Rama: The Omnibus

by Arthur C. Clarke

  Nicole returned to the main menu and called up the Glossary to refresh her memory about the definitions of IE and SC. The IE numbers supposedly represented a composite measure of overall intelligence, based on a comparison with a similar worldwide student population. All students took a set of standardized tests at specified times between the ages of twelve and twenty. The index was actually an exponent in a decimal measuring system. An IE number of zero was average. An IE index of +1.00 meant the individual was above 90 percent of the population; +2.00 was above 99 percent of the population; +3.00 above 99.9 percent, etc. Negative IE indices indicated below-average intelligence. Janos' score of +3.37 placed him in the middle of the upper one tenth of one percent of the population in intelligence.

  The SC numbers had a more straightforward explanation. They too were based on a battery of standardized tests administered to all students between the ages of twelve and twenty, but the interpretation here was easier to understand. The highest SC score was 100. A person scoring close to 100 was liked and respected by virtually everybody, would fit into most any group, was almost never quarrelsome or moody, and was very dependable. A footnote to the explanation of the SC scores acknowledged that written tests could not accurately measure personality traits in all cases, so the numbers should be used with discretion.

  Nicole reminded herself to do a comparison sometime of all the cosmonaut IE and SC scores. Then she accessed the Chronological Summary file for Janos Tabori. The next sixty minutes was an eye-opening experience for Nicole. As the life science officer, she had of course studied the official ISA personnel files for the entire crew. But if the information about Janos Tabori on the cube given to her by King Henry was correct (and she had no way of knowing one way or the other), then the ISA files were woefully incomplete.

  Nicole had known previously that Janos had twice been selected as the outstanding engineering student at the University of Hungary; she had not known that he had been president for two years of the Gay Students Association of Budapest. She was aware that he had entered the Space Academy in 2192 and had graduated in only three years (because of his previous experience with major Soviet engineering projects); she had never been told that he had applied to the Academy twice previously and had been rejected both times. Despite sensational entrance scores, he had twice failed his personal interview—both times the interview committee had been headed by General Valeriy Borzov. Janos had been active in various gay organizations until 2190. Subsequently he had resigned from them all and never rejoined or participated in any organized gay activities. None of this information had been in his ISA file.

  Nicole was stunned by what she had learned. It wasn't that Janos had been (or was) gay that disturbed her; she was free of prejudices where sexual orientation was concerned. What bothered her most was the likelihood that his official file had been deliberately censored to remove all references both to his homosexuality and to his earlier interactions with General Borzov.

  The last entries in the Tabori Chronological Summary were also surprising for Nicole. According to the dossier, Janos had purportedly signed a contract with Schmidt and Hagenest, the German publishing conglomerate, in the last week of December, just before launch. His task was to perform unspecified "consulting" for a wide variety of post-Newton media endeavors in support of what was referred to as the Brown-Sabatini project. Cosmonaut Tabori was paid an initial fee of three hundred thousand marks for signing. Three days later his mother, who had been waiting almost a year for one of the new artificial brain implants that reversed the damage from Alzheimer's disease, entered the Bavarian Hospital in Munich for neurological surgery.

  Her eyes weary and burning, Nicole finished reading the extensive dossier on Dr. David Brown. During the hours that she had been studying his Chronological Summary, she had created a special subfile for herself of those items in the summary that were of particular interest to her. Before trying again to sleep, Nicole scrolled through this special subfile one more time.

  Summer 2161: Brown, eleven, enrolled in Camp Longhorn by father over strenuous objections of mother. Typical outdoor summer camp in hill country of Texas for upper class boys, featuring athletics of all kinds, riflery, crafts, and hiking. Boys lived ten to a barracks, Brown was extremely unpopular immediately. On fifth day bunkmates seized him coming out of shower and painted his genitals black. Brown refused to move from bed until mother had traveled almost two hundred miles to pick him up and take him home. Father apparently ignored son altogether after this incident.

