Rama II Part 24

He waited impatiently for the reply. When Pope John-Paul V finally appeared on the screen, he was sitting in the same room in the Vatican where O'Toole had had his audience just after Christmas. The pope was holding a small electronic pad in his right hand and occasionally glanced down as he spoke.

"I have prayed with you, my son," the pontiff began in his precise English, "particularly during this last week of your personal turmoil. I cannot tell you what to do. I do not have the answers any more than you do. We can only hope together that G.o.d, in His wisdom, will provide unambiguous answers to your prayers.

"In response to some of your religious inquiries, however, I can make a few comments. I offer them to you in the hope that they will be helpful. ... I cannot say whether or not the voice you heard was that of St. Michael, or if you had what is known as a religious experience. I can affirm that there is a category of human experience, usually called religious for lack of a better term, that exists and cannot be explained in purely rational or scientific terms. Saul of Tarsus was definitely blinded by a light from the heavens as part of his conversion to Christianity, before he became the apostle Paul, Your voice may have been St. Michael. Only you can decide.

"As we discussed three months ago, G.o.d certainly created the Ramans, whoever they were. But he also created the viruses and bacteria that cause human death and suffering. We cannot glorify G.o.d, either individually or as a species, if we do not survive. It seems unlikely to me that G.o.d would expect us to take no action if our very survival were threatened.

"The possible role of Rama as a herald for the second coming of Christ is a difficult issue. There are some priests inside the church who agree with St. Michael, although they are a distinct minority. Most of us feel that the Rama craft are too spiritually sterile to be heralds. They are incredible engineering marvels, to be sure, but there is nothing about them that suggests any warmth or compa.s.sion or any other redeeming characteristic that is a.s.sociated with Christ. It therefore seems very unlikely that Rama has any strictly religious significance.

"In the end it is a decision you must make yourself. You must continue your prayers, as I'm certain you realize, but maybe expect a little less fanfare in G.o.d's response. He does not speak to everyone in the same way; nor will each of His messages to you come in the same form. Please remember one more thing. As you explore Rama in search of G.o.d's will, the prayers of many on Earth will go with you. You can be certain that G.o.d will give you an answer; your challenge is to identify and interpret it."

John-Paul ended his transmission with a blessing and a recitation of the Lord's prayer. General O'Toole knelt automatically and spoke the words along with his spiritual leader. When the screen was blank, he reviewed what the pontiff had said and felt rea.s.sured. / must be on the right track, O'Toole said to himself. But I should not expect a heavenly proclamation with accompanying trumpets.

O'Toole was not prepared for his powerful emotional response to Rama. Perhaps it was the sheer scale of the s.p.a.cecraft, so much larger than anything ever built by human beings. Perhaps also his long confinement on the Newton and heightened emotional state contributed to the intensity of his feelings. Whatever the reasons, Michael O'Toole was totally overwhelmed by the spectacle as he made his solitary way into the giant s.p.a.cecraft.

There was no specific feature that dominated the rest in O'Toole's mind. His throat caught and his eyes brimmed with tears of wonder on several different occasions: riding down the chairlift on his initial descent and looking out across the Central Plain with its long illuminated strips that were Rama's light; standing beside the rover on the sh.o.r.es of the Cylindrical Sea and staring through his binoculars at the mysterious skysc.r.a.pers of New York; and gawking many times, like all the cosmonauts before him, at the gigantic horns and b.u.t.tresses that adorned the southern bowl. O'Toole's dominant feelings were awe and reverence, much as he had felt the first time he had entered one of the old European cathedrals.

He spent the Raman night at Beta, using one of the extra huts left by the cosmonauts on the second sortie. He found Wakefield's message dated two weeks earlier, and had a momentary desire to a.s.semble the sailboat and cross over to New York. But O'Toole restrained himself and focused on the true purpose of his visit.

