Rama: The Omnibus
Page 48
Dr. Takagishi knew exactly where he wanted to go in New York. Each of the three circular sections of the Raman city was further subdivided into three angular portions, like a pie divided into slices. At the center of each of the three main sections was a central core, or plaza, around which the rest of the buildings and streets were arranged. As a boy in Kyoto, after reading everything he could find about the first Raman expedition, Takagishi had wondered what it would be like to stand in the center of one of those alien plazas and stare upward at buildings created by beings from another star. Takagishi felt certain not only that the secrets of Rama could be understood by studying New York, but also that its three plazas were the most likely locations for clues to the mysterious purpose of the interstellar vehicle.
The map of New York drawn by the earlier Raman explorers was as firmly etched in Takagishi's mind as the map of Kyoto, where he was born and raised. But that first Raman expedition had had only a limited time to survey New York. Of the nine functional units, only one had been mapped in detail; the prior cosmonauts had simply assumed, on the basis of limited observations, that all the other units were identical.
As Takagishi's brisk pace carried him deeper and deeper into the foreboding quiet of one part of the central section, some subtle differences between this particular segment of Rama and the one studied by Norton's crew (they had surveyed an adjacent slice) began to emerge. The layout of the major streets in the two units was the same; however, as Dr. Takagishi drew closer to the plaza, the smaller streets broke into a slightly different pattern from the one that had been reported by the first explorers. The scientist in Takagishi forced him to stop often and note all the variations on his pocket computer.
He entered the region immediately surrounding the plaza, where the streets ran in concentric circles. He crossed three avenues and found himself standing opposite a huge octahedron, about a hundred meters tall, with a mirrored exterior. His powerful flashlight beam reflected off its surface and then bounced from building to building around him. Dr. Takagishi walked slowly around the octahedron, searching for an entrance, but he did not find one.
On the other side of the eight-sided structure, in the center of the plaza, was a broad circular space without tall buildings. Shigeru Takagishi moved deliberately around the entire perimeter of the circle, studying the surrounding buildings as he walked. He gained no new insights about the purpose of the structures. When he turned inward at regular intervals to survey the plaza area itself, he saw nothing unusual or particularly noteworthy. Nevertheless, he did enter into his computer the location of the many short, nondescript metallic boxes that divided the plaza into partitions.
When he was again in front of the octahedron, Dr. Takagishi reached into his bag and pulled out a thin hexagonal plate densely covered with electronics. He deployed the scientific apparatus in the plaza, three or four meters away from the octahedron, and then spent ten minutes verifying with his transceiver that all the scientific instruments were properly working. When the Japanese scientist had completed checking the payload, he quickly left the plaza area and headed for the Cylindrical Sea.
Takagishi was in the middle of the second concentric avenue when he heard a short but loud popping noise behind him in the plaza. He turned around but didn't move. A few seconds later he heard a different sound. This one Takagishi recognized from his first sortie, both the dragging of the metal brushes and the embedded high-frequency singing. He shone his flashlight in the direction of the plaza. The sound stopped. He switched off his flashlight and stood quietly in the middle of the avenue.
Several minutes later the brush dragging began again. Takagishi moved stealthily across the two avenues and started around the octahedron in the direction of the noise. When he was almost to the plaza, a beep, beep from his bag broke his concentration. By the time he turned off the alarm, which was indicating that the scientific package he had just deployed in the plaza had already malfunctioned, there was total quiet in New York. Again Dr. Takagishi waited, but this time the sound did not recur.
He took a deep breath to calm himself and summoned all his courage. Somehow his curiosity won out over his fear and Dr. Takagishi 'returned to the plaza opposite the octahedron to find out what had happened to the scientific payload. His first surprise was that the hexagonal package had vanished from the spot where he had left it. Where could it have gone? Who or what could have taken it?
Takagishi knew that he was on the verge of a scientific discovery of overwhelming importance. He was also terrified. Fighting a powerful desire to flee, he shone his large flashlight around the plaza, hoping to find an explanation for the disappearance of the science station. The beam reflected off a small piece of metal some thirty to forty meters closer to the center of the plaza. Takagishi realized immediately that the reflection was coming from the instrument package. He hurried over to it.
He bent down on his knees and examined the electronics. There was no damage that was obvious. He had just pulled out his transceiver to begin a methodical check of all the science instruments when he noticed a ropelike object about fifteen centimeters in diameter at the edge of the flashlight beam illuminating the science package. Dr. Takagishi picked up his light and walked over to the object. It was striped, black and gold, and stretched off into the distance for twelve meters or so, disappearing behind an odd metal shed about three meters tall. He felt the thick rope. It was soft and fuzzy on the top. When he tried to turn it over to feel the bottom, the object began to move. Takagishi dropped it immediately and watched it slither slowly away from him toward the shed. The motion was accompanied by the sound of brushes dragging against metal.
Dr. Takagishi could hear the sound of his own heartbeat. Again he fought the urge to run away. He remembered his dawn meditations as a college student in the garden of his Zen master. He would not be afraid. He ordered his feet to march in the direction of the shed.
