The chair momentarily slowed. Shigeru Takagishi climbed off a kilometer below her. Nicole couldn’t see him, but she could hear him talking to Richard Wakefield on the communicator. “Hurry up,” she heard Reggie Wilson shout. “I don’t like sitting here in the middle of nowhere.” Nicole enjoyed being suspended on the chairlift. The amazing scene around her was temporarily almost static and she could study at her leisure any feature that was particularly interesting.
After one more stop for Wilson to disembark, Nicole was at last approaching the bottom of the Alpha chairlift herself. She watched, fascinated, as the resolution of her eyes improved quickly during the last three hundred meters of her descent. What had been a jumble of indistinct images resolved itself into a rover, three people, some equipment, and a small surrounding camp. After a few more seconds she could identify each of the three men. She had a quick flashback to another chairlift ride, this one in Switzerland some two months before. An image of King Henry flitted momentarily through her mind. It was replaced by the smiling face of Richard Wakefield just below her. He was giving her instructions on how best to ease herself out of the chair.
“It will never come to a complete stop,” he was saying, “but it will slow down a lot. Unfasten your belt and then hit the ground walking, as if you were coming off a moving sidewalk.”
He grabbed her by the waist and lifted her off the platform. Takagishi and Wilson were already in the backseat of the rover. “Welcome to Rama,” Wakefield said.
“All right, Tabori,” he then spoke into the communicator. “We’re all here and ready to go. We’re switching now to the listen-only mode for our drive.”
“Hurry,” Janos urged him. “We’re having a hard time not eating your lunch… By the way, Richard, will you bring tool box C when you come? We’ve been talking about nets and cages and I may need a wider variety of gadgets.”
“Roger,” Wakefield replied. He jogged over to the campsite and entered the only large hut. He emerged with a long rectangular metal box that was obviously very heavy. “Shit, Tabori,” he said into the radio, “what in the world is in here?”
They all heard a laugh. “Everything you could possibly need to catch a crab biot. And then some.”
Wakefield switched off the transmitter and climbed in the rover. He started driving away from the stairway in the direction of the Cylindrical Sea. “This biot hunt is the stupidest goddamn idea I’ve ever heard,” Reggie Wilson groused. “Somebody is going to get hurt.”
There was quiet in the rover for almost a minute. To the right, at the limit of their vision, the cosmonauts could barely see the Raman city of London. “Well, how does it feel to be part of the second team?” Wilson asked nobody in particular.
After an awkward silence, Dr. Takagishi turned to address him. “Excuse me, Mr. Wilson,” he said politely, “are you talking to me?”
“Sure I am!” Wilson replied, nodding his head up and down. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you that you were the number two scientist on this mission? I guess not,” Wilson continued after a short pause. “But that’s not surprising. Down on Earth I never knew that I was the number two journalist.”
“Reggie, I don’t think—” Nicole said before she was interrupted.
“As for you, Doctor” — Wilson leaned forward in the rover — “you may be the only member of the third team. I overheard our glorious leaders Heilmann and Brown talking about you. They’d like to leave you on the Newton permanently. But since we may need your skills—”
“That’s enough,” Richard Wakefield broke in. There was a threatening edge in his voice. “You can stop being so unpleasant.” Several tense seconds passed before Wakefield spoke again. “By the way, Wilson,” he said in a friendlier tone, “if I remember correctly, you’re a racing fanatic. Would you like to drive this buggy?”
It was the perfect suggestion. A few minutes later Reggie Wilson was in the driver’s seat beside Wakefield, laughing wildly as he accelerated the rover around a tight circle. Cosmonauts des Jardins and Takagishi were bumping around in the backseat.
Nicole was observing Wilson very carefully. He’s erratic again, she was thinking. That’s at least three times in the last two days. Nicole tried to recall when she had last done a full scan on Wilson. Not since the day after Borzov died. I’ve checked the cadets twice in the interim… Dammit, she said to herself, ! let my preoccupation with the Borzov incident make me careless. She made a mental note to scan everyone as soon as possible after she arrived at the Beta campsite.
