‘It’s a well-known fact, Laura, that men, unlike women, have two-track minds. But seriously – well, more seriously – I do feel a sense of loss.’
‘I can understand that.’
‘Don’t be so clinical; that’s not the only reason. Oh, never mind.’ He gave up. It was not easy to explain, even to himself.
He had succeeded beyond all reasonable expectation; what his men had discovered in Rama would keep scientists busy for decades. And, above all, he had done it without a single casualty.
But he had also failed. One might speculate endlessly, but the nature and the purpose of the Ramans was still utterly unknown. They had used the solar system as a refuelling stop – as a booster station – call it what you will, and had then spurned it completely, on their way to more important business. They would probably never even know that the human race existed; such monumental indifference was worse than any deliberate insult.
When Norton bad glimpsed Rama for the last time, a tiny star hurtling outwards beyond Venus, he knew that part of his life was over. He was only fifty-five, but he felt he had left his youth down there on the curving plain, among mysteries and wonders now receding inexorably beyond the reach of man. Whatever honours and achieve-ments the future brought him, for the rest of his life he would be haunted by a sense of anticlimax, and the knowledge of opportunities missed.
So he told himself; but even then, he should have known better.
And on far-off Earth, Dr Carlisle Perera had as yet told no one how he had woken from a restless sleep with the message from his subconscious still echoing in his brain:
The Ramans do everything in threes.