Rama: The Omnibus

by Arthur C. Clarke

  General O'Toole nodded, impressed by how quickly and concisely Richard had structured their dilemma. "The outcome of the second row is always the same," Nicole now offered, "independent of whether or not we warn them. If Rama is truly hostile, with their more advanced technology it makes no difference whether we warn them or not. Sooner or later, with this vehicle or one that comes in the future, they will either subjugate or destroy the human race."

  Richard paused a moment to ensure that O'Toole was following the conversation, "Similarly," he then said slowly, "if Rama is never hostile, it cannot be wrong to warn them. In neither case, warned or unwarned, is the Earth in danger. And if we are successful in telling them about the nuclear missiles, then something extraordinary will have been saved."

  The general smiled. "So the only possible problem, O'Toole's Anxiety, if you want to call it that, comes if Rama was not originally intending to be hostile, but will change its mind and attack the Earth once it learns that nuclear missiles have been launched against it."

  "Precisely," said Richard. "And I would argue that our warning itself would probably be a mitigating factor in that potentially hostile case. After all—"

  "All right. All right," O'Toole replied. "I see where you're headed. Unless a very high probability is assigned to the case I'm worried about, the overall analysis suggests a better result from warning the Ramans." He suddenly laughed. "It's a good thing you don't work for COG military headquarters, Richard. You might have convinced me with logic to activate the code—"

  "I doubt it," Nicole said. "Nobody could have made a solid case for that kind of paranoia."

  "Thank you." The general smiled. "I'm satisfied. You were very persuasive. Let's go back to work."

  Driven by the relentless approach of the missiles, the threesome worked tirelessly for hours. Nicole and Michael O'Toole designed the warning message in two discrete segments. The first segment, much of which was background to establish the basic communication technique, presented all the trajectory mechanics, including the Rama orbit as the vehicle entered the solar system, the two Newton craft leaving the Earth and joining just before rendezvous with the alien ship, the two Raman maneuvers changing its trajectory, and finally the sixteen missiles blasting off from the Earth toward a Rama intercept. Richard, his long hours of work at the keyboard and black screen now paying off, transformed all these orbital events into graphic line drawings while the other two cosmonauts struggled with the complexity of the remainder of the message.

  The second segment was exceedingly difficult to design. In it the humans wanted to explain that the incoming missiles carried nuclear warheads, that the explosive power of the bombs was generated by a chain reaction, and that the heat, shock, and radiation resulting from the explosion were all enormously powerful. Presenting the fundamental picture was not the challenge; quantifying the destructive power in any terms that could be understood by an extraterrestrial intelligence was a formidable obstacle.

  "It's impossible," an exasperated Richard exclaimed when both O'Toole and Nicole insisted that the warning was not complete without some indication of the explosion temperature and the magnitude of the shock and radiation fields. "Why don't we just indicate the quantity of fissionable material in the process? They must be great at physics. They can compute the yield and other parameters."

  Time was running out and all three of them were becoming exhausted. In the final hours, General O'Toole succumbed to fatigue and, at Nicole's insistence, took a substantial nap. His biometry output had indicated that his heart was in stress. Richard even slept for ninety minutes. But Nicole never allowed herself the luxury of rest. She was determined to figure out some way to depict in pictures the destructive power of the weapons.

  When the men awakened, Nicole convinced them to append to the second segment an additional short section demonstrating what would happen to a city or forest on Earth if a one-megaton nuclear bomb exploded in the vicinity. For these pictures to make any sense, of course, Richard had to expand his earlier glossary, in which he had defined the chemical elements and their symbols with mathematical precision, to include some more measures of size. "If they understand this," he grumbled as he laboriously included scale tick marks beside his line drawings of buildings and trees, "then they're smarter than even I gave them credit for."

  Finally the message was completed and stored. They reviewed the entire warning one last time and made a few corrections. "Of the commands that I have never been able to understand," Richard said, "there are five that I have reason to suspect may be links to a different level processor. Of course, I am only guessing, but I believe it's an educated guess. I will transmit our message five times, using each of these particular commands a single time, and hope that our warning somehow reaches the central computer."

