This was a miracle of over-simplification, and everyone knew it. Unless there was a real emergency, the Committee might never be in direct contact with Commander Norton – if, indeed, he ever heard of its existence. For the Committee was a temporary creation of the United Planets’ Science Organization, reporting through its Director to the Secretary-General. It was true that the Space Sur-vey was part of the UP – but on the Operations, not the Science side. In theory, this should not make much difference; there was no reason why the Rama Committee – or anyone else for that matter – should not call up Commander Norton and offer helpful advice.
But Deep Space Communications are expensive. Endeavour could be contacted only through PLANETCOM, which was an autonomous corporation, famous for the strictness and efficiency of its accounting. It took a long time to establish a line of credit with PLANETCOM; somewhere, someone was working on this; but at the moment, PLANETCOM’s hard-hearted computers did not recognize the existence of the Rama Committee.
‘This Commander Norton,’ said Sir Robert Mackay, the Ambassador for Earth. ‘He has a tremendous responsibility. What sort of person is he?’
‘I can answer that,’ said Professor Davidson, his fingers flying over the keyboard of his memory pad. He frowned at the screenful of information, and started to make an instant synopsis.
‘William Tsien Norton, Born 2077, Brisbane, Oceana. Educated Sydney, Bombay, Houston. Then five years at Astrograd, specializing in propulsion. Commissioned 2102. Rose through usual ranks – Lieutenant on the Third Persephone expedition, distinguished himself dur-ing fifteenth attempt to establish base on Venus … um um – . . exemplary record … dual citizenship, Earth and Mars … wife and one child in Brisbane, wife and two in Port Lowell, with option on third…’
‘Wife?’ asked Taylor innocently.
‘No, child of course,’ snapped the Professor, before he caught the grin on the other’s face. Mild laughter rippled round the table, though the overcrowded terrestrials looked more envious than amused. After a century of determined effort, Earth had still failed to get its population below the target of one billion …
…. appointed commanding officer Solar Survey Research Vessel Endeavour. First voyage to retrograde satellites of Jupiter … um, that was a tricky one.., on asteroid mission when ordered to prepare for this operation … managed to beat deadline…’
The Professor cleared the display and looked up at his colleagues.
‘I think we were extremely lucky, considering that he was the only man available at such short notice. We might have had the usual run-of-the-mill captain.’ He sounded as if be was referring to the typical peg-legged scourge of the spaceways, pistol in one hand and cutlass in the other.
‘The record—only proves that he’s competent,’ objected the Ambassador from Mercury (population: i 12,500 but growing). ‘How will be react in a wholly novel situation like this?’
On Earth, Sir Lewis Sands cleared his throat. A second and a half later, he did so on the Moon.
‘Not exactly a novel situation,’ he reminded the Hermian, ‘even though it’s three centuries since it last occurred. If Rama is dead, or unoccupied – and so far all the evidence suggests that it is – Norton is in the position of an archaeologist discovering the ruins of an extinct culture.’ He bowed politely to Dr Price, who nodded in agreement. ‘Obvious examples are Scbliemann at Troy or Mouhot at Angkor Vat. The danger is minimal, though of course accident can never be completely ruled out.’
‘But what about the booby-traps and trigger mechanisms these Pandora people have been talking about?’ asked Dr Price.
‘Pandora?’ asked the Hermian Ambassador quickly. ‘What’s that?’
‘It’s a crackpot movement,’ explained Sir Robert, with as much embarrassment as a diplomat was ever likely to show, ‘which is convinced that Rama is a grave potential danger. A box that shouldn’t be opened, you know.’ He doubted if the Hermian did know: classical studies were not encouraged on Mercury.
‘Pandora – paranoia,’ snorted Conrad Taylor. ‘Oh, of course, such things are conceivable, but why should any intelligent race want to play childish tricks?’
‘Well, even ruling out such unpleasantness,’ Sir Robert continued, ‘we still have the much more ominous possibility of an active, inhabited Rama. Then the situation is one of an encounter between two cultures – at very different technological levels. Pizzaro and the Incas. Peary and the Japanese. Europe and Africa. Almost invariably, the consequences have been disastrous – for one or both parties. I’m not making any recommendations: I’m mere-ly pointing out precedents.’