He admitted to himself that although Rama was a spectacular achievement, its magnificence should not be a relevant factor in his evaluation process. Was there anything he had seen that would cause him to alter his tentative conclusion? No, he grudgingly answered. When the lights came on again inside the giant cylinder, O'Toole was confident that before the next Raman nightfall he would activate the weapons.

Still he procrastinated, He drove the entire length of the coastline, examining New York and the other vistas from different vantage points and observing the five-hundredmeter cliff on the opposite side of the sea. On one last pa.s.s through the Beta campsite, O'Toole decided to pick up some odds and ends, including a few personal mementos left behind by the other crew members in their hasty retreat from Rama. Not many items had escaped the hurricane, but he found some souvenirs that had been trapped in comers against the supply crates.

General O'Toole took a long nap before he guided the rover back to the bottom of the chairlift. Realizing what he was going to do when he reached the Newton, O'Toole knelt down and prayed one last time before ascending. Shortly into his ride, when he was still less than half a kilometer above the Central Plain, he turned in his chair and looked back across the Raman panorama. Soon this will all be gone, O'Toole thought, enveloped in a solar furnace unleashed by man. His eyes lifted from the plain and focused on New York. He thought he saw a moving black speck in the Raman sky.

With trembling hands he lifted his binoculars to his eyes. In a few seconds O'Toole located the enlarged speck. He quickly changed the binocular resolution and the speck split into three parts, each a bird soaring in formation far off in the distance. O'Toole blinked but the image did not change. There were indeed three birds flying in the Raman sky!

Joy filled General O'Toole. He yelled with delight as he followed the birds with his binoculars until he could no longer see them. The remaining thirty minutes of the ride to the top of the Alpha stairway seemed like a lifetime. The American officer immediately climbed into another chair and descended again into Rama. He wanted desperately to see those birds one more time. If I could somehow photograph them, he thought, planning to drive back to the Cylindrical Sea if necessary, then I could prove to everyone that there are also living creatures in this amazing world. Starting two kilometers above the floor O'Toole searched in vain for the birds as he descended. Only slightly disheartened by his failure to find them, he was subsequently dumbfounded by what he saw when he dropped his binoculars from his eyes and prepared to disembark from the chair. Richard Wakefield and Nicole des Jardins were standing side by side at the bottom of the lift. General O'Toole embraced them each with a vigorous hug and then, with tears of happiness running down his cheeks, he knelt on the soil of Rama. "Dear G.o.d," he said as he offered his silent prayer of thanks. "Dear G.o.d," he repeated. 57 THREE'S COMPANY The three cosmonauts talked avidly for over an hour. There was so much to tell. When Nicole told of her fright upon encountering the dead Takagishi in the octospider lair, O'Toole was momentarily silent and then shook his head.

"There are so many unanswered questions here/' he said, staring up at the high ceiling. "Are you really malevolent after all?" he asked rhetorically.

Richard and Nicole both praised the general's courage in not entering his code to activate the weapons. They were also both horrified that the COG had ordered the destruction of Rama. "It is absolutely unforgivable for us to use nuclear weapons against this s.p.a.ceship," Nicole said. "I am convinced that it is not fundamentally hostile. And I believe that Rama maneuvered to intercept the Earth because it has a specific message for us."

Richard lightly chided Nicole for developing her opinion more on the basis of emotions than facts. "Perhaps," she rejoined, "but there is a serious logical flaw as well in this decision to destroy. We now have hard evidence that this vehicle communicated with its predecessor. There is good reason to suspect that a Rama III is out there somewhere, probably coming in this direction. If the Rama fleet is potentially hostile, there is no way the Earth will be able to escape. We may succeed in destroying this second craft-but in so doing we will almost certainly alert their next ship. Since their technology is so much more advanced than ours, we would have no possibility of surviving their concerted attack." General O'Toole looked at Nicole with admiration. "That's an excellent point," he said. "It's a shame you weren't available for the ISA discussions. We never considered-"

"Why don't we postpone the rest of this conversation until we're back on the Newton?" Richard said suddenly.