“Say, my good professor,” Richard Wakefield said once Wilson had finally straightened out and was heading for camp, “I have a question for you.” He turned around and faced the Japanese scientist. “Have you figured out our strange sound from the other day? Or has Dr. Brown convinced you that it was just a figment of our collective imagination?”
Dr. Takagishi shook his head. “I told you at the time that it was a new noise.” He stared off in the distance, across the unexplained mechanical fields of the Central Plain. “This is a different Rama. I know it. The checkerboard squares in the south are laid out in an entirely new pattern and no longer extend to the shore of the Cylindrical Sea. The lights now go on before the sea melts. And they go off abruptly, without dimming for several hours as the first Rama explorers reported, The crab biots now appear in herds instead of individually.” He paused, still looking out across the fields. “Dr. Brown says that all these differences are trivial, but I think they mean something. It’s just possible,” Takagishi said softly, “that Dr. Brown is wrong.”
“It’s also possible that he’s a complete son of a bitch,” said Wilson bitterly. He accelerated the rover to its maximum speed. “Beta campsite, here we come!”
28
EXTRAPOLATION
Nicole completed her lunch of pressed duck, reconstituted broccoli, and mashed potatoes. The rest of the cosmonauts were still eating and it was temporarily quiet at the long table. In the corner, by the entrance, a monitor tracked the location of the crab biots. Their pattern had not changed. The blip representing the crabs would move in one direction for slightly more than ten minutes and then reverse itself.
“What happens after they finish this parcel?” Richard Wakefield asked. He was looking at a computer map of the area that was posted on a temporary bulletin board.
“Last time they followed one of those lanes between the checkerboard partitions until they came to a hole,” Francesca responded from the other end of the table. “Then they dumped their garbage in it. They haven’t picked up anything in this new territory, so what they will do when they finish is anybody’s guess.”
“Everyone is convinced that our biots are in fact garbagemen?” Richard asked.
“The evidence is fairly strong!” David Brown said. “A similar solitary crab biot encountered by Jimmy Pak inside the first Rama was also believed to be a garbage collector.”
“Excuse me,” Janos Tabori interjected, “but just what garbage are these crabs collecting?”
“We flatter ourselves,” Shigeru Takagishi said softly after a long silence. He finished chewing his last bite and swallowed. “Dr. Brown himself was the one who first said that it was unlikely we human beings could comprehend what Rama was about. Our conversation reminds me of that old Hindu proverb about the blind men who felt the elephant. They all described it differently, for each of them touched only a small part of the animal. None of them was correct.”
“So, you don’t think our crabs work for the Rama Sanitation Department?” Janos inquired.
“I didn’t say that,” Takagishi replied. “I merely suggested that it’s hubris on our part to conclude so quickly that those six creatures have no purpose except cleaning up the garbage. Our observational data is woefully inadequate.”
“Sometimes it is necessary to extrapolate,” Dr. Brown rejoined testily, “…and even speculate, based on minimal amounts of data. You know yourself that new science is based on maximum likelihood rather than cert
ainty.”
“Before we become involved in an esoteric discussion about science and its methodology,” Janos now interrupted with a grin, “I have a sporting proposition for you all.” He stood up at his place. “Actually it was Richard’s idea originally, but I’ve figured out how to make it into a game. It has to do with the lights.”
Janos took a quick drink of water from his cup. “Since we first arrived here in Ramaland,” he intoned formally, “there have been three transitions in the illumination state.”
“Boo. Hiss,” shouted Wakefield. Janos laughed.
“Okay, you guys,” the little Hungarian then continued in his normal offhand way, “what’s the deal with the lights? They’ve come on, gone off, and now come on again. What’s going to happen in the future? I propose that we have a pool and contribute, say, twenty marks apiece. Each of us will make a prediction about the behavior of the lights for the rest of the mission and whoever is closest will win the pot.”
