Rama 2 by Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee

“We were inside this amazing barn,” Francesca replied from behind Ni­cole. “It’s like a surrealistic world, with one-way mirrors and weird reflec­tions—”

“That’s great,” Richard interrupted, “but we don’t have time to chat. You ladies are to march forthwith to the closest spot on the Cylindrical Sea. A helicopter will pick you up in ten minutes. We’d come into New York itself if there was a place for us to land.”

“Why?” Nicole asked. “What’s the hurry all of a sudden?”

“Can you see the South Pole from where you are?”

“No. We have too many tall buildings in the way.”

“Something weird is happening around the little horns. Huge arcs of lightning are bouncing from spire to spire. It’s an impressive display. We all feel something unusual is about to happen.” Richard hesitated a second. “You should leave New York immediately.”

“Okay,” Nicole answered. “We’re on our way.”

She switched off the transmitter and turned to Francesca. “Did you hear how loud the emergency signal was the moment we came out of the barn?” Nicole thought for several seconds. “The material in the walls and roof of that building must block radio signals.” Her face now brightened. “That explains what happened to Takagishi—he must be inside a barn, or some­thing similar.”

Francesca was not following Nicole’s line of thought. “So what?” she said, taking one last panoramic image of the barn with her video camera. “It’s really not important now. We must hurry out to meet the helicopter.”

“Maybe he’s even in one of those very pits,” Nicole continued excitedly.

“Sure. It could have happened. He was exploring in the dark. He could have fallen . . . Wait here,” she said to Francesca. “I’ll only be a minute.”

Nicole dashed back inside the barn and bent down beside one of the holes. Holding the side of the pit with her hand, she shone the beam from her flashlight down into the bottom. Something was there! She waited a few seconds for her eyes to focus. It was a pile of material of some kind. She moved quickly to the next pit. “Doctor Takagishi,” she yelled. “Are you here, Shig?” she shouted in Japanese.

“Come on!” Francesca hollered at Nicole from the end of the barn. “Let’s go. Richard sounded very serious.”

At the fourth pit the shadows made it very difficult for Nicole to see the bottom even with the beam from her flashlight. She could make out some objects, but what were they? She laid down on her stomach and eased slightly into the pit at an angle to try to confirm that the shapeless mass below her was not the body of her friend.

The lights in Rama began flashing on and off. Inside the bam, the optical effect was startling. And disorienting. Nicole glanced up to see what was happening and lost her balance. Most of her body slid into the pit. “Fran­cesca,” she yelled, pressing her hands against the opposite wall of the pit for support. “Francesca, I need some help,” Nicole shouted again.

Nicole waited almost a minute before she concluded that Cosmonaut Sabatini must have already left the barn area. Her arms were tiring rapidly. Only her feet and the very bottoms of her legs were safely resting on the barn floor. Her head was next to one of the pit walls about eighty centime­ters below floor level. The remainder of her body was suspended in midair, prevented from falling only by her intense arm pressure against the wall.

The lights continued to flash off and on at short intervals. Nicole lifted her head to see if she could possibly reach the top of the pit with one of her arms, while holding her position secure with the other, It was hopeless. Her head was too deep in the hole. She waited several more seconds, her despera­tion growing as the fatigue in her arms increased. Finally Nicole made an attempt both to throw her body upward and to grab onto the lip of the pit in one connected motion. She was almost successful. Her arms could not stop her downward momentum when she fell. Her feet followed her body into the hole and she smacked her head against the wall. She tumbled uncon­scious to the bottom of the pit.

36 IMPACT COURSE

Francesca had also been startled when the lights of Rama had sud­denly begun to flash. Her initial impulse had been to run inside, just under the roof of the barn. Once there, she felt slightly more protected. What’s going on now? she thought as the reflected lights from the adjacent buildings forced her to close her eyes to keep from becoming dizzy.

When she heard Nicole’s cry for help, Francesca started to rush over to help her fellow cosmonaut. However, she tripped on one of the spheres and banged her knee as she fell. When she rose, Francesca could see in the strobing light that Nicole’s position was very precarious. Only the backs of Nicole’s shoes were visible. Francesca stood quite still and waited. Her mind had already raced ahead. She had a nearly perfect image of the pits in her memory, including a fairly accurate assessment of the depth. If she falls she’ll be injured, she thought, maybe even killed. Francesca remembered the smooth walk. She won’t be able to climb out.

The flashing lights gave an eerie overtone to the scene. As Francesca watched, she saw Nicole’s body rise barely out of the pit and her hands scramble for a hold on the lip. In the next flashes of light the shoes changed angle with respect to the pit and then abruptly disappeared. Francesca heard no scream.

If she had not controlled herself, Francesca would have hurried over to the pit and looked into it. TVb, she said to herself, still standing amid the small spheres, / must not look. If by chance she is still conscious, she might see me. Then I will have no options.

Already Francesca was thinking about the possibilities offered by Nicole’s fall. She was certain, based on their earlier exchange, that Nicole intended to do her utmost to prove that Borzov had ingested a pain-inducing drug on the last day of his life. It might be possible for Nicole even to identify the particular compound and then eventually, since it was not common, to trace its purchase back to Francesca. The scenario was unlikely, even implausible. But it could happen.

Francesca remembered using her special permits to buy the dimethyldexfl, along with a batch of other items, at a hospital pharmacy in Copenhagen two years earlier. At the time there had been a suggestion that the drug, in very small doses, could produce mild reelings of euphoria in highly stressed individuals. A single journal article in an obscure Swedish mental health publication the following year had contained the information that sizable doses of dimethyldexil would produce acute pain that simulated an appendi­citis.

As Francesca walked rapidly away from the barn in a northerly direction, her agile mind worked through all the possibilities. She was performing her usual risk/reward trade-off. The primary issue she was facing, now that she had left Nicole in the pit, was whether or not to tell the truth about Nicole’s fall. But why did you leave her there? somebody would ask. Why didn’t you radio us that she had fallen and stand by until help could arrive?

Because I was confused and frightened and the lights were flashing. And Richard had sounded so very concerned about our leaving. I thought it would be easier for us to all talk together at the helicopter. Was that believable? Barely. But it was easy to keep straight. So I still have the partial truth option, Francesca thought as she passed the octahedron near the central plaza. She realized she had walked too far to the east, checked her personal navigator, and then changed her direction. The lights of Rama continued to flash.

And what are my other choices:’ Wakefield talked with us just outside the barn. He knows where we were. A search party would definitely find her.

Unless . . . Francesca thought again about the possibility that Nicole might eventually implicate her in the drugging of General Borzov. The resulting scandal would certainly result in a messy investigation and probably a crimi­nal indictment. In any case, Francesca’s reputation would be sullied and her future career as a journalist would be seriously compromised.

With Nicole out of the picture, on the other hand, there was virtually zero probability that anyone would ever learn that Francesca had drugged Borzov. The only person who knew the facts was David Brown, and he had been a co-conspirator. Besides, he had even more to lose than she did.

So the issue, Francesca thought, is whether or not I can make up a believ­able story that both reduces the chance Nicole will be found and does not implicate me if she is. That’s a very difficult task.