“Last time they followed one of those lanes between the checkerboard partitions until they came to a hole,” Francesca responded from the other end of the table. “Then they dumped their garbage in it. They haven’t picked up anything in this new territory, so what they will do when they finish is anybody’s guess.”
“Everyone is convinced that our biots are in fact garbagemen?” Richard asked.
“The evidence is fairly strong/’ David Brown said. “A similar solitary crab biot encountered by Jimmy Pak inside the first Rama was also believed to be a garbage collector.”
“Excuse me,” Janos Tabori interjected, “but just what garbage are these crabs collecting?”
“We flatter ourselves,” Shigeru Takagishi said softly after a long silence. He finished chewing his last bite and swallowed. “Dr. Brown himself was the one who first said that it was unlikely we human beings could comprehend what Rama was about. Our conversation reminds me of that old Hindu proverb about the blind men who felt the elephant. They all described it differently, for each of them touched only a small part of the animal. None of them was correct.”
“So, you don’t think our crabs work for the Rama Sanitation Department?” Janos inquired.
“I didn’t say that,” Takagishi replied. “1 merely suggested that it’s hubris on our part to conclude so quickly that those six creatures have no purpose except cleaning up the garbage. Our observational data is woefully inadequate.”
“Sometimes it is necessary to extrapolate,” Dr. Brown rejoined testily, “. . . and even speculate, based on minimal amounts of data. You know yourself that new science is based on maximum likelihood rather than certainty.”
“Before we become involved in an esoteric discussion about science and its methodology,” Janos now interrupted with a grin, “I have a sporting proposition for you all.” He stood up at his place. “Actually it was Richard’s idea originally, but I’ve figured out how to make it into a game. It has to do with the lights.”
Janos took a quick drink of water from his cup. “Since we first arrived here in Ramaland,” he intoned formally, “there have been three transitions in the illumination state.”
“Boo. Hiss,” shouted Wakefield. Janos laughed.
“Okay, you guys,” the little Hungarian then continued in his normal offhand way, “what’s the deal with the lights? They’ve come on, gone off, and now come on again. What’s going to happen in the future? 1 propose that we have a pool and contribute, say, twenty marks apiece. Each of us will make a prediction about the behavior of the lights for the rest of the mission and whoever is closest will win the pot.”
“Who will judge the winner?” Reggie Wilson inquired sleepily. He had yawned several times during the preceding hour. “Despite the impressive set of brains around this table, I don’t think anyone has figured out Rama yet. My personal belief is that the lights will not follow any pattern. They will go on and off at random times to keep us guessing.”
“Write it down and send it on the modem to General O’Toole. Richard and I agreed that he would make a perfect judge. When the mission is over, he’ll compare the predictions with actuality and someone will win a lucky dinner for two.”
Dr. David Brown pushed his chair back from the table. “Are you finished with your game, Tabori?” he asked. “If so,” he added, without waiting for an answer, “perhaps we can clean up this lunch mess and get on with our schedule.”
“Hey skipper,” Janos replied, “I’m just trying to loosen things up. Everybody’s getting tense—”
Brown walked out of the hut before Cosmonaut Tabori had finished his sentence.
“What’s bothering him?” Richard asked Francesca,
“I guess he’s anxious about the hunt,” Francesca answered. “He has been in a bad mood since this morning. Maybe he’s feeling all the responsibility.”
“Maybe he’s just a jerk,” said Wilson. He too rose from his seat. “I’m going to take a nap.”
As Wilson was leaving the large hut Nicole remembered that she wanted to check everyone’s biometry before the hunt. It was a simple enough task. All she needed was to stand close to each cosmonaut for about forty-five seconds with her activated scanner and then read the critical data off the monitor. If there were no entries in the warning files, the entire procedure was quite straightforward. On this particular check everyone was clean, including Takagishi. “Nice going,” Nicole said to her Japanese colleague very quietly.
