Rama II Part 21

Neither of them said anything for several minutes. When Richard spoke again his voice was subdued, almost remote.

"The next day, after the police station and the tabloid reporters and all the recriminations with Sarah, I wanted to kill myself. I would have done it, too, if I had owned a gun. I was considering the gruesome alternatives-pills, slitting my wrists with a razor blade, jumping off a bridge-when another student called to ask me a detailed question on relativity. There was no way, after fifteen minutes of thinking about Mr. Einstein, that suicide was still a viable option. Divorce, certainly. Celibacy, highly likely. But death was out of the question. I could never have prematurely terminated my love affair with physics." His voice trailed off. Nicole wiped her eyes and placed her hands in his. She leaned her naked body across Richard's and kissed him. "I love you," she said.

Nicole's sounding alarm indicated that it was daylight again in Rama. Ten more days, she noted after a quick mental calculation. We 'd better have a serious talk now, The alarm had awakened Richard as well. He turned and smiled at his sleeping partner. "Darling," Nicole said, "the time has come-"

"The walrus said, to speak of many things."

"Come on now, be serious. We have to decide what we're going to do. It's fairly obvious that we're not going to be rescued."

"I agree," said Richard. He sat up and reached across Nicole's mat for his shirt. "I have been dreading this moment for days. But I guess we have finally reached the point where we should consider swimming across."

"You don't think there's any chance of making a boat out of our black stuff?"

"No," he answered. "One material is too light and the other too heavy. We could probably build a hybrid that would be seaworthy, if we had some nails, but without any sails we would still have to row across. . . . Our best bet is to swim." Richard stood up and walked over to the black square on the wall. "My fancy plans didn't pan out, did they?" He thumped lightly on the square. "And I was going to produce steak and potatoes as well as a boat."

"The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley."

"What a weird poet old Scottish Robbie was. I never could understand what people saw in him."

Nicole finished dressing and started doing some stretching exercises. "Whew," she said, "I'm out of shape. I haven't had any heavy physical activity in days." She smiled at Richard, who was looking at her coyly. "That doesn't count," she added, shaking her head.

"It's almost the only exercise I've ever liked," Richard replied with a grin. "I used to hate it at the academy when we had those special physical training weekends." Richard had laid out small portions of manna melon on the black table, "Three more meals after this one," he said without emotion. "I guess we swim before it's dark again."

"You don't want to go this morning?" Nicole asked.

"No," he replied. "Why don't you go survey the coast and pick a spot. I found something last night on the computer that has me baffled. It won't give us food or sailboats, but it looks as if I may have finally broken through into another kind of structure."

After breakfast, Nicole kissed Richard good-bye and wandered up to the surface. It did not take her long to reconnoiter the coast. There really were no reasons to pick one embarkation point over another. The grim reality of the coming swim oppressed Nicole. The odds are good, she told herself, that neither Richard nor I will be alive when it is dark again in Rama.

She tried to imagine what it would be like to be eaten by a shark biot. Would it be a quick death? Or would you drown aware that your legs had just been amputated? Nicole shuddered at the idea. Maybe we should try to obtain another melon. . . . She knew that was useless. Sooner or later, they had to swim.

Nicole turned her back on the sea. At least these last few days have been good, she said to herself, not wanting to think anymore about their predicament. He has been an excellent companion. In every way. She allowed herself the momentary luxury of recalling their shared pleasure. Then Nicole smiled and started walking back toward the lair.

"But what am I looking at?" Nicole asked as another image flashed up on the black square.

"I'm not completely certain," Richard replied. "All I know is that I have tapped into a long list of some kind. You remember that one particular command configuration that produces the lines of symbols that look like Sanskrit? Well, I was scrolling through the gibberish and eventually I noticed a pattern. I stopped at the beginning of the pattern, changed the position of the last three keys, and then hit the double dot again. Suddenly an image was on the screen. And every time I hit an alphanumeric, the picture changed."

"But how do you know you're looking at sensor output?" Richard entered a command and there was a change in the image. "Occasionally I see something I recognize," he said.

"Look at that one, for example. Couldn't that be the Beta stairway viewed from a camera in the middle of the Central Plain?"

Nicole studied the picture. "Possibly," she said, "but I don't see how you could ever tell for certain."

