Rama II Part 9

"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."

Takagis.h.i.+ 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 a.s.sociates.

"Where are you, s.h.i.+geru?" 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. Takagis.h.i.+ 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 Takagis.h.i.+ 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.

Takagis.h.i.+ 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 s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p 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 Takagis.h.i.+ 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 sc.r.a.ping sound?" she whispered.

'Yes," said Takagis.h.i.+, quietly but excitedly. "Like something is brus.h.i.+ng 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 Takagis.h.i.+ 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 sc.r.a.ping. The sound was definitely louder. And eerie. Wakefield felt his spine tingle.

"Do you have a tape recorder?" Takagis.h.i.+ whispered to Francesca. The sc.r.a.ping stopped at the sound of Takagis.h.i.+'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 a.s.sumed 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. s.h.i.+geru Takagis.h.i.+ 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 j.a.panese 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. "Takagis.h.i.+ 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. "s.h.i.+g 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 Takagis.h.i.+. I don't blame s.h.i.+g 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 w.i.l.l.i.e.s while I was standing there on the wall."

"Francesca was even p.i.s.sed off at Brown at first. She wanted to do a feature interview with s.h.i.+g 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 Takagis.h.i.+ suggested that we could explore New York in the dark? Brown probably thinks it was his 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." 25 A 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.

"Takagis.h.i.+-san, are you awake?"

He stirred and reached out for the communicator. "h.e.l.lo," 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," Takagis.h.i.+ 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. Takagis.h.i.+ 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?"

Takagis.h.i.+ 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," Takagis.h.i.+ interrupted with a soft smile, "I became overly excited and my extra adrenaline aggravated the problem."

Nicole stared at the j.a.panese scientist. "That's possible, Dr. Takagis.h.i.+. 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?" Takagis.h.i.+ 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 Takagis.h.i.+ 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 friends.h.i.+p in Takagis.h.i.+'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, s.h.i.+g? Do you have a bad heart? Or just a weird one?"

Takagis.h.i.+ 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?" Takagis.h.i.+ 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 Takagis.h.i.+. 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 have two 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 from Romeo and Juliet Next to them are Iago and Oth.e.l.lo, 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 Oth.e.l.lo 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 s.h.i.+ne, With alltriumphant 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 pa.s.sages 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 a.n.a.lysis 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. "n.o.body recalls commanding RoSur at any time after the final load and verify. When Janos. .h.i.t 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?"

26 SECOND 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 part.i.tions, representing hours, and was now busy writing down whatever he told her, "The d.a.m.n 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 s.p.a.ce 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 a.s.sembly 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 bulls.h.i.+t/' he shouted. "I can't believe all the nonsense I'm hearing." Richard stopped his review. Brown and Takagis.h.i.+, 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 s.p.a.cecraft. 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 to leave, 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 G.o.dd.a.m.n 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 f.u.c.king weird, man. Somebody turned out all the lights. In this discussion never once have I heard anybody ask why 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.