Rendezvous with Rama

by Arthur C. Clarke

  That was the obvious explanation, and therefore Norton viewed it with suspicion. His doubts grew as he examined the other columns, and conjured up the images stored in their interiors.

  Hand-tools (though for huge and peculiar hands), containers, small machines with keyboards that appeared to have been made for more than five fingers, scientific instruments, startlingly conventional domestic utensils, including knives and plates which apart from their size would not have attracted a second glance on any terrestrial table ... they were all there, with hundreds of less identifiable objects, often jumbled up together in the same pillar. A museum, surely, would have some logical arrangement, some segregation of related items. This seemed to be a completely random collection of hardware.

  They had photographed the elusive images inside a score of the crystal pillars when the sheer variety of items gave Norton a clue. Perhaps this was not a collection, but a catalogue, indexed according to some arbitrary but perfectly logical system. He thought of the wild juxtapositions that any dictionary or alphabetized list will give, and tried the idea on his companions.

  'I see what you mean,' said Mercer. 'The Ramans might be equally surprised to find us putting - ah - camshafts next to cameras.’

  'Or books beside boots', added Calvert, after several seconds' hard thinking. One could play this game for hours, he decided, with increasing degrees of impropriety.

  'That's the idea,' replied Norton. 'This may be an indexed catalogue for 3-D images - templates - solid blueprints, if you like to call them that.’

  'For what purpose?’

  'Well, you know the theory about the biots ... the idea that they don't exist until they're needed and then they're created - synthesized - from patterns stored somewhere?’

  'I see,' said Mercer slowly and thoughtfully. 'So when a Raman needs a left-handed blivet, he punches out the correct code number, and a copy is manufactured from the pattern in here.’

  'Something like that. But please don't ask me about the practical details.’

  The pillars through which they had been moving had been steadily growing in size, and were now more than two metres in diameter. The images were correspondingly larger; it was obvious that, for doubtless excellent reasons, the Ramans believed in sticking to a one-to-one scale. Norton wondered how they stored anything really big, if this was the case.

  To increase their rate of coverage, the four explorers had now spread out through the crystal columns and were taking photographs as quickly as they could get their cameras focused on the fleeting images. This was an astonishing piece of luck, Norton told himself, though he felt that he had earned it; they could not possibly have made a better choice than this Illustrated Catalogue of Raman Artefacts. And yet, in another way; it could hardly have been more frustrating. There was nothing actually here, except impalpable patterns of light and darkness; these apparently solid objects did not really exist.

  Even knowing this, more than once Norton felt an almost irresistible urge to laser his way into one of the pillars, so that he could have something material to take back to Earth. It was the same impulse, he told himself wryly, that would prompt a monkey to grab the reflection of a banana in a mirror.

  He was photographing what seemed to be some kind of optical device when Calvert's shout started him running through the pillars.

  'Skipper - Karl - Will - look at this!’

  Joe was prone to sudden enthusiasms, but what he had found was enough to justify any amount of excitement.

  Inside one of the two-metre columns was an elaborate harness, or uniform, obviously made for a vertically standing creature, much taller than a man. A very narrow central metal band apparently surrounded the waist, thorax or some division unknown to terrestrial zoology. From this rose three slim columns, tapering outwards and ending in a perfectly circular belt, an impressive metre in diameter. Loops equally spaced along it could only be intended to go round upper limbs or arms. Three of them...

  There were numerous pouches, buckles, bandoliers from which tools (or weapons?) protruded, pipes and electrical conductors, even small black boxes that would have looked perfectly at home in an electronics lab on Earth. The whole arrangement was almost as complex as a spacesuit, though it obviously provided only partial covering for the creature wearing it.

  And was that creature a Raman? Norton asked himself. We'll probably never know; but it must have been intelligent - no mere animal could cope with all that sophisticated equipment.

  'About two and a half metres high,' said Mercer thoughtfully, 'not counting the bead - whatever that was like.’

