In the picture three large avians, each with one line wrapped around its body, were flying in formation across a sea. Dangling underneath them, and attached by three lines, was a stick figure human being sitting in a flimsy harness. "Looks good to me," said Nicole, never thinking for a minute that such an event would actually happen.
"I can't believe we're doing this," Nicole remarked, pushing the plate to open the avian lair for the second time.
Their first attempt to renew contact had resulted in the expected cold shoulder. This second time it was Richard who shouted into the avian lair. "Listen to me, you avians," he growled in his fiercest voice, "I need to talk to you. Right now. Get up here on the double." Nicole had to restrain a laugh.
Richard began dropping black objects into the lair. "See," he said with a grin, "I knew these damn things would be good for something." Eventually they could hear some activity at the bottom of the vertical corridor. The same pair of avians they had seen before flew up to the top of the lair and started screeching at Richard and Nicole. They did not even look at the monitor when Richard held it out for them. When they were finished screeching, the pair flew over the top of the tank sentinel and the cover closed again.
"It's no use, Richard," Nicole said when he asked her to open the cover a third time. "Even our friends are against us." She paused before pressing the plate. "What are we going to do if they attack us?"
"They won't attack," Richard said, indicating for Nicole to open the cover. "But just in case, I want you to stay over there. I will deal with our feathered friends."
There was jabbering from the lair as soon as the cover opened the third time. Richard immediately started shouting back and pitching black objects down the corridor. One of them hit the tank sentinel and prompted a small explosion, like a gunshot.
The two familiar avians flew up to the opening and screamed at Richard. Three or four of their comrades were just behind. The noise was unbelievable. Richard did not back down. He kept yelling and pointing at the computer monitor. Finally he was able to get their attention.
The group of avians watched the graphic depiction of the flight across the sea. Richard then held up one of the harnesses in his left hand and started running the demonstration on his monitor again. Frantic conversation among the avians ensued. At the end, however, Richard sensed that he had lost. As a pair of the other avians flew over the top of the tank sentinel, Richard climbed down into the lair, onto the first ledge. "Hold it," he shouted at the top of his lungs.
The mate of the black velvet avian lunged forward, its threatening beak no more than a meter from Richard's face. The noise from all the screeching and jabbering was deafening. Richard was undaunted. Despite the avian protests, he descended to the second ledge. Now he would not be able to escape if the cover started to close.
Again he held up the harness and pointed at the monitor. A chorus of screeches told him the response. Then, above the avian howl, he heard another sound, like a Klaxon alarm announcing a fire drill at a school or hospital. All the avians immediately calmed down. They settled quietly on the ledges and stared down at the tank sentinel.
The lair was strangely silent. After a few seconds Richard heard the beating of wings and moments later a new avian flew into the vertical corridor. It rose slowly up to his level and hovered just opposite him. It had a gray velvet body and sharp gray eyes. Two thick rings of bright cherry red were wrapped around its neck.
The creature studied Richard and landed on the ledge opposite him, across the corridor. The avian that had been in that spot scurried out of the way. When the gray velvet bird spoke, it was soft and very clear. After the speech was finished, the black velvet avian flew up beside the new arrival and apparently explained the furor. Several times the two avians stared across at Richard. The last time, thinking that perhaps their nodding heads were a cue, Richard displayed the graphic flight one more time and held up the harnesses. The bird with the cherry rings flew over beside him for a closer look.
The creature made a sudden movement, frightening Richard, and he nearly fell off the ledge. What may have been avian laughter was silenced by a few words from the gray velvet leader, who then sat quite still, as if it were thinking, for over a minute. At length the avian leader gestured toward Richard with one talon, opened its huge wings, and soared out through the opening into daylight.
For several seconds Richard did not move. The great creature rose up, up into the sky above the lair and was soon followed by the two more familiar avians. Moments later Nicole's head appeared in the opening. "Are you coming?" she asked. "I don't know how you did it, but it looks as if our friends are ready."
52
FLIGHT 302
Richard pulled the harness tight around Nicole's waist and buttocks. "Your feet will dangle," he said, "and at first, when the lattice cord is stretching, you will have the feeling that you're falling."
"What if I hit the water?" Nicole asked.
"You have to trust the avians to By high enough that you won't," Richard replied. "I think they're quite intelligent, especially the one with the red rings."
"Do you think it's the king?" Nicole asked, adjusting the harness for comfort.
"Probably their equivalent," Richard answered. "He has made it clear from the beginning that he intends to fly in the middle of the formation."
Richard walked up the steep incline to the wall, carrying all three harness lines in his hands. The avians were sitting quietly together, staring out at the sea. They acquiesced as he tied the harness around their midsections, just behind the backs of the wings. Then they watched his computer monitor as he again showed them the graphics of the takeoff. The avians were to lift off together, slowly, pull the harness lines taut directly over Nicole's head, and then lift her straight up before flying north across the sea.
He checked that the knots were secure and then returned to Nicole's side at the bottom of the incline. She was only about five meters from the water. "If, by some chance, the avians do not return for me," Richard told her, "don't wait forever. Once you find the rescue team, assemble the sailboat and come across. I will be down in the White Room." He took a deep breath. "Be safe, my darling," he added. "Remember that I love you."
