Rama 2 by Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee

“That makes him a lot like the rest of us,” Francesca remarked. The room was quiet for a moment. “Richard is very smart,” she said in a subdued tone. “He probably has reasons for going back into Rama that none of us under­stand.”

“I just hope he comes back before dark, as he promised,” Janos said. “I’m not certain I could stand to lose another friend.”

The cosmonauts filed out of the atrium into the hallway. “Where’s Dr. Brown?” Janos asked Francesca as he walked along beside her.

“He’s with Yamanaka and Turgenyev. They’re reviewing possible crew assignments for the trip home. As shorthanded as we are, a lot of cross training will be necessary before we leave.” Francesca laughed. “He even asked me if I could be a backup navigation engineer. Can you imagine that?”

“Easily,” Janos replied. “You probably could learn any of the engineering assignments at this point.”

Behind them Heilmann and O’Toole shuffled down the corridor. When they reached the hall leading to the private crew quarters, General O’Toole started to leave. “Just a minute,” Otto Heilmann said. “I need to talk to you about something else. This damn Wakefield thing almost made it slip my mind. Can you come to my office for an hour or so?”

“Essentially,” Otto Heilmann said, pointing at the unscrambled crypto­gram on the monitor, “this is a major change to the Trinity procedure. It’s not surprising. Now that we know much more about Rama, you would expect the deployment to be somewhat different.”

“But we never anticipated using all five weapons,” O’Toole responded. “The extra pair were only loaded onboard in case of failures. That much megatonnage could vaporize Rama.”

“That’s the intent,” Heilmann said. He sat back in his chair and smiled. “Just between us chickens/’ he said, “I think there’s a lot of pressure on the general staff down there. The feeling is that Rama’s capabilities were vastly underrated initially.”

“But why do they want to put the two largest weapons in the ferry pas­sageway? Surely one of the bombs would accomplish the desired result.”

“What if it didn’t explode for some reason? There has to be a backup.” Heilmann leaned forward eagerly on his desk. “I think this change to the procedure clearly defines the strategy. The two at the end will ensure that the structural integrity of the vehicle will be absolutely destroyed—that’s essential to guarantee that it is impossible for Rama to maneuver again after the blast. The other three bombs are scattered around the interior to make certain that no part of Rama is safe. It’s equally important that the explo­sions should result in enough velocity change that all the remaining pieces miss the Earth.”

General O’Toole constructed a mental image of the giant spacecraft being annihilated by five nuclear bombs. It was not a pleasant picture. Once, fifteen years before, he and twenty other members of the COG general staff had flown into the South Pacific to watch a hundred-kiloton weapon ex­plode. The COG system engineering personnel had convinced the political leaders, and the world press, that one nuclear test was necessary “every twenty years or so” to ensure that all the old weapons would indeed fire in an emergency. O’Toole and his team had observed the demonstration, ostensi­bly to learn as much as possible about the effects of nuclear weapons.

General O’Toole was deep in his memory, recalling the spine-tingling horror of that fireball rising in the peaceful South Pacific sky. He was not aware that Admiral Heilmann had asked him a question. “I’m sorry, Otto,” he said. “I was thinking about something else.”

“I had asked you how long you thought it might take to get approval for Trinity.”

“You mean in our case?” O’Toole said with disbelief.

“Of course,” Heilmann responded.

“I can’t imagine it,” O’Toole said quickly, “The weapons were included in the mission manifest solely to guard against openly hostile actions by the Ramans. I even remember the baseline scenario—an unprovoked attack against the Earth by the alien spacecraft, using high-technology weapons beyond the capabilities of our defenses. The current situation is altogether different.”

The German admiral studied his American colleague. “No one ever envi­sioned the Rama spacecraft on a collision course with the Earth/’ Heilmann said. “If it does not alter its trajectory, it will gouge an enormous hole in the surface and kick up such dust that the temperatures will drop all over the world for several years. … At least, that’s what the scientists say,”

“But that’s preposterous,” O’Toole argued. “You heard all the discussion during the conference call. No rational person really believes that Rama will actually hit the Earth.”

