Rama 2 by Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee

“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. So you 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.