoyed explaining to the  other cosmonauts how clever he  had
been in the conception of his code. Now, with uncharacteristic  flair,
he was allowing the rest of the crew to participate in the process.
    Franceses loved it. It was definitely good television. It occurred
to O’Toole that  Francesca had  probably suggested such  a staging  to
Heilmann, but the general  didn't spend much  time thinking about  it.
O'Toole was  too busy  being astonished  by how  calm he  himself  had
become. After his long and agonizing soul-searching, he was apparently
going to perform his duty without qualms.
    Admiral Heilmann became confused during  the entering of his  code
(he admitted that he was nervous) and temporarily lost track of  where
he was  in  his  sequence.  The system  designers  had  foreseen  this
possibility and had installed two lights, one green and one red, right
above the numerical  keyboards on the  side of the  bomb. After  every
tenth digit one of the two lights would illuminate, indicating whether
or not the previous decade of code was a successful match. The  safety
committee had expressed concern that this "extra" feature  compromised
the system (it would be easier to decrypt five ten-digit strings  than
one fifty-digit string), but repeated human engineering tests prior to
launch had shown that the lights were necessary.
    At the end of his second decade of digits, Heilmann was greeted by
the flashing  red light.  'I've done  something wrong,"  he said,  his
embarrassment obvious.
    "Louder," shouted Francesca  from where she  was filming. She  had
neatly framed  the ceremony  so that  both the  weapons and  the  pods
appeared in the picture.
    "I've made  a mistake,"  Admiral  Heilmann proclaimed.  "All  this
noise has distracted me. I must wait thirty seconds before I can start
again."
    After Heilmann  had successfully  completed  his code,  Dr.  Brown
entered the activation  code on  the second weapon.  He seemed  almost
bored; certainly he didn't push the keyboard with anything approaching
enthusiasm. Irina Turgenyev activated the third bomb. She madea  short
but passionate comment underscoring her belief that the destruction of
Rama was absolutely essential
    Neither  Hiro  Yamanaka  nor  Francesca  said  anything  at   all.
Francesca, however, did  impress the  rest of  the crew  by doing  her
first thirty digits from memory.  Considering that she had  supposedly
never seen Hermann's  code until  an hour  earlier, and  had not  been
alone for  more  than two  minutes  since  then, her  feat  was  quite
remarkable.
    Next it was General O’Toole's turn. Smiling comfortably, he walked
easily up to the  first weapon. The  other cosmonauts applauded,  both
showing their respect for the general and acknowledging his  struggle.
He asked everyone please to be quiet, explaining that he had committed
his whole sequence to memory. Then O’Toole entered the first decade of
digits.
    He stopped  for a  second  as the  green  light flashed.  In  that
instant an image flashed into his mind  of one of the frescoes on  the
second floor of the shrine  of St. Michael in Rome.  A young man in  a
blue robe, his eyes uplifted to the heavens, was standing on the steps
of  the  Victor  Emmanuel  Monument,  preaching  to  an   appreciative
multitude. General O’Toole beard a  voice, loudly and distinctly.  The
voice said "No."
    The general spun  around quickly. "Did  anybody say anything?"  he
said, staring  at  the  other  cosmonauts.  They  shook  their  heads.
Befuddled, O’Toole turned back to the  bomb. He tried to remember  the
second decade of digits. But it was  no good. His heart was racing  at
breakneck speed. His mind  kept saying, over  and over again,What  was
that voice? His resolve to perform his duty had vanished.
    Michael O’Toole  took  a deep  breath,  turned around  again,  and
walked across the huge bay. When  he passed his stunned colleagues  he
heard Admiral Heilmann yell, "What are you doing?"
    "I'm going to my room/' O’Toole said without breaking stride.
    "Aren't you going to  activate the bombs?"  Dr. Brown said  behind
him.
    "No," replied General O’Toole. "At least not yet"
    56AN ANSWERED PRAYER
    General O’Toole stayed in  his room the rest  of the day.  Admiral
Heilmann dropped by about an hour after O’Toole's failure to enter his
code. After some meaningless small talk (Heilmann was terrible at that
sort of thing), the admiral asked the all-important question.
    "Are you ready to proceed with the activation?"
    O’Toole shook his head. "I thought I was this morning, Otto, but .
. ." There was no need for him to say anything more.
    Heilmann rose from his chair.  "I've given orders for Yamanaka  to
take the first two bullets to  the passageway inside Rama. They'll  be
there by dinner if you change your mind. The other three will be  left
in the bay for the time being." He stared at his colleague for several
seconds. "1  hope you  come to  your senses  before too  much  longer,
Michael. We're already in deep trouble at headquarters."
    When Francesca came  in with her  camera two hours  later, it  was
clear from her choice of words  that the attitude toward the  general,
at  least  among  the  remaining  cosmonauts,  was  that  O’Toole  was
suffering from  acute nervous  tension. He  wasn't being  defiant.  He
wasn't making a  statement. None of  the rest of  the crew could  have
tolerated those  alternatives,  because they  would  all look  bad  by
association. No, it was  obvious that there  was something wrong  with
his nerves.
    "I've told everyone not to bother you with calls," Francesca  said
compassionately as she  glanced around the  room, her television  mind
already framing the images of  the coming interview. "The phones  have
been ringing like crazy,  especially since 1 sent  down the tape  from
this morning." She walked  over to his desk,  checking the objects  on
its top. "Is this Michael of  Siena?" Francesca asked, picking up  the
small statue.
    O’Toole managed a wan smile. "Yes," he said. "And I think you know
the man on the cross in the picture."
    "Very well," Francesca  replied. "Very  well indeed. .  . .  Look,
Michael, you know what's  coming. I would like  for this interview  to
paint you in the best possible light. Not that I'm going to treat  you
with kid gloves, you understand, but I want to make certain that those
wolves down there hear your side of the story-"
    "They're already screaming for my hide?" O’Toole interrupted.
    "Oh, yes," she answered. "And it  will get much worse. The  longer
you delay activating the bombs, the more wrath will be aimed at you."
    "But why?" O’Toole protested. "I  haven't committed a crime.  I've
simply delayed activating a weapon whose destructive power exceeds-"
    "That's irrelevant," Francesca retorted, "Intheir eyes you haven't
done your  job, namely  to protect  the people  on the  planet  Earth.
They're frightened. They  don't understand  all this  extraterrestrial
crap. They've been  told that Rama  will be destroyed  and now  you've
refused to remove their nightmares."
    "Nightmares," mumbled O’Toole, "that's what Bothwell-"
    "What about President Bothwell?" inquired Francesca.
    "Oh, nothing,"  he said.  He looked  away from  her probing  eyes.
"What else?" O’Toole asked impatiently.
    "As I was saying,  I want you  to look as  good as possible.  Comb
your hair again and put  on a fresh uniform,  not a flight suit.  I'll
daub a little makeup on your face  so you don't look washed out."  She
returned to the  desk. "We'll place  your family photos  in full  view
next to Jesus and Michael. Think carefully about what you're going  to
say. Of course I'll  ask why you failed  to activate the weapons  this
morning."
    Francesca walked over and put her hand on O'Toole's shoulder.  "In
my introduction I will have suggested that you've been under a strain.
I don't  want to  put words  in  your mouth,  but admitting  a  little
weakness will probably play well. Particularly in your country."
    General O’Toole squirmed while Francesca finished the preparations
for the interview. "Do I have to do this?" he asked, becoming more and
more uncomfortable as the journalist essentially rearranged his room.
    "Only if you want  anybody to think  you're not Benedict  Arnold,"
was her curt reply.
    Janos came in to  visit just before  dinner. "Your interview  with
Francesca was very  good," he lied.  "At least you  raised some  moral
issues that all of us should consider."
    "It was  dumb of  me to  bring up  all that  philosophical  crap,"
O’Toole fretted. "I should have followed Francesca's advice and blamed
everything on my fatigue."
    "Well, Michael," said Janos, "what's  done is done. I didn't  come
in here to review the events of the day. I'm certain you've done  that
plenty of times  already. I  came in  here to see  if I  could be  any
help."
    "I don't think so,  Janos," he replied. "But  I do appreciate  the
thought."
    There was a long hiatus in the conversation. At length Janos stood
up and  shuffled toward  the door.  "What  do you  do now?"  he  asked
quietly.
    "I wish I  knew," O’Toole answered.  "I don't seem  to be able  to
come up with a plan."
    The combined Rama-Newton spacecraft continued to hurtle toward the
Earth. With each passing  day the Rama threat  loomed greater, a  huge
cylinder moving at hyperbolic speed toward what would be a  calamitous
impact if no new midcourse corrections were made. The estimated  crash
point was in the state of Tamil Nadu, in south India, not far from the
city of  Madurai. Physicists  were on  the network  news every  night,
explaining what could be expected.  "Shock waves" and "ejecta"  became
terms bandied about at dinner parties.
    Michael O’Toole was  vilified by the  global press. Francesca  had
been right. The American general became  the focus of a world's  fury.
There were  even suggestions  that he  should be  court-martialed  and
executed, onboard  the Newton,  for his  failure to  follow orders.  A
lifetime of important accomplishments  and selfless contributions  was
forgotten. Kathleen O’Toole was forced  to leave the family  apartment
in Boston and take refuge with a friend in Maine.
    The general was tortured  by his indecision. He  knew that he  was
doing irreparable damage to his family  and his career by his  failure
to activate the  weapons. But each  time he convinced  himself he  was
ready to execute the order, that loud and resounding "No" echoed again
in his ears.
    O'Toole was only marginally coherent  in his final interview  with
Francesca, the day before  the scientific ship left  to return to  the
Earth. She asked some very  tough questions. When Francesca asked  him
why, if Rama  were going to  orbit the Earth,  it had not  yet made  a
deflection maneuver, the  general perked up  momentarily and  reminded
her that aerobraking-dissipating energy in the atmosphere as  heat-was
the most efficient method of  achieving orbit around a planetary  body
with an atmosphere.  But when  she gave him  a chance  to amplify  his
statement, to  discuss  how  Rama might  reconfigure  itself  to  have
aerodynamic surfaces, O’Toole did  not answer. He  just stared at  her
distractedly.
    O’Toole came out of his room for the final dinner the night before
Brown, Sabatini, Tabori, and Turgenyev departed for home. His presence
spoiled the last supper. Irina was extremely nasty to him,  upbraiding
the general venomously, and refusing to  sit at the same table.  David
Brown  ignored  him  altogether,   choosing  instead  to  discuss   in
excruciating  detail  the  laboratory  being  designed  in  Texas   to
accommodate the  captured crab  biot. Only  Francesca and  Janos  were
friendly, so General O’Toole returned  to his room right after  dinner
without formally saying good-bye to anyone.
    The next morning, less than an hour after the scientific ship  had
left, O’Toole buzzed Admiral Heilmann and asked for a meeting. "So you
have finally changed your  mind?" the German  said excitedly when  the
general entered his  office. "Good. It's  not too late  yet It's  only
1-12 days. If we hurry we can still detonate the bombs at 1-9."
    "I'm getting closer,  Otto," O’Toole replied,  "but I'm not  there
yet. I've been thinking about all  this very carefully. There are  two
things I would still like  to do. I'd like  to talk to Pope  John-Paul
and I want to go inside to see Rama for myself."