‘Thank you, Sir Robert,’ replied Dr Bose. It was a mild nuisance, he thought, having two ‘Sirs’ on one small com-mittee; in these latter days, knighthood was an honour which few Englishmen escaped. ‘I’m sure we’ve all thought of these alarming possibilities. But if the creatures inside Rama are – er – malevolent – will it really make the slightest difference what we do?’
‘They might ignore us if we go away.’
‘What – after they’ve travelled billions of miles and thousands of years?’
The argument had reached the take-off point, and was now self-sustaining. Dr Bose sat back in his chair, said very little, and waited for the consensus to emerge.
It was just as he had predicted. Everyone agreed that, once he had opened the first door, it was inconceivable that Commander Norton should not open the second.
CHAPTER SEVEN – Two Wives
If his wives ever compared his videograms, Commander Norton thought with more amusement than concern, it would involve him in a lot of extra work. Now, he could make one long ‘gram and dupe it, adding only brief-per- sonal messages and endearments before shooting the al-most identical copies off to Mars and Earth.
Of course, it was highly unlikely that his wives ever would do such a thing; even at the concessionary rates allowed to spacemen’s families, it would be expensive. And there would be no point in it; his families were on excellent terms with each other, and exchanged-the usual greetings on birthdays and anniversaries. Yet, on -the whole, perhaps it was just as well that the girls had never met, and probably never would. Myrna had been born on Mars and so could not-tolerate the high gravity of Earth. And Caroline hated even the twenty-five minutes of the longest possible terrestrial journey.
‘Sorry I’m a day late with this transmission,’ said the Commander after he had finished the general-purpose preliminaries, ‘but I’ve been away from the ship for the last thirty hours, believe it or not… –
‘Don’t be alarmed – everything is under control, going perfectly. It’s taken us two days, but we’re almost through the airlock complex. We could have done it in a couple of hours, if we’d known what we do now. But we took no chances, sent remote cameras ahead, and cycled all the locks a dozen times to make sure they wouldn’t seize up behind us – after we’d gone through…
‘Each lock is a simple revolving cylinder with a slot on one side. You go in through this opening, crank the cylinder round a hundred and eighty degrees – and the slot then matches up with another door so that you can step out of it. Or float, in this case.
‘The Ramans really made sure of things. There are three of these cylinder-locks, one after the other just in-side the outer hull and below the entry pill-box. I can’t imagine how even one would fail, unless someone blew it up with explosives, but if it did, there would be a second back-up, and then a third…
‘And that’s only the beginning. The final lock opens into a straight corridor, almost half a kilometre long. It looks clean and tidy, like everything else we’ve seen; – every few metres there are small ports that probably held lights, but -now everything is completely black and, I don’t mind telling you, scary. There are also two parallel slots, about a centimetre wide, cut in the walls and running the whole length of the tunnel. We suspect that some kind of shuttle runs inside these, to tow equipment – or people – back and forth. It would save us a lot of trouble if we could get it working…
‘I mentioned that the tunnel was half a kilometre long. Well, from our seismic soundings we knew that’s about the thickness of the shell, so obviously we were almost through it. And at the end of the tunnel we were’nt surprised to find another of those cylindrical airlocks.
‘Yes, and another. And another. These people seem to have done everything in threes. We’re in the final lock chamber now, awaiting the OK from Earth before we go through. The interior of Rama is only a few metres away. I’ll be a lot happier when the suspense is over.
‘You know Jerry Kirchoff, my Exec, who’s got such a library of real books that he can’t afford to emigrate from Earth? Well, Jerry told me about a situation just like this, back at the beginning of the twenty-first – no, twentieth century. An archaeologist found the tomb of an Egyptian king, the first one that hadn’t been looted by robbers. His workmen took months to dig their way in, chamber by – chamber, until they came to the final wall. Then they broke through the masonery, and he held out a lantern and pushed his head inside. He found himself looking into a whole roomful of treasure – incredible stuff gold and jewels …