Rama 2 by Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee

“It’s less than three hours until dark,” Nicole replied. “They may have returned to the Newton already.”

“All right, then, to hell with them,” Richard said. “Let’s have a bite to eat and then head for the chairlift.”

“Do you think we should save any of the melon?” Nicole asked a few minutes later, while they were eating. Richard gave her a puzzled glance. “Just in case,” she added.

“Just in case what?” Richard rejoined. “Even if we don’t find that idiotic rescue bunch and must climb all the stairs ourselves, we’ll still be out of here right after dark. Remember, we become weightless again at the top of the stairway.”

Nicole smiled. “I guess I’m naturally more cautious,” she said. She put several bites of melon back into her pack.

They had driven three-fourths of the way toward the chairlift and the Alpha stairway when they spotted the four human figures in space suits. It looked as if they were leaving the conglomeration of buildings that had been designated as the Raman Paris. The figures were walking in the opposite direction from the rover.

“I told you the guys were idiots,” Richard exclaimed. “They don’t even have the sense to take off their space suits. It must be a special team, sent up in the spare Newton vehicle just to find us and bring us back.”

He steered the rover across the Central Plain in the direction of the humans. Richard and Nicole both started shouting when they were within a hundred meters, but the men in the space suits continued their slow proces­sion toward the west- “They probably can’t hear us,” Nicole offered. “They still have on their helmets and communication gear.”

A frustrated Richard drove up to within five meters of the single-file line, stopped the rover, and jumped out in a hurry. He ran quickly around to the leader, shouting all the way. “Hey, guys,” he yelled. “We’re here, behind you. All you have to do is turn around—”

Richard stopped cold as he stared at the blank expression of the man in the lead. He recognized the face. Jesus, it was Norton! He shuddered involuntarily as a tingle ran down his spine. Richard barely jumped out of the way as the four-man procession walked slowly past him. Numb from the shock, he quietly studied the other three faces, none of which changed expression as they marched past. They were three other cosmonauts from the Rama I crew.

Nicole was at his side only seconds after the final figure passed him. “What’s the matter?” she said. “Why didn’t they stop?” The blood had all drained out of Richard’s face. “Darling, are you all right?”

“They’re biots,” Richard mumbled. “Goddamn human biots.”

“Whaaat?” Nicole replied, a streak of terror in her voice. She ran quickly to the head of the line and stared at the face behind the helmet glass. It was definitely Norton. Every feature of the face, even the color of the eyes and the slight mustache, was absolutely perfect. But the eyes didn’t say anything.

The motion of the body, too, now that she noticed it, seemed artificial. Each pair of steps was a repeated pattern. There were only slight variations from figure to figure. Richard is right, Nicole thought. These are human biots. They must have been made from the images, just like the toothpaste and the brush. A momentary panic swelled in her chest. But we don’t need a rescue team, she told herself, calming her anxiety. The military ship is still docked at the top of the bowl.

Richard was stunned by the discovery of the human biots. He sat in the rover for several minutes, unwilling to drive, asking questions of Nicole and himself that he could not possibly have answered. “So what’s going on here?” he said over and over again. “Are all these biots based on real species, found somewhere in the universe? And why are they being fabricated in the first place?”

Before they drove over to the chairlift, Richard insisted that they both shoot many minutes of video footage of the human biots. “The avians and octospiders are fascinating,” he said as he took a special close-up of “Norton’s” leg motion, “but this tape will blow everyone away.”

Nicole reminded him that it was less than two hours until dark and that it still might be necessary for them to climb the Stairway of the Gods. Satisfied that he had recorded the bizarre procession for posterity, Richard slid into the driver’s seat of the rover and headed toward the Alpha stairway.

There was no need to perform any tests to see if the chairlift was working properly; it was running when they drove up beside it. Richard jumped out of the rover and ran into the control room.

“Someone’s coming down,” he said, pointing up the lift.

“Or something,” Nicole said grimly.

The five-minute wait seemed like an eternity. At first neither Richard nor Nicole said anything. Later, however, Richard suggested that maybe they should sit in the rover in case they needed to make a quick escape.

Each of them trained binoculars on the long cable stretching upward to the heavens. “It’s a man!” cried Nicole.

“It’s General O’Toole!” said Richard a few moments later.

Indeed it was. General Michael Ryan O’Toole, American air force officer, was descending in the chairlift. He was still several hundred meters above Richard and Nicole, but had not yet seen them. He was busy studying with his binoculars the beauty of the alien landscape around him.

General O’Toole had been preparing to leave Rama for the final time when, as he rode up in the chairlift, he had spotted what looked like three birds flying far to the south in the Rama sky. The general had decided to return to see if he could find those birds again. He was unprepared for the joyous greeting that awaited him when he reached the bottom of his ride.

53 TRINITY

When Richard Wakefield had left the Newton to go back inside Rama, General O’Toole had been the last crew member to say good-bye. The general had waited patiently while the other cosmonauts had finished their conversations with Richard. “You’re really certain you want to do this?” Janos Tabori had said to his British friend. “You know the full committee is going to declare Rama off limits within hours.”

“By then”—Richard had grinned at Janos—”I will be on my way to Beta. Technically I will not have violated their order.”

“That’s bullshit,” Admiral Heilmann had interjected tersely. “Dr. Brown and I are in charge of this mission. We have both told you to stay onboard the Newton.”

“And I’ve told you several times,” Richard said firmly, “that I left some personal items inside Rama that are very important to me- Besides, you know as well as I do that there’s nothing for any of us here to do over the next couple of days. Once the abort decision is definitely made, all the major scheduling activities will be on the ground. We will be told when to undock and head for Earth.”

“I will remind you, one more time,” Otto Heilmann had replied, “that I consider what you are doing an act of insubordination. When we return to Earth I intend to prosecute to the fullest—”

“Save it, will you, Otto?” Richard interrupted. There was no rancor in his tone. He adjusted his space suit and started to put on his helmet. As always Francesca was recording the scene on her video camera. She had been strangely silent since her private conversation with Richard an hour earlier. She seemed detached, as if her mind were somewhere else.

General O’Toole walked up to Richard and extended his hand. “We haven’t spent much time together, Wakefield,” he said, “but I’ve admired your work. Good luck in there. Don’t take any unnecessary chances.”

Richard had been surprised by the general’s warm smile. He had expected the American military officer to try to talk him out of leaving. “It’s magnifi­cent in Rama, General,” Richard had said. “Like a combination of the Grand Canyon, the Alps, and the Pyramids all at once.”

“We’ve lost four crew members already,” O’Toole replied. “I want to see you back here safe and sound. God bless you.”

Richard finished shaking the general’s hand, put on his helmet, and stepped across into the airlock. Moments later, when Wake6eld was gone, Admiral Heilmann was critical of General O’Toole’s behavior. “I’m disap­pointed in you, Michael,” he said. “From that warm send-off the young man might have concluded that you actually approved of his action.”

O’Toole faced the German admiral. “Wakefield has courage, Otto,” he said. “And conviction as well, He is not afraid of either the Ramans or the ISA disciplinary process. I admire that kind of self-confidence.”

“Nonsense,” Heilmann rejoined. “Wakefield is a brash, arrogant school­boy. You know what he left inside? A couple of those stupid Shakespearean robots. He just doesn’t like taking orders. He wants to do what’s uppermost on his own personal agenda.”