    O’Toole's response left Heilmann deflated. "Shit," he said.  "Here
we go again. We'll probably-"
    "You don't understand, Otto," the American said. He stared fixedly
at his  colleague.  "This  is  good  news.  Unless  something  totally
unexpected occurs, either  during my  call to  the pope  or while  I'm
exploring Rama, I'll be ready to enter my code the minute I come out."
    "Are you certain?" Heilmann asked.
    "I give you my word," O’Toole replied.
    General  O’Toole  held  nothing   back  in  his  long,   emotional
transmission to  the  pope. He  was  aware  that his  call  was  being
monitored, but it no longer mattered. A single thing was uppermost  in
his mind: making the decision to  activate the nuclear weapons with  a
clear conscience.
    He waited impatiently for the reply. When Pope John-Paul V finally
appeared on the screen, he was sitting in the same room in the Vatican
where O’Toole had had his audience just after Christmas. The pope  was
holding a  small electronic  pad in  his right  hand and  occasionally
glanced down as he spoke.
    "I have prayed with you, my son," the pontiff began in his precise
English, "particularly during this last week of your personal turmoil.
I cannot tell you what to do. I do not have the answers any more  than
you do.  We can  only hope  together  that God,  in His  wisdom,  will
provide unambiguous answers to your prayers.
    "In response to some of  your religious inquiries, however, I  can
make a few comments. I offer them to you in the hope that they will be
helpful. ... I cannot say whether or not the voice you heard was  that
of St. Michael, or if you had what is known as a religious experience.
I can affirm  that there is  a category of  human experience,  usually
called religious for lack of a better term, that exists and cannot  be
explained in purely rational or  scientific terms. Saul of Tarsus  was
definitely blinded  by  a  light  from the  heavens  as  part  of  his
conversion to Christianity,  before he became  the apostle Paul,  Your
voice may have been St. Michael. Only you can decide.
    "As we  discussed  three months  ago,  God certainly  created  the
Ramans, whoever  they  were.  But  he also  created  the  viruses  and
bacteria that cause human death and suffering. We cannot glorify  God,
either individually or as  a species, if we  do not survive. It  seems
unlikely to me that God would expect us to take no action if our  very
survival were threatened.
    "The possible role of  Rama as a herald  for the second coming  of
Christ is a difficult issue. There are some priests inside the  church
who agree with  St. Michael,  although they are  a distinct  minority.
Most of us feel that the Rama craft are too spiritually sterile to  be
heralds. They  are incredible  engineering marvels,  to be  sure,  but
there is nothing about them that suggests any warmth or compassion  or
any other redeeming characteristic that is associated with Christ.  It
therefore seems very  unlikely that  Rama has  any strictly  religious
significance.
    "In the end  it is  a decision you  must make  yourself. You  must
continue your prayers, as I'm certain you realize, but maybe expect  a
little less fanfare in God's response.  He does not speak to  everyone
in the same way; nor will each of His messages to you come in the same
form. Please remember one more thing. As you explore Rama in search of
God's will, the prayers of many on Earth will go with you. You can  be
certain that  God  will give  you  an  answer; your  challenge  is  to
identify and interpret it."
    John-Paul ended his transmission with a blessing and a  recitation
of the Lord's  prayer. General O'Toole  knelt automatically and  spoke
the words along with his spiritual leader. When the screen was  blank,
he reviewed what the pontiff had said and felt reassured. /must be  on
the right track,  O'Toole said to  himself.But I should  not expect  a
heavenly proclamation with accompanying trumpets.
    O'Toole was not  prepared for his  powerful emotional response  to
Rama. Perhaps it was the sheer scale of the spacecraft, so much larger
than anything  ever  built by  human  beings. Perhaps  also  his  long
confinement on the Newton  and heightened emotional state  contributed
to the  intensity  of  his feelings.  Whatever  the  reasons,  Michael
O'Toole was  totally  overwhelmed by  the  spectacle as  he  made  his
solitary way into the giant spacecraft.
    There was no specific feature that dominated the rest in O'Toole's
mind. His throat caught and his  eyes brimmed with tears of wonder  on
several different occasions: riding down the chairlift on his  initial
descent and  looking  out  across  the Central  Plain  with  its  long
illuminated strips that were Rama's  light; standing beside the  rover
on  the  shores  of  the  Cylindrical  Sea  and  staring  through  his
binoculars at the mysterious skyscrapers of New York; and gawking many
times, like all the cosmonauts before  him, at the gigantic horns  and
buttresses that adorned the southern bowl. O'Toole's dominant feelings
were awe and  reverence, much as  he had  felt the first  time he  had
entered one of the old European cathedrals.
    He spent the Raman night at Beta, using one of the extra huts left
by the cosmonauts on the  second sortie. He found Wakefield's  message
dated two weeks earlier,  and had a momentary  desire to assemble  the
sailboat and cross over  to New York.  But O'Toole restrained  himself
and focused on the true purpose of his visit.
    He admitted  to  himself  that although  Rama  was  a  spectacular
achievement, its magnificence should not  be a relevant factor in  his
evaluation process. Was there  anything he had  seen that would  cause
him to alter  his tentative  conclusion? No,  he grudgingly  answered.
When the lights came on again  inside the giant cylinder, O'Toole  was
confident that before the next  Raman nightfall he would activate  the
weapons.
    Still he  procrastinated,  He  drove  the  entire  length  of  the
coastline, examining  New York  and the  other vistas  from  different
vantage points  and  observing  the five-hundred-meter  cliff  on  the
opposite side of the sea. On one last pass through the Beta  campsite,
O'Toole decided  to  pick up  some  odds  and ends,  including  a  few
personal mementos left behind by the other crew members in their hasty
retreat from Rama. Not  many items had escaped  the hurricane, but  he
found some  souvenirs that  had  been trapped  in comers  against  the
supply crates.
    General O'Toole took a long nap before he guided the rover back to
the bottom of the chairlift. Realizing what he was going to do when he
reached the Newton, O'Toole knelt down and prayed one last time before
ascending. Shortly into his ride, when  he was still less than half  a
kilometer above the Central Plain, he  turned in his chair and  looked
back across the  Raman panorama.Soon  this will all  be gone,  O'Toole
thought,enveloped in a solar furnace unleashed by man. His eyes lifted
from the plain and  focused on New  York. He thought  he saw a  moving
black speck in the Raman sky.
    With trembling hands he  lifted his binoculars to  his eyes. In  a
few seconds O'Toole located the enlarged speck. He quickly changed the
binocular resolution and the speck split into three parts, each a bird
soaring in formation far off in the distance. O'Toole blinked but  the
image did not  change. There  were indeed  three birds  flying in  the
Raman sky!
    Joy filled General O'Toole. He yelled with delight as he  followed
the birds with his binoculars until  he could no longer see them.  The
remaining thirty minutes of the ride to the top of the Alpha  stairway
seemed like a lifetime.
    The American officer  immediately climbed into  another chair  and
descended again into Rama.  He wanted desperately  to see those  birds
one more time.If I could somehow photograph them, he thought, planning
to drive back to the Cylindrical  Sea if necessary,then I could  prove
to everyone  that there  are  also living  creatures in  this  amazing
world.
    Starting two kilometers above the  floor O'Toole searched in  vain
for the  birds as  he  descended. Only  slightly disheartened  by  his
failure to find them, he was  subsequently dumbfounded by what he  saw
when he dropped his binoculars from his eyes and prepared to disembark
from the chair. Richard Wakefield and Nicole des Jardins were standing
side by side at the bottom of the lift.
    General O'Toole embraced them each  with a vigorous hug and  then,
with tears of happiness running down his cheeks, he knelt on the  soil
of Rama.  "Dear God,"  he said  as  he offered  his silent  prayer  of
thanks. "Dear God," he repeated.
    57THREE'S COMPANY
    The three cosmonauts talked avidly for over an hour. There was  so
much to tell.  When Nicole told  of her fright  upon encountering  the
dead Takagishi in the octospider lair, O’Toole was momentarily  silent
and then  shook his  head.  "There are  so many  unanswered  questions
here/' he  said, staring  up  at the  high  ceiling. "Are  you  really
malevolent after all?" he asked rhetorically.
    Richard and  Nicole  both praised  the  general's courage  in  not
entering his  code  to  activate  the weapons.  They  were  also  both
horrified that the  COG had ordered  the destruction of  Rama. "It  is
absolutely unforgivable for  us to  use nuclear  weapons against  this
spaceship," Nicole said. "I am convinced that it is not  fundamentally
hostile. And I  believe that  Rama maneuvered to  intercept the  Earth
because it has a specific message for us."
    Richard lightly chided Nicole for  developing her opinion more  on
the basis of emotions than facts. "Perhaps," she rejoined, "but  there
is a serious logical flaw as well in this decision to destroy. We  now
have  hard   evidence  that   this  vehicle   communicated  with   its
predecessor. There is good  reason to suspect that  a Rama III is  out
there somewhere,  probably  coming  in this  direction.  If  the  Rama
fleetis potentially hostile, there is no way the Earth will be able to
escape. We may succeed in destroying this second craft-but in so doing
we will almost certainly alert their next ship. Since their technology
is so much more  advanced than ours, we  would have no possibility  of
surviving their concerted attack."
    General O’Toole  looked  at  Nicole with  admiration.  "That's  an
excellent point," he said. "It's a shame you weren't available for the
ISA discussions. We never considered-"
    "Why don't we postpone the  rest of this conversation until  we're
back on the Newton?" Richard said suddenly. "According to my watch, it
will be dark again  in another thirty minutes,  before any of us  have
reached the top  of the lift.  I don't want  to ride in  the dark  any
longer than is necessary."
    The three cosmonauts believed that they were leaving Rama for  the
last time. As the remaining minutes of light dwindled, each  cosmonaut
gazed intently at the magnificent  alien landscape that stretched  out
into the  distance.  For  Nicole,  the dominant  feeling  was  one  of
elation. Cautious by nature with  her expectations, until this  moment
in the chairlift she had not  allowed herself the intense pleasure  of
believing that she would ever again hold her beloved Genevieve in  her
arms. Her mind was now flooded  by the bucolic beauty of Beauvois  and
she imagined in detail  the joy of her  reunion scene with her  father
and daughter.It could be as little as a week or ten days, Nicole  said
to herself expectantly. By the time she reached the top she was having
difficulty containing her jubilation.
    During his  ride  Michael O’Toole  reviewed,  one more  time,  his
activation decision-  When dark  came  to Rama,  suddenly and  at  the
predicted  moment,   he  had   finished   developing  his   plan   for
communicating  his  decision  to  the  Earth.  They  would  phone  ISA
management immediately.  Nicole  and  Richard  would  summarize  their
stories and Nicole  would present  her reasons for  thinking that  the
destruction of  Rama would  be "unforgivable."  O’Toole was  convinced
that his order to activate the weapons would then be rescinded.
    The general  switched  on his  flashlight  just before  his  chair
reached the top  of the  stairway. He  stepped off  in the  weightless
environment and stood beside Nicole. They waited for Richard Wakefield
before proceeding together  around the ramp  to the ferry  passageway,
only a hundred meters away. After  the trio had boarded the ferry  and
were ready to move through the Rama shell toward the Newton, Richard's
flashlight beam  fell on  a large  metal  object on  the side  of  the
passage. "Is that one of the bombs?" he asked.
    The nuclear weapon system did indeed resemble an oversized bullet.
