Pushing against many times its own mass, the scooter responded very sluggishly. When Rodrigo cut the thrust back to zero, he took a careful reading of the bomb’s new velocity vector.
It would miss Rama by a wide margin and it could be located again with precision at any future time. It was, after all, a very valuable piece of equipment.
Lieutenant Rodrigo was a man of almost pathological honesty. He would not like the Hermians to accuse him of losing their property.
41. Hero
“Darling,” began Norton, “this nonsense has cost us more than a day, but at least it’s given me a chance to talk to you.”
“I’m still in the ship, and she’s heading back to station at the polar axis. We picked up Rod an hour ago, looking as if he’d just come off duty after a quiet watch. I suppose neither of us will ever be able to visit Mercury again, and I’m wondering if we’re going to be treated as heroes or villains when we get back to Earth. But my conscience is clear; I’m sure we did the right thing. I wonder if the Ramans will ever say ‘thank you’.”
“We can stay here only two more days; unlike Rama, we don’t have a kilometre-thick skin to protect us from the sun. The hull’s already developing dangerous hotspots and we’ve had to put out some local screening. I’m sorry—I didn’t want to bore you with my problems…”
“So there’s time for just one more trip into Rama, and I intend to make the most of it. But don’t worry—I’m not taking any chances.”
He stopped the recording. That, to say the least, was stretching the truth. There was danger and uncertainty about every moment inside Rama; no man could ever feel really at home there, in the presence of forces beyond his understanding. And on this final trip, now that he knew they would never return and that no future operations would be jeopardized, he intended to press his luck just a little further.
“In forty-eight hours, then, we’ll have completed this mission. What happens then is still uncertain; as you know, we’ve used virtually all our fuel getting into this orbit. I’m still waiting to hear if a tanker can rendezvous with us in time to get back to Earth, or whether we’ll have to make planet-fall at Mars. Anyway, I should be home by Christmas. Tell Junior I’m sorry I can’t bring a baby biot; there’s no such animal…”
“We’re all fine, but we’re very tired. I’ve earned a long leave after all this, and we’ll make up for lost time. Whatever they say about me, you can claim you’re married to a hero. How many wives have a husband who saved a world?”
As always, he listened carefully to the tape before duping it, to make sure that it was applicable to both his families. It was strange to think that he did not know which of them he would see first; usually, his schedule was determined at least a year in advance, by the inexorable movements of the planets themselves.
But that was in the days before Rama; now nothing would ever be the same again.
42. Temple of Glass
“If we try it,” said Karl Mercer, “do you think the biots will stop us?”
“They may; that’s one of the things I want to find out. Why are you looking at me like that?”
Mercer gave his slow, secret grin, which was liable to be set off at any moment by a private joke he might or might not share with his shipmates.
“I was wondering, Skipper, if you think you own Rama. Until now, you’ve vetoed any attempt to cut into buildings. Why the switch? Have the Hermians given you ideas?”
Norton laughed, then suddenly checked himself. It was a shrewd question, and he was not sure if the obvious answers were the right ones.
“Perhaps I have been ultra-cautious—I’ve tried to avoid trouble. But this is our last chance; if we’re forced to retreat we won’t have lost much.”
“Assuming that we retreat in good order.”
“Of course. But the biots have never shown hostility; and except for the Spiders, I don’t believe there’s anything here that can catch us—if we do have to run for it.”
“You may run, Skipper, but I intend to leave with dignity. And incidentally, I’ve decided why the biots are so polite to us.”
“It’s a little late for a new theory.”
“Here it is, anyway. They think we’re Ramans. They can’t tell the difference between one oxy-eater and another.”
“I don’t believe they’re that stupid.”
“It’s not a matter of stupidity. They’ve been programmed for their particular jobs, and we simply don’t come into their frame of reference.”
“Perhaps you’re right. We may find out—as soon as we start to work on London.”
Joe Calvert had always enjoyed those old bank-robbery movies, but he had never expected to be involved in one. Yet this was, essentially, what he was doing now.
The deserted streets of “London” seemed full of menace, though he knew that was only his guilty conscience. He did not really believe that the sealed and windowless structures ranged all around them were full of watchful inhabitants, waiting to emerge in angry hordes as soon as the invaders laid a hand on their property. In fact, he was quite certain that this whole complex—like all the other towns—was merely some kind of storage area.
Yet a second fear, also based on innumerable ancient crime dramas, could be better grounded. There might be no clanging alarm bells and screaming sirens, but it was reasonable to assume that Rama would have some kind of warning system. How otherwise did the biots know when and where their services were needed?
“Those without goggles, turn your backs,” ordered Sergeant Myron. There was a smell of nitric oxides as the air itself started to burn in the beam of the laser torch, and a steady sizzling as the fiery knife sliced towards secrets that had been hidden since the birth of man.
Nothing material could resist this concentration of power, and the cut proceeded smoothly at a rate of several metres a minute. In a remarkably short time, a section large enough to admit a man had been sliced out.
As the cut-away section showed no signs of moving, Myron tapped it gently—then harder—then banged on it with all his strength. It fell inwards with a hollow, reverberating crash.
Once again, as he had done during that very first entrance into Rama, Norton remembered the archaeologist who had opened the old Egyptian tomb. He did not expect to see the glitter of gold; in fact, he had no preconceived ideas at all, as he crawled through the opening, his flashlight held in front of him.
A Greek temple made of glass—that was his first impression. The building was filled with row upon row of vertical crystalline columns, about a metre wide and stretching from floor to ceiling. There were hundreds of them, marching away into the darkness beyond the reach of his light.
Norton walked towards the nearest column and directed his beam into its interior. Refracted as through a cylindrical lens, the light fanned out on the far side to be focused and refocused, getting fainter with each repetition, in the array of pillars beyond. He felt that he was in the middle of some complicated demonstration in optics.
“Very pretty,” said the practical Mercer, “but what does it mean? Who needs a forest of glass pillars?”
Norton rapped gently on one column. It sounded solid, though more metallic than crystalline. He was completely baffled, and so followed a piece of useful advice he had heard long ago: “When in doubt, say nothing and move on.”
As he reached the next column, which looked exactly like the first, he heard an exclamation of surprise from Mercer.
“I could have sworn this pillar was empty—now there’s something inside it.”
Norton glanced quickly back.
“Where?” he said. “I don’t see anything.”
He followed the direction of Mercer’s pointing finger. It was aimed at nothing; the column was still completely transparent.
“You can’t see it?” said Mercer incredulously. “Come around this side. Damn—now I’ve lost it!”