"According to my watch, it will be dark again in another thirty minutes, before any of us have reached the top of the lift. I don't want to ride in the dark any longer than is necessary."

The three cosmonauts believed that they were leaving Rama for the last time. As the remaining minutes of light dwindled, each cosmonaut gazed intently at the magnificent alien landscape that stretched out into the distance. For Nicole, the dominant feeling was one of elation. Cautious by nature with her expectations, until this moment in the chairlift she had not allowed herself the intense pleasure of believing that she would ever again hold her beloved Genevieve in her arms. Her mind was now flooded by the bucolic beauty of Beauvois and she imagined in detail the joy of her reunion scene with her father and daughter. It could be as little as a week or ten days, Nicole said to herself expectantly. By the time she reached the top she was having difficulty containing her jubilation.

During his ride Michael O'Toole reviewed, one more time, his activation decision-When dark came to Rama, suddenly and at the predicted moment, he had finished developing his plan for communicating his decision to the Earth. They would phone ISA management immediately. Nicole and Richard would summarize their stories and Nicole would present her reasons for thinking that the destruction of Rama would be "unforgivable." O'Toole was convinced that his order to activate the weapons would then be rescinded. The general switched on his flashlight just before his chair reached the top of the stairway. He stepped off in the weightless environment and stood beside Nicole. They waited for Richard Wakefield before proceeding together around the ramp to the ferry pa.s.sageway, only a hundred meters away. After the trio had boarded the ferry and were ready to move through the Rama sh.e.l.l toward the Newton, Richard's flashlight beam fell on a large metal object on the side of the pa.s.sage. "Is that one of the bombs?" he asked. The nuclear weapon system did indeed resemble an oversized bullet. How curious, Nicole thought, recoiling as an instant shudder ran through her system. It could be any shape, of course. I wonder what subconscious aberration made the designers choose that particular form. . . .

"But what's that weird contraption at the top?" Richard was asking O'Toole.

The general's brow furrowed as he stared at a bizarre object illuminated by the center of the beam of light. "I don't know," he confessed. "I've never seen it before." He disembarked from the ferry. Richard and Nicole followed him.

General O'Toole shuffled over to the weapon and studied the strange attachment fixed above the numerical keyboard. It was a fiat plate, slightly larger than the keyboard itself, that was anch.o.r.ed by angular joints to the sides of the weapon. On the underside of the plate, momentarily retracted, were ten tiny punches-at least that's what they looked like to O'Toole. His observation was confirmed seconds later when one of the punches extended and hit the number "5" on the keyboard several centimeters below. The "5" was followed in rapid succession by a "7," and then by eight more numbers before a green light flashed the successful completion of the first decade.

Within seconds the apparatus entered ten more digits and another green light flashed. O'Toole froze in terror. My G.o.d, he thought, that's my code! Somehow they've broken-His panic subsided an instant later when, after the third decade of digits, the red light announced that an error had been made.

"Apparently," General O'Toole said a short time later in response to an inquiry from Richard, "they have jerryrigged this scheme to try to enter the code in my absence, They only have the first two decades correct. For a moment I was afraid ..." O'Toole paused, aware of strong emotions stirring within him.

"They must have a.s.sumed you weren't coming back," Nicole said in a matter-of-fact tone.

"If Heilmann and Yamanaka did it," O'Toole replied. "Of course we can't rule out completely the possibility that the contraption might have been placed there by the aliens ... or even the biots."

"Extremely unlikely," Richard commented. "The engineering is much too crude."

"At any rate," O'Toole said, opening his backpack for some tools to disconnect the apparatus, "I'm not taking any chances."

At the Newton end of the pa.s.sageway, O'Toole, Wakefield, and des Jardins found the second bomb fitted with the same apparatus. The trio watched it punch out one code attemptwith the same result, a failure somewhere in the third decade-and then they disabled it as well. Afterward they opened up the seal and exited from Rama.

n.o.body greeted them when they stepped inside the Newton military ship. General O'Toole a.s.sumed that both Admiral Heilmann and Yamanaka were asleep and went immediately to the bedrooms. He wanted to talk to Heilmann in private anyway. But the two men were not in their rooms. It did not take long to confirm, in fact, that the other two cosmonauts were nowhere in the comparatively small living and working area of the military ship.