She walked outside to look for David Brown and Reggie Wilson. Dr. Brown’s hut was at the far end of the campsite. Like the rest of the individual dwellings, his hut resembled a tall skinny hat sitting on the ground. All the huts were off-white in color, about two and a half meters tall, with a circular base just under two meters in diameter. They were manufactured with super-lightweight, flexible materials that combined easy packing and storage with formidable strength. Nicole remarked to herself that the huts looked something like native American Indian teepees.
David Brown was in his hut, sitting cross-legged on the ground in front of a portable computer monitor. On the screen was text from the chapter on biots in Takagishi’s Atlas of Rama. “Excuse me, Dr. Brown,” Nicole said as she stuck her head in his door.
“Yes,” he said, “what is it?” He made no attempt to hide his annoyance at the interruption.
“I need to check your biometry data,” Nicole said. “You haven’t been dumped since right before the first sortie.”
Brown gave her an irritated glance. Nicole held her ground. The American shrugged his shoulders, half grunted, and turned back to the monitor. Nicole knelt beside him and activated her scanner.
“There are some folding chairs over in the supply hut,” Nicole offered as Dr. Brown shifted his weight uncomfortably on the ground. He ignored her comment. Why is he so rude to me? Nicole found herself wondering. Is it because of that report on Wilson and him? No, she thought, answering her own question, it’s because I have never been properly deferential,
Data began to appear on Nicole’s screen. She carefully keyed in several inputs that permitted a synopsis of the warning data to be shown. “Your blood pressure has been too high for intermittent intervals during the last seventy-two hours, including almost all of today,” she said without emotion. “This particular kind of pattern is usually associated with stress.”
Dr. Brown stopped reading about biots and turned to face his life science officer. He looked at the displayed data without understanding it. “This graph shows the amplitudes and durations of your out-of-tolerance excursions,” Nicole said, pointing at the screen. “None of the individual occurrences would be serious by itself. But the overall pattern is cause for concern.”
“I have been under some pressure,” he mumbled. David Brown watched while Nicole called up other displays showing data that corroborated her original statements. Many of Brown’s warning files were overflowing.
The lights continued to flash on the monitor. “What’s the worst-case scenario?” he inquired.
Nicole eyed her patient. “A stroke with paralysis or death,” she replied. “If the condition persists or worsens.”
He whistled. “What should I do?”
“In the first place,” Nicole answered, “you must start by getting more sleep. Your metabolic profile shows that since the death of General Borzov you have only had a total of eleven hours of solid rest. Why didn’t you tell me you were having trouble sleeping?”
“I thought it was just excitement. I even took a sleeping pill one night and it had no effect.”
Nicole’s brow furrowed. “I don’t remember giving you any sleeping pills.”
Dr. Brown smiled. “Shit,” he said, “I forgot to tell you. I was talking to Francesca Sabatini about my insomnia one night and she offered me a pill. I took it without thinking.”
“Which night was that?” Nicole asked. She changed displays again on her monitor and called for more data from the storage buffers.
“I’m not certain,” Dr. Brown said after some hesitation. “I think it was—
“Oh, here it is,” Nicole said. “I can see it in the chemical analysis. That was March third, the second night after Borzov’s death. The day you and Heilmann were selected as joint commanders. From the breakout in this spectrometry data, I would guess that you took a single medvil.”
“You can tell that from my biometry data.”
“Not exactly,” Nicole said with a smile. “The interpretation is not unique. What was it you said at lunch? Sometimes it’s necessary to extrapolate . . , and speculate,”
Their eyes met for a moment. Could that be fear? Nicole wondered as she tried to interpret what she was seeing in his gaze. Dr. Brown looked away. “Thank you, Dr. des Jardins,” he said stiffly, “for your report on my blood pressure. I will try to relax and get plenty of sleep. And I apologize for not informing you about the sleeping pill.” He dismissed her with a wave of his hand.
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