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 qualify all 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.
22 DAWN
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.”
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