Richard commanded the screen to change again. The next three pictures were unintelligible. The fourth one showed a feature tapering to a point at the top of the frame. "And that one," he said. "Couldn't it be one of the little horns, as seen from a sensor near the top of the Big Horn?"

No matter how hard she tried, Nicole could not visualize what the view would be like from the top of the giant spire in the center of the southern bowl. Richard continued to flip through the pictures. Only about one in five was even partially clear. "Somewhere in this system there must be some enhancement algorithms," he said to himself. "Then I can sharpen up all the images."

Nicole could tell that Richard was about to begin another long work session. She walked over to him and put her arms around his neck. "Could I talk you into a little distraction first?" she said, reaching up and kissing him on the mouth.

"I guess so," he replied, dropping the keyboard on the Boor.

"It will probably be good for me to clear my mind." Nicole was in the middle of a beautiful dream. She was home again at her villa in Beauvois. Richard was sitting beside her on the couch in the living room and was holding her hand. Her father and daughter were opposite them in the soft chairs.

Her dream was broken by Richard's insistent voice. When Nicole opened her eyes her lover was standing over her, his voice crackling with excitement. "Wait until you see this, darling/' he said, extending a hand to pull her up. "It's fantastic! Somebody is still here."

Nicole shook the dream from her mind and looked over at the black square where Richard was pointing. "Can you believe it?" he said, jumping up and down. "There's no doubt about it The military ship is still docked," Only then did Nicole realize that she was looking at a picture of the outside of Rama. She blinked her eyes and listened to Richard's rambling explanation. "Once I figured out the code for the enhancement parameters, almost every frame became clear. That set of pictures I showed you earlier must be the real-time output from hundreds of Rama's imaging sensors. And I think I have figured out how to access the other sensor data bases as well."

Richard was exultant. He threw his arms around Nicole and lifted her off the ground. He hugged and kissed her and bounced around the room like a lunatic.

When he finally calmed down a little, Nicole spent almost a full minute studying the image that was projected on the black square. It was definitely the Newton military ship; she could read the markings. "So the science s.p.a.cecraft has gone home," she commented to Richard.

"Yes," he answered, "as I expected. I was afraid they would both be gone and that after we swam across the sea, we would find ourselves still trapped, this time in a larger prison."

The same concern had bothered Nicole. She smiled at Richard. "It's relatively straightforward, then, isn't it? We swim across the Cylindrical Sea and walk over to the chairlift. Someone will be waiting for us at the top." Nicole started packing her belongings. Richard, meanwhile, continued to flash new images on the screen. "What are you doing now, darling?" Nicole asked gently. "I thought we were going to make our swim."

"I haven't made a full pa.s.s through the sensor list since I located the enhancement parameters," Richard replied. "I just want to make certain we're not missing anything critical. It will only take another hour or so." Nicole stopped packing and sat down in front of the screen beside Richard. The pictures were indeed interesting. Some were exterior shots, but most were images of different regions inside Rama, including the underground lairs. One magnificent photo was taken from the top of the large room where the hot spheres in their sponge webbing rested on the floor beneath the hanging lattices. Richard and Nicole watched the picture for a moment, hoping to see a black and gold octospider, but they detected no movement. They were near the end of the list when an image of the bottom third of the Alpha stairway stunned them both. There, climbing down the stairs, were four human figures in s.p.a.ce suits. Richard and Nicole watched the figures descend for five seconds and then exploded with joy . "They're coming!" Richard said, throwing his arms into the air. "We're going to be rescued!"

51 ESCAPE HARNESS.

Richard was becoming impatient. He and Nicole had been standing on the walls of New York for over an hour, scanning the skies for some sign of a helicopter. "Where the h.e.l.l are they?" he grumbled. "It only takes fifteen minutes by rover from the bottom of Alpha stairway to the Beta campsite."

"Maybe they're looking somewhere else," Nicole said encouragingly.

"That's ridiculous!' Richard said. "Surely they would go to Beta first-and even if they couldn't repair the comm system, at least they'd find my last message. I said I was taking one of the motorboats to New York."

"They probably know that there's no place for a helicopter to land in the city. They may be coming across in a boat themselves."

