Rendezvous with Rama

“I draw two conclusions from this. When a spacecraft—and we must call Rama a spacecraft, despite its fantastic size—makes a change of attitude that usually means it is about to make a change of orbit. We must therefore take seriously the views of those who believe that Rama may be preparing to become another planet of our sun, instead of going back to the stars.”

“If this is the case, Endeavour must obviously be prepared to cast off—is that what spaceships do?—at a moment’s notice. She may be in very serious danger while she is still physically attached to Rama. I imagine that Commander Norton is already well aware of this possibility, but I think we should send him an additional warning.”

“Thank you very much, Professor Davidson. Yes—Dr. Solomons?”

“I’d like to comment on that,” said the science historian. “Rama seems to have made a change of spin without using any jets or reaction devices. This leaves only two possibilities, it seems to me.”

“The first one is that it has internal gyroscopes, or their equivalent. They must be enormous; where are they?”

“The second possibility—which would turn all our physics upside down—is that it has a reactionless propulsion system. The so-called Space Drive, which Professor Davidson doesn’t believe in. If this is the case, Rama may be able to do almost anything. We will be quite unable to anticipate its behaviour, even on the gross physical level.”

The diplomats were obviously somewhat baffled by this exchange, and the astronomer refused to be drawn. He had gone out on enough limbs for one day.

“I’ll stick to the laws of physics, if you don’t mind, until I’m forced to give them up. If we’ve not found any gyroscopes in Rama, we may not have looked hard enough, or in the right place.”

Ambassador Bose could see that Dr. Perera was getting impatient. Normally, the exobiologist was as happy as anyone else to engage in speculation; but now, for the first time, he had some solid facts. His long-impoverished science had become wealthy overnight.

“Very well—if there are no other comments—I know that Dr. Perera has some important information.”

“Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. As you’ve all seen, we have at last obtained a specimen of a Raman life form, and have observed several others at close quarters. Surgeon-Commander Ernst, Endeavour’s medical officer, has sent a full report on the spider-like creature she dissected.”

“I must say at once that some of her results are baffling, and in any other circumstances I would have refused to believe them.”

“The spider is definitely organic, though its chemistry differs from ours in many respects—it contains considerable quantities of light metals. Yet I hesitate to call it an animal, for several fundamental reasons.”

“In the first place, it seems to have no mouth, no stomach, no gut—no method of ingesting food! Also no air intakes, no lungs, no blood, no reproductive system…”

“You may wonder what it has got. Well, there’s a simple musculature, controlling its three legs and the three whiplike tendrils or feelers. There’s a brain—fairly complex, mostly concerned with the creature’s remarkably developed triocular vision. But eighty per cent of the body consists of a honeycomb of large cells, and this is what gave Dr. Ernst such an unpleasant surprise when she started her dissection. If she’d been luckier she might have recognized it in time, because it’s the one Raman structure that does exist on Earth—though only in a handful of marine animals.”

“Most of the spider is simply a battery, very much like that found in electric cells and rays. But in this case, it’s apparently not used for defence. It’s the creature’s source of energy. And that is why it has no provisions for eating and breathing; it doesn’t need such primitive arrangements. And incidentally, this means that it would be perfectly at home in a vacuum…”

“So we have a creature which, to all intents and purposes, is nothing more than a mobile eye. It has no organs of manipulation; those tendrils are much too feeble. If I had been given its specifications, I would have said it was merely a reco

“Its behaviour certainly fits that description. All the spiders ever do is to run around and look at things. That’s all they can do…”

“But the other animals are different. The crab, the starfish, the sharks—for want of better words—can obviously manipulate their environment and appear to be specialized for various functions. I assume that they are also electrically powered since, like the spider, they appear to have no mouths.”

“I’m sure you’ll appreciate the biological problems raised by all this. Could such creatures evolve naturally? I really don’t think so. They appear to be designed like machines, for specific jobs. If I had to describe them, I would say that they are robots—biological robots—something that has no analogy on Earth.”

“If Rama is a spaceship, perhaps they are part of its crew. As to how they are born—or created—that’s something I can’t tell you. But I can guess that the answer’s over there in New York. If Commander Norton and his men can wait long enough, they may encounter increasingly more complex creatures, with unpredictable behaviour. Somewhere along the line they may meet the Ramans themselves—the real makers of this world.”

“And when that happens, gentlemen, there will be no doubt about it at all…”

35. Special Delivery

Commander Norton was sleeping soundly when his personal communicator dragged him away from happy dreams. He had been holidaying with his family on Mars, flying past the awesome, snow-capped peak of Nix Olympica—mightiest volcano in the solar system. Little Billie had started to say something to him; now he would never know what it was.

The dream faded; the reality was his executive officer, up on the ship.

“Sorry to wake you, Skipper,” said Lieutenant-Commander Kirchoff. “Triple A priority from Headquarters.”

“Let me have it,” Norton answered sleepily.

“I can’t. It’s in code—Commander’s Eyes Only.”

Norton was instantly awake. He had received such a message only three times in his whole career, and on each occasion it had meant trouble.

“Damn!” he said. “What do we do now?”

His Exec did not bother to answer. Each understood the problem perfectly; it was one that Ship’s Orders had never anticipated. Normally, a commander was never more than a few minutes away from his office and the codebook in his personal safe. If he started now, Norton might get back to the ship—exhausted—in four or five hours. That was not the way to handle a Class AAA Priority.

“Jerry,” he said at length. “Who’s on the switchboard?”

“No one; I’m making the call myself.”

“Recorder off?”

“By an odd breach of regulations, yes.”

Norton smiled. Jerry was the best Exec he had ever worked with. He thought of everything.

“OK. You know where my key is. Call me back.”

He waited as patiently as he could for the next ten minutes, trying—without much success—to think of other problems. He hated wasting mental effort; it was very unlikely that he could outguess the message that was coming, and he would know its contents soon enough. Then he would start worrying effectively.

When the Exec called back, he was obviously speaking under considerable strain.

“It’s not really urgent Skipper—an hour won’t make any difference. But I prefer to avoid radio. I’ll send it down by messenger.”

“But why—oh, very well—I trust your judgement. Who will carry it through the airlocks?”

“I’m going myself; I’ll call you when I reach the Hub.”

“Which leaves Laura in charge.”

“For one hour, at the most. I’ll get right back to the ship.”

A medical officer did not have the specialized training to be acting commander, any more than a commander could be expected to do an operation. In emergencies, both jobs had sometimes been successfully switched; but it was not recommended. Well, one order had already been broken tonight…