A search of the supply area in the back of the ship was also futile. However, the threesome did discover that one of the extravehicular activity (EVA) pods was missing. This discovery raised another perplexing set of questions. Where could Heilmann and Yamanaka have gone in the pod? And why had they violated the top-priority project policy that at least one crew member should always stay onboard the Newton?

The three cosmonauts were puzzled as they returned to the control center to discuss their possible courses of action. O'Toole was the first to raise the specter of foul play. "Do you think those octospiders, or even some of the biots, might have come onboard? After all, it's not difficult to enter the Newton unless it's in Self-Protection Mode." n.o.body wanted to say what all three of them were thinking. If someone or something had captured or killed their two colleagues on the ship, then it might still be around and they might be in danger themselves. . . .

"Why don't we call the Earth and announce that we're alive?" Richard said, breaking the silence.

"Great idea." General O'Toole smiled. He moved over to the control center console and activated the panel. A standard system status display appeared on the large screen. "That's strange," the general commented. "According to this, we have no video link with the Earth presently. Only low-rate telemetry. Now, why would the data system configuration have been changed?"

He keyed in a simple set of commands to establish the normal multichannel high-rate link with the Earth. A swarm of error messages appeared on the monitor. "What the h.e.l.l?" Richard exclaimed. "It looks as if the video system has died." He turned to O'Toole. "This is your speciality, General, what do you make of all this?"

General O'Toole was very serious. "I don't like it, Richard. I've only seen this many error messages one time beforeduring one of our early simulations when some nincomp.o.o.p forgot to load the communications software. We must have a major software problem. The probability of that many hardware failures in such a short time span is essentially zero."

Richard suggested that O'Toole subject the video communications software to its standard self-test. During the test, the diagnostic printout reported that the error buffers in the self-test algorithm had overflowed when the procedure was less than one percent complete. "So the vidcomm software is definitely the culprit," Richard said, a.n.a.lyzing the data in the diagnostic. He entered some commands. "It's going to take a while to straighten it out-"

"Just a minute," Nicole interrupted. "Shouldn't we spend our time trying to make some sense out of all this new information before we start on any specific tasks?" The two men stopped their activity and waited for her to continue.

"Heilmann, Yamanaka, and one pod are missing from this ship," Nicole said, walking slowly around the control center, "and someone was trying to automatically activate the two nuclear bombs in the pa.s.sageway. Meanwhile the vidcomm software, after functioning properly for hundreds of dayscounting all the preflight simulations-has suddenly gone haywire. Do either of you have a coherent explanation for all this?"

There was a long silence. "General O'Toole's suggestion of a hostile invasion of the Newton might work/' Richard offered.

"Heilmann and Yamanaka might have fled to save themselves and the aliens could have purposely screwed up the software."

Nicole was not convinced. "Nothing I have seen suggests that any aliens -or even any biots, for that matter-have been inside the Newton. Unless we see some evidence-"

"Maybe Heilmann and Yamanaka were trying to break the general's code," Wakefield invented, "and they were afraid-"

"Stop. Stop," Nicole shouted suddenly. "Something's happening to the screen." The two men turned around just in time to see Admiral Otto Heilmann's face materialize on the monitor.

"h.e.l.lo, General O'Toole," Heilmann said with a smile from the huge screen. "This videotape was triggered by your entering the Newton airlock. Cosmonaut Yamanaka and I prepared it just before we departed in one of the pods three hours before 1-9 days. We were ordered to evacuate less than an hour after you went inside to explore Rama. We delayed as long as we could but eventually had to follow our instructions.