  While Richard entered all the proper commands into the keyboard, Nicole and General O'Toole went for a walk. They climbed up the stairway and wandered around the skyscrapers of New York. "You believe that we were meant to board Rama and find the White Room, don't you?"

  "Yes," Nicole answered.

  "But for what purpose?" asked the general. "If the Ramans just wanted to make contact with us, why did they go to such elaborate lengths? And why are they risking our misinterpretation of their intent?"

  "I don't know," Nicole said. "Maybe they're testing us in some way. To find out what we're like."

  "Goodness," O'Toole replied, "what a terrible thought. We may be catalogued as the creatures who launch nuclear attacks against visitors."

  "Exactly," said Nicole.

  Nicole showed O'Toole the barn with the pits, the lattice where she had rescued the avian, the stunning polyhedrons, and the entrances to the other two lairs. She was becoming very tired, but she knew that she would not sleep until everything was resolved.

  "Should we head back?" O'Toole said after he and Nicole had walked down to the Cylindrical Sea and verified that the sailboat was still intact where they had left it.

  "All right," Nicole answered wearily. She checked her watch. It was exactly three hours and eighteen minutes until the first nuclear missile would arrive at Rama.

  62

  THE FINAL HOUR

  Nobody had spoken for five minutes. Each of the three cosmonauts sat enmeshed in his own private world, aware that the first missile was now less than an hour away. Richard raced through all the sensor outputs hurriedly, searching vainly for any indication that Rama was taking some protective action. "Shit," he muttered, looking again at the close-up radar picture that showed the lead missile drawing closer and closer.

  Richard walked over to where Nicole was sitting in the corner. "We must have failed," he said quietly. "Nothing has changed."

  Nicole rubbed her eyes. "I wish I weren't so tired," she said. "Then maybe we could do something interesting for our last fifty minutes." She smiled grimly. "Now I know what it must be like to be on Death Row."

  General O'Toole approached from the other side of the room. He was holding two of the small black balls in his left hand. "You know," be said, "often I have wondered what I would do if I ever had a specified, finite time before I died. Now here I am, and my mind keeps focusing on a single thing."

  "What's that?" Nicole asked.

  "Have either of you ever been baptized?" he replied tentatively.

  "Whaaat?" exclaimed Richard with a laugh of surprise.

  "I thought not," said General O'Toole. "What about you, Nicole?"

  "No, Michael," she answered. "My father's Catholicism was more tradition than ceremony."

  "Well," persisted the general. "I'm offering to baptize you both."

  "Here? Now?" inquired the astounded Wakefield. "Are my ears deceiving me, Nikki, or did I just hear this gentleman suggest that we spend the last hour of our life being baptized?"

  "It won't take—" O'Toole started to say.

  "Why not, Richard?" Nicole interrupted. She stood up with a bright smile on her face. "What else do we have to do? And it's a hell of a lot bett
er than morbidly sitting around here waiting for the great fireball."

  Richard almost cackled. "This is wonderful!" he exclaimed. "I, Richard Wakefield, lifelong atheist, am considering being baptized on an extraterrestrial spaceship as the final action of my life. I love it!"

  "Remember what Pascal wrote," Nicole teased.

  "Ah, yes," Richard replied. "A simple matrix from one of the world's great thinkers. "There may or may not be a God; I may or may not believe in Him. The only way I can lose is if there is a God and I do not believe in Him. Therefore I shall believe in Him to minimize my downside risk.'" Richard chuckled. "But I did not agree to believe in God, only to being baptized."

  "So you'll do it," Nicole said.

  "Why not?" he replied, parroting her earlier comment. "Maybe that way I don't have to stay in Limbo with the virtuous pagans and unbaptized children." He grinned at O'Toole. "All right, General, we're all yours. Do your thing."

  "Now you listen closely to this, TB," Richard said. "You're probably the only robot ever to be in a human's pocket during a baptism."

  Nicole nudged Richard in the ribs. The patient General O'Toole waited a few moments and then began the ceremony.