  September 2166: After being valedictorian from private high school, Brown enrolled as freshman in physics at Princeton. Remained in New Jersey only eight weeks. Completed undergraduate work at SMU while living at home.

  June 2173: Awarded Ph.D. in physics and astronomy by Harvard. Dissertation advisor Wilson Brownwell called Brown "an ambitious, diligent student."

  June 2175: Brown completed post-doctorate research on the evolution of stars with Brian Murchison at Cambridge.

  April 2180: Married Jeannette Hudson of Pasadena, California. Ms. Hudson had been graduate student in astronomy at Stanford. Only child, daughter Angela, born in December 2184.

  November 2181: Was refused tenure in astronomy department at Stanford because two members of evaluation committee believed Brown had falsified scientific data in several of his many scholarly publications. Issue was never resolved.

  January 2184: Appointed to first ISA Advisory Committee. Prepared comprehensive plans for series of major new astronomical telescopes on far side of the moon.

  May 2187: Brown named chairman of Department of Physics and Astronomy at SMU in Dallas, Texas.

  February 2188: Fistfight with Wendell Thomas, Princeton professor, in atrium outside AAAS meeting in Chicago. Thomas insisted that Brown had stolen and published ideas they had discussed together.

  April 2190: Electrified scientific world by not only publishing breakthrough models of supernova process, but also predicting nearby supernova to occur in mid-March 2191. Research done in collaboration with SMU doctoral student, Elaine Bernstein of New York. Strong suggestion from graduate associates of Ms. Bernstein that she was actually one with the new insights. Brown catapulted to fame as a result of his bold and correct prediction.

  June 2190: Brown divorced wife, from whom he had been separated for eighteen months. Separation had started three months after Elaine Bernstein had begun graduate work.

  December 2190: Married Ms. Bernstein in Dallas.

  March 2191: Supernova 2191a filled night sky with light, as predicted by Brown et al.

  June 2191: Brown signed two-year science reporting contract with CBS. Jumped to UBC in 2194 and then, at recommendation of agent, to INN in 2197.

  December 2193: Brown awarded top ISA medal for Distinguished Scientific Achievement.

  November 2199: Signed exclusive multimillion mark, multiyear contract with Schmidt and Hagenest to "exploit" all possible commercial applications of Newton mission, including books, videos, and educational material. Teamed with Francesca Sabatini as other principal, cosmonauts Heilmann and Tabori as consultants. Signing bonus of two million marks deposited in secret account in Italy.

  Her alarm awakened her after she had been asleep for only two hours. Nicole dragged herself out of bed and freshened up in the retractable wash-basin. She moved slowly into the corridor and turned toward the lobby. The other four space cadets were gathered around David Brown in the control center, excitedly reviewing the details of the initial sortie.

  "All right," Richard Wakefield was saying, "first priorities are the lightweight individual chairlifts by the right and left stairways and one heavy load elevator from the hub to the Central Plain. Then we set up a temporary control center at the edge of the plain and assemble and test the three rovers. Crude campsite tonight, base camp at the Beta site near the edge of the Cylindrical Sea tomorrow. We will leave the assembly and deployment of the two helicopters for tomorrow, the icemobiles and motorboats for Day Three."

&nb
sp; "That's an excellent summary," Dr. Brown replied. "Francesca will go with the four of you while you're setting up the infrastructure this morning. When the lightweight lifts are installed and operational, Admiral Heilmann and I will join you along with Dr. Takagishi and Mr. Wilson. We'll all sleep inside Rama tonight."

  "How many long-duration flares do you have?" Janos Tabori asked Irina Turgenyev.

  "Twelve," she answered. "That should be plenty for today."

  "And tonight, when we go to sleep in there, it will be the darkest night that any of us have ever seen," Dr, Takagishi said. "There will be no moon and no stars, no reflection off the ground, nothing but blackness all around."

  "What will the temperature be?" Wakefield asked.