The black and gold rope disappeared. There was silence in the plaza. Takagishi approached the shed with his light beam on the ground at the spot where the thick rope had last been visible. He came around the corner and thrust the beam into the shed. He could not believe what he saw. A mass of black and gold tentacles writhed underneath the light.
A high-frequency whine suddenly exploded in his ears. Dr. Takagishi looked over his left shoulder and was thunderstruck. His eyes bugged out of his head. His scream was lost as the noise intensified and three of the tentacles reached out to touch him. The walls of his heart gave way and he slumped, already dead, into the grasp of the amazing creature.
33
MISSING PERSON
"Admiral Heilmann."
"Yes, General O'Toole."
"Are you by yourself?"
"Certainly. I just woke up a few minutes ago. My meeting with Dr. Brown is not for another hour. Why are you calling so early?"
"While you were sleeping I received a coded top secret message from COG military headquarters. It's about Trinity. They wanted to know the status."
"What do you mean, General?"
"Is this line secure, Admiral? Have you turned off the automatic recorder?"
"Now I have."
"They asked two questions. Did Borzov die without telling anyone his RQ? Does anyone else on the crew know about Trinity?" "You know the answers to both questions."
"I wanted to be certain that you hadn't talked to Dr. Brown. They insisted that I check with you before encoding my answer. What do you think this is all about?"
"I don't know, Michael. Maybe somebody down on Earth is getting nervous. Wilson's death probably scared them."
"It certainly scared me. But not to the point that I would think about Trinity. I wonder if they know something that we don't."
"Well, I guess we'll find out soon enough. All the ISA officials have been insisting that we should evacuate Rama at the first available opportunity. They didn't even like our decision to rest the crew for several hours first. This time I don't think they will change their minds."
"Vaguely. Why?"
"Do you still disagree with his insistence that we must know why the Trinity contingency is being called for? You said at the time that if the Earth thought great danger was imminent, you didn't personally need to understand the rationale."
"I'm afraid I'm not following you, General. Why are you asking me these questions?"
"I would like your permission, Otto, when I encode the response to COG military headquarters, to find out why they are asking about the status of Trinity at this particular time. If we are in danger, we have a right to know."
"You may request additional information, Michael, but I would bet that their inquiry is strictly routine."
Janos Tabori awakened while it was still dark inside Rama. As he pulled on his flight suit, he made a mental list of the activities that would be required to transport the crab biot to the Newton. If the order to leave Rama was confirmed, they would be departing soon after dawn. Janos consulted the formal evacuation procedure stored on his pocket computer and updated it by adding the new tasks associated with the biot.
He checked his watch. Dawn was only fifteen minutes away, assuming of course that the Rama diurnal cycle was regular. Janos laughed to himself. Rama had produced so many surprises already that there was no certainty the lights would return on schedule. If they did, however, Janos wanted to watch the Raman "sunrise." He could eat his breakfast after dawn.
A hundred meters from his hut the caged crab biot was immobile, as it had been since it was hoisted away from its companions the previous day. Janos shone his flashlight through the tough, transparent cage wall and checked to see if there were any signs that the biot might have moved during the night. Having established that the biot had not changed position, Janos walked away from the Beta campsite in the direction of the sea.
As he waited for the burst of light, he found himself thinking about the very end of his conversation with Nicole the night before. There was something not quite right about her offhand revelation of the possible cause of General Borzov's pain on the night he died. Janos remembered vividly the healthy appendix; there was no doubt that the primary diagnosis had been incorrect. But why had Nicole not talked to him about the backup drug diagnosis? Especially if she was conducting an investigation into the issue…
Janos reached the inescapable conclusion that Dr. des Jardins had either lost faith in his ability or somehow suspected that he might have himself administered the drugs to General Borzov without consulting her. Either way he should find out what she was thinking. A strange idea, born from his own feelings of guilt, next crossed his mind. Could it be, he mused, that Nicole somehow knows about the Schmidt and Hagenest project and suspects all four of us?
For the first time, Janos himself wondered if perhaps Valeriy Borzov's pain had not been natural. He recalled the chaotic meeting the four of them had had two hours after David Brown had learned that he would be left onboard the Newton during the first sortie. "You must talk to him, Otto," a frustrated Dr. Brown had said to Admiral Heilmann. "You must convince him to change his mind."
Otto Heilmann had then admitted it was unlikely General Borzov would change the personnel assignments based on his request. "In that case," Dr. Brown had replied angrily, "we can say good-bye to all the incentive awards in our contract."
Throughout the meeting Francesca Sabatini had remained quiet and seemingly unworried. As he was leaving, Janos had overheard Dr. Brown berating her. "And why are you so calm?" he had said. "You stand to lose as much as anyone else. Or do you have a plan I don't know about?"
Janos had glimpsed Francesca's smile for only a fraction of a second. But he had remarked to himself at the time that she had seemed oddly confident. Now, as Cosmonaut Tabori awaited dawn on Rama, that smile returned to haunt him. With Francesca's knowledge of drugs it would have been well within her capability to give General Borzov something that would induce appendicitis symptoms. But would she have done something so … so blatantly dishonest, just to enhance the value of their postmission media project?