  'With three arms - and presumably three legs. The same plan as the Spiders, on a much more massive scale. Do you suppose that's a coincidence?’

  'Probably not. We design robots in our own image; we might expect the Ramans to do the same.’

  Joe Calvert, unusually subdued, was looking at the display with something like awe.

  'Do you suppose they know we're here?' he half-whispered.

  'I doubt it,' said Mercer. 'We've not even reached their threshold of consciousness - though the Hermians certainly had a good try.’

  They were still standing there, unable to drag themselves away, when Pieter called from the Hub, his voice full of urgent concern.

  'Skipper - you'd better get outside.’

  'What is it - biots heading this way?’

  'No - something much more serious. The lights are going out.’

  CHAPTER FORTY THREE - Retreat

  When he hastily emerged from the hole they had lasered, it seemed to Norton that the six suns of Rama were as brilliant as ever. Surely, he thought, Pieter must have made a mistake.., that's not like him at all ...

  But Pieter had anticipated just this reaction.

  'It happened so slowly,' he explained apologetically, 'that it was a long time before I noticed any difference. But there's no doubt about it - I've taken a meter reading. The light level's down forty per cent.’

  Now, as his eyes readjusted themselves after the gloom of the glass temple, Norton could believe him. The long day of Rama was drawing to its close.

  It was still as warm as ever, yet Norton felt himself shivering. He had known this sensation once before, during a beautiful summer day on Earth. There had been an inexplicable weakening of light as if darkness was falling from the air, or the sun had lost its strength - though there was not a cloud in the sky. Then he remembered; a partial eclipse was in progress.

  'This is it,' he said grimly. 'We're going home. Leave all the equipment behind - we won't need it again.’

  Now, he hoped, one piece of planning was about to prove its worth. He had selected London for this raid because no other town was so close to a stairway; the foot of Beta was only four kilometres away.

  They set off at the steady, loping trot which was the most comfortable mode of travelling at half a gravity. Norton set a pace which, he estimated, would get them to the edge of the plain without exhaustion, and in the minimum of time. He was acutely aware of the eight kilometres they would still have to climb when they had reached Beta, but he would feel much safer when they had actually started the ascent.

  The first tremor came when they had almost reached the stairway. It was very slight, and instinctively Norton turned towards the south, expecting to see another display of fireworks around the Horns. But Rama never seemed to repeat itself exactly; if there were any electrical discharges above those needle-sharp mountains, they were too faint to be seen.

  'Bridge,' he called, 'did you notice that?’

  'Yes, Skipper - very small shock. Could be another attitude change. We're watching the rate gyro - nothing yet. Just a minute! Positive reading! Can just detect it - less than a micro radian per second, but holding.’

  So Rama was beginning to turn, though with almost imperceptible slowness. Those earlier shocks might have been a false alarm - but this, surely, was the real thing.

  'Rate increasing five micro rad. Hello, did you feel that shock?’
/>   'We certainly did. Get all the ship's systems operational. We may have to leave in a hurry.’

  'Do you expect an orbit change already? We're still a long way from perihelion.

  'I don't think Rama works by our textbooks. Nearly at Beta. We'll rest there for five minutes.’

  Five minutes was utterly inadequate, yet it seemed an age. For there was now no doubt that the light was failing, and failing fast.

  Though they were all equipped with flashlights, the thought of darkness here was now intolerable; they had grown so psychologically accustomed to the endless day that it was hard to remember the conditions under which they had first explored this world. They felt an overwhelming urge to escape - to get out into the light of the Sun, a kilometre away on the other side of these cylindrical walls.

  'Hub Control!' called Norton. 'Is the searchlight operating? We may need it in a hurry.’

  'Yes, Skipper. Here it comes.

  A reassuring spark of light started to shine eight kilometres above their heads. Even against the now fading day of Rama, it looked surprisingly feeble; but it had served them before, and would guide them once again if they needed it.