“Impact is only one of several disaster scenarios. What would you do if you were chief of staff? Destroying Rama now is a safe solution. Nobody loses.”

Visibly shaken by the conversation, Michael O’Toole excused himself from the meeting with Admiral Heilmann and headed for his room. For the first time in his entire association with the .Newton mission, O’Toole thought that he might actually be ordered to use his RQ code to activate the weap­ons. Never before, never for a moment, had he considered that the bombs in the metal containers at the back of the military ship were anything more than a palliative for the fears of the civilian politicians.

Sitting at the computer terminal in his room, the concerned O’Toole recalled the words of Armando Urbina, the Mexican peace activist who had advocated a total dismantling of the COG nuclear arsenal. “As we have seen both at Rome and Damascus,” Senor Urbina had said, “if the weapons exist, they can be used. Only if there are no weapons at all can we guarantee that human beings will never again suffer the horror of nuclear devastation.”

Richard Wakefield did not return before the Raman nightfall. Since the communication station at Beta had been knocked out of commission by the hurricane (the Newton had monitored the breakup of the Cylindrical Sea and the onset of the windstorm through telemetry relayed by Beta before it was silenced), Richard had moved out of communications range when he was halfway across the Central Plain. His last transmission to Janos Tabori, who had volunteered to man the commlink, had been typically Wakefield. As the signal from inside Rama was fading, Janos, in a lighthearted tone, had asked Richard how he wanted to be remembered “to your fans” in case he was “swallowed by the Great Galactic Ghoul.”

“Tell them that I loved Rama not wisely, but too well,” Richard had shouted into his communicator.

“What’s that?” Otto Heilmann Had puzzled. The admiral had come look­ing for Janos to discuss a Newton engineering problem.

“He killed her,” Janos had said, trying without success to lock up the signal again.

“Who killed—What are you talking about?”

“It’s not important,” Janos had answered, spinning around in his chair and floating into the air. “Now, what can I do for you, Herr Admiral?”

Richard’s failure to return was not considered serious until several hours after the following Raman dawn. The cosmonauts remaining on the Newton had convinced themselves the night before that Wakefield had become ab­sorbed in some task (“Probably fixing the Beta comm station,” Janos had offered), had lost track of the time, and had decided not to take a solitary ride out in the dark. But when he didn’t return in the morning, a feeling of gloom began to pervade the conversation of the crew.

“I don’t know why we won’t admit it,” Irina Turgenyev said suddenly during a period of quiet at dinnertime. “Wakefield is not coming back either. Whatever got Takagishi and des Jardins got him as well.”

“That’s ridiculous, Irina,” Janos replied heatedly.

“Da,” she remarked. “That’s what you’ve always said. Ever since the beginning when General Borzov was cut to pieces. Then it was an accident that the crab biot attacked Wilson. Cosmonaut des Jardins disappears down an alley—”

“Coincidence,” Janos shouted, “all coincidence!”

“You’re stupid, Janos,” Irina shouted back. “You trust everybody and ev­erything. We should blow the damn thing to pieces before it does any more—”

“Stop, stop, you two!” David Brown said loudly as the two Soviet col­leagues continued to argue.

“All right, now,” added General O’Toole. “We’re all a little tense. There’s no need for us to quarrel.”

“Will anyone be going in to look for Richard?” the emotional Janos asked no one in particular.

“Who would be crazy enough—” Irina began to respond.

“No,” interrupted Admiral Heilmann firmly. “I told him that his visit was unauthorized and that we would not come after him under any circum­stances. Besides, Dr. Brown and the two pilots tell me that we can barely fly the two Newton ships home with the manpower remaining—and their anal­ysis assumed Wake6eld was with us. We cannot take any more risks.”

There was a long and somber silence at the dinner table. “I had planned to tell everyone when the meal was over,” David Brown then said, standing up beside his chair, “but it looks to me as if this group could use some good news now. An hour ago we received our orders. We’re to depart for Earth at 1-14 days, a little over a week from now. Between now and then we will cross train the personnel, rest for the voyage home, and make certain that all the Newton engineering systems are working properly.”