Rama 2 by Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee

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 this press 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 reduce the 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 went out of her way today to accommodate your request for press coverage of this briefing.”

Francesca studied General Borzov for several seconds. / think he’s ready 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.