Rama: The Omnibus

by Arthur C. Clarke

  General O'Toole walked up to Richard and extended his hand. "We haven't spent much time together, Wakefield," he said, "but I've admired your work. Good luck in there. Don't take any unnecessary chances."

  Richard had been surprised by the general's warm smile. He had expected the American military officer to try to talk him out of leaving. "It's magnificent in Rama, General," Richard had said. "Like a combination of the Grand Canyon, the Alps, and the Pyramids all at once."

  "We've lost four crew members already," O'Toole replied. "I want to see you back here safe and sound. God bless you."

  Richard finished shaking the general's hand, put on his helmet, and stepped across into the airlock. Moments later, when Wakefield was gone, Admiral Heilmann was critical of General O'Toole's behavior. "I'm disappointed in you, Michael," he said. "From that warm send-off the young man might have concluded that you actually approved of his action."

  O'Toole faced the German admiral. "Wakefield has courage, Otto," he said. "And conviction as well, He is not afraid of either the Ramans or the ISA disciplinary process. I admire that kind of self-confidence."

  "Nonsense," Heilmann rejoined. "Wakefield is a brash, arrogant schoolboy. You know what he left inside? A couple of those stupid Shakespearean robots. He just doesn't like taking orders. He wants to do what's uppermost on his own personal agenda."

  "That makes him a lot like the rest of us," Francesca remarked. The room was quiet for a moment. "Richard is very smart," she said in a subdued tone. "He probably has reasons for going back into Rama that none of us understand."

  "I just hope he comes back before dark, as he promised," Janos said. "I'm not certain I could stand to lose another friend."

  The cosmonauts filed out of the atrium into the hallway. "Where's Dr. Brown?" Janos asked Francesca as he walked along beside her.

  "He's with Yamanaka and Turgenyev. They're reviewing possible crew assignments for the trip home. As shorthanded as we are, a lot of cross training will be necessary before we leave." Francesca laughed. "He even asked me if I could be a backup navigation engineer. Can you imagine that?"

  "Easily," Janos replied. "You probably could learn any of the engineering assignments at this point."

  Behind them Heilmann and O'Toole shuffled down the corridor. When they reached the hall leading to the private crew quarters, General O'Toole started to leave. "Just a minute," Otto Heilmann said. "I need to talk to you about something else. This damn Wakefield thing almost made it slip my mind. Can you come to my office for an hour or so?"

  "Essentially," Otto Heilmann said, pointing at the unscrambled cryptogram on the monitor, "this is a major change to the Trinity procedure. It's not surprising. Now that we know much more about Rama, you would expect the deployment to be somewhat different."

  "But we never anticipated using all five weapons," O'Toole responded. "The extra pair were only loaded onboard in case of failures. That much megatonnage could vaporize Rama."

  "That's the intent," Heilmann said. He sat back in his chair and smiled. "Just between us chickens," he said, "I think there's a lot of pressure on the general staff down there. The feeling is that Rama's capabilities were vastly underrated initially."

  "But why do they want to put the two largest weapons in the ferry passageway? Surely one of the bombs would accomplish the desired result."

  "What if it didn't explode for some reason? There has to be a backup." Heilmann leaned forward eagerly on his desk. "I think this change to the procedure clearly defines the strategy. The two at the end will ensure that the structural integrity of the vehicle will be absolutely destroyed—that's essential to guarantee that it is impossible for Rama to maneuver again after the blast. The other three bombs are scattered around the interior to make certain that no part of Rama is safe. It's equally important that the explosions should result in enough velocity change that all the remaining pieces miss the Earth."

  General O'Toole constructed a mental image of the giant spacecraft being annihilated by five nuclear bombs. It was not a pleasant picture. Once, fifteen years before, he and twenty other members of the COG general staff had flown into the South Pacific to watch a hundred-kiloton weapon explode. The COG system engineering personnel had convinced the political leaders, and the world press, that one nuclear test was necessary "every twenty years or so" to ensure that all the old weapons would indeed fire in an emergency. O'Toole and his team had observed the demonstration, ostensibly to learn as much as possible about the effects of nuclear weapons.

