Rama 2 by Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee

By 2143 only a very few hard core colonists remained on the Moon and Mars. Communications between Earth and the colonies had become inter­mittent and erratic. Monies to maintain even the radio links with the outly­ing settlements were no longer available. The United Planets had ceased to exist two years previously. There was no all-human forum addressing the problems of the species; the Council of Governments (COG) would not be formed for 6ve more years. The two remaining colonies struggled vainly to avoid death.

In the following year, 2144, the last significant manned space mission of the time period took place. The mission was a rescue sortie piloted by an amazing Mexican woman named Benita Garcia. Using a jerryrigged space­craft thrown together from old parts, Ms. Garcia and her three-man crew somehow managed to reach the geosynchronous orbit of the lame cruiser James Martin, the final interplanetary transport vehicle in service, and save twenty-four members from the crew of a hundred women and children being repatriated from Mars. In every space historian’s mind, the rescue of the passengers on the James Martin marked the end of an era. Within six more months the two remaining space stations were abandoned and no human lifted off the Earth, bound for orbit, until almost forty years later.

By 2145 the struggling world had managed to see the importance of some of the international organizations neglected and maligned at the beginning of The Great Chaos. The most talented members of mankind, after having eschewed personal political involvement during the benign early decades of the century, began to understand that it would only be through the collective skills of the brightest and most capable humans that any semblance of civilized life could ever be restored. At first the monumental cooperative efforts that resulted were only modestly successful; but they rekindled the fundamental optimism of the human spirit and started the renewal process-Slowly, ever so slowly, the elements of human civilization were put back into place.

It was still another two years before the general recovery finally showed up in economic statistics. By 2147 the Gross World Product had dwindled to 7 percent of its level six years earlier. Unemployment in the developed nations averaged 3 5 percent; in some of the undeveloped nations the combination of unemployed and underemployed amounted to 90 percent of the population-It is estimated that as many as one hundred million people starved to death during the awful summer of 2142 alone, when a great drought and concomi­tant famine girdled the world in the tropical regions. The combination of an astronomical death rate from many causes and a minuscule birthrate (for who wanted to bring a child into such a hopeless world?) caused the world’s population to drop by almost a billion in the decade ending in 2150.

The experience of The Great Chaos left a permanent scar on an entire generation. As the years passed, and the children born after its conclusion reached adolescence, they were confronted by parents who were cautious to the point of phobia. Life as a teenager in the 2160s and even the 2170s was very strict. The memories of the terrible traumas of their youth during The Chaos haunted the adult generation and made them extremely rigid in their application of parental discipline. To them life was not a joyride at an amusement park. It was a deadly serious affair and only through a combination of solid values, self-control, and a steady commitment to a worthwhile goal was there a chance to achieve happiness.

The society that emerged in the 2170s was therefore dramatically differ­ent from the freewheeling laissez-faireism of fifty years earlier. Many very old, established institutions, among them the nation-state, the Roman Cath­olic church, and the English monarchy, had enjoyed a renaissance during the half century interim. These institutions had prospered because they had adapted quickly and taken leadership positions in the restructuring that fol­lowed The Chaos.

By the late 2170s, when a semblance of stability had returned to the planet, interest in space began to build again. A new generation of observa­tion and communication satellites was launched by the reconstituted Inter­national Space Agency, one of the administrative arms of the COG. At first the space activity was cautious and the budgets were very small. Only the developed nations participated actively. When piloted flights recommenced and were successful, a modest schedule of missions was planned for the decade of the 2190s. A new Space Academy to train cosmonauts for those missions opened in 2188 and had its first graduates four years later.

On Earth growth was achingly slow but regular and predictable for most of the twenty years preceding the discovery of the second Raman spaceship in 2196. In a technological sense, mankind was at approximately the same overall level of development in 2196 as it had been, sixty-six years earlier, when the first extraterrestrial craft had appeared. Recent spaceBight experi­ence was much less, to be certain, at the time of the second encounter; however, in certain critical technical areas like medicine and information management, the human society of the last decade of the twenty-second century was considerably more advanced than it had been in 2130. In one other component the civilizations encountered by the two Raman spacecraft were markedly different: Many of the human beings alive in 2196, especially those who were older and held the policy-making positions in the governing structure, had lived through some of the very painful years of The Great Chaos. They knew the meaning of the word “fear.” And that powerful word shaped their deliberations as they debated the priorities that would guide a human mission to rendezvous with Rama II.

6 LA SIGNORA SABATINI

So you were working on your doctor­ate in physics at SMU when your husband made his famous prediction about supernova 2191a?”

Elaine Brown was sitting in a large soft chair in her living room. She was dressed in a stark brown suit, sexless, with a high-collar blouse. She looked stiff and anxious, as if she were ready for the interview to be completed.

“I was in my second year and David was my dissertation adviser,” she said carefully, her eyes glancing furtively at her husband. He was across the room, watching the proceedings from behind the cameras. “David worked very closely with his graduate students. Everybody knew that. It was one of the reasons why I choose SMU for my graduate work.”

Francesca Sabatini looked beautiful. Her long blond hair was flowing freely over her shoulders. She was wearing an expensive white silk blouse, trimmed by a royal blue scarf neatly folded around her neck. Her lounging pants were the same color as the scarf. She was sitting in a second chair next to Elaine. Two coffee cups were on the small table between them.

“Dr. Brown was married at the time, wasn’t he? I mean during the period when he was your adviser.”

Elaine reddened perceptibly as Francesca finished her question. The Ital­ian journalist continued to smile at her, a disarmingly ingenuous smile, as if the question she had just asked was as simple and straightforward as two plus two. Mrs. Brown hesitated, drew a breath, and then stammered slightly in giving her response. “In the beginning, yes, I believe that he still was,” she answered. “But his divorce was final before I finished my degree.” She stopped again and then her face brightened. “He gave me an engagement ring for a graduation present,” she said awkwardly.

Francesca Sabatini studied her subject. / could easily tear you apart on that reply, she thought rapidly. With just a couple more questions. But that would not serve my purpose.

“Okay, cut” Francesca blurted out suddenly. “That’s a wrap. Let’s take a look and then you can put all the equipment back in the truck.” The lead cameraman walked over to the side of robot camera number one, which had been programmed to in stay a close-up on Francesca, and entered three commands into the miniature keyboard on the side of the camera housing. Meanwhile, because Elaine had risen from her seat, robot camera number two was automatically backing away on its tripod legs and retracting its zoom lens. Another cameraman motioned to Elaine to stand still until he was able to disconnect the second camera.

Within seconds the director had programmed the automatic monitoring equipment to replay the last five minutes of the interview. The output of all three cameras was shown simultaneously, split screen, the composite picture of both Francesca and Elaine occupying the center of the monitor with the tapes from the two close-up cameras on either side. Francesca was a consum­mate professional. She could tell quickly that she had the material she needed for this portion of the show. Dr. David Brown’s wife, Elaine, was young, intelligent, earnest, plain, and not comfortable with the attention being focused on her. And it was all clearly there in the camera memory.

While Francesca was wrapping up the details with her crew and arranging to have the annotated interview composite delivered to her hotel at the Dallas Transportation Complex before her flight in the morning, Elaine Brown came back into the living room with a standard robot server, two different kinds of cheese, a bottle of wine, and plenty of glasses for everyone. Francesca glimpsed a frown on David Brown’s face as Elaine announced that there would now be “a small party” to celebrate the end of the interview.