"Without first seeing if they could spot us from the helicopter? That's unlikely." Richard turned his eyes to the sea and searched for a sail. "A boat A boat. My kingdom for a boat."

Nicole laughed but Richard barely managed a little smile.

"Two men could a.s.semble the sailboat in the supply hut at Beta in less than thirty minutes," he fretted. "Dammit, what's holding them up?"

In his frustration Richard switched on the transmitter in his communicator. "Now hear this, you guys. If you're anywhere near the Cylindrical Sea, identify yourselves. And then hurry your a.s.ses over here. We're standing on the wall and we're tired of waiting."

There was no response-Nicole sat down on the wall. "What are you doing?" Richard asked.

"I think you're worrying enough for both of us," she responded. "And I'm tired of standing up and waving my arms." She stared across the Cylindrical Sea. "It would be so much easier," Nicole said wistfully, "if we could just fly across ourselves."

Richard c.o.c.ked his head to one side and looked at her.

"What a great idea," he said several seconds later. "Why didn't we think of it before?" He immediately sat down and started doing some calculations on his computer. "Cowards die many times before their deaths," he mumbled to himself, "the valiant never taste of death but once." Nicole watched her friend furiously pounding his keyboard.

"What are you doing, dear?" she inquired, glancing over his shoulder at the computer monitor.

"Three!" he shouted, after finishing a computation. "Three should be enough." Richard looked up at the puzzled Nicole.

"Do you want to hear the most outrageous plan in interplanetary history?" he asked her.

"Why not?" she said with a doubtful smile.

"We are going to build ourselves harnesses out of the lattice material and the avians are going to fly us across the Cylindrical Sea."

Nicole stared at Richard for several seconds. "a.s.suming we can make the harnesses," she said skeptically, "how do we talk the avians into doing their part?"

"We convince them it's in their own best interest," Richard replied. "Or alternatively we threaten them in some way. ... I don't know, you can work on that issue."

Nicole was incredulous. "Anyway," Richard continued, grabbing her hand and walking down the wall, "it beats standing around here waiting for the helicopter or the boat." Five hours later there was still no sign of the rescue team. When they had finished making the harnesses, Richard had left Nicole at the wall and gone back to the White Room to check through the sensor set again. He returned with the news that he thought he had seen the human figures in the vicinity of the Beta campsite, but that the resolution on that particular frame had been very poor. As they had agreed, Nicole had been calling every half hour on the communicator. There had been no response.

"Richard," she said, while he was programming some graphics on his computer, "why do you think the rescue team was using the stairway?"

"Who knows?" he replied. "Maybe the chairlift malfunctioned and there were no engineers left."

"It seems strange to me," Nicole mused. Something about this is bothering me, she thought, but I don't dare share it with Richard until I can explain it He doesn't believe in intuition. Nicole glanced at her watch. It's a good thing we rationed the melon. If the rescue team doesn't show up and this wild scheme doesn't work, we won't be swimming until next daylight, "Preliminary design complete," Richard stated emphatically. He waved to Nicole to join him. "If you approve the line drawing," he said, pointing at the monitor in his hand, "then I will proceed with the detailed graphics."

In the picture three large avians, each with one line wrapped around its body, were flying in formation across a sea. Dangling underneath them, and attached by three lines, was a stick figure human being sitting in a flimsy barness. "Looks good to me," said Nicole, never thinking for a minute that such an event would actually happen.

"I can't believe we're doing this," Nicole remarked, pushing the plate to open the avian lair for the second time. Their first attempt to renew contact had resulted in the expected cold shoulder. This second time it was Richard who shouted into the avian lair. "Listen to me, you avians/' he growled in his fiercest voice, "I need to talk to you. Right now. Get up here on the double." Nicole had to restrain a laugh.

Richard began dropping black objects into the lair. "See," he said with a grin, "I knew these d.a.m.n things would be good for something." Eventually they could hear some activity at the bottom of the vertical corridor. The same pair of avians they had seen before flew up to the top of the lair and started screeching at Richard and Nicole. They did not even look at the monitor when Richard held it out for them. When they were finished screeching, the pair flew over the top of the tank sentinel and the cover closed again.

"It's no use, Richard," Nicole said when he asked her to open the cover a third time. "Even our friends are against us." She paused before pressing the plate. "What are we going to do if they attack us?"

