Rama 2 by Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee

“It is inconceivable to me,” Borzov was saying while he strode purpose­fully around the room, “that any of you could ever forget, even for a mo­ment, that you have been selected to go on what could be the most impor­tant human mission of all time. But on the basis of this last set of simulations, I must admit that I am beginning to have my doubts about some of you.

“There are those who believe that this Rama craft will be a copy of its predecessor,” Borzov continued, “and that it will be equally disinterested and uninvolved with whatever trifling creatures come to survey it. I admit it certainly appears to be at least the same size and same configuration, based on the radar data that we have been processing for the past three years. But even if it does turn out to be another dead ship built by aliens that vanished thousands of years ago, this mission is still the most important one of our lifetime. And I would think that it demands the very best effort from each of you.”

The Soviet general paused to collect his thoughts. Janos Tabori started to ask a question but Borzov interrupted him and launched again into his monologue. “Our performance as a crew on this last set of training exercises has been absolutely abominable. Some of you have been outstanding—you know who you are—but just as many of you have acted as if you had no idea what this mission was about. I am convinced that two or three of you do not even read the relevant procedures or the protocol listings before the exercises begin. I grant you that they are dull and sometimes tedious, but all of you agreed, when you accepted your appointments ten months ago, to learn the procedures and to follow the protocols and project policies. Even those of you with no prior flight experience.”

Borzov had stopped in front of one of the large maps on the wall, this one an inset view of one corner of the city of “New York” inside the first Raman spaceship. The area of tall thin buildings resembling Manhattan skyscrapers, all huddled together on an island in the middle of the Cylindrical Sea, had been partially mapped during the previous human encounter. “In six weeks we will rendezvous with an unknown space vehicle, perhaps one containing a city like this, and all of mankind will depend on us to represent them. We have no way of knowing what we will find. Whatever preparation we will have completed before then may well be not enough. Our knowledge of our preplanned procedures must be perfect and automatic, so that our brains are free to deal with any new conditions we may encounter.”

The commander sat down at the head of the table. “Today’s exercise was nearly a complete disaster. We could easily have lost three valuable members of our team as well as one of the most expensive helicopters ever built. I want to remind you all, one more time, of the priorities of this mission as agreed to by the International Space Agency and the Council of Govern­ments. The top priority is the safety of the crew. Second priority is the analysis and/or determination of any threat, if it exists, to the human popu­lation of the planet Earth.” Borzov was now looking directly down the table at Brown, who returned the commander’s challenging look with a stony stare of his own. “Only after those two priorities are satisfied and the Raman craft is adjudged harmless does the capturing of one or more of the biots have any significance.”

“I would like to remind General Borzov,” David Brown said almost imme­diately in his sonorous voice, “that some of us do not believe the priorities should be blindly applied in a serial fashion. The importance of the biots to the scientific community cannot be overstated. As I have said repeatedly, both in cosmonaut meetings and on my many television news appearances, if this second Rama craft is just like the first—which means that it will ignore our existence completely—and we proceed so slowly that we fail even to capture a single biot before we must abandon the alien ship and return to Earth, then an absolutely unique opportunity for science will have been sacrificed to assuage the collective anxiety of the world’s politicians.”

Borzov started to reply but Brown stood up and gestured emphatically with his hands. “No, no, hear me out. You have essentially accused me of incompetence in my conduct of today’s exercise and I have a right to re­spond.” He held up some computer printout and waved it at Borzov. “Here are the initial conditions for today’s simulation, as posted and defined by your engineers. Let me refresh your memory with a few of the more salient points, in case you’ve forgotten. Background condition number one: It is near the end of the mission and it has already been firmly established that Rama II is totally passive and represents no threat to the planet Earth. Background condition number two: During the expedition biots have only been seen sporadically, and never in groups.”

Brown could tell from the body language of the rest of the crew that his presentation had had a successful beginning. He drew a breath and contin­ued. “1 assumed, after reading those background conditions, that this partic­ular exercise might represent the last chance to capture a biot. During the test I kept thinking what it would mean if we could bring one or several of them back to the Earth—in all the history of humanity, the only absolutely certain contact with an extraterrestrial culture took place in 2130 when our cosmonauts boarded that first Rama spaceship.

“Yet the long-term scientific benefit from that encounter was less than it might have been. Granted, we have reams of remote sensing data from that first investigation, including the information from the detailed dissection of the spider biot done by Dr. Laura Ernst. But the cosmonauts brought home only one artifact, a tiny piece of some kind of biomechanical flower whose physical characteristics had already irreversibly changed before any of its mysteries could be understood, We have nothing else in the way of souvenirs from that first excursion. No ashtrays, no drinking glasses, not even a transis­tor from a piece of equipment that would teach us something about Raman engineering. Now we have a second chance.”

Brown looked up at the circular ceiling above him. His voice was full of power. “If we could somehow find and return two or three different biots to the Earth, and if we could then analyze these creatures to unlock their secrets, then this mission would without doubt be the most significant histor­ical event of all time. For in understanding in depth the engineering minds of the Ramans, we would, in a real sense, achieve a first contact.”

Even Borzov was impressed. As he often did, David Brown had used his eloquence to turn a defeat into a partial victory. The Soviet general decided to alter his tactics, “Still,” Borzov said in a subdued tone during the pause in Brown’s rhetoric, “we must never forget that human lives are at stake on this mission and that we must do nothing to jeopardize their safety.” He looked around the table at the rest of the crew. “I want to bring back biots and other samples from Rama as much as any of you,” he continued, “but 1 must confess that this blithe assumption that the second craft will be exactly like the first disturbs me a great deal. What evidence do we have from the first encounter that the Ramans, or whoever they are, are benevolent? None at all. It could be dangerous to seize a biot too soon.”

“But there’s no way of ever being certain, Commander, one way or the other.” Richard Wakefield spoke from the side of the table between Borzov and Brown. “Even if we verify that this spaceship is exactly like the first one almost seventy years ago, we still have no information about what will hap­pen once we make a concerted effort to capture a biot. I mean, suppose for a moment that the two ships are just supersophisticated robots engineered millions of years ago by a now vanished race from the opposite side of the galaxy, as Dr. Brown has suggested in his articles. How can we predict what kinds of subroutines might be programmed into those biots to deal with hostile acts? What if the biots are integral parts, in some way that we have not been able to discern, of the fundamental operation of the ship? Then it would be natural, even though they are machines, that they would be pro­grammed to defend themselves. And it is conceivable that what might look like an initial hostile act on our part could be the trigger that changes the way the entire ship functions. I remember reading about the robot lander that crashed into the ethane sea on Titan in 2012—it had stored entirely different sequences depending on what it—”