Nicole could tell from the pounding of her heart that the moment of takeoff had finally arrived. She kissed Richard slowly on the lips. "And I love you," she murmured.
When they broke their embrace, Richard waved at the avians on the wall. The gray velvet avian cautiously rose in the air, followed immediately by its two companions. They hovered in formation directly over Nicole. She felt the three lines pull tight and was momentarily lifted into the air.
Seconds later, as the elastic cord began to stretch, Nicole was falling toward the ground again. The avians flew higher, heading out over the water, and Nicole felt as if she were a yo-yo, bouncing up and down as the cord would stretch and then contract with a jerk when the avians rose swiftly to a higher altitude.
It was an exciting flight. She touched the water once, just barely, while she was still close to shore. She was temporarily frightened, but the avians lifted her quickly before anything more than her feet were wet. Once the lattice cord was at its full extension, the ride was fairly smooth. Nicole sat in her harness, her hands holding on to two of the three lines, her feet dangling below her about eight meters from the tops of the waves.
The middle of the sea was quite calm. About halfway across Nicole saw two great, dark figures swimming along beneath her, parallel to her course. She was certain they were shark biots. She also detected two or three other species in the water, including one, long and skinny like an eel, that reared itself out of the sea and watched her fly by. Whew, Nicole thought as she surveyed the water, I'm certainly glad that I didn't swim.
The landing was easy. Nicole had been concerned that the avians might not realize there was a fifty-meter cliff on the opposite side of the sea. She needn't have worried. As they approached landfall in the Northern Hemicylinder, the avians
gently increased their altitude. Nicole was set down gingerly about ten meters from the edge.
The huge birds landed close by. Nicole climbed out of her harness and walked over to the avians. She thanked them profusely and tried to pat them on the backs of their heads, but they jerked away from her touch. The creatures rested for several minutes and then, at a signal from their leader, they flew off across the sea toward New York.
Nicole was surprised at the intensity of her emotions. She knelt down and kissed the ground. It was only then that she realized she had never really expected to escape safely from New York. For a moment, before she started searching for the rescue team with her binoculars, she reviewed everything that had happened to her since that fateful crossing in the icemobile. Before New York is a lifetime ago, she said to herself. Now everything has changed.
Richard untied the harness from the avian leader and dropped it on the ground. All the birds were now free. The creature with the gray velvet body craned its neck around to see if Richard was finished. The rich cherry red of its rings was even clearer in the full daylight. Richard wondered about the rings and what they signified, knowing there was a high likelihood he would never see these magnificent aliens again.
Nicole came over beside Richard. When he had landed she had embraced him passionately. The avians had boldly stared, signaling their curiosity. They too, Nicole thought, must be wondering about us. The linguist in her imagined what it would be like actually to talk to an extraterrestrial species, to begin to understand how an altogether different intelligence might operate…
"I wonder how we say good-bye and thank you," Richard was saying.
"I don't know," Nicole replied, "but it would be nice—"
She stopped to watch the avian leader. It had called the other two creatures to come beside it and the three birds were standing facing Richard and Nicole. On a signal they all spread their wings, to their full extent, and formed into a circle. They turned around one full revolution and then fell back into a straight line facing the humans.
"Come on," Nicole said. "We can do that."
Nicole and Richard stood side by side, their arms outstretched, and faced their avian friends. Nicole then put her arms on Richard's shoulders and led him through a circular turn. Richard, who was sometimes not very graceful, stumbled once but managed to complete the movement. Nicole imagined that the avian leader was smiling when she and Richard straightened out after their revolution.
The three avians took off seconds later. Higher and higher in the sky they rose, until they were at the limit of Nicole's vision. Then they flew south, across the sea toward home.
"Good luck," Nicole whispered as they departed.
The rescue team was not in the vicinity of the Beta campsite. In fact, Richard and Nicole had not seen any sign of them during a thirty-minute drive in the rover along the coast of the Cylindrical Sea. "These guys must really be stupid," Richard groused. "My message was in plain view there at Beta. Could it be that they haven't even come down this far yet?"
"It's less than three hours until dark," Nicole replied. "They may have returned to the Newton already."
"All right, then, to hell with them," Richard said. "Let's have a bite to eat and then head for the chairlift."
"Do you think we should save any of the melon?" Nicole asked a few minutes later, while they were eating. Richard gave her a puzzled glance. "Just in case," she added.
"Just in case what?" Richard rejoined. "Even if we don't find that idiotic rescue bunch and must climb all the stairs ourselves, we'll still be out of here right after dark. Remember, we become weightless again at the top of the stairway."
Nicole smiled. "I guess I'm naturally more cautious," she said. She put several bites of melon back into her pack.
They had driven three-fourths of the way toward the chairlift and the Alpha stairway when they spotted the four human figures in space suits. It looked as if they were leaving the conglomeration of buildings that had been designated as the Raman Paris. The figures were walking in the opposite direction from the rover.