"They won't attack," Richard said, indicating for Nicole to open the cover. "But just in case, I want you to stay over there. I will deal with our feathered friends." There was jabbering from the lair as soon as the cover opened the third time. Richard immediately started shouting back and pitching black objects down the corridor. One of them hit the tank sentinel and prompted a small explosion, like a gunshot.

The two familiar avians flew up to the opening and screamed at Richard. Three or four of their comrades were just behind. The noise was unbelievable. Richard did not back down. He kept yelling and pointing at the computer monitor. Finally he was able to get their attention. The group of avians watched the graphic depiction of the flight across the sea. Richard then held up one of the harnesses in his left hand and started running the demonstration on his monitor again. Frantic conversation among the avians ensued. At the end, however, Richard sensed that he had lost. As a pair of the other avians flew over the top of the tank sentinel, Richard climbed down into the lair, onto the first ledge. "Hold it," he shouted at the top of his lungs.

The mate of the black velvet avian lunged forward, its threatening beak no more than a meter from Richard's face. The noise from all the screeching and jabbering was deafening. Richard was undaunted. Despite the avian protests, he descended to the second ledge. Now he would not be able to escape if the cover started to close. Again he held up the harness and pointed at the monitor. A chorus of screeches told him the response. Then, above the avian howl, he heard another sound, like a Klaxon alarm announcing a fire drill at a school or hospital. All the avians immediately calmed down. They settled quietly on the ledges and stared down at the tank sentinel.

The lair was strangely silent. After a few seconds Richard heard the beating of wings and moments later a new avian flew into the vertical corridor. It rose slowly up to his level and hovered just opposite him. It had a gray velvet body and sharp gray eyes. Two thick rings of bright cherry red were wrapped around its neck.

The creature studied Richard and landed on the ledge opposite him, across the corridor. The avian that had been in that spot scurried out of the way. When the gray velvet bird spoke, it was soft and very clear. After the speech was finished, the black velvet avian flew up beside the new arrival and apparently explained the furor. Several times the two avians stared across at Richard. The last time, thinking that perhaps their nodding heads were a cue, Richard displayed the graphic flight one more time and held up the harnesses. The bird with the cherry rings flew over beside him for a closer look.

The creature made a sudden movement, frightening Richard, and he nearly fell off the ledge. What may have been avian laughter was silenced by a few words from the gray velvet leader, who then sat quite still, as if it were thinking, for over a minute. At length the avian leader gestured toward Richard with one talon, opened its huge wings, and soared out through the opening into daylight. For several seconds Richard did not move. The great creature rose up, up into the sky above the lair and was soon followed by the two more familiar avians. Moments later Nicole's head appeared in the opening. "Are you coming?" she asked. "I don't know how you did it, but it looks as if our friends are ready."

52 FLIGHT 302.

Richard pulled the harness tight around Nicole's waist and b.u.t.tocks. "Your feet will dangle," he said, "and at first, when the lattice cord is stretching, you will have the feeling that you're falling."

"What if I hit the water?" Nicole asked.

"You have to trust the avians to By high enough that you won't/' Richard replied. "I think they're quite intelligent, especially the one with the red rings."

"Do you think it's the king?" Nicole asked, adjusting the harness for comfort.

"Probably their equivalent," Richard answered. "He has made it clear from the beginning that he intends to fly in the middle of the formation."

Richard walked up the steep incline to the wall, carrying all three harness lines in his hands. The avians were sitting quietly together, staring out at the sea. They acquiesced as he tied the harness around their midsections, just behind the backs of the wings. Then they watched his computer monitor as he again showed them the graphics of the takeoff. The avians were to lift off together, slowly, pull the harness lines taut directly over Nicole's head, and then lift her straight up before flying north across the sea. He checked that the knots were secure and then returned to Nicole's side at the bottom of the incline. She was only about five meters from the water. "If, by some chance, the avians do not return for me," Richard told her, "don't wait forever. Once you find the rescue team, a.s.semble the sailboat and come across. I will be down in the White Room." He took a deep breath. "Be safe, my darling," he added. "Remember that I love you."