How curious,  Nicole  thought, recoiling  as  an instant  shudder  ran
through her system.It  could be any  shape, of course.  I wonder  what
subconscious aberration  made  the designers  choose  that  particular
form. . . .
    "But what's that weird contraption at the top?" Richard was asking
O’Toole.
    The general's  brow furrowed  as  he stared  at a  bizarre  object
illuminated by the  center of the  beam of light.  "I don't know,"  he
confessed. "I've never seen it before." He disembarked from the ferry.
Richard and Nicole followed him.
    General O’Toole  shuffled  over  to the  weapon  and  studied  the
strange attachment fixed above the  numerical keyboard. It was a  fiat
plate, slightly larger than the keyboard itself, that was anchored  by
angular joints to  the sides of  the weapon. On  the underside of  the
plate, momentarily retracted,  were ten tiny  punches-at least  that's
what they  looked  like  to O'Toole.  His  observation  was  confirmed
seconds later when one of the punches extended and hit the number  "5"
on the keyboard  several centimeters  below. The "5"  was followed  in
rapid succession by  a "7," and  then by eight  more numbers before  a
green light flashed the successful completion of the first decade.
    Within seconds the apparatus entered  ten more digits and  another
green light flashed. O'Toole froze in terror.My God, he thought,that's
my code! Somehow they've broken-  His panic subsided an instant  later
when, after the third decade of  digits, the red light announced  that
an error had been made.
    "Apparently," General O’Toole said a short time later in  response
to an inquiry from Richard, "they have jerryrigged this scheme to  try
to enter the code in my absence, They only have the first two  decades
correct. For  a moment  I was  afraid ..."  O’Toole paused,  aware  of
strong emotions stirring within him.
    "They must have assumed you weren't coming back," Nicole said in a
matter-of-fact tone.
    "If Heilmann and Yamanaka did it," O’Toole replied. "Of course  we
can't rule out completely the  possibility that the contraption  might
have been placed there by the aliens ... or even the biots."
    "Extremely unlikely," Richard commented. "The engineering is  much
too crude."
    "At any rate," O’Toole said,  opening his backpack for some  tools
to disconnect the apparatus, "I'm not taking any chances."
    At the Newton end of  the passageway, O’Toole, Wakefield, and  des
Jardins found the second bomb fitted with the same apparatus. The trio
watched it punch out one code attempt-with the same result, a  failure
somewhere in  the third  decade-and  then they  disabled it  as  well.
Afterward they opened up the seal and exited from Rama.
    Nobody greeted them when they  stepped inside the Newton  military
ship. General O’Toole assumed that both Admiral Heilmann and  Yamanaka
were asleep and went immediately to the bedrooms. He wanted to talk to
Heilmann in private anyway. But the  two men were not in their  rooms.
It did  not  take  long  to  confirm, in  fact,  that  the  other  two
cosmonauts were nowhere in the comparatively small living and  working
area of the military ship.
    A search of  the supply  area in  the back  of the  ship was  also
futile.  However,  the  threesome  did   discover  that  one  of   the
extravehicular activity (EVA) pods was missing. This discovery  raised
another perplexing set of questions. Where could Heilmann and Yamanaka
have gone  in the  pod? And  why had  they violated  the  top-priority
project policy  that  at least  one  crew member  should  always  stay
onboard the Newton?
    The three cosmonauts were puzzled as they returned to the  control
center to discuss their  possible courses of  action. O’Toole was  the
first to  raise  the  specter  of  foul  play.  "Do  you  think  those
octospiders, or even some of the biots, might have come onboard? After
all,  it's  not  difficult  to   enter  the  Newton  unless  it's   in
Self-Protection Mode."
    Nobody wanted to  say what  all three  of them  were thinking.  If
someone or something had  captured or killed  their two colleagues  on
the ship, then  it might still  be around andthey  might be in  danger
themselves. . . .
    "Why don't  we call  the  Earth and  announce that  we're  alive?"
Richard said, breaking the silence.
    "Great idea." General O’Toole smiled. He moved over to the control
center console  and  activated the  panel.  A standard  system  status
display appeared on  the large screen.  "That's strange," the  general
commented. "According to this,  we have no video  link with the  Earth
presently. Only low-rate  telemetry. Now,  why would  the data  system
configuration have been changed?"
    He keyed  in a  simple set  of commands  to establish  the  normal
multichannel high-rate link with the Earth. A swarm of error  messages
appeared on the monitor. "What the hell?" Richard exclaimed. "It looks
as if the video system has died." He turned to O’Toole. "This is  your
speciality, General, what do you make of all this?"
    General O’Toole was very serious. "I don't like it, Richard.  I've
only seen this many error messages  one time before-during one of  our
early  simulations   when  some   nincompoop   forgot  to   load   the
communications software. We  must have a  major software problem.  The
probability of that many hardware failures  in such a short time  span
is essentially zero."
    Richard suggested that  O'Toole subject  the video  communications
software to its  standard self-test. During  the test, the  diagnostic
printout reported that  the error buffers  in the self-test  algorithm
had overflowed when the procedure was less than one percent  complete.
"So the vidcomm  software is  definitely the  culprit," Richard  said,
analyzing the data in the diagnostic. He entered some commands.  "It's
going to take a while to straighten it out-"
    "Just a minute," Nicole interrupted. "Shouldn't we spend our  time
trying to make some  sense out of all  this new information before  we
start on any specific tasks?" The  two men stopped their activity  and
waited for  her to  continue.  "Heilmann, Yamanaka,  and one  pod  are
missing from  this  ship,"  Nicole said,  walking  slowly  around  the
control center, "and someone was trying to automatically activate  the
two nuclear bombs in the  passageway. Meanwhile the vidcomm  software,
after functioning  properly  for  hundreds of  days-counting  all  the
preflight simulations-has suddenly gone haywire. Do either of you have
a coherent explanation for all this?"
    There was  a  long silence.  "General  O’Toole's suggestion  of  a
hostile invasion of the Newton might work/' Richard offered. "Heilmann
and Yamanaka might have fled to  save themselves and the aliens  could
have purposely screwed up the software."
    Nicole was not convinced. "Nothing  I have seen suggests that  any
aliens -or  even  any biots,  for  that matter-have  been  inside  the
Newton. Unless we see some evidence-"
    "Maybe Heilmann and  Yamanaka were trying  to break the  general's
code," Wakefield invented, "and they were afraid-"
    "Stop. Stop," Nicole shouted  suddenly. "Something's happening  to
the screen." The  two men turned  around just in  time to see  Admiral
Otto Heilmann's face materialize on the monitor.
    "Hello, General O’Toole," Heilmann said with a smile from the huge
screen. "This  videotape was  triggered by  your entering  the  Newton
airlock. Cosmonaut Yamanaka and I prepared it just before we  departed
in one of the  pods three hours  before 1-9 days.  We were ordered  to
evacuate less than an hour after  you went inside to explore Rama.  We
delayed as  long  as  we  could  but  eventually  had  to  follow  our
instructions.
    "Your personal orders are simple  and straightforward. You are  to
enter  your  activation  code  into  the  two  weapons  in  the  ferry
passageway and the three  remaining in the bay.  You should depart  in
the final pod no more than eight hours thereafter. Don't be  concerned
about the electronic  devices in  operation on  the two  bombs in  the
Raman shell. COG military  headquarters ordered them  put in place  to
test some new top secret decryption techniques. You will discover they
can easily be disabled with pliers and/or wirecutters.
    "An extra, emergency propulsion system  has been added to the  pod
and its software has been programmed to guide you to a safe  location,
where you will rendezvous with an ISA tug. All you need to do is  code
in the exact time of your  departure. However, I must stress that  the
new  pod  navigation  algorithms  are  validonly  if  you  leave   the
Newtonbefore 1-6  days.  After  that  time, I  am  told  the  guidance
parameters  become  increasingly  invalid   and  it  will  be   almost
impossible to rescue you."
    There was a short pause in Heilmann's delivery and his voice  took
on an increased sense of urgency. "Don't waste any more time, Michael.
Activate the  weapons and  go directly  to the  pod. We  have  already
supplied it with the food and other essentials that you will need. . .
. Good luck on your voyage home. We'll see you back on Earth."
    58HOBSON'S CHOICE
    I'm certain  that  Heilmann  and  Yamanaka  were  being  extremely
cautious," Richard Wakefield explained.  "They probably left early  so
they could take extra supplies. And with these lightweight pods,  each
extra kilogram can be critical."
    "Howcritical?" asked Nicole.
    "Well-it could make all the difference between getting into a safe
orbit around Earth-or shooting past it so quickly that we couldn't  be
rescued."
    "Does that mean," O’Toole inquired somberly, "that only one of  us
might be able to use the pod?"
    Richard paused before answering. "I'm afraid that's possible; it's
a function  of the  time of  departure. We'll  have to  do some  quick
calculations to determine exactly. But personally I see no reason  why
we shouldn't consider flying this entire spacecraft. I was trained  as
a backup pilot, after all. .  We have only limited control  authority,
since the ship  is so large,  but if we  jettison everything we  don't
absolutely need, we may be able to  do it Again, we'll need to do  the
computations."
    Nicole's assignments  from General  O’Toole  and Richard  were  to
check the supplies that  had been placed in  the pod, determine  their
adequacy, and  then approximate  both the  mass and  packaging  volume
required to  support  either  two  or  three  travelers.  In  addition
Richard, still favoring  flying back  to Earth in  the military  ship,
asked Nicole to go through the Newton supply manifest and estimate how
much mass could be thrown overboard.
    While O’Toole  and Wakefield  used the  computers in  the  control
center, Nicole worked alone  in the huge bay.  First she examined  the
remaining pod very carefully. Although the pods were normally used  by
a single person for local extravehicular activity (EVA), they had also
been designed  as  emergency escape  vehicles.  Two people  could  sit
behind the tough, transparent front  window with a week's supplies  on
the shelves at the  rear of the small  cabin.But three people?  Nicole
wondered.Impossible. Someone  would have  to  squeeze into  the  shelf
space. And then  there would not  be adequate room  for the  supplies.
Nicole thought momentarily  about being confined  to the tiny  shelves
for seven or eight  days.It would be  even worse than  the pit in  New
York.
    She looked through the supplies that had been hastily thrown  into
the pod by Heilmann and Yamanaka. The food allocation was more or less
correct, both  in quantity  and variety,  for a  one-week voyage;  the
medical kit,  however,  was woefully  inadequate.  Nicole made  a  few
notes, constructed what she considered to be a proper supply list  for
either a  two  or  three  person crew,  and  estimated  the  mass  and
packaging requirements. She then started to cross the bay.
    Her eyes were  drawn to  the bullet-shaped  nuclear weapons  lying
placidly on their sides  right beside the  pod airlock. Nicole  walked
over and touched the bombs, her hands idly running across the polished
metal surface.So these are the first great weapons of destruction, she
thought,the outcome of the brilliant physics of the twentieth century.
    What a  sad commentary  on our  species,Nicole mused,  as she  was
walking among the nuclear bombs.A visitor  comes to see us. It  cannot
speak our language, but it does discover where we live. When it  turns
the corner ontoout street, while its purpose is still utterly unknown,
we blast it into oblivion.
    She shuffled across the bay toward the living quarters, aware of a
profound feeling of sadness deep within her.Your problem, Nicole  said
to herself,is that  you always  expect too much.  From yourself.  From
those you love. Even from  the human race. We  are yet too immature  a
species.