  This, Norton was grimly aware, would be the longest and most nerve-wracking climb they had ever done. Whatever happened, it would be impossible to hurry; if they over-exerted themselves, they would simply collapse somewhere on that vertiginous slope, and would have to wait until their protesting muscles permitted them to continue. By this time, they must be one of the fittest crews that had ever carried out a space mission; but there were limits to what flesh and blood could do.

  After an hour's steady plodding they had reached the fourth section of the stairway, about three kilometres from the plain. From now on, it would be much easier; gravity was already down to a third of Earth value. Although there had been minor shocks from time to time, no other unusual phenomena had occurred, and there was still plenty of light. They began to feel more optimistic, and even to wonder if they had left too soon. One thing was certain, however; there was no going back. They had all walked for the last time on the plain of Rama.

  It was while they were taking a ten-minute rest on the fourth platform that Joe Calvert suddenly exclaimed: · 'What's that noise, Skipper?’

  'Noise! - I don't hear anything.’

  'High-pitched whistle - dropping in frequency, you must hear it.’

  'Your ears are younger than mine - oh, now I do.’

  The whistle seemed to come from everywhere. Soon it was loud, even piercing, and falling swiftly in pitch. Then it suddenly stopped.

  A few seconds later it came again, repeating the same sequence. It had all the mournful, compelling quality of a lighthouse siren sending out its warnings into the fog shrouded night. There was a message here, and an urgent one. It was not designed for their ears, but they understood it. Then, as if to make doubly sure, it was reinforced by the lights themselves.

  They dimmed almost to extinction, then started to flash. Brilliant beads, like ball lightning, raced along the six narrow valleys that had once illuminated this world. They moved from both Poles towards the Sea in a synchronized, hypnotic rhythm which could have only one meaning. 'To the Sea!' the lights were calling, 'To the Sea I' And the summons was hard to resist; there was not a man who did not feel a compulsion to turn back, and to seek oblivion in the water of Rama.

  'Hub Control!' Norton called urgently. 'Can you see what's happening?’

  The voice of Pieter came back to him; he sounded awed, and more than a little frightened.

  'Yes, Skipper. I'm looking across at the Southern continent. There are still scores of biots over there - including some big ones. Cranes; Bulldozers - lots of Scavengers. And they're all rushing back to the Sea faster than I've ever seen them move before. There goes a Crane - right over the edge! Just like Jimmy, but going down a lot quicker ... it smashed to pieces when it hit ... and here come the Sharks - they're tearing into it... ugh; it's not a pleasant sight...

  'Now I'm looking at the plain. Here's a Bulldozer that seems to have broken down ... it's going round and round in circles. Now a couple of Crabs are tearing into it, pulling it to pieces ... Skipper, I think you'd better get back right away.’

  'Believe me,' Norton said with deep feeling, 'we're coming just as quickly as we can.

  Rama was battening down the hatches, like a ship preparing for a storm. That was Norton's overwhelming impression, though he could not have put it on a logical basis. He no longer felt completely rational; two compulsions were warring in his mind - the need to escape, and the desire to obey those bolts of lightning, that still flashed across the sky, ordering him to join the biots in their march to the sea.

  One more section of stairway - another ten-minute pause, to let the fatigue poisons drain from his muscles. Then on again - another two kilometres to go, but let's try not to think about that. The maddening sequence of descending whistles abruptly ceased. At the same moment, the fireballs racing along the slots of the Straight Valleys stopped their seaward strobing; Rama's six linear suns were once more continuous bands of light.

  But they were fading fast, and sometimes they flickered, as if tremendous jolts of energy were being drained from waning power sources. From time to time, there were slight tremors underfoot; the bridge reported that Rama was still swinging with imperceptible slowness, like a compass needle responding to a weak magnetic field. This was perhaps reassuring; it was when Rama stopped its swing that Norton would really begin to worry.

  All the biots had gone, so Pieter reported. In the whole interior of Rama, the only movement was that of human beings, crawling with painful slowness up the curving face of the north dome.

