Rama 2 by Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee

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/on voglio 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?