"Your personal orders are simple and straightforward. You are to enter your activation code into the two weapons in the ferry pa.s.sageway and the three remaining in the bay. You should depart in the final pod no more than eight hours thereafter. Don't be concerned about the electronic devices in operation on the two bombs in the Raman sh.e.l.l. COG military headquarters ordered them put in place to test some new top secret decryption techniques. You will discover they can easily be disabled with pliers and/or wirecutters.

"An extra, emergency propulsion system has been added to the pod and its software has been programmed to guide you to a safe location, where you will rendezvous with an ISA tug. All you need to do is code in the exact time of your departure. However, I must stress that the new pod navigation algorithms are valid only if you leave the Newton before 1-6 days. After that time, I am told the guidance parameters become increasingly invalid and it will be almost impossible to rescue you."

There was a short pause in Heilmann's delivery and his voice took on an increased sense of urgency. "Don't waste any more time, Michael. Activate the weapons and go directly to the pod. We have already supplied it with the food and other essentials that you will need. . . . Good luck on your voyage home. We'll see you back on Earth." 58 HOBSON'S CHOICE I'm certain that Heilmann and Yamanaka were being extremely cautious," Richard Wakefield explained. "They probably left early so they could take extra supplies. And with these lightweight pods, each extra kilogram can be critical."

"How critical?" asked Nicole.

"Well-it could make all the difference between getting into a safe orbit around Earth-or shooting past it so quickly that we couldn't be rescued."

"Does that mean," O'Toole inquired somberly, "that only one of us might be able to use the pod?"

Richard paused before answering. "I'm afraid that's possible; it's a function of the time of departure. We'll have to do some quick calculations to determine exactly. But personally I see no reason why we shouldn't consider flying this entire s.p.a.cecraft. I was trained as a backup pilot, after all. . We have only limited control authority, since the ship is so large, but if we jettison everything we don't absolutely need, we may be able to do it Again, we'll need to do the computations."

Nicole's a.s.signments from General O'Toole and Richard were to check the supplies that had been placed in the pod, determine their adequacy, and then approximate both the ma.s.s and packaging volume required to support either two or three travelers. In addition Richard, still favoring flying back to Earth in the military ship, asked Nicole to go through the Newton supply manifest and estimate how much ma.s.s could be thrown overboard.

While O'Toole and Wakefield used the computers in the control center, Nicole worked alone in the huge bay. First she examined the remaining pod very carefully. Although the pods were normally used by a single person for local extravehicular activity (EVA), they had also been designed as emergency escape vehicles. Two people could sit behind the tough, transparent front window with a week's supplies on the shelves at the rear of the small cabin. But three people? Nicole wondered. Impossible. Someone would have to squeeze into the shelf s.p.a.ce. And then there would not be adequate room for the supplies. Nicole thought momentarily about being confined to the tiny shelves for seven or eight days. It would be even worse than the pit in New York.

She looked through the supplies that had been hastily thrown into the pod by Heilmann and Yamanaka. The food allocation was more or less correct, both in quant.i.ty and variety, for a one-week voyage; the medical kit, however, was woefully inadequate. Nicole made a few notes, constructed what she considered to be a proper supply list for either a two or three person crew, and estimated the ma.s.s and packaging requirements. She then started to cross the bay.

Her eyes were drawn to the bullet-shaped nuclear weapons lying placidly on their sides right beside the pod airlock. Nicole walked over and touched the bombs, her hands idly running across the polished metal surface. So these are the first great weapons of destruction, she thought, the outcome of the brilliant physics of the twentieth century. What a sad commentary on our species, Nicole mused, as she was walking among the nuclear bombs. A visitor comes to see us. It cannot speak our language, but it does discover where we live. When it turns the corner onto OUT street, while its purpose is still utterly unknown, we blast it into oblivion.

She shuffled across the bay toward the living quarters, aware of a profound feeling of sadness deep within her. Your problem, Nicole said to herself, is that you always expect too much. From yourself. From those you love. Even from the human race. We are yet too immature a species. A momentary wave of nausea forced Nicole to stop for a moment. What's this? she thought. Are these bombs making me ill? In the back of her mind Nicole recalled a similar feeling of nausea fifteen years before, two hours into her flight from Los Angeles to Paris. It can't be, she told herself. But III check just to be certain. . . .