"I told you the guys were idiots," Richard exclaimed. "They don't even have the sense to take off their space suits. It must be a special team, sent up in the spare Newton vehicle just to find us and bring us back."
He steered the rover across the Central Plain in the direction of the humans. Richard and Nicole both started shouting when they were within a hundred meters, but the men in the space suits continued their slow procession toward the west. "They probably can't hear us," Nicole offered. "They still have on their helmets and communication gear."
A frustrated Richard drove up to within five meters of the single-file line, stopped the rover, and jumped out in a hurry. He ran quickly around to the leader, shouting all the way. "Hey, guys," he yelled. "We're here, behind you. All you have to do is turn around—"
Richard stopped cold as he stared at the blank expression of the man in the lead. He recognized the face. Jesus, it was Norton! He shuddered involuntarily as a tingle ran down his spine. Richard barely jumped out of the way as the four-man procession walked slowly past him. Numb from the shock, he quietly studied the other three faces, none of which changed expression as they marched past. They were three other cosmonauts from the Rama I crew.
Nicole was at his side only seconds after the final figure passed him. "What's the matter?" she said. "Why didn't they stop?" The blood had all drained out of Richard's face. "Darling, are you all right?"
"They're biots," Richard mumbled. "Goddamn human biots."
"Whaaat?" Nicole replied, a streak of terror in her voice. She ran quickly to the head of the line and stared at the face behind the helmet glass. It was definitely Norton. Every feature of the face, even the color of the eyes and the slight mustache, was absolutely perfect. But the eyes didn't say anything.
The motion of the body, too, now that she noticed it, seemed artificial. Each pair of steps was a repeated pattern. There were only slight variations from figure to figure. Richard is right, Nicole thought. These are human biots. They must have been made from the images, just like the toothpaste and the brush. A momentary panic swelled in her chest. But we don't need a rescue team, she told herself, calming her anxiety. The military ship is still docked at the top of the bowl.
Richard was stunned by the discovery of the human biots. He sat in the rover for several minutes, unwilling to drive, asking questions of Nicole and himself that he could not possibly have answered. "So what's going on here?" he said over and over again. "Are all these biots based on real species, found somewhere in the universe? And why are they being fabricated in the first place?"
Before they drove over to the chairlift, Richard insisted that they both shoot many minutes of video footage of the human biots. "The avians and octospiders are fascinating," he said as he took a special close-up of "Norton's" leg motion, "but this tape will blow everyone away."
Nicole reminded him that it was less than two hours until dark and that it still might be necessary for them to climb the Stairway of the Gods. Satisfied that he had recorded the bizarre procession for posterity, Richard slid into the driver's seat of the rover and headed toward the Alpha stairway.
There was no need to perform any tests to see if the chairlift was working properly; it was running when they drove up beside it. Richard jumped out of the rover and ran into the control room.
"Someone's coming down," he said, pointing up the lift.
"Or something," Nicole said grimly.
The five-minute wait seemed like an eternity. At first neither Richard nor Nicole said anything. Later, however, Richard suggested that maybe they should sit in the rover in case they needed to make a quick escape.
Each of them trained binoculars on the long cable stretching upward to the heavens. "It's a man!" cried Nicole.
"It's General O'Toole!" said Richard a few moments later.
Indeed it was. General Michael Ryan O'Toole, American air force officer, was descending in the chairlift. He was s
till several hundred meters above Richard and Nicole, but had not yet seen them. He was busy studying with his binoculars the beauty of the alien landscape around him.
General O'Toole had been preparing to leave Rama for the final time when, as he rode up in the chairlift, he had spotted what looked like three birds flying far to the south in the Rama sky. The general had decided to return to see if he could find those birds again. He was unprepared for the joyous greeting that awaited him when he reached the bottom of his ride.
53
TRINITY
When Richard Wakefield had left the Newton to go back inside Rama, General O'Toole had been the last crew member to say good-bye. The general had waited patiently while the other cosmonauts had finished their conversations with Richard. "You're really certain you want to do this?" Janos Tabori had said to his British friend. "You know the full committee is going to declare Rama off limits within hours."
"By then"—Richard had grinned at Janos—"I will be on my way to Beta. Technically I will not have violated their order."
"That's bullshit," Admiral Heilmann had interjected tersely. "Dr. Brown and I are in charge of this mission. We have both told you to stay onboard the Newton."
"And I've told you several times," Richard said firmly, "that I left some personal items inside Rama that are very important to me. Besides, you know as well as I do that there's nothing for any of us here to do over the next couple of days. Once the abort decision is definitely made, all the major scheduling activities will be on the ground. We will be told when to undock and head for Earth."
"I will remind you, one more time," Otto Heilmann had replied, "that I consider what you are doing an act of insubordination. When we return to Earth I intend to prosecute to the fullest—"
"Save it, will you, Otto?" Richard interrupted. There was no rancor in his tone. He adjusted his space suit and started to put on his helmet. As always Francesca was recording the scene on her video camera. She had been strangely silent since her private conversation with Richard an hour earlier. She seemed detached, as if her mind were somewhere else.
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