“Who will judge the winner?” Reggie Wilson inquired sleepily. He had yawned several times during the preceding hour. “Despite the impressive set of brains around this table, I don’t think anyone has figured out Rama yet. My personal belief is that the lights will not follow any pattern. They will go on and off at random times to keep us guessing.”
“Write it down and send it on the modem to General O’Toole. Richard and I agreed that he would make a perfect judge. When the mission is over, he’ll compare the predictions with actuality and someone will win a lucky dinner for two.”
Dr. David Brown pushed his chair back from the table. “Are you finished with your game, Tabori?” he asked. “If so,” he added, without waiting for an answer, “perhaps we can clean up this lunch mess and get on with our schedule.”
“Hey skipper,” Janos replied, “I’m just trying to loosen things up. Everybody’s getting tense—”
Brown walked out of the hut before Cosmonaut Tabori had finished his sentence.
“What’s bothering him?” Richard asked Francesca,
“I guess he’s anxious about the hunt,” Francesca answered. “He has been in a bad mood since this morning. Maybe he’s feeling all the responsibility.”
“Maybe he’s just a jerk,” said Wilson. He too rose from his seat. “I’m going to take a nap.”
As Wilson was leaving the large hut Nicole remembered that she wanted to check everyone’s biometry before the hunt. It was a simple enough task. All she needed was to stand close to each cosmonaut for about forty-five seconds with her activated scanner and then read the critical data off the monitor. If there were no entries in the warning files, the entire procedure was quite straightforward. On this particular check everyone was clean, including Takagishi. “Nice going,” Nicole said to her Japanese colleague very quietly.
She walked outside to look for David Brown and Reggie Wilson. Dr. Brown’s hut was at the far end of the campsite. Like the rest of the individual dwellings, his hut resembled a tall skinny hat sitting on the ground. All the huts were off-white in color, about two and a half meters tall, with a circular base just under two meters in diameter. They were manufactured with super-lightweight, flexible materials that combined easy packing and storage with formidable strength. Nicole remarked to herself that the huts looked something like native American Indian teepees.
David Brown was in his hut, sitting cross-legged on the ground in front of a portable computer monitor. On the screen was text from the chapter on biots in Takagishi’s Atlas of Rama. “ Excuse me, Dr. Brown,” Nicole said as she stuck her head in his door.
“Yes,” he said, “what is it?” He made no attempt to hide his annoyance at the interruption.
“I need to check your biometry data,” Nicole said. “You haven’t been dumped since right before the first sortie.”
Brown gave her an irritated glance. Nicole held her ground. The American shrugged his shoulders, half grunted, and turned back to the monitor. Nicole knelt beside him and activated her scanner.
“There are some folding chairs over in the supply hut,” Nicole offered as Dr. Brown shifted his weight uncomfortably on the ground. He ignored her comment. Why is he so rude to me? Nicole found herself wondering. Is it because of that report on Wilson and him? No, she thought, answering her own question, it’s because I have never been properly deferential,
Data began to appear on Nicole’s screen. She carefully keyed in several inputs that permitted a synopsis of the warning data to be shown. “Your blood pressure has been too high for intermittent intervals during the last seventy-two hours, including almost all of today,” she said without emotion. “This particular kind of pattern is usually associated with stress.”
Dr. Brown stopped reading about biots and turned to face his life science officer. He looked at the displayed data without understanding it. “This graph shows the amplitudes and durations of your out-of-tolerance excursions,” Nicole said, pointing at the screen. “None of the individual occurrences would be serious by itself. But the overall pattern is cause for concern.”
“I have been under some pressure,” he mumbled. David Brown watched while Nicole called up other displays showing data that corroborated her original statements. Many of Brown’s warning files were overflowing.
The lights continued to flash on the monitor. “What’s the worst-case scenario?” he inquired.
Nicole eyed her patient. “A stroke with paralysis or death,” she replied. “If the condition persists or worsens.”
He whistled. “What should I do?”
