Rendezvous With Rama - Arthur C. Clarke Page 0,54

too bad, he thought with grim humor, that his audience was so small, and could not appreciate the finer details of his performance.

He was going down in a wide spiral, and as long as its pitch remained fairly flat his chances of survival were good. His pedaling was helping to keep Dragonfly airborne, though he was afraid to exert maximum power in case the broken wings came completely adrift. And every time he swung southward, he could appreciate the fantastic display that Rama had kindly arranged for his benefit.

The streamers of lightning still played from the tip of Big Horn down to the lesser peaks beneath, but now the whole pattern was rotating. The six-pronged crown of fire was turning against the spin of Rama, making one revolution every few seconds. Jimmy felt that he was watching a giant electric motor in operation, and perhaps that was not hopelessly far from the truth.

He was halfway down to the plain, orbiting in a flat spiral, when the fireworks display suddenly ceased. He could feel the tension drain from the sky and knew, without looking, that the hairs on his arms were no longer straining upright. There was nothing to distract or hinder him now, during the last few minutes of his fight for life.

Now that he could be certain of the general area in which he must land, he started to study it intently. Much of this region was a checkerboard of totally conflicting environments, as if a mad landscape gardener had been given a free hand and told to exercise his imagination to the utmost. The squares of the checkerboard were almost a kilometer on a side, and though most of them were flat, he could not be sure if they were solid because their colors and textures varied so greatly. He decided to wait until the last possible minute before making a decision—if, indeed, he had any choice.

When there were a few hundred meters to go, he made a last call to the Hub. “I’ve still got some control—will be down in half a minute—will call you then.”

That was optimistic, and everyone knew it. But he refused to say good-by; he wanted his comrades to know that he had gone down fighting, and without fear.

Actually, he felt little fear, and this surprised him, for he had never thought of himself as a particularly brave man. It was almost as if he were watching the struggles of a complete stranger, and was not himself personally involved. Rather, he was studying an interesting problem in aerodynamics, and changing various parameters to see what would happen. Almost the only emotion he felt was a certain remote regret for lost opportunities—of which the most important was the forthcoming Lunar Olympics. One future at least was decided: Dragonfly would never show her paces on the Moon.

A hundred meters to go; his ground speed seemed acceptable, but how fast was he falling? And here was one piece of luck: the terrain was completely flat. He would put forth all his strength in a final burst of power, starting—now!

The right wing, having done its duty, finally tore off at the roots. Dragonfly started to roll over, and he tried to correct by throwing the weight of his body against the spin. He was looking directly at the curving arch of landscape sixteen kilometers away when he hit.

It seemed altogether unfair and unreasonable that the sky should be so hard.

CHAPTER 29

FIRST CONTACT

When Jimmy returned to consciousness, the first thing he became aware of was a splitting headache. He almost welcomed it; at least it proved that he was alive.

Then he tried to move, and at once a wide selection of aches and pains brought themselves to his attention. But as far as he could tell, nothing seemed to be broken.

After that he risked opening his eyes, but closed them at once when he found himself staring straight into the band of light along the ceiling of the world. As a cure for a headache, that view was not recommended.

He was still lying there, regaining his strength and wondering how soon it would be safe to open his eyes, when there was a sudden crunching noise from close at hand. Turning his head slowly toward the source of the sound, he risked a look—and almost lost consciousness again.

Not more than five meters away, a large crablike creature was apparently dining on the wreckage of poor Dragonfly. When Jimmy had recovered his wits, he rolled slowly and quietly away