  General O'Toole was deep in his memory, recalling the spine-tingling horror of that fireball rising in the peaceful South Pacific sky. He was not aware that Admiral Heilmann had asked him a question. "I'm sorry, Otto," he said. "I was thinking about something else."

  "I had asked you how long you thought it might take to get approval for Trinity."

  "You mean in our case?" O'Toole said with disbelief.

  "Of course," Heilmann responded.

  "I can't imagine it," O'Toole said quickly, "The weapons were included in the mission manifest solely to guard against openly hostile actions by the Ramans. I even remember the baseline scenario—an unprovoked attack against the Earth by the alien spacecraft, using high-technology weapons beyond the capabilities of our defenses. The current situation is altogether different."

  The German admiral studied his American colleague. "No one ever envisioned the Rama spacecraft on a collision course with the Earth," Heilmann said. "If it does not alter its trajectory, it will gouge an enormous hole in the surface and kick up such dust that the temperatures will drop all over the world for several years… At least, that's what the scientists say,"

  "But that's preposterous," O'Toole argued. "You heard all the discussion during the conference call. No rational person really believes that Rama will actually hit the Earth."

  "Impact is only one of several disaster scenarios. What would you do if you were chief of staff? Destroying Rama now is a safe solution. Nobody loses."

  Visibly shaken by the conversation, Michael O'Toole excused himself from the meeting with Admiral Heilmann and headed for his room. For the first time in his entire association with the .Newton mission, O'Toole thought that he might actually be ordered to use his RQ code to activate the weapons. Never before, never for a moment, had he considered that the bombs in the metal containers at the back of the military ship were anything more than a palliative for the fears of the civilian politicians.

  Sitting at the computer terminal in his room, the concerned O'Toole recalled the words of Armando Urbina, the Mexican peace activist who had advocated a total dismantling of the COG nuclear arsenal. "As we have seen both at Rome and Damascus," Señor Urbina had said, "if the weapons exist, they can be used. Only if there are no weapons at all can we guarantee that human beings will never again suffer the horror of nuclear devastation."

  Richard Wakefield did not return before the Raman nightfall. Since the communication station at Beta had been knocked out of commission by the hurricane (the Newton had monitored the breakup of the Cylindrical Sea and the onset of the windstorm through telemetry relayed by Beta before it was silenced), Richard had moved out of communications range when he was halfway across the Central Plain. His last transmission to Janos Tabori, who had volunteered to man the commlink, had been typically Wakefield. As the signal from inside Rama was fading, Janos, in a lighthearted tone, had asked Richard how he wanted to be remembered "to your fans" in case he was "swallowed by the Great Galactic Ghoul."

  "Tell them that I loved Rama not wisely, but too well," Richard had shouted into his communicator.

  "What's that?" Otto Heilmann Had puzzled. The admiral had come looking for Janos to discuss a Newton engineering problem.

  "He killed her," Janos had said, trying without success to lock up the signal again.

  "Who killed—What are you talking about?"

  "It's not important," Janos had answered, spinning around in his chair and floating into the air. "Now, what can I do for you
, Herr Admiral?"

  Richard's failure to return was not considered serious until several hours after the following Raman dawn. The cosmonauts remaining on the Newton had convinced themselves the night before that Wakefield had become absorbed in some task ("Probably fixing the Beta comm station," Janos had offered), had lost track of the time, and had decided not to take a solitary ride out in the dark. But when he didn't return in the morning, a feeling of gloom began to pervade the conversation of the crew.

  "I don't know why we won't admit it," Irina Turgenyev said suddenly during a period of quiet at dinnertime. "Wakefield is not coming back either. Whatever got Takagishi and des Jardins got him as well."

  "That's ridiculous, Irina," Janos replied heatedly.