    A momentary wave  of nausea forced  Nicole to stop  for a  moment.
What's this? she thought.Are these bombs making me ill? In the back of
her mind Nicole  recalled a  similar feeling of  nausea fifteen  years
before, two hours into her flight  from Los Angeles to Paris.It  can't
be, she told herself.But III check just to be certain. . . .
    "That's the second reason why the three of us cannot all fit in  a
single pod. Don't feel bad, Nicole.  Even if the physical space  could
accommodate our bodies  and the needed  supplies, the velocity  change
capability of the pod with all that mass is barely enough to close the
orbit around the Sun. Our chances of being rescued would be  virtually
nil."
    "Well," Nicole  replied to  Richard, trying  to be  cheerful,  "at
least we still  have the  other option.  We can  go home  in this  big
vehicle. According  to my  estimates, we  can dump  in excess  of  ten
thousand kilograms-"
    "I'm afraid it doesn't matter," General O’Toole interrupted.
    Nicole looked at Richard. "What's he talking about?"
    Richard Wakefield stood up and walked over to Nicole. He took  her
hands in his.  "They screwed  up the navigation  system too,"  Richard
said. "Their  automatic search  algorithms, the  big number  crunchers
being used to try  to decrypt O’Toole's code,  were overlaid into  the
general purpose  computers  on  top  of  the  vidcomm  and  navigation
subroutines. This ship is useless as a transportation module."
    General O’Toole's voice  was distant and  lacked its usual  upbeat
timbre. "They must  have started  only minutes after  I left.  Richard
read the command buffers  and found out  that the decryption  software
was uplinked less than two hours after my departure."
    "But why would they incapacitate the Newton?" Nicole asked.
    "Don't you understand?" O'Toole said with passion. "The priorities
had changed.  Nothing  was  as important  as  detonating  the  nuclear
weapons. They didn't want to waste  the time for the radio signals  to
go back and forth  to Earth. So they  moved the computations up  here,
where each  successive  candidate code  could  be commanded  from  the
computer without delay."
    "In fairness to mission control," Richard interjected, now  pacing
around the room, "we should  acknowledge that the fully loaded  Newton
military ship  actually  has  less  orbit  change  capability  than  a
two-person pod with an auxiliary propulsion system. In the eyes of the
ISA safety manager, there was no increased risk associated with making
this craft inoperable."
    "But none of this  should have happened in  the first place,"  the
general argued. "Dammit!  Why couldn't  they just have  waited for  my
return?"
    Nicole sat down abruptly in one of the available chairs. Her  head
was spinning  and she  felt momentarily  dizzy. "What's  the  matter?"
Richard said, approaching her with alarm.
    "I have been  having occasional periods  of nausea today,"  Nicole
replied. "I think I'm pregnant. I'll know for certain in about  twenty
minutes." She smiled at the dumbfounded Richard. "It's extremely  rare
for a woman to become pregnant  within ninety days of an injection  of
neutrabriolate. But it has happened before. I don't suppose-"
    "Congratulations,"  an  enthusiastic   General  O’Toole   suddenly
interrupted. "I had no idea that the two of you were planning to  have
a family."
    "Nor did  I,"  Richard replied,  still  looking shocked.  He  gave
Nicole a vigorous hug and held her close. "Nor did I," he repeated.
    "There will  be  no  more discussion  of  this  subject/'  General
O’Toole said emphatically to Richard. "Even if Nicole weren't pregnant
with your child, I would insist that the two of you go in the pod  and
leave me here. It's the only sensible decision. In the first place, we
both know  that mass  is the  most  critical parameter  and I  am  the
heaviest of the three of us by far. In addition, I am old and you  two
are both quite young.  You know how  to fly the  pod; I've never  even
trained inside it a single time. Besides," he added dryly, "I will  be
court-martialed on Earth for refusing to follow orders."
    "As for you, my good doctor," O'Toole continued moments later,  "I
don't need to tell you that you  are carrying a very special baby.  He
or she will be the only human child that was ever conceived inside  an
extraterrestrial space  vehicle."  He  stood up  and  glanced  around.
"Now," he said, "I propose we open a bottle of wine and celebrate  our
last evening together."
    Nicole watched General O'Toole glide over to the larder. He opened
it and  started  rummaging around.  "I'm  perfectly happy  with  fruit
juice, Michael," she said. "I shouldn't drink more than a single glass
of wine now anyway."
    "Of course,"  he replied  quickly. "I  temporarily forgot.  I  was
hoping that we could do something special on this last night. I wanted
to share one last time-"  General O’Toole stopped himself and  brought
the wine and juice back to the  table. He handed cups to both  Richard
and Nicole. "I want you both to  know," he said quietly, his mood  now
subdued, "that ! cannot imagine a finer pair of people than the two of
you. I wish you every success, especially with the baby."
    The three cosmonauts drank in silence for several seconds. "We all
know it, don't we?" General O’Toole said in barely audible tone.  "The
missiles must  be  on  their way.  How  long  do you  figure  I  have,
Richard?"
    "Judging from what Admiral Heilmann said on the tape, I would  say
that the first  missile will  reach Rama at  1-5 days.  That would  be
consistent both with the  pod being outside the  debris field and  the
deflection velocities that must be imparted to the surviving pieces of
the spacecraft." "I'm  afraid I'm lost,"  Nicole said. "What  missiles
are we talking about?" Richard  leaned over toward her. "Both  Michael
and I  are certain/'  he said  gravely, "that  the COG  has ordered  a
missile strike against Rama.  They had no  assurance that the  general
would ever return  to the Newton  and enter his  code. And the  search
algorithm with the  automatic punch was  a long shot  at best. Only  a
missile strike could guarantee that Rama would not have the capability
of harming our planet."
    "So I have a little more  than forty-eight hours to make my  final
peace with God,"  General O'Toole  said after  reflecting for  several
seconds. "I have  lived a fabulous  life. I have  much to be  thankful
for. I will go into His arms without regret."
    59 DREAM OF DESTINY
    Nicole stretched her  arms over  her head  and to  her sides,  she
brushed against Richard on  her left and one  of the water  containers
hanging slightly  out of  the  shelf behind  her.  "It's going  to  be
crowded." she observed, squirming in her seat.
    "Yes, it  is," Richard  replied  distractedly. His  attention  was
focused on the display  in front of  the pilot's seat  in the pod.  He
entered some commands  and waited  for the response.  When it  finally
came, Richard frowned.
    "I guess I'll make  one more attempt  to repackage the  supplies,"
Nicole said with a sigh. She turned  around in her seat and stared  at
the shelves. "I could save us some room and fourteen kilograms if  our
rescue was guaranteed in seven days," she said.
    Richard did  not respond.  "Dammit,"  he muttered  when a  set  of
numbers appeared on the display.
    "What's the matter?" Nicole asked.
    "There's something  not  quite  right here/'  Richard  said.  "The
navigation code was  developed for considerably  less payload  mass-it
may not converge if we lose one of the accelerometers." Nicole  waited
patiently for Richard to explain. "So  if we have any hiccoughs  along
the way,  we  will  probably  have  to  stop  for  several  hours  and
reinitialize."
    "But I thought you said  there was plenty of  fuel for the two  of
us."
    "Plenty of fuel, yes.  However, there are  some subtleties in  the
reprogrammed navigation algorithms that  assume the pod contains  less
than a hundred kilograms, basically only O’Toole and his supplies."
    Nicole could read the concern in Richard's brow. "We're all right,
I think, if there are no malfunctions," he continued. "But no pod  has
ever been operated under conditions like this."
    Through the front  window they could  see General O’Toole  walking
across the bay  toward them.  He was carrying  a small  object in  his
hand. It was TB, one of Richard's tiny Shakespearean robots.
    "I almost forgot I had him," O'Toole said a minute later after  he
had been thanked profusely by Richard. Cosmonaut Wakefield was soaring
around the  supply depot  like a  joyous child,  a wide  smile on  his
delighted face.
    "I thought I'd never see any  of them again," Richard yelled  from
one of the side walls where his exuberant momentum had carried him.
    "I was passing  your room," General  O'Toole shouted back,  "right
before the scientific  ship departed. Cosmonaut  Tabori was  arranging
your things. He asked me to keep that particular robot, just in case-"
    "Thank you, thank you, Janos,"  Richard said. He walked  carefully
down the  wall and  anchored himself  to the  floor. "This  is a  very
special one, Michael," he said with a gleam in his eye. He switched on
TB's power. "Do you know any Shakespearean sonnets?"
    "There's one that Kathleen especially likes, if I can recall it. I
think the first line is, 'That time of year thou mayst'-"
    "That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves,  or
none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the  cold,
Bare ruined choirs where late the  sweet birds sang, In me thou  seest
the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west . . "
    The feminine voice coming from TB startled both Nicole and General
O’Toole. The words struck a resonant  chord in O'Toole; he was  deeply
moved and a few  tears welled up  in the corners  of his eyes.  Nicole
took the general's hand and  squeezed it compassionately after TB  had
finished the sonnet.
    "You didn't say anything to  Michael about the problems you  found
with the pod navigation," Nicole said. She and Richard were lying side
by side in one of the small bedrooms on the military ship.
    "No," replied Richard  quietly. "I  didn't want to  worry him.  He
believes that we are going  to be safe and I  don't want him to  think
differently."
    Nicole extended her arm and touched Richard. "We could stay  here,
darling-then at least Michael would survive."
    He rolled over toward her. She  could tell he was looking at  her,
even though she couldn't see him very clearly in the dark. "I  thought
about that," Richard said. "But he  would never accept it. ... I  even
thought about sending you by yourself. Would you want to do that?"
    "No," Nicole answered after thinking for a moment. "I don't  think
so. I'd rather go with you, unless--"
    "Unless what?"
    "Unless there really is a big difference in the odds. If one of us
can survive but two of us are almost certainly doomed, it doesn't make
much sense-"
    "I can't give you  an accurate probabilistic assessment,"  Richard
interrupted. "But I don't  think there's a major  difference if we  go
together. My knowledge of the pod and its system might almost be worth
the extra mass. But either way, we're better off in the pod than if we
stay here."
    "You're absolutely convinced that missiles are on the way,  aren't
you?"
    "Yes, indeed. Nothing else  makes sense. I would  bet that such  a
contingency plan was under development as soon as Rama changed  course
and headed for the Earth."
    They  were  silent   again.  Nicole   tried  to   sleep  but   was
unsuccessful. They  had both  decided  to rest  for six  hours  before
departing so  that  they  could  store  some  energy  for  what  would
doubtless be an exhausting voyage.  Nicole's mind, however, would  not
turn off. She kept  imagining General O'Toole  perishing in a  nuclear
fireball.
    "He really  is a  wonderful man,"  Nicole said  very quietly.  She
wasn't certain if Richard was still awake.
    "Yes, he is," Richard answered in the same tone. "I envy his inner
strength. I can't imagine  giving up my own  life for someone else  so
willingly," He paused for a moment. "I guess that comes from his  deep
religious beliefs.  He  doesn't  see  death  as  an  end,  only  as  a
transition."
    I  could  do  it,Nicole  thought.I  could  give  up  my  life  for
Genevieve. Maybe even  for Richard  and this unborn  baby. Perhaps  in
O'Toole's religion everyone is part of his family.