  Norton had long since overcome the vertigo he had felt on that first ascent, but now a new fear was beginning to creep into his mind. They were so vulnerable here, on this endless climb from plain to Hub. Suppose that, when it had completed its attitude change, Rama started to accelerate?

  Presumably its thrust would be along the axis. If it was in the northward direction, that would be no problem; they would be held a little more firmly against the slope which they were ascending. But if it was towards the south, they might be swept off into space, to fall back eventually on the plain far below.

  He tried to reassure himself with the thought that any possible acceleration would be very feeble. Dr Perera's calculations had been most convincing; Rama could not possibly accelerate at more than a fiftieth of a gravity, or the Cylindrical Sea would climb the southern cliff and flood an entire continent. But Perera had been in a comfortable study back on Earth, not with kilometres of overhanging metal apparently about to crash down upon his head. And perhaps Rama was designed for periodic flooding No, that was ridiculous. It was absurd to imagine that all these trillions of tons could suddenly start moving with sufficient acceleration to shake him loose. Nevertheless, for all the remainder of the ascent, Norton never let himself get far from the security of the handrail. Lifetimes later, the stairway ended; - only a few hundred metres of vertical, recessed ladder were left. It was no longer necessary to climb this section since one man at the Hub, hauling on a cable, could easily hoist another against the rapidly diminishing gravity. Even at the bottom of the ladder a man weighed less than five kilos; at the top, practically zero.

  So Norton relaxed in the sling, grasping a rung from time to time to counter the feeble Coriolis force still trying to push him off the ladder. He almost forgot his knotted muscles, as he had his last view of Rama. It was about as bright now as a full moon on Earth; the overall scene was perfectly clear, but he could no longer make out the finer details. The South Pole was now partially obscured by a glowing mist; only the peak of Big Horn protruded through it - a small, black dot, seen exactly head-on.

  The carefully-mapped but still unknown continent beyond the Sea was the same apparently random patchwork that it had always been. It was too foreshortened, and too full of complex detail, to reward visual examination, and Norton scanned it only briefly.


  He swept his eyes round the encircling band of the Sea, and noticed for the first time a regular pattern of disturbed water, as if waves were breaking over reefs set at geometrically precise intervals. Rama's manoeuvring was having some effect, but a very slight one. He was sure that Sergeant Barnes would have sailed forth happily under these conditions, had he asked her to cross the Sea in her lost Resolution.

  New York, London, Paris, Moscow, Rome ... he said farewell to all the cities of the northern continent, and hoped the Ramans would forgive him for any damage he had done. Perhaps they would understand that it was all in the cause of science.

  Then, suddenly, he was at the Hub, and eager hands reached out to grab him, and to hurry him through the airlocks. His overstrained legs and arms were trembling so uncontrollably that he was almost unable to help himself, and he was content to be handled like a half-paralysed invalid.

  The sky of Rama contracted above him, as he descended into the central crater of the Hub. As the door of the inner airlock shut off the view forever, he found himself thinking: 'How strange that night should be falling, now that Rama is closest to the sun!’

  CHAPTER FORTY FOUR - Space Drive

  A hundred kilometres was an adequate safety margin, Norton had decided. Rama was now a huge black rectangle, exactly broadside-on, eclipsing the sun. He had used this opportunity to fly Endeavour completely into shadow, so that the load could be taken off the ship's cooling systems and some overdue maintenance could be carried out. Rama's protective cone of darkness might disappear at any moment, and he intended to make as much use of it as he could.

  Rama was still turning; it had now swung through almost fifteen degrees, and it was impossible to believe that some major orbit change was not imminent. On the United Planets, excitement had now reached a pitch of hysteria, but only a faint echo of this came to Endeavour. Physically and emotionally, her crew was exhausted; apart from a skeleton watch, everyone had slept for twelve hours after take-off from the North Polar Base. On doctor's orders, Norton himself had used electro-sedation; even so, he had dreamed that he was climbing an infinite stairway.