  "Da," she remarked. "That's what you've always said. Ever since the beginning when General Borzov was cut to pieces. Then it was an accident that the crab biot attacked Wilson. Cosmonaut des Jardins disappears down an alley—"

  "Coincidence," Janos shouted, "all coincidence!"

  "You're stupid, Janos," Irina shouted back. "You trust everybody and everything. We should blow the damn thing to pieces before it does any more—"

  "Stop, stop, you two!" David Brown said loudly as the two Soviet colleagues continued to argue.

  "All right, now," added General O'Toole. "We're all a little tense. There's no need for us to quarrel."

  "Will anyone be going in to look for Richard?" the emotional Janos asked no one in particular.

  "Who would be crazy enough—" Irina began to respond.

  "No," interrupted Admiral Heilmann firmly. "I told him that his visit was unauthorized and that we would not come after him under any circumstances. Besides, Dr. Brown and the two pilots tell me that we can barely fly the two Newton ships home with the manpower remaining—and their analysis assumed Wakefield was with us. We cannot take any more risks."

  There was a long and somber silence at the dinner table. "I had planned to tell everyone when the meal was over," David Brown then said, standing up beside his chair, "but it looks to me as if this group could use some good news now. An hour ago we received our orders. We're to depart for Earth at I-14 days, a little over a week from now. Between now and then we will cross train the personnel, rest for the voyage home, and make certain that all the Newton engineering systems are working properly."

  Cosmonauts Turgenyev, Yamanaka, and Sabatini all shouted their approval. "If we're going to leave without returning to Rama," Janos inquired, "why are we waiting so long? Surely we can be well enough prepared in three or four days."

  "As I understand it," Dr. Brown replied, "our two military colleagues have a special task that will occupy most of their time—and some of ours—for much of the next three days." He glanced over at Otto Heilmann. "Do you want to tell them?"

  Admiral Heilmann stood up at his place. "I need to discuss the details first with General O'Toole," he said in a ringing voice. "We'll explain it to everyone else in the morning."

  O'Toole didn't need Otto Heilmann to show him the message that had been received only twenty minutes before. He knew what it said. In compliance with the procedure, there were only three words: PROCEED WITH TRINITY.

  54

  ONCE A HERO

  Michael O'Toole could not sleep. He tossed and turned, switched on his favorite music, and repeated both the "Hail Mary" and "Our Father" litanies over and over. Nothing worked. He longed for a distraction, something that would make him forget his responsibilities and allow his soul some repose.

  Proceed with Trinity, he thought to himself at last, focusing on the true cause of his disquiet. What exactly did that mean? Use the teleoperator forklifts, open up the containers, pick up the weapons (they were about the size of refrigerators), check out the subsystems, put the bombs in a pod, carry them over to the Rama seal, ferry them to the heavy load elevator…

  And what else? he thought. One more thing. It wouldn't take much more than a minute at each weapon, but it was by far the most important. Each bomb had a redundant pair of tiny numerical keyboards on its side. He and Admiral Heilmann each had to use the keyboards to input a special sequence of digits, an RQ code it was called, before the weapons could be activated. Without those codes the bombs would remain absolutely dormant, forever.

  The original debates over whether or not to include nuclear weapons in the limited Newton supply manifest had echoed through the corridors of COG military headquarters in Amsterdam for several weeks. The ensuing vote had been close. It was decided that the Newton would carry the nuclear weapons, but to allay widespread concerns it was also decided to implement rigorous safety measures that would guard against their unwarranted use.

  During these same meetings, the COG military leadership avoided public outcry by placing a top secret classification on the fact that the Newton was transporting nuclear bombs to its rendezvous with Rama. Not even the civilian members of the Newton crew had been told about the existence of the weapons.

  The secret working group on Trinity safety procedures had met seven times at four different locations around the world prior to the Newton launch. To make the deployment process immune to untoward electronic inputs, manual action had been chosen as the method of activation for the nuclear weapons. Thus neither a lunatic on the Earth nor a frightened cosmonaut on the Newton could trigger the process with a simple electronic command. The current COG chief of staff, a brilliant but passionless disciplinarian named Kazuo Norimoto, had expressed concern that without electronic command capability the military was unduly dependent upon the humans selected for the mission. He had been persuaded, however, that it was far better to depend on the Newton military officers than to worry about a terrorist or fanatic somehow gaining possession of the activation code.