  At Richard's insistence, they had left the lair and walked out into the open plaza. Richard had wanted the sky of Rama overhead and neither of the other two had objected. Nicole had gone over to the Cylindrical Sea to fill the baptismal flask with water while General O'Toole completed his preparations. The American general was taking the baptism seriously but was apparently not offended by Richard's lighthearted banter.

  Nicole and Richard knelt down in front of O'Toole. He sprinkled water on Richard's head. "Richard Colin Wakefield, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit."

  When O'Toole had finished baptizing Nicole in the same simple way, Richard stood up and grinned. "I don't feel any different," he said. "I'm just like I was before—scared shitless about dying in the next thirty minutes,"

  General O'Toole had not moved. "Richard," he said softly, "could I ask you to kneel again? I would like to say a short prayer."

  "What's this?" Richard asked. "First a baptism, now a prayer?" Nicole looked up at him. Her eyes asked him to accede. "All right," he said, "I guess I might as well go all the way."

  "Almighty God, please hear our prayer," the general said in a strong voice. He also was kneeling now. His eyes were closed and his hands were clasped in front of him. "We three have gathered here in what may be our final hour to pay homage to Thee. We beseech Thee to consider how we may serve Thee if we continue to live and, if it be Thy will, we ask Thee to spare us a painful and horrible death. If we are to die, we pray that we may be accepted into Thy heavenly kingdom. Amen."

  General O'Toole stopped for just a moment and then began to recite the Lord's prayer. After he had said, "Our Father, Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name—" the lights in the great spaceship were abruptly extinguished. Another Raman day was over. Richard and Nicole waited respectfully until their friend had finished the prayer before pulling out their flashlights.

  Nicole thanked the general and gave him a small hug. "Well, here we are," Richard jabbered nervously. "Twenty-seven minutes and counting. We've had a baptism and a prayer. What should we do now? Who has an idea for the last, and I mean the very last, amusement? Should we sing? Dance? Play some kind of game?"

  "I would prefer to remain up here by myself," General O'Toole said solemnly, "and face my death in atonement and prayer. And I imagine the two of you would like to be alone together."

  "All right, Nikki," Richard said. "Where shall we share our final kiss? On the shore of the Cylindrical Sea or back in the White Room?"

  Nicole had been awake for thirty-two consecutive hours and was absolutely exhausted. She fell into Richard's arms and closed her eyes. At that moment scattered flashes of light intruded upon the new blackness of the Raman night.

  "What's that?" General O'Toole asked anxiously.

  "It must be the horns," Richard answered excitedly. "Come on, let's go."

  They ran to the south edge of the island and stared at the massive, enigmatic structures in the southern bowl. Filaments of light were darting between different pairs of the six spires surrounding the great monolith in the center. The yellow arcs seemed to sizzle in the air, undulating gently back and forth in the middle while remaining connected to one of the little horns at each end. A distant cracking sound accompanied the spectacular sight.

  "Amazing," said O'Toole, overcome with awe. "Absolutely amazing."

  "So Rama is going to maneuver," Richard said. He could hardly contain himself. He hugged Nicole, then O'Toole, and finally kissed Nicole on the lips. "Whoopee!" he yelled as he danced along the wall.

  "But Richard," Nicole shouted after him, "isn't it too late? How can Rama move out of the way in such a short time?"

  Richard ran back to his colleagues. "You're right," he said breathlessly. "And those damn missiles probably have terminal guidance anyway." He started running again, this time heading back toward the plaza. "I'm going to watch on the radar."

  Nicole glanced over at General O'Toole. "I'm coming," he said. "But I've already run enough for one day. I want to watch this show for another few seconds. You can go on without me if you want."

  Nicole waited. As the two of them walked briskly toward the plaza, General O'Toole thanked Nicole for allowing him to baptize her. "Don't be silly," she replied. "I'm the one who should thank you." She put her hand on his shoulder. The baptism itself wasn't that important, she continued in her private thoughts. It was obvious that you were concerned about our souls. We agreed primarily to show our affection for you. Nicole smiled to herself. At least I think that was the reason…

  The ground underneath them began to shake vigorously and General O'Toole stopped, momentarily frightened. "That's apparently what happened during the last maneuver," Nicole said, steadying both of them by taking the general's hand, "although I was personally lying unconscious at the bottom of a pit and missed the entire event."