    Richard, meanwhile, was struggling with  his own emotions. Was  he
being selfish in not insisting that  Nicole go alone? Could he  really
justify the extra risk of his  presence in terms of his extra  skills?
He dismissed the questions and tried to think of something else.
    "You haven't said much about  the baby," Nicole said softly  after
another short silence.
    "I haven't really had time to  integrate him, or her, into  what's
going on," Richard replied. "I guess I've been insensitive. . . .  You
know I'm  happy about  it. I  just want  to wait  until we're  rescued
before I seriously start thinking about what  it will be like to be  a
father." He leaned over and gave Nicole a kiss. "Now, darling, I  hope
you won't think  I'm being rude,  but I'm  going to try  to sleep.  It
could be a long time before we have another opportunity-"
    "Of course,"  she  said. "I'm  sorry."  Nicole's mind  drifted  to
another picture,  this  one of  a  small  baby. /wonder  if  he'll  be
intelligent, she thought.And will he have Richard's blue eyes and long
fingers?
    Nicole was curled  up in a  ball in  the corner of  the dimly  lit
room. The  taste  of manna  melon  was still  in  her mouth.  She  was
awakened by a strange tapping on  her shoulder. Nicole glanced up  and
saw the gray velvet  avian bending over her.  The cherry rings  around
its neck glowed  in the dark.  "Come," it said  pleadingly. "You  must
come with us."
    She followed the avian into the  hallway and turned to the  right,
away from  the  vertical  corridor. The  other  avians  were  standing
quietly against the wall.  They were all  watching her carefully.  The
whole procession followed the gray avian down the tunnel.
    In a few moments the tunnel expanded into a large room. There  was
a solitary small  light on the  far wall, but  otherwise the room  was
dark. Others  were present,  but Nicole  could not  see them  clearly.
Occasionally she glimpsed their silhouettes  as they moved across  the
beam from the single light source. Nicole started to say something but
the avian leader interrupted  her."Shh," it said,  "they will be  here
soon."
    Nicole heard a noise coming toward them from the opposite side  of
the room. It sounded like a cart  with wooden wheels moving on a  dirt
path. As it approached, the avians around Nicole backed up and pressed
against her. Moments later there was a fire in front of them.
    A bier was resting  on top of a  burning cart. Nicole gasped.  Her
mother's body, dressed in regal green  robes, lay on top of the  bier.
In the light from the fire Nicole could see some of the others in  the
room. Richard was smiling  at her, holding the  hand of a dark  little
girl about two years old. General O’Toole was very close to the  fire,
kneeling in prayer beside it. Behind  him were a variety of biots  and
two or three odd forms that must have been octospiders.
    The flames consumed the bier and began to burn her mother's  body.
Her mother rose slowly from her supine position, When Anawi turned  in
Nicole's direction, her face changed. It was Omen's head on top of her
mother's body.
    "Ronata," he said distinctly, "the prophecies must be heeded.  The
Senoufo blood will be spread, even unto the stars. Minowe will be left
behind. Ronata must travel with those who come from far away. Go  now,
and save the strange ones and Ronata's children."
    60RETURN TO RAMA
    I can't  believe I'm  doing  this,Nicole said  to herself  as  she
carried her final ferryload of supplies  to the heavy elevator at  the
top of the Beta stairway. It was  dark inside Rama. The beam from  her
flashlight shone into the black void,
    The dream  had  been so  incredibly  vivid that  Nicole  had  been
completely discombobulated for more than  five minutes after she  woke
up. Even now, almost two hours later, when she closed her eyes  Nicole
could see Omeh's face  perfectly and hear  his magical voice  intoning
the words.I  hope Richard  doesn't  wake up  before I'm  gone,  Nicole
thought.There's no way he would ever understand.
    She returned to the ferry and made one last trip through the shell
toward the  Newton.  For thirty  minutes  she had  been  drafting  her
good-bye remarks in her mind, but now that the moment had come, Nicole
was apprehensive.
    "Dear Michael and dearest Richard," she would begin, "last night I
had the most compelling  dream of my life.  The old Senoufo  chieftain
Omeh appeared to me and told me that my destiny was with Rama."
    Nicole passed through the airlock and entered the control  center.
She sat down  in front  of the camera  and cleared  her voice.This  is
ridiculous, she thought, just before  she turned on the lights.  /must
be insane. But the power of Omeh's image in her mind calmed all of her
last-minute doubts, Moments later she continued with her final remarks
to her friends.
    "There is  no way  I  can summarize  in  this short  farewell  the
importance of  Omeh and  my African  background in  my life.  Michael,
Richard can tell you some of the Senoufo stories as the two of you fly
home to Earth. Suffice it to say that I have never been misled by  the
old shaman. I know well that voices  in a dream have no substance  and
are most likely creations of  my own subconscious, but nevertheless  I
have decided to follow the directions Omeh gave me.
    "I intend to do whatever I can to communicate to Rama that nuclear
missiles may be on the way. I don't know exactly how I will accomplish
this, but I will  have some hours  to plan while  I am assembling  the
sailboat to cross  the Cylindrical  Sea. I do  remember, Richard,  our
discussion about the keyboard commands that might lead into the higher
hierarchy. . . .
    "It is extremely difficult for me to say good-bye like this, and I
am keenly aware that it is a poor substitute for a final embrace.  But
if you two were awake, you would never let me go back inside Rama. . .
, I  love you,  Richard, never  doubt it  for a  moment. I  know  it's
unlikely, but  maybe somehow,  someday we  will be  united in  another
place. I promise you that if I  survive to give birth to our child,  I
will  never  cease  telling  her  about  the  intelligence,  wit,  and
sensitivity of her father.
    "I have  one last  request. If  it turns  out that  either of  you
reaches home safely and I never return to the Earth, please explain to
Genevieve what happened  to me. Tell  her the whole  story, about  the
dream, the vial and the vision, and  the Poro when I was a child.  And
tell her that I loved her with all my heart."
    Tears were  flowing down  Nicole's cheeks  when she  finished  her
message. She  stood up  and rewound  the  tape. She  played it  for  a
minute, to make certain that it had recorded properly, and then walked
over to the airlock.Goodness, she thought as she put on her helmet,I'm
really going to do it
    During Nicole's eerie descent on the chairlift in the dark she had
strong misgivings  about  her decision  to  return. It  was  only  her
supreme self-discipline that allowed her  to chase away the  lingering
fears. As she climbed into the  rover and started to drive toward  the
Cylindrical Sea, Nicole thought about  how she would communicate  with
the intelligence governing Rama. /'//definitely use pictures, she said
to herself,and wherever possible the precise language of science. That
much I have learned from Richard.
    The thought of Richard rekindled  her anxieties.Hell think that  I
have abandoned him,  she worried.And how  can I really  expect him  to
think otherwise?  Nicole recalled  the depressing  first days  of  her
pregnancy with  Genevieve and  how  very lonely  she had  been  having
nobody with whom she could share her feelings. Again she felt a strong
call to turn around  and leave Rama. Her  introspection was broken  by
the spectacular arrival  of light.  Dawn had  come again  to Rama.  As
before, Nicole was mesmerized by the sights around her.There's nothing
like this anywhere in the universe.
    When she reached what had been the Beta campsite, she first  found
and started to unpack the large sailboat. It was in good shape. It had
been packed at  the bottom of  a large storage  container. Working  to
assemble the sailboat  kept Nicole  from brooding too  much about  her
decision to leave the Newton.  Mechanical assembly was not her  forte.
She almost despaired once when she had to disassemble a major  fitting
that had taken her ten minutes to put together in the first place. The
entire exercise reminded her of several frustrating Christmas Eves  at
Beauvois when  she and  Pierre  had worked  almost  all night  to  put
Genevieve's new toys together.  "There ought to be  a law that  stores
can only  sell  assembled toys,"  Nicole  laughingly muttered  as  she
struggled with the directions for the sailboat.
    Nicole carried the hull of the  boat down the steps and placed  it
right next to the water. Each of the major substructures she assembled
on the cliff above, where the light was brighter. She was so engrossed
in her work that she did not  hear the footsteps until they were  only
two or three meters away. When  Nicole, who was working on her  knees,
turned to her right and saw something approaching her from very close,
she was frightened almost out of her wits.
    Moments later she and Richard  were kissing and hugging  joyously.
"O’Toole's coming  too," he  said,  sitting down  next to  Nicole  and
immediately beginning  to work  on  the sailboat.  "At first,  when  I
explained that  I wasn't  leaving without  you, that  whatever life  I
could have on Earth wouldn't mean anything if you weren't with me,  he
told me that you  and I were  both crazy. But after  we talked, and  I
explained to him that 1 thought we had a decent probability of warning
the Ramans, he decided that he'd  rather spend his last hours with  us
than take a chance on a lonely and painful death in the pod."
    "But I  thought you  said  that it  would be  a  safe trip  for  a
solitary passenger."
    "It's not completely clear,  The software loaded in  the pod is  a
nightmare.
    You can tell from  the programming that it  was done hastily.  And
how could it have been properly checked? O'Toole by himself might have
had a better chance than the two of us together. . . But remember,  he
would  face  serious  problems  upon   his  arrival  on  Earth.   That
court-martial comment was not idle chatter."
    "I don't  think that  Michael was  afraid of  a court-martial.  He
might have wanted to spare his family, but-"
    A shout from the distance interrupted their conversation.  General
O'Toole was waving  at them from  an approaching rover.  "But I  don't
understand," Nicole said. "How did he get here so quickly? You  didn't
walk, did you?"
    Richard laughed. "Of course not. I left a beacon at the bottom  of
the chairlift After I arrived at Beta and saw that you had removed the
sailboat and its parts, I sent the rover back on automatic."
    "That was brave  of you,"  Nicole said. "What  if I  had set  sail
during the extra time that it took you to find me on foot?"
    Richard peered over the cliff at the boat's hull down next to  the
water. "Actually you've done better than  I expected," he said with  a
tease in his voice. "You might have finished in another hour or two."
    He grabbed Nicole's hands as she tried to hit him.
    General O'Toole was the only  practiced sailor among the three  of
them. Soon after they reached the midpoint of their sail, he relegated
Richard to holding an  oar as a  possible weapon in  case the pair  of
shark biots  that were  shadowing them  decided to  attack. "It's  not
Marblehead or the  Cape/^1 O'Toole  said as  he stared  across at  New
York, "but it's definitely an interesting sail."
    During the voyage  Richard tried, without  success, to convince  a
nervous Nicole  that the  shark biots  were unlikely  to bother  them.
"After all," he told her, "they didn't bother the boats at all  during
the first  Rama expedition.  They  must have  capsized me  because  of
something special in the design of our new motorboats."
    "How can you be so  certain?" Nicole asked, staring  uncomfortably
at the gray shadows  in the water  beside them. "And  if they are  not
going to attack us, why have they been following us for so long?"
    "We're a curiosity, that's all," Richard replied. Nevertheless, he
braced himself  when one  of the  shadows suddenly  veered toward  the
boat. It disappeared underneath them  and joined its companion on  the
other side. "See," he said, releasing his grip on the oar, "I told you
there was nothing to worry about."
    They moored the sailboat on the  New York side before climbing  up
the nearby stairway. Since General O’Toole had never been to New  York
before and  was  naturally very  curious  about what  he  was  seeing,
Richard went ahead to start working on the computer while Nicole  gave
the briefest of tours to O’Toole along the way.