“In the first place,” Nicole answered, “you must start by getting more sleep. Your metabolic profile shows that since the death of General Borzov you have only had a total of eleven hours of solid rest. Why didn’t you tell me you were having trouble sleeping?”
“I thought it was just excitement. I even took a sleeping pill one night and it had no effect.”
Nicole’s brow furrowed. “I don’t remember giving you any sleeping pills.”
Dr. Brown smiled. “Shit,” he said, “I forgot to tell you. I was talking to Francesca Sabatini about my insomnia one night and she offered me a pill. I took it without thinking.”
“Which night was that?” Nicole asked. She changed displays again on her monitor and called for more data from the storage buffers.
“I’m not certain,” Dr. Brown said after some hesitation. “I think it was —
“Oh, here it is,” Nicole said. “I can see it in the chemical analysis. That was March third, the second night after Borzov’s death. The day you and Heilmann were selected as joint commanders. From the breakout in this spectrometry data, I would guess that you took a single medvil.”
“You can tell that from my biometry data.”
“Not exactly,” Nicole said with a smile. “The interpretation is not unique. What was it you said at lunch? Sometimes it’s necessary to extrapolate… and speculate,”
Their eyes met for a moment. Could that be fear? Nicole wondered as she tried to interpret what she was seeing in his gaze. Dr. Brown looked away. “Thank you, Dr. des Jardins,” he said stiffly, “for your report on my blood pressure. I will try to relax and get plenty of sleep. And I apologize for not informing you about the sleeping pill.” He dismissed her with a wave of his hand.
Nicole started to protest her dismissal but decided against it. He wouldn’t follow my advice anyway, she said to herself as she walked toward Wilson’s hut. And his blood pressure was certainly not dangerously high. She thought about the strained final two minutes of their conversation, after she had astonished Dr. Brown by correctly identifying the type of sleeping pill. There’s something not quite right here. What is it that I am missing?
She could hear Reggie Wilson snoring before she arrived at the door of his tent. After a brief debate with herself, Nicole decided that she would scan him after his nap. She then returned to her own hut and quickly fell asleep.
“Nicole. Nicole des Jardins.” The voice intruded in her dream and awaken
ed her. “It’s me. Francesca. I need to tell you something.”
Nicole sat up slowly on her cot. Francesca had already entered the hut. The Italian was wearing her friendliest smile, the one that Nicole had thought was always saved for the camera.
“I was talking to David just a few minutes ago,” Francesca said as she approached the cot, “and he told me about your conversation after lunch.” Francesca kept talking as Nicole yawned and swung her legs around to the floor. “I was, of course, very concerned to learn about his blood pressure — don’t worry, he and I have already agreed that I won’t use it — but what really bothered me was he reminded me that we never told you about the sleeping pill. I’m so embarrassed. We should have told you immediately.”
Francesca was talking too fast for Nicole. Just moments before she had been in a deep sleep, dreaming of Beauvois, and now all of a sudden she was expected to listen to a staccato confession from the Italian cosmonaut.
“Could you wait a minute until I wake up?” Nicole asked crossly. She leaned around Francesca to a makeshift table and took a cup of water. She drank slowly.
“Now am I to understand,” Nicole said, “that you have awakened me to tell me that you gave Dr. Brown a sleeping pill? Something I already know?”
“Yes,” Francesca said with a smile. “I mean, that’s part of it. But I realized that I had forgotten to tell you about Reggie also.”
Nicole shook her head. “I’m not following you, Francesca. Are you talking about Reggie Wilson now?”
Francesca hesitated for a second. “Yes,” she said. “Didn’t you check him with your scanner right after lunch?”
Nicole shook her head again. “No, he was already asleep.” She looked at her watch. “I had planned to scan him before the meeting started. Maybe an hour from now!’
Francesca was flustered. “Well,” she said, “when David told me that the medvil showed up in his biometry data, I thought…” She stopped herself in midsentence. She seemed to be collecting her thoughts. Nicole waited patiently.
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