  But what if one of the Newton military officers were seized by panic? How could the system be protected against a unilateral act of nuclear warfare by a crew member? When all the discussions were completed, the resultant safety system was relatively simple. There would be three military officers in the crew. Each of them would have an RQ code known only to himself. Manual input of any two of the long numerical sequences would arm the nuclear devices. The system was thus protected against either a recalcitrant officer or a frightened one. It sounded like a foolproof system.

  But our current situation was never considered in the contingency analyses, O'Toole thought as he lay in his bed. In the event of any dangerous action, either military or civilian, each of us was supposed to designate an alternate to leant our code. But who would have thought that an appendectomy was dangerous? Valeriy's RQ died with him. Which means the system now requires two for two.

  O'Toole rolled over on his stomach and pressed his face against the pillow. He now clearly understood why he was still awake. If I don't input my code those bombs cannot be used. He remembered a luncheon on the military ship with Valeriy Borzov and Otto Heilmann during the leisurely cruise toward Rama. "It's a perfect set of checks and balances," the Soviet general had joked, "and probably played a role in our individual selections. Otto would pull the trigger at the slightest provocation and you, Michael, would agonize over its morality even if your life were threatened. I'm the tiebreaker."

  But you are dead, General O'Toole said to himself, and we have been ordered to activate the bombs. He rose from the bed and walked over to his desk. As he had done all his life when facing a tough decision, O'Toole pulled a small electronic notebook from his pocket and made two short lists, one summarizing the reasons for following his orders to destroy Rama and the other presenting arguments against it. He had no strictly logical reasons to oppose the destruction command—the giant vehicle was probably a lifeless machine, his three colleagues were almost certainly dead, and there was a nontrivial implied threat to the Earth. But still O'Toole hesitated. There was something about committing such a flagrantly hostile act that offended his sensibilities.

  He returned to his bed and rolled over on his back. Dear God, he prayed, staring at the ceiling, how can I possib
ly know what is right in this situation? Please show me the way.

  Only thirty seconds after his morning alarm, Otto Heilmann heard a soft knock on his door. General O'Toole walked in moments later. The American was already dressed for the day. "You're up early, Michael," Admiral Heilmann said, fumbling for his morning coffee that had been automatically heating for five minutes already.

  "I wanted to talk to you," O'Toole said pleasantly. He courteously waited for Heilmann to pick up his coffee packet.

  "What is it?" the admiral asked.

  "I want you to call off the meeting this morning."

  "Why?" Heilmann replied. "We need some assistance from the rest of the crew, as you and I discussed last night. The longer we wait to get started, the more chance we will delay our departure."

  "I'm not ready just yet," O'Toole said.

  Admiral Hermann's brow furrowed. He took a long sip from his coffee and studied his companion. "I see," he said quietly. "And what else is needed before you will be ready?"

  "I want to talk to someone, General Norimoto perhaps, to understand why we are destroying Rama. I know you and I talked about it yesterday, but I want to hear the reasons from the person giving the order."

  "It is a military officer's duty to follow orders. Asking questions could be viewed as a disciplinary breach—"

  "I understand all that, Otto," O'Toole interrupted, "but this is not a battlefield situation. I am not refusing to comply with the order. I just want to be certain…" His voice trailed off and O'Toole stared off in the distance.

  "Certain of what?" Heilmann asked.

  O'Toole took a deep breath. "Certain that I'm doing the right thing."

  A video conference with Norimoto was arranged and the Newton crew meeting was delayed. Since it was the middle of the night in Amsterdam, it was some time before the encoded transmission could be translated and presented to the COG chief of staff. In his typical manner, General Norimoto then requested several more hours to prepare his response, so that he could obtain "staff consensus" on what he was going to say to O'Toole.