    By the time Nicole and the general reached the White Room, Richard
already had some progress to  report. "My hypothesis was correct,"  he
said only seconds  after the  other two  had joined  him. "I'm  fairly
certain that I  now have accessed  the entire sensor  list, They  must
have radar or its equivalent onboard.  While I'm trying to locate  it,
why don't you two develop a  flow diagram for how we will  communicate
our warning. Remember,  keep it  simple. We probably  don't have  more
than twenty-four hours until the first missile arrives."
    Twenty-four hours,Nicole said to herself.One more day. She glanced
over at Richard, hard  at work at the  keyboard, and General  O'Toole,
who was looking at some of the black objects still scattered in one of
the corners. Nicole's momentary feelings  of fondness for the two  men
were quickly truncated by a sharp burst of fear. The reality of  their
predicament overpowered her.Will we all die tomorrow? she wondered.
    61ENDANGERED SPACECRAFT
    We really shouldn't be  surprised," Richard said without  emotion.
The three of them were sitting in front of the large black screen. "AH
of us expected it."
    "But we  hoped otherwise,"  O’Toole interjected.  "Sometimes  it's
depressing to be proven correct."
    "Are you positive,  Richard," Nicole  asked, "that  each of  those
blips represents an object in space?"
    "I don't think there's any  doubt," Richard replied. "We know  for
certain that we're looking at sensor  output. And look, I'll show  you
how to change the fields." Richard called to the screen a display that
showed a  cylinder,  definitely  Rama,  at the  center  of  a  set  of
concentric circles.  Next  he  keyed  in  another  pair  of  commands,
resulting in motion  on the  screen. The cylinder  became smaller  and
smaller, ultimately collapsing to a point. The size of the  concentric
circles around the cylinder also diminished during the motion and  new
circles appeared at  the edge  of the  screen. Eventually  a group  of
dots, sixteen in all, appeared on the right side of the display.
    "But  how  do  you  know  they  are  missiles?"  Nicole   queried,
indicating the small points of light.
    "I don't," Richard said.  "But I do know  they are flying  objects
nearly on a straight line between  Rama and the Earth. I suppose  they
might be peace envoys, but I doubt it seriously."
    "How long?" O'Toole asked.
    "It's hard to  tell exactly,"  Richard answered  after a  moment's
pause. "I'd estimate  eighteen to  twenty hours until  the first  one.
They're spread out more than I  would have expected. If we track  them
for an hour or so,  we'll have a more  precise estimate of the  impact
time."
    General O'Toole whistled  and then reflected  for several  seconds
before speaking.  "Before we  try to  tell this  spacecraft that  it's
about to undergo a nuclear attack, will you answer one simple question
for me?"
    "If I can," Richard replied,
    "What makes  you think  that Rama  can protect  itself from  these
incoming missiles, even if we are able to communicate the warning?"
    There was  a  protracted  silence.  "Do  you  remember  one  time,
Michael, almost  a  year ago,"  Richard  said, "when  we  were  flying
together from London to Tokyo and we started talking about religion?"
    "You mean when I was reading Eusebius?"
    "I think  so. You  were  telling me  about  the early  history  of
Christianity. . . .  Anyway, right in the  middle of the discussion  I
suddenly asked  you why  you believed  in God.  Do you  remember  your
answer?"
    "Of course," O'Toole replied.  "It's the same  response I gave  my
oldest son  when  he  declared  himself  an  atheist  at  the  age  of
eighteen."
    "Your answer on the plane  perfectly captures my attitude in  this
current  situation.   We  know   that  Rama   is  extremely   advanced
technologically. Certainly when it was  designed there must have  been
some consideration of  a possible  hostile attack.  . .  . Who  knows,
maybe it even  has a powerful  propulsion system that  we haven't  yet
discovered and will be able to maneuver out of the way. I bet-"
    "Can I interrupt for  a second?" Nicole said.  "I wasn't with  you
two on the flight to Tokyo. I'd like to know how Michael answered your
question."
    The two  men stared  at each  other for  several seconds.  Finally
General  O'Toole   responded.   "Faith   informed   by   thought   and
observation," he said.
    "The first part  of your plan  is not too  difficult, and I  agree
with the  approach,  but I  have  no mental  picture  of how  we  will
communicate the yield, or how to tie the nuclear chain reaction to the
incoming missiles unambiguously."
    "Michael and I  will work  on those  items while  you develop  the
graphics for  the first  segment.  He says  he remembers  his  nuclear
physics reasonably well."
    "Remember not  to make  too  many assumptions,"  Richard  reminded
Nicole. "We  must  make certain  that  each  part of  the  message  is
self-contained."
    General O'Toole was  not with  Richard and Nicole  at the  moment.
After two  hours of  intense work  he had  walked away,  out into  the
tunnel, about  five  minutes  earlier.  His  two  colleagues  suddenly
worried about  his absence.  "He's probably  going to  the  bathroom,"
Richard said.
    "He might be lost," Nicole replied.
    Richard moved over to the entrance to the White Room and  hollered
into the corridor.  "Hullo, Michael  O'Toole," he said.  "Are you  all
right?"
    "Yes," came the answer from the direction of the central stairway.
"Can you and Nicole come around here for a minute?"
    "What's up?"  Richard inquired  a few  moments later  when he  and
Nicole joined the general at the foot of the stairway.
    "Who built  this lair?"  O'Toole asked,  his eyes  focused on  the
ceiling high above him. "And  why do you think  it was created in  the
first place?"
    "We don't know," Richard answered impatiently, "and I don't  think
we'll resolve  the issue  in  the next  few  minutes, or  even  hours.
Meanwhile, we have work-"
    "Indulge me for  a little while,"  O'Toole interrupted firmly.  "I
need to have this discussion before I can proceed." Richard and Nicole
waited for him to continue. "We are rushing pell-mell toward sending a
warning to  whatever  intelligence  is in  control  of  this  vehicle.
Presumably, we  are doing  this so  that  Rama will  be able  to  take
measures to protect itself. How do we know that's the right action for
us? How do we know that we're not being traitors to our species?"
    General O’Toole waved  his arms  at the large  cavern around  him.
"There must be some reason, some grand plan for all this. Why were all
those fake human objects  left in the White  Room? Why did the  Ramans
invite us to communicate  with them? Who and  what are the avians  and
the octospiders?" He shook his head, frustrated by all the  unanswered
questions. "I was  uncertain about  destroying Rama;  but I'm  equally
uncertain about sending the warning. What if Rama escapes the  nuclear
attack because of us and then destroys the Earth anyway?"
    "That's extremely unlikely, Michael. The first Rama sailed through
the solar system-"
    "Just a minute,  Nicole, if you  don't mind," Richard  interrupted
softly. "Let me try to answer the general."
    He walked  over and  put his  arm on  General O'Toole's  shoulder.
"Michael," Richard said,  "what has  impressed me the  most about  you
since the first time  we met has been  your ability to understand  the
difference between the answers we can  know, as a result of  deduction
or the scientific method, and those  questions for which there is  not
even a valid logical approach. There is no way whatsoever that we  can
understand what Rama is all about at this juncture. We don't yet  have
enough data. It's like trying to solve a system of simultaneous linear
equations  when  there  are  many  more  variables  than  constraints.
Multiple hypersurfaces of correct solutions exist."
    O'Toole smiled and  nodded his  head. "What we  do know/'  Richard
continued, "is that a fleet of missiles is now approaching Rama.  They
are probably armed with nuclear warheads. We have a choice, to warn or
not to warn, and we must make it based on the information available to
us at this moment."
    Richard pulled  out  his small  computer  and walked  over  beside
O'Toole. "You  can represent  this entire  problem as  a  three-by-two
matrix," he said. "Assume there are three possible descriptions of the
Raman threat;  never  hostile, always  hostile,  and hostile  only  if
attacked. Let these three situations represent the rows of the matrix.
Now consider  the decision  facing us.  We can  either warn  them,  or
choose not to. Note that it is only asuccessful warning that  matters.
So there  are two  columns to  the matrix,  Rama warned  and Rama  not
warned."
    O'Toole and  Nicole  both looked  over  Richard's shoulder  as  he
constructed the matrix and displayed it  on his small monitor. "If  we
now look  at  the  outcomes  of the  six  events  represented  by  the
individual  elements  in   this  matrix,  and   try  to  assign   some
probabilities wherever we  can, we  will have all  the information  we
need to make our decision. Do you agree?"
    General O'Toole  nodded, impressed  by how  quickly and  concisely
Richard had structured their dilemma.  "The outcome of the second  row
is always the same,"  Nicole now offered,  "independent of whether  or
not we warn them. If Rama  is truly hostile, with their more  advanced
technology it makes no difference whether we warn them or not.  Sooner
or later, with this vehicle or one that comes in the future, they will
either subjugate or destroy the human race."
    Richard paused a moment to  ensure that O’Toole was following  the
conversation, "Similarly,"  he  then  said slowly,  "if  Rama  isnever
hostile, it cannot be wrong to  warn them. In neither case, warned  or
unwarned, is the Earth in danger. And if we are successful in  telling
them about  the nuclear  missiles, then  something extraordinary  will
have been saved."
    The general  smiled.  "So  the only  possible  problem,  O'Toole's
Anxiety, if you want to call it that, comes if Rama was not originally
intending to be hostile, but will change its mind and attack the Earth
once it learns that nuclear missiles have been launched against it."
    "Precisely," said Richard.  "And I  would argue  that our  warning
itself would  probably  be a  mitigating  factor in  that  potentially
hostile case. After all-"
    "All right.  AD  right,"  O'Toole replied.  "I  see  where  you're
headed. Unless a  very high probability  is assigned to  the case  I'm
worried about,  the overall  analysis suggests  a better  result  from
warning the Ramans." He suddenly laughed. "It's a good thing you don't
work for COG military headquarters, Richard. You might have  convinced
me with logic to activate the code-"
    "I doubt it," Nicole  said. "Nobody could have  made a solid  case
for that kind of paranoia."
    "Thank you." The  general smiled.  "I'm satisfied.  You were  very
persuasive. Let's go back to work."
    Driven by the relentless approach  of the missiles, the  threesome
worked tirelessly for hours. Nicole  and Michael O'Toole designed  the
warning message in two discrete  segments. The first segment, much  of
which was background to  establish the basic communication  technique,
presented all the  trajectory mechanics, including  the Rama orbit  as
the vehicle entered the solar system, the two Newton craft leaving the
Earth and joining just before rendezvous with the alien ship, the  two
Raman maneuvers  changing  its  trajectory, and  finally  the  sixteen
missiles blasting off from the Earth toward a Rama intercept. Richard,
his long hours  of work at  the keyboard and  black screen now  paying
off, transformed all these orbital  events into graphic line  drawings
while the other two  cosmonauts struggled with  the complexity of  the
remainder of the message.
    The second segment was exceedingly difficult to design. In it  the
humans wanted to  explain that the  incoming missiles carried  nuclear
warheads, that the  explosive power of  the bombs was  generated by  a
chain reaction, and that the heat, shock, and radiation resulting from
the explosion were all enormously powerful. Presenting the fundamental
picture was not  the challenge; quantifying  the destructive power  in
any terms that could be understood by an extraterrestrial intelligence
was a formidable obstacle.