"That's the second reason why the three of us cannot all fit in a single pod. Don't feel bad, Nicole. Even if the physical s.p.a.ce could accommodate our bodies and the needed supplies, the velocity change capability of the pod with all that ma.s.s is barely enough to close the orbit around the Sun. Our chances of being rescued would be virtually nil."

"Well," Nicole replied to Richard, trying to be cheerful, "at least we still have the other option. We can go home in this big vehicle. According to my estimates, we can dump in excess of ten thousand kilograms-"

"I'm afraid it doesn't matter," General O'Toole interrupted. Nicole looked at Richard. "What's he talking about?" Richard Wakefield stood up and walked over to Nicole. He took her hands in his. "They screwed up the navigation system too," Richard said. "Their automatic search algorithms, the big number crunchers being used to try to decrypt O'Toole's code, were overlaid into the general purpose computers on top of the vidcomm and navigation subroutines. This ship is useless as a transportation module."

General O'Toole's voice was distant and lacked its usual upbeat timbre. "They must have started only minutes after I left. Richard read the command buffers and found out that the decryption software was uplinked less than two hours after my departure."

"But why would they incapacitate the Newton?" Nicole asked.

"Don't you understand?" O'Toole said with pa.s.sion. "The priorities had changed. Nothing was as important as detonating the nuclear weapons. They didn't want to waste the time for the radio signals to go back and forth to Earth. So they moved the computations up here, where each successive candidate code could be commanded from the computer without delay."

"In fairness to mission control," Richard interjected, now pacing around the room, "we should acknowledge that the fully loaded Newton military ship actually has less...o...b..t change capability than a two-person pod with an auxiliary propulsion system. In the eyes of the ISA safety manager, there was no increased risk a.s.sociated with making this craft inoperable."

"But none of this should have happened in the first place," the general argued. "Dammit! Why couldn't they just have waited for my return?"

Nicole sat down abruptly in one of the available chairs. Her head was spinning and she felt momentarily dizzy. "What's the matter?" Richard said, approaching her with alarm.

"I have been having occasional periods of nausea today," Nicole replied. "I think I'm pregnant. I'll know for certain in about twenty minutes." She smiled at the dumbfounded Richard. "It's extremely rare for a woman to become pregnant within ninety days of an injection of neutrabriolate. But it has happened before. I don't suppose-"

"Congratulations," an enthusiastic General O'Toole suddenly interrupted. "I had no idea that the two of you were planning to have a family."

"Nor did I," Richard replied, still looking shocked. He gave Nicole a vigorous hug and held her close. "Nor did I," he repeated.

"There will be no more discussion of this subject/' General O'Toole said emphatically to Richard. "Even if Nicole weren't pregnant with your child, I would insist that the two of you go in the pod and leave me here. It's the only sensible decision. In the first place, we both know that ma.s.s is the most critical parameter and I am the heaviest of the three of us by far. In addition, I am old and you two are both quite young. You know how to fly the pod; I've never even trained inside it a single time. Besides," he added dryly, "I will be court-martialed on Earth for refusing to follow orders."

"As for you, my good doctor," O'Toole continued moments later, "I don't need to tell you that you are carrying a very special baby. He or she will be the only human child that was ever conceived inside an extraterrestrial s.p.a.ce vehicle." He stood up and glanced around. "Now," he said, "I propose we open a bottle of wine and celebrate our last evening together."

Nicole watched General O'Toole glide over to the larder. He opened it and started rummaging around. "I'm perfectly happy with fruit juice, Michael," she said. "I shouldn't drink more than a single gla.s.s of wine now anyway."

