Rendezvous With Rama - Arthur C. Clarke Page 0,22

the earlier four, and he was equally in the dark about the church’s rituals and ceremonies. But the main tenet of its faith was well known. Its members believed that Jesus Christ was a visitor from space, and an entire theology had been constructed on that assumption.

It was perhaps not surprising that an unusually high proportion of the church’s devotees worked in space in some capacity or other. Invariably, they were efficient, conscientious, and absolutely reliable. They were universally respected, and even liked, especially since they made no attempt to convert others. Yet there was also something slightly spooky about them. Norton could never understand how men with advanced scientific and technical training could possibly believe some of the things he had heard Cosmo Christers state as incontrovertible fact.

As he waited for Boris to answer Joe’s possibly loaded question, the Commander had a sudden insight into his own hidden motives. He had chosen Rodrigo because he was physically fit, technically qualified, and completely dependable. At the same time, he wondered if some part of his mind had not selected the Lieutenant out of an almost mischievous curiosity. How would a man with such religious beliefs react to the awesome reality of Rama? Suppose he encountered something that confounded his theology—or, for that matter, confirmed it?

But Rodrigo, with his usual caution, refused to be drawn.

“They were certainly oxygen breathers, and they could be humanoid. But let’s wait and see. With any luck, we should discover what they were like. There may be pictures, statues—perhaps even bodies, over in those towns. If they are towns.”

“And the nearest is only eight kilometers away,” said Calvert hopefully.

Yes, thought Norton. But it’s also eight kilometers back—and then there’s that overwhelming stairway to climb again. Can we take the risk?

A quick sortie to the “town” they had named Paris had been among the first of his contingency plans, and now he had to make his decision. They had ample food and water for a stay of twenty-four hours; they would always be in full view of the back-up team on the hub, and any kind of accident seemed virtually impossible on this smooth, gently curving metal plain. The only foreseeable danger was exhaustion; when they got to Paris, which they could do easily enough, could they do more than take a few photographs and perhaps collect some small artifacts before they had to return?

But even such a brief foray would be worth it. There was so little time, as Rama hurtled sunward toward a perihelion too dangerous for Endeavour to match.

In any case, part of the decision was not his to make. Up in the ship, Dr. Ernst would be watching the outputs of the biotelemetering sensors attached to his body. If she turned thumbs down, that would be that.

“Laura, what do you think?”

“Take thirty minutes’ rest, and a five-hundred-calorie energy module. Then you can start.”

“Thanks, Doc,” interjected Calvert. “Now I can die happy. I always wanted to see Paris. Montmartre, here we come.”

CHAPTER 13

THE PLAIN OF RAMA

After those interminable stairs, it was a strange luxury to walk once more on a horizontal surface. Directly ahead, the ground was indeed completely flat; to right and left, at the limits of the floodlit area, the rising curve could just be detected. They might have been walking along a very wide, shallow valley; it was quite impossible to believe that they were really crawling along the inside of a huge cylinder, and that beyond this little oasis of light the land rose up to meet—no, to become—the sky.

Though they all felt a sense of confidence and subdued excitement, after a while the almost palpable silence of Rama began to weigh heavily upon them. Every footstep, every word, vanished instantly into the unreverberant void. After they had gone little more than half a kilometer, Joe Calvert could stand it no longer.

Among his minor accomplishments was a talent now rare, though many thought not rare enough: the art of whistling. With or without encouragement, he could reproduce the themes from most of the movies of the last two hundred years. He started appropriately with “Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it’s off to work we go,” found that he couldn’t stay down comfortably in the bass with Disney’s marching dwarfs, and switched quickly to the River Kwai song. Then he progressed, more or less chronologically, through half a dozen epics, culminating with the theme from Sid Krassman’s famous late-twentieth-century “Napoleon.”

It was a good try, but it didn’t work, even as a morale builder. Rama