  "We don't know for certain," the Japanese scientist answered. "The initial drones carried only cameras. But the temperature in the region around the end of the tunnel was the same as in Rama I. If that's any indication, then it should be about ten degrees below freezing at the campsites." Takagishi paused for a moment. "And getting warmer," he continued. "We're now inside the orbit of Venus. We expect the lights to come on in another eight or nine days, and the Cylindrical Sea to melt from the bottom soon thereafter."

  "Hey," kidded Brown. "It sounds as if you're becoming converted. You no longer qualify all your statements, just some of them." Takagishi replied, "With each datum that indicates this spaceship is like its predecessor seventy years ago, the probability that they are identical increases. Thus far, if we ignore the exact timing of the correction maneuver, everything about the two vehicles has been the same."

  Nicole approached the group. "Well look who's here," Janos said with his usual grin. "Our fifth and final space cadet." He noticed her swollen eyes. "And our new commander was right. You do look as if you might benefit from some rest."

  "I, for one," Richard Wakefield interjected, "am disappointed that my rover assembly assistant will now be Yamanaka instead of Madame des Jardins. At least our life science officer talks. I may have to recite Shakespeare to myself to stay awake." He elbowed Yamanaka in the ribs. The Japanese pilot almost smiled.

  "I wanted to wish you all good luck," Nicole said. "As I'm sure Dr. Brown has told you, I felt I was still too tired to be very helpful. I should be fresh and ready by the second sortie."

  "Well," Francesca Sabatini remarked impatiently after her camera had panned around the room and captured one final close-up of each face. "Are we finally ready?"

  "Let's go," said Wakefield. They headed toward the airlock at the front of the Newton spacecraft.

  22

  DAWN

  Richard Wakefield worked quickly in the near darkness. He was halfway down the Alpha stairway, where the gravity due to the centrifugal force created by the spin of Rama had grown to one-fourth of a gee. The light from his headgear illuminated the near field. He was almost finished with another pylon.

  He checked his air supply. It was already below the midpoint. By now they have been deeper into Rama, closer to where they could breathe the ambient air. But they had underestimated how long it would take them to install the lightweight chairlift, The concept was extremely simple and they had practiced it several times in the simulations. The upper part of the job, when they had been in the vicinity of the ladders and virtually weightless, had been relatively straightforward. But at this level the installation of each pylon was a different process because of the increasing and changing gravity.

  Exactly a thousand steps above Wakefield, Janos Tabori finished wrapping anchor lines around the metal banisters that lined the stairway. After almost four hours of tedious, repetitive work, he was becoming fatigued. He remembered the argument the engineering director had advanced when he and Richard had recommended a specialized machine for the installation of the lifts. "It's not cost-effective to create a robot for nonrecurring uses," the man had said. "Robots are only good for recurring tasks."

  Janos glanced below him but could not see as far as the next pylon, two hundred and fifty steps down the stairway. "Is it time for lunch yet?" he said to Wakefield on his commpak.

  "Could be," was the response. "But we're way behind. We didn't send Yamanaka and Turgenyev over to Gamma stairway until ten-thirty. At the rate we're going, we'll be lucky to finish these lightweight lifts and the crude campsite today. We'll have to postpone the heavy load elevator and the rovers until tomorrow."

  "Hiro and I are already eating," they both heard Turgenyev say from the other side of the bowl. "We were hungry. We finished the chair rack and the upper motor in half an hour. We're down to pylon number twelve."

  "Good work," Wakefield said. "But I'll warn you that you're in the easy part, around the ladders and the top of the stairway. Working weightless is a snap. Wait until the gravity is measurably different at each location."

  "According to the laser range finder, Cosmonaut Wakefield is exactly eight-point-one-three kilometers away from me," everyone heard Dr. Takagishi interject.

  "That doesn't tell me anything, Professor, unless I know where the hell you are."

  "I'm standing on the ledge just outside our relay station, near the bottom of the Alpha stairway."

  "Come on, Shig, won't you Orientals ever go along with the rest of the world? The Newton is parked on the top of Rama and you are at the top of the stairway. If we can't agree on up and down, how can we ever hope to communicate our innermost feelings? Much less play chess together."