Nicole could tell from the pounding of her heart that the moment of takeoff had finally arrived. She kissed Richard slowly on the lips. "And I love you," she murmured. When they broke their embrace, Richard waved at the avians on the wall. The gray velvet avian cautiously rose in the air, followed immediately by its two companions. They hovered in formation directly over Nicole. She felt the three lines pull tight and was momentarily lifted into the air. Seconds later, as the elastic cord began to stretch, Nicole was falling toward the ground again. The avians flew higher, heading out over the water, and Nicole felt as if she were a yo-yo, bouncing up and down as the cord would stretch and then contract with a jerk when the avians rose swiftly to a higher alt.i.tude.

!t was an exciting flight. She touched the water once, just barely, while she was still close to sh.o.r.e. She was temporarily frightened, but the avians lifted her quickly before anything more than her feet were wet. Once the lattice cord was at its full extension, the ride was fairly smooth. Nicole sat in her harness, her hands holding on to two of the three lines, her feet dangling below her about eight meters from the tops of the waves.

The middle of the sea was quite calm. About halfway across Nicole saw two great, dark figures swimming along beneath her, parallel to her course. She was certain they were shark biots. She also detected two or three other species in the water, including one, long and skinny like an eel, that reared itself out of the sea and watched her fly by. Whew, Nicole thought as she surveyed the water, I'm certainly glad that I didn't swim.

The landing was easy. Nicole had been concerned that the avians might not realize there was a fifty-meter cliff on the opposite side of the sea. She needn't have worried. As they approached landfall in the Northern Hemi-cylinder, the avians gently increased their alt.i.tude. Nicole was set down gingerly about ten meters from the edge.

The huge birds landed close by. Nicole climbed out of her harness and walked over to the avians. She thanked them profusely and tried to pat them on the backs of their heads, but they jerked away from her touch. The creatures rested for several minutes and then, at a signal from their leader, they flew off across the sea toward New York.

Nicole was surprised at the intensity of her emotions. She knelt down and kissed the ground. It was only then that she realized she had never really expected to escape safely from New York. For a moment, before she started searching for the rescue team with her binoculars, she reviewed everything that had happened to her since that fateful crossing in the icemobile. Before New York is a lifetime ago, she said to herself. Now everything has changed.

Richard untied the harness from the avian leader and dropped it on the ground. All the birds were now free. The creature with the gray velvet body craned its neck around to see if Richard was finished. The rich cherry red of its rings was even clearer in the full daylight. Richard wondered about the rings and what they signified, knowing there was a high likelihood he would never see these magnificent aliens again.

Nicole came over beside Richard. When he had landed she had embraced him pa.s.sionately. The avians had boldly stared, signaling their curiosity. They too, Nicole thought, must be wondering about us. The linguist in her imagined what it would be like actually to talk to an extraterrestrial species, to begin to understand how an altogether different intelligence might operate. . .

"I wonder how we say good-bye and thank you," Richard was saying.

"I don't know," Nicole replied, "but it would be nice-" She stopped to watch the avian leader. It had called the other two creatures to come beside it and the three birds were standing facing Richard and Nicole. On a signal they all spread their wings, to their full extent, and formed into a circle. They turned around one full revolution and then fell back into a straight line facing the humans.

"Come on," Nicole said. "We can do that." Nicole and Richard stood side by side, their arms outstretched, and faced their avian friends. Nicole then put her arms on Richard's shoulders and led him through a circular turn. Richard, who was sometimes not very graceful, stumbled once but managed to complete the movement. Nicole imagined that the avian leader was smiling when she and Richard straightened out after their revolution.

The three avians took off seconds later. Higher and higher in the sky they rose, until they were at the limit of Nicole's vision. Then they flew south, across the sea toward home.

"Good luck," Nicole whispered as they departed. The rescue team was not in the vicinity of the Beta campsite. In fact, Richard and Nicole had not seen any sign of them during a thirty-minute drive in the rover along the coast of the Cylindrical Sea. "These guys must really be stupid," Richard groused. "My message was in plain view there at Beta. Could it be that they haven't even come down this far yet?"

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

"All right, then, to h.e.l.l 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 s.p.a.ce 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 s.p.a.ce 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 s.p.a.ce 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 fourman 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 pa.s.sed 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. "G.o.dd.a.m.n 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 gla.s.s. 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.