    "It's impossible,"  an  exasperated Richard  exclaimed  when  both
O’Toole and Nicole insisted that the warning was not complete  without
some indication of the explosion temperature and the magnitude of  the
shock and radiation fields. "Why  don't we just indicate the  quantity
of fissionable material in the process? They must be great at physics.
They can compute the yield and other parameters."
    Time  was  running  out  and  all  three  of  them  were  becoming
exhausted. In the  final hours, General  O'Toole succumbed to  fatigue
and, at  Nicole's insistence,  took a  substantial nap.  His  biometry
output had indicated that his heart was in stress. Richard even  slept
for ninety minutes.  But Nicole  never allowed herself  the luxury  of
rest. She was determined to figure out some way to depict in  pictures
the destructive power of the weapons.
    When the  men awakened,  Nicole convinced  them to  append to  the
second segment an  additional short section  demonstrating what  would
happen to a  city or  forest on Earth  if a  one-megaton nuclear  bomb
exploded in the  vicinity. For these  pictures to make  any sense,  of
course, Richard had to  expand his earlier glossary,  in which he  had
defined the  chemical elements  and  their symbols  with  mathematical
precision, to include some more measures of size. "If they  understand
this," he grumbled as he laboriously included scale tick marks  beside
his line drawings of buildings  and trees, "then they're smarter  than
even I gave them credit for."
    Finally the message  was completed and  stored. They reviewed  the
entire warning  one last  time and  made a  few corrections.  "Of  the
commands that I  have never  been able to  understand/' Richard  said,
"there are  five that  I have  reason to  suspect may  be links  to  a
different level  processor.  Of course,  I  am only  guessing,  but  I
believe it's  an educated  guess.  I will  transmit our  message  five
times, using each of these particular commands a single time, and hope
that our warning somehow reaches the central computer."
    While Richard entered all the  proper commands into the  keyboard,
Nicole and  General O'Toole  went  for a  walk.  They climbed  up  the
stairway and wandered around the skyscrapers of New York. "You believe
that we were meant to board Rama and find the White Room, don't you?"
    "Yes," Nicole answered.
    "But for what  purpose?" asked  the general. "If  the Ramans  just
wanted to make  contact with  us, why did  they go  to such  elaborate
lengths? And  why  are they  risking  our misinterpretation  of  their
intent?"
    "I don't know,"  Nicole said.  "Maybe they're testing  us in  some
way. To find out what we're like."
    "Goodness," O'Toole replied, "what a  terrible thought. We may  be
catalogued  as  the  creatures  who  launch  nuclear  attacks  against
visitors."
    "Exactly," said Nicole.
    Nicole showed O'Toole the bam with the pits, the lattice where she
had rescued the avian, the stunning polyhedrons, and the entrances  to
the other two lairs.  She was becoming very  tired, but she knew  that
she would not sleep until everything was resolved.
    "Should we head back?" O'Toole said after he and Nicole had walked
down to the Cylindrical Sea and  verified that the sailboat was  still
intact where they had left it.
    "All right," Nicole  answered wearily. She  checked her watch.  It
was exactly three hours and  eighteen minutes until the first  nuclear
missile would arrive at Rama.
    62THE FINAL HOUR
    Nobody had spoken for five  minutes. Each of the three  cosmonauts
sat enmeshed in his  own private world, aware  that the first  missile
was now less than an hour  away. Richard raced through all the  sensor
outputs hurriedly, searching vainly for  any indication that Rama  was
taking some protective action. "Shit,"  he muttered, looking again  at
the close-up radar picture that showed the lead missile drawing closer
and closer.
    Richard walked over to where Nicole was sitting in the corner. "We
must have failed," he said quietly. "Nothing has changed."
    Nicole rubbed her  eyes. "I wish  I weren't so  tired," she  said.
"Then maybe  we could  do  something interesting  for our  last  fifty
minutes." She smiled grimly. "Now I know what it must be like to be on
Death Row."
    General O'Toole approached from the other side of the room. He was
holding two of the small black balls in his left hand. "You know,"  be
said, "often  I  have  wondered what  I  would  do if  I  ever  had  a
specified, finite time before I died. Now here I am, and my mind keeps
focusing on a single thing."
    "What's that?" Nicole asked.
    "Have either of you ever been baptized?" he replied tentatively.
    "Whaaat?" exclaimed Richard with a laugh of surprise.
    "I thought not," said General O'Toole. "What about you, Nicole?"
    "No, Michael,"  she answered.  "My father's  Catholicism was  more
tradition than ceremony."
    "Well," persisted the general. "I'm offering to baptize you both."
    "Here? Now?"  inquired  the  astounded  Wakefield.  "Are  my  ears
deceiving me, Nikki, or did I just hear this gentleman suggest that we
spend the last hour of our life being baptized?"
    "It won't take-" O’Toole started to say.
    "Why not, Richard?" Nicole interrupted. She stood up with a bright
smile on her face. "What else do we  have to do? And it's a hell of  a
lot better than  morbidly sitting  around here waiting  for the  great
fireball."
    Richard almost  cackled. "This  is wonderful!"  he exclaimed.  "I,
Richard Wakefield, lifelong atheist, am considering being baptized  on
an extraterrestrial spaceship as the final  action of my life. I  love
it!"
    "Remember what Pascal wrote," Nicole teased.
    "Ah, yes,"  Richard replied.  "A  simple matrix  from one  of  the
world's great thinkers. "There may or may  not be a God; I may or  may
not believe in Him. The only way I can lose is if there is a God and I
do not believe in Him. Therefore I shall believe in Him to minimize my
downside risk.'" Richard chuckled. "But I did not agree to believe  in
God, only to being baptized."
    "So you'll do it," Nicole said.
    "Why not?" he replied, parroting her earlier comment. "Maybe  that
way I  don't  have to  stay  in Limbo  with  the virtuous  pagans  and
unbaptized children."  He grinned  at  O'Toole. "All  right,  General,
we're all yours. Do your thing."
    "Now you  listen  closely  to this,  TB,"  Richard  said.  "You're
probably the  only robot  ever to  be  in a  human's pocket  during  a
baptism."
    Nicole nudged Richard  in the  ribs. The  patient General  O'Toole
waited a few moments and then began the ceremony.
    At Richard's insistence,  they had  left the lair  and walked  out
into the open plaza. Richard had  wanted the sky of Rama overhead  and
neither of the  other two had  objected. Nicole had  gone over to  the
Cylindrical Sea to fill the  baptismal flask with water while  General
O’Toole completed his  preparations. The American  general was  taking
the baptism seriously  but was  apparently not  offended by  Richard's
lighthearted banter.
    Nicole and Richard knelt  down in front  of O’Toole. He  sprinkled
water on Richard's head. "Richard  Colin Wakefield, I baptize thee  in
the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit."
    When O’Toole had finished baptizing Nicole in the same simple way,
Richard stood up and grinned. "I  don't feel any different," he  said.
"I'm just like I  was before-scared shitless about  dying in the  next
thirty minutes,"
    General O’Toole had not moved. "Richard," he said softly, "could I
ask you to kneel again? I would like to say a short prayer."
    "What's this?" Richard  asked. "First  a baptism,  now a  prayer?"
Nicole looked up at him. Her eyes asked him to accede. "All right," he
said, "I guess I might as well go all the way."
    "Almighty God,  please hear  our prayer,"  the general  said in  a
strong voice. He also was kneeling  now. His eyes were closed and  his
hands were clasped in  front of him. "We  three have gathered here  in
what may be our final hour to  pay homage to Thee. We beseech Thee  to
consider how we may serve  Thee if we continue to  live and, if it  be
Thy will, we ask Thee to spare us a painful and horrible death. If  we
are to die, we pray that we may be accepted into Thy heavenly kingdom.
Amen."
    General O’Toole stopped for just a moment and then began to recite
the Lord's prayer. After he had said, "Our Father, Who art in  heaven,
hallowed be Thy name-" the lights in the great spaceship were abruptly
extinguished. Another Raman  day was over.  Richard and Nicole  waited
respectfully until their friend had finished the prayer before pulling
out their flashlights.
    Nicole thanked the general and gave  him a small hug. "Well,  here
we  are,"  Richard  jabbered  nervously.  "Twenty-seven  minutes   and
counting. We've had a baptism and a prayer. What should we do now? Who
has an idea for the last, and I mean the very last, amusement?  Should
we sing? Dance? Play some kind of game?"
    "I would prefer to remain up here by myself," General O’Toole said
solemnly, "and face my  death in atonement and  prayer. And I  imagine
the two of you would like to be alone together."
    "All right, Nikki," Richard said. "Where shall we share our  final
kiss? On the shore of the Cylindrical Sea or back in the White Room?"
    Nicole had been  awake for  thirty-two consecutive  hours and  was
absolutely exhausted.  She fell  into Richard's  arms and  closed  her
eyes. At that moment scattered flashes of light intruded upon the  new
blackness of the Raman night.
    "What's that?" General O’Toole asked anxiously.
    "It must  be the  horns," Richard  answered excitedly.  "Come  on,
let's go."
    They ran  to  the south  edge  of the  island  and stared  at  the
massive, enigmatic structures in the southern bowl. Filaments of light
were darting between different pairs of the six spires surrounding the
great monolith in the center. The yellow arcs seemed to sizzle in  the
air, undulating gently back  and forth in  the middle while  remaining
connected to one of the little  horns at each end. A distant  cracking
sound accompanied the spectacular sight.
    "Amazing," said O’Toole, overcome with awe. "Absolutely amazing."
    "So Rama  is going  to maneuver,"  Richard said.  He could  hardly
contain himself. He  hugged Nicole, then  O’Toole, and finally  kissed
Nicole on the lips. "Whoopee!" he yelled as he danced along the wall.
    "But Richard/' Nicole shouted after  him, "isn't it too late?  How
can Rama move out of the way in such a short time?"
    Richard ran  back  to  his colleagues.  "You're  right,"  he  said
breathlessly. "And those damn missiles probably have terminal guidance
anyway." He started running again,  this time heading back toward  the
plaza. "I'm going to watch on the radar."
    Nicole glanced over  at General  O’Toole. "I'm  coming," he  said.
"But I've already run enough  for one day. I  want to watch this  show
for another few seconds. You can go on without me if you want."
    Nicole waited. As the two of them walked briskly toward the plaza,
General O’Toole thanked Nicole for allowing him to baptize her. "Don't
be silly," she replied.  "I'm the one who  should thank you." She  put
her hand on his shoulder.The baptism itself wasn't that important, she
continued in  her  private  thoughts.It  was  obvious  that  you  were
concerned about our souls. We  agreed primarily to show our  affection
for you.  Nicole smiled  to  herself.At least  I  think that  was  the
reason. . . .
    The ground underneath them began  to shake vigorously and  General
O’Toole  stopped,  momentarily  frightened.  "That's  apparently  what
happened during the  last maneuver,"  Nicole said,  steadying both  of
them by taking the  general's hand, "although  I was personally  lying
unconscious at the bottom of a pit and missed the entire event."
    "Then the light show was just an announcement of the maneuver?"
    "Probably. That's why Richard was so elated."
    They had barely opened  the lair covering  when Richard bolted  up
the stairs. "They've done it!" he exclaimed. "They've done it!"
    O’Toole and Nicole stared at him as he caught his breath. "They've
deployed some  kind  of mesh  or  net-I  don't know  exactly  what  it
is-about  six,  maybe  eight  hundred  meters  thick-all  around   the
spacecraft." He turned around.  "Come on," he  said, dashing down  the
steps three at a time.