Again Rama was instantaneously flooded with light. As always, it was a feast for the eyes. Janos turned around slowly, looking in all directions and studying both bowls of the immense structure. With the light now brightly shining, he resolved to talk to Francesca at the first opportunity.
It was Irina Turgenyev, strangely enough, who asked the question. The cosmonauts were almost finished with their breakfast. Dr. Brown and Admiral Heilmann, in fact, had already left the table to conduct another of their interminable conference calls with ISA management. "Where's Dr. Takagishi?" she said innocently. "He's the last member of the crew that I would expect to be late for anything."
"He must have slept through his alarm," Janos Tabori answered, pushing his folding chair away from the table. "Ill go check on him."
When Janos returned a minute later he was perplexed. "He wasn't there," he said with a shrug of his shoulders. "I guess he went out for a walk."
Nicole des Jardins had an immediate sinking feeling in her stomach. She rose abruptly without finishing her breakfast. "We should go look for him," she said, her concern undisguised, "or he won't be ready when we leave."
The other cosmonauts all noticed Nicole's agitation. "What's going on here?" Richard Wakefield said good-naturedly. "One of our scientists takes a little morning walk on his own and the company doctor goes into panic?" He switched on his radio. "Hello, Dr. Takagishi, wherever you are. This is Wakefield. Will you please let us know that you're all right so that we can finish our breakfast."
There was a long silence. Every member of the crew knew that it was an absolutely mandatory requirement to carry a communicator at all times. You could choose to turn off the transmission capability, but you had to listen under any and all circumstances.
"Takagishi-san," Nicole said next with an urgent edge in her voice. "Are you all right? Please respond." During the extended silence, Nicole's sinking feeling in her stomach turned into a large knot. Something terrible had happened to her friend.
"I've explained that to you twice, Dr. Maxwell," David Brown said in exasperation. "It makes no sense to evacuate part of the crew. The most efficient way to search for Dr. Takagishi is to use the entire staff. Once we find him we will clear out of Rama with great haste. And to answer your last question, no, this is not a ploy on the part of the crew to avoid compliance with the evacuation order."
He turned to Admiral Heilmann and handed him the microphone. "Dammit, Otto," he muttered, "you talk to that bureaucratic nincompoop. He thinks he can command this mission better than we can, even though he's a hundred million kilometers away."
"Dr. Maxwell, this is Admiral Heilmann. I am in complete agreement with Dr. Brown. Anyway, we really can't afford to argue with such long delay times. We are going to proceed with our plan. Cosmonaut Tabori will stay here with me at Beta and pack all the heavy equipment, including the biot. I will coordinate the search. Brown, Sabatini, and des Jardins will cross the ice to New York, the most likely destination if the professor went under his own power. Wakefield, Turgenyev, and Yamanaka will look for him in the helicopters."
He paused for a moment. "There's no need for you to respond to this transmission in a hurry. The search will already have begun before your next message will arrive."
Back in her hut, Nicole very carefully packed her medical supplies. She criticized herself for not foreseeing that Takagishi might try one last time to visit New York. You made another mistake, Nicole said to herself. The least you can do is make certain you 're prepared when you find him.
She knew the personal packing procedure by heart. Nevertheless, she skimped on her own supplies of food and water to ensure that she had whatever an injured or sick Takagishi might need. Nicole had mixed emotions about her two companions on the quest to find the Japanese scientist, but it never occurr
ed to her that the grouping might have been purposely planned. Everyone knew Takagishi's fascination with New York. Given the circumstances, it was not surprising that Brown and Sabatini were accompanying her to the primary search area.
Just before Nicole left the hut, she saw Richard Wakefield at her door. "May I come in?" he asked.
"Certainly," she replied.
He walked in with an uncharacteristic uncertainty, as if he were confused or embarrassed. "What is it?" Nicole asked after an awkward silence.
He smiled. "Well," he said sheepishly, "it seemed like a good idea a few minutes ago. Now it strikes me as a little stupid—maybe even childish." Nicole noticed he was holding something in his right hand. "I brought you something," he continued. "A good luck charm, I guess. I thought you might take it with you to New York."
Cosmonaut Wakefield opened his hand. Nicole recognized the figurine of Prince Hal. "You can say what you will about valor and discretion and all that, but sometimes a little luck is more important."
Nicole was surprisingly touched. She took the little figurine from Wakefield and studied its intricate detail with admiration. "Does the prince have any special qualities I need to know about?" she asked with a smile.
"Oh yes." Richard brightened. "He loves to spend witty evenings in pubs with fat knights and other unsavory characters. Or battle renegade dukes and earls. Or court beautiful French princesses."
Nicole blushed slightly. "If I'm lonely and want the prince to amuse me, what do I do?" she asked.
Richard came over beside Nicole and showed her a tiny keyboard just above Prince Hal's buttocks. "He'll respond to many commands," Richard said, handing her a very small baton the size of a pin. "This will fit perfectly into any of the key slots. Try T for talk or A for action if you want him to show you his stuff."