  "Then the light show was just an announcement of the maneuver?"

  "Probably. That's why Richard was so elated."

  They had barely opened the lair covering when Richard bolted up the stairs. "They've done it!" he exclaimed. "They've done it!"

  O'Toole and Nicole stared at him as he caught his breath. "They've deployed some kind of mesh or net—I don't know exactly what it is—about six, maybe eight hundred meters thick—all around the spacecraft." He turned around. "Come on," he said, dashing down the steps three at a time.

  Despite her fatigue, Nicole responded to his excitement with a final burst of adrenaline. She bounded down the stairs after Richard and ran to the White Room. He was standing in front of the black screen, flipping back and forth from the exterior image that showed the new material around the vehicle to the radar view that depicted the incoming missiles.

  "They must have understood our warning," he said to Nicole. Richard jubilantly picked her up off the ground, gave her a kiss, and held her in the air. "It worked, darling," he shouted. "Thank you, oh thank you."

  Nicole too was excited. But she was not yet convinced that Rama's action would prevent the destruction of the vehicle. After General O'Toole came in and Richard explained to him what they were seeing on the screen, there were only nine minutes left. Nicole had butterflies the size of basketballs in her stomach. The ground continued to shake as Rama extended its maneuver.

  The nuclear missiles obviously had terminal guidance, for despite the fact that Rama was definitely changing its trajectory, the missiles continued to approach along a straight line. The close-up radar picture showed that the sixteen attackers were quite spread out. Their estimated impact times ranged over a period slightly less than an hour.

  Richard's frenetic activity increased. He paced wildly around the room. At one point he pulled TB out of his pocket, put him down on the floor, and began talking rapidly to the little robot as if TB were his clos
est friend. What Richard said was barely coherent. One moment Richard was telling TB to prepare for the coming explosion; a second later he was explaining to him how Rama was going to miraculously evade the oncoming missiles.

  General O'Toole was trying to remain calm, but it was impossible with Richard flying around the room like a Tasmanian devil. He started to say something to Richard, but decided instead to step outside into the tunnel for some quiet.

  During one of the rare moments that Richard was not moving, Nicole walked over to him and grabbed his hands. "Darling," she said, "relax. There's nothing we can do."

  Richard looked down for a second at his friend and lover and then threw his arms around her. He kissed her wildly and then sat down on the shaking floor, pulling her down beside him. "I'm scared, Nicole," he said, his body trembling. "I'm really scared. I hate not being able to do anything."

  "I'm frightened too," she replied gently, taking his hands again. "And so is Michael."

  "But neither of you act scared," Richard said. "I feel like an idiot, bouncing around here like Tigger in Winnie the Pooh,"

  "Every person confronts death in a different way," Nicole said. "All of us feel fear. We just deal with it in our own individual fashion,"

  Richard was calming down. He glanced over at the big monitor and then at his watch. "Three more minutes until the first impact," he said.

  Nicole put her hands on his cheeks and kissed him softly on the lips. "I love you, Richard Wakefield," she said.

  "And I love you," he answered.

  Richard and Nicole were sitting quietly on the floor, holding hands and watching the black screen, when the first missile reached the edge of the dense mesh that surrounded Rama. General O'Toole was standing behind them in the doorway—he had returned to the room about thirty seconds earlier. At the moment the missile made contact, the impacted part of the mesh yielded, cushioning the blow but allowing the missile to penetrate deeper into the netting. Simultaneously, other pieces of the mesh wrapped themselves rapidly about the missile, spinning a thick cocoon with amazing speed. It was all over in a fraction of a second. The missile was about two hundred meters from the outer shell of Rama, already enclosed in a thick wrapping, when its nuclear warhead detonated. The mesh on the screen flew around a little, but there was only a barely perceptible nudge inside the White Room.