    Despite her fatigue,  Nicole responded  to his  excitement with  a
final burst of adrenaline. She  bounded down the stairs after  Richard
and ran to  the White  Room. He  was standing  in front  of the  black
screen, flipping back and  forth from the  exterior image that  showed
the new material around  the vehicle to the  radar view that  depicted
the incoming missiles.
    "They must  have  understood  our warning,"  he  said  to  Nicole.
Richard jubilantly picked her up off the ground, gave her a kiss,  and
held her in the air. "It worked, darling," he shouted. "Thank you,  oh
thank you."
    Nicole too was excited. But she was not yet convinced that  Rama's
action would prevent  the destruction  of the  vehicle. After  General
O'Toole came in and Richard explained to him what they were seeing  on
the screen, there were only nine minutes left. Nicole had  butterflies
the size of basketballs in her stomach. The ground continued to  shake
as Rama extended its maneuver.
    The nuclear missiles obviously had terminal guidance, for  despite
the fact  that  Rama  was  definitely  changing  its  trajectory,  the
missiles continued to  approach along  a straight  line. The  close-up
radar picture showed that the sixteen attackers were quite spread out.
Their estimated impact times ranged  over a period slightly less  than
an hour.
    Richard's frenetic activity increased. He paced wildly around  the
room. At one point he pulled TB out of his pocket, put him down on the
floor, and began talking rapidly to the little robot as if TB were his
closest friend.  What Richard  said was  barely coherent.  One  moment
Richard was telling TB to prepare  for the coming explosion; a  second
later he was  explaining to  him how  Rama was  going to  miraculously
evade the oncoming missiles.
    General O'Toole was trying to  remain calm, but it was  impossible
with Richard flying around the room like a Tasmanian devil. He started
to say something to Richard, but decided instead to step outside  into
the tunnel for some quiet.
    During one of the rare moments that Richard was not moving, Nicole
walked over to him and grabbed his hands. "Darling," she said, "relax.
There's nothing we can do."
    Richard looked down for a second at his friend and lover and  then
threw his arms around her. He kissed  her wildly and then sat down  on
the shaking floor, pulling her down beside him. "I'm scared,  Nicole,"
he said, his body trembling. "I'm really scared. I hate not being able
to do anything."
    "I'm frightened too," she replied gently, taking his hands  again.
"And so is Michael."
    "But neither  of youact  scared," Richard  said. "I  feel like  an
idiot, bouncing around here like Tigger inWinnie the Pooh,"
    "Every person confronts  death in a  different way," Nicole  said.
"All of us  feel fear.  We just  deal with  it in  our own  individual
fashion,"
    Richard was calming down. He glanced  over at the big monitor  and
then at his  watch. "Three more  minutes until the  first impact,"  he
said.
    Nicole put her hands  on his cheeks and  kissed him softly on  the
lips. "I love you, Richard Wakefield," she said.
    "And I love you," he answered.
    Richard and  Nicole were  sitting quietly  on the  floor,  holding
hands and watching the  black screen, when  the first missile  reached
the edge of the dense mesh  that surrounded Rama. General O'Toole  was
standing behind them in the doorway-he had returned to the room  about
thirty seconds earlier. At  the moment the  missile made contact,  the
impacted part of the  mesh yielded, cushioning  the blow but  allowing
the missile  to penetrate  deeper  into the  netting.  Simultaneously,
other pieces of the mesh wrapped themselves rapidly about the missile,
spinning a  thick cocoon  with amazing  speed. It  was all  over in  a
fraction of a second.  The missile was about  two hundred meters  from
the outer shell of  Rama, already enclosed in  a thick wrapping,  when
its nuclear warhead detonated.  The mesh on the  screen flew around  a
little, but there was only a barely perceptible nudge inside the White
Room.
    "Wow!" said Richard first. "Did you see that?"
    He jumped up  and approached  the screen. "It  happened so  fast,"
Nicole commented, coming up beside him.
    General O'Toole mumbled a very  short prayer of thanks and  joined
his colleagues in front of the screen. "How do you think it did that?"
he asked Richard.
    "I have  no  idea,"  Richard replied.  "But  somehow  that  cocoon
contained the explosion. It must be a fantastic material." He  flipped
back to the radar image. "Let's  watch this next one more closely.  It
should be here in a few-"
    There was a brilliant  flash of light and  the screen went  blank.
Less than a second later a sharp lateral force hit them hard, knocking
them to the  floor. The  lights went  out in  the White  Room and  the
ground stopped  shaking.  "Is  everyone  all  right?"  Richard  asked,
groping for Nicole's hand in the dark.
    "I think so," O'Toole replied. "I  hit the wall, but only with  my
back and elbow."
    "I'm fine, darling," Nicole answered. "What happened?"
    "Obviously that one exploded early, before it reached the net.  We
were hit by the shock wave."
    "I don't  understand,"  O’Toole  said. "The  bomb  exploded  in  a
vacuum. How could there be a shock wave?"
    "It wasn't  technically  just  a  shock  wave,"  Richard  replied,
standing up as the lights came back  on and the ground began to  shake
again. "Hey,  how about  that!" he  interrupted himself.  "The  famous
Raman redundancy  scores again.  You  okay?" he  said to  Nicole,  who
looked unsteady as she was standing up.
    "I bruised my knee," she answered, "but it's not serious."
    "The bomb destroyed the  rest of its  own missile," Richard  said,
now answering O'Toole's  question as  he searched  through the  sensor
list for the redundant imaging and radar outputs, "vaporizing most  of
the casing and  reducing the  rest to  fragments. The  gas and  debris
moved outward at enormous speeds, creating  the wave that hit us.  The
mesh attenuated the size of the shock."
    Nicole moved over  against the wall  and sat down.  "I want to  be
ready for the next one," she said.
    "I wonder  how many  bumps like  that Rama  can survive,"  Richard
said.
    General O'Toole came over  and sat down  beside Nicole. "Two  down
and fourteen to go," he said.  They all smiled. At least they  weren't
dead yet.
    Richard  located  the  redundant  sensors  a  few  minutes  later.
"Uh-oh," he said  as he surveyed  the remaining blips  on the  screen.
"Unless I'm mistaken, the last bomb that exploded was many  kilometers
away. We  were  lucky. We'd  better  hope one  doesn't  detonate  just
outside the mesh."
    The trio watched while two more missiles were trapped and  wrapped
in the material surrounding Rama. Richard  stood up. "We have a  brief
respite now/' he said. "It will be three minutes or so before our next
impact-then we'll have four more missiles in a hurry."
    Nicole rose to  her feet also.  She saw that  General O'Toole  was
holding his back. "Are you sure you're all right, Michael?" she asked.
He nodded, still watching the screen. Richard came over beside  Nicole
and took her hand. A minute  later they sat down together against  the
wall to wait for the next impacts.
    They didn't wait long. A second lateral force, much stronger  than
the 6rst one, hit  them within twenty seconds.  Again the lights  went
out and the floor stopped shaking. Nicole could hear O'Toole's labored
breathing in the dark. "Michael," she said, "are you hurt?"
    When there was no immediate reply, Nicole started crawling in  his
direction. That was  a mistake.  She was not  braced against  anything
when the powerful third blast hit. Nicole was thrown savagely into the
wall, hitting it with the side of her head.
    General O'Toole stayed  beside Nicole while  Richard went up  into
New York  to survey  the  city. The  men  spoke quietly  when  Richard
returned. He  reported only  minor damage.  Thirty minutes  after  the
final missile had been trapped, the lights came back on and the ground
started shaking again. "You  see," Richard said with  a grin, "I  told
you we'd be all right. They always do everything important in threes."
    Nicole remained unconscious  for almost another  hour. During  the
last few minutes she  was vaguely aware of  both the vibration of  the
floor and the conversation  on the opposite side  of the room.  Nicole
opened her eyes very slowly,
    "The net  effect," she  heard  Richard say,  "is to  increase  our
velocity along the hyperbola. So we will cross the Earth's orbit  much
earlier than previously, long before the planet itself has arrived."
    "How close will we come to the Earth?"
    "Not too  close. It  depends on  when this  maneuver ends.  If  it
stopped now we  would miss by  a million kilometers  or so, more  than
twice the distance to the Moon."
    Nicole sat up and smiled. "Good morning," she said cheerfully.
    The two men came  over beside her. "Are  you all right,  darling?"
Richard asked.
    "I think so,"  Nicole said, feeling  the bump on  the side of  her
head. "I may have occasional headaches for a while." She looked at the
two men. "What about  you, Michael? I seem  to remember being  worried
about you right before the big blast."
    "The second  one knocked  the wind  out of  me," O'Toole  replied.
"Luckily I was better prepared for  the third bomb. And my back  seems
fine now."
    Richard started to explain what he had learned from the output  of
Rama's celestial sensors. "I heard the last part of it," Nicole  said.
"I gather  we're now  going  to miss  the Earth  altogether."  Richard
helped her to stand up. "But where are we headed?"
    Richard  shrugged  his  shoulders.  "No  planetary  or  asteroidal
targets are anywhere close to  our present trajectory. Our  hyperbolic
energy is increasing. If nothing changes we will escape from the solar
system altogether."
    "And become interstellar travelers/' Nicole said quietly.
    "If we live that long/' added the general.
    "For my part," Richard said with a playful smile, "I am not  going
to worry  about  what  happens next.  At  least  not yet.  I  plan  to
celebrate our escape from the nuclear  phalanx. I vote we go  upstairs
and introduce Michael to some new friends. Should it be the avians  or
the octospiders?"
    Nicole shook her head and smiled. "You're hopeless, Wakefield. Let
me not in any way inhibit-"
    "Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments . . ."
    TB  suddenly  interrupted.  All  three  of  the  cosmonauts   were
startled. They stared  down at the  tiny robot and  then erupted  with
laughter.
    "... love is  not love Which  alters when it  alteration finds  Or
bends with the remover to remove. Oh no, it is an ever-fixed mark .  .
,"
    Richard picked up TB and switched him off. Nicole and Michael were
still laughing. Richard embraced each  of them individually. "I  can't
think of  three better  traveling companions,"  he said,  holding  the
little robot over his head, "wherever it is we're going."
    ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
    Many different people  contributed to this  novel during  numerous
conversations over a two-year period. Those whose comments or insights
were especially  valuable include  Bebe Barden,  Paul Chodas,  Clayton
Frohman, Michael Classman, Bruce Jakosky, Roland Joffe, Gerry  Snyder,
and Ian Stewart.
    Lou Aronica, Malcolm Edwards, and Russ Galen each made significant
contributions to the  book. Their editing  insights were essential  in
shaping the final structure of the novel.
    Special thanks  are  extended  to  Father  Martin  Slaught,  whose
religious acumen was  indispensable in creating  General O'Toole,  and
Peter Guber, who enabled the authors  to meet for the first time  over
three years ago.
    Finally, no acknowledgment would be complete without bouquets  for
Mr.Lee's family.  His  wife,  Stacey, and  five  young  sons,  Cooper,
Austin, Robert, Patrick, and Michael,  generously allowed him to  make
the necessary trips halfway around the world to Sri Lanka and  granted
him the private  time that was  required for the  integration of  this
novel.
    All rights reserved.
    Copyright © 1989 by Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee.
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    writing from the publisher. For information address: Bantam Books.
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