"Of course," he replied quickly. "I temporarily forgot. I was hoping that we could do something special on this last night. I wanted to share one last time-" General O'Toole stopped himself and brought the wine and juice back to the table. He handed cups to both Richard and Nicole. "I want you both to know," he said quietly, his mood now subdued, "that !

cannot imagine a finer pair of people than the two of you. I wish you every success, especially with the baby." The three cosmonauts drank in silence for several seconds.

"We all know it, don't we?" General O'Toole said in barely audible tone. "The missiles must be on their way. How long do you figure I have, Richard?"

"Judging from what Admiral Heilmann said on the tape, I would say that the first missile will reach Rama at 1-5 days. That would be consistent both with the pod being outside the debris field and the deflection velocities that must be imparted to the surviving pieces of the s.p.a.cecraft." "I'm afraid I'm lost," Nicole said. "What missiles are we talking about?" Richard leaned over toward her. "Both Michael and I are certain/' he said gravely, "that the COG has ordered a missile strike against Rama. They had no a.s.surance that the general would ever return to the Newton and enter his code. And the search algorithm with the automatic punch was a long shot at best. Only a missile strike could guarantee that Rama would not have the capability of harming our planet."

"So I have a little more than forty-eight hours to make my final peace with G.o.d," General O'Toole said after reflecting for several seconds. "I have lived a fabulous life. I have much to be thankful for. I will go into His arms without regret."

59 DREAM OF DESTINY.

Nicole stretched her arms over her head and to her sides, she brushed against Richard on her left and one of the water containers hanging slightly out of the shelf behind her. "It's going to be crowded." she observed, squirming in her seat.

"Yes, it is," Richard replied distractedly. His attention was focused on the display in front of the pilot's seat in the pod. He entered some commands and waited for the response. When it finally came, Richard frowned.

"I guess I'll make one more attempt to repackage the supplies," Nicole said with a sigh. She turned around in her seat and stared at the shelves. "I could save us some room and fourteen kilograms if our rescue was guaranteed in seven days," she said.

Richard did not respond. "Dammit," he muttered when a set of numbers appeared on the display.

"What's the matter?" Nicole asked.

"There's something not quite right here/' Richard said. "The navigation code was developed for considerably less payload ma.s.s-it may not converge if we lose one of the accelerometers." Nicole waited patiently for Richard to explain. "So if we have any hiccoughs along the way, we will probably have to stop for several hours and reinitialize."

"But I thought you said there was plenty of fuel for the two of us."

"Plenty of fuel, yes. However, there are some subtleties in the reprogrammed navigation algorithms that a.s.sume the pod contains less than a hundred kilograms, basically only O'Toole and his supplies."

Nicole could read the concern in Richard's brow. "We're all right, I think, if there are no malfunctions," he continued.

"But no pod has ever been operated under conditions like this."

Through the front window they could see General O'Toole walking across the bay toward them. He was carrying a small object in his hand. It was TB, one of Richard's tiny Shakespearean robots.

"I almost forgot I had him," O'Toole said a minute later after he had been thanked profusely by Richard. Cosmonaut Wakefield was soaring around the supply depot like a joyous child, a wide smile on his delighted face.

"I thought I'd never see any of them again," Richard yelled from one of the side walls where his exuberant momentum had carried him.

"I was pa.s.sing your room," General O'Toole shouted back, "right before the scientific ship departed. Cosmonaut Tabori was arranging your things. He asked me to keep that particular robot, just in case-"

"Thank you, thank you, Janos," Richard said. He walked carefully down the wall and anch.o.r.ed himself to the floor.

"This is a very special one, Michael," he said with a gleam in his eye. He switched on TB's power. "Do you know any Shakespearean sonnets?"

"There's one that Kathleen especially likes, if I can recall it. I think the first line is, 'That time of year thou mayst'-"

"That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang, In me thou seest the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west . . "

The feminine voice coming from TB startled both Nicole and General O'Toole. The words struck a resonant chord in O'Toole; he was deeply moved and a few tears welled up in the corners of his eyes. Nicole took the general's hand and squeezed it compa.s.sionately after TB had finished the sonnet.