  "Thank you, Janos. I am at the top of the Alpha stairway. By the way, what are you doing? Your range is increasing rapidly."

  "I'm sliding down the banister to meet Richard for lunch. I don't like eating fish and chips by myself."

  "I'm also coming down for lunch," Francesca said. "I just finished filming an excellent demonstration of the Coriolis force using Hiro and Irina. It will be great for elementary physics classes. I should be there in five minutes."

  "Say, signora"—it was Wakefield again—"do you think we could talk you into some honest-to-goodness work? We stop what we're doing to accommodate your filming—maybe we can make a trade with you."

  "I'm willing," answered Francesca. "I'll help after lunch. But what I would like now is some light. Could you use one of your flares and let me capture you and Janos having a picnic on the Stairway of the Gods?"

  Wakefield programmed a flare for a delayed ignition and climbed eighty steps to the nearest ledge. Cosmonaut Tabori arrived at the same spot half a minute before the light flooded them. From two kilometers above, Francesca panned across the three stairways and then zoomed in on the two figures sitting cross-legged on the ledge. From that perspective, Janos and Richard looked like two eagles nesting in a high mountain aerie.

  By late afternoon the Alpha chairlift was finished and ready for testing. "We'll let you be the first customer," Richard Wakefield said to Francesca, "since you were good enough to help." They were standing in full gravity at the foot of the incredible stairway. Thirty thousand steps stretched into the darkness of the artificial heavens above them. Beside them on the Central Plain the ultralight motor and the self-contained portable power station for the chairlift were already in operation. The cosmonauts had transported the electrical and mechanical subsystems in unassembled pieces on their backs and assembly had required less than an hour.

  "The little chairs are not permanently connected to the cables," Wake-field explained to Francesca. "At each end there is a mechanism that attaches or detaches the chairs. That way it's not necessary to have an almost infinite number of seats."

  Francesca hesitantly sat down in the plastic structure that had been pulled away from a group of similar baskets hanging from a side cable. "You're certain this is safe?" she said, staring at the darkness above her.

  "Of course," Richard said with a laugh. "It's exactly like the simulation. And I'll be in the next chair behind you, only one minute or four hundred meters below. Altogether the ride takes forty minutes from bottom to top. Average speed is twenty-four kilometers per hour."

  "And I
don't do anything," Francesca remembered, "except sit tight, hold on, and activate my breathing system about twenty minutes from the summit."

  "Don't forget to fasten your seat belt," Wakefield reminded her with a smile. "If the cable were to slow down or stop near the top, where you are weightless, your momentum could cause you to sail out into the Raman void." He grinned. "But since the entire chairlift runs beside the stairway, in the event of any emergency, you could always climb out of your basket and walk back up to the hub along the stairs."

  Richard nodded and Janos Tabori switched on the motor. Francesca was lifted off the ground and soon disappeared above them. "I'll go right over to Gamma after I'm certain you're on your way," Richard said to Janos. "The second system should be easier. With all of us working together, we should be finished by nineteen hundred at the latest."

  "I'll have the campsite ready by the time you reach the summit," Janos remarked, "Do you think we're still going to stay down here tonight?"

  "That doesn't make much sense," David Brown said from above. He or Takagishi had monitored all cosmonaut communications throughout the day. "The rovers aren't ready yet. We had hoped to do some exploring tomorrow."

  "If we each bring down a few subsystems," Wakefield replied, "Janos and I could assemble one rover tonight before we go to sleep. The second rover will probably be operational before noon tomorrow if we don't encounter any difficulties."

  "That's a possible scenario," Dr. Brown responded. "Let's see how much progress we have made and how tired everyone is three hours from now."

  Richard climbed into his tiny chair and waited for the automatic loading algorithm in the processor to attach his seat to the cable. "By the way," he said to his companion as he started his ascent, "thanks a lot for your good humor today. I might not have made it without the jokes."