Rendezvous With Rama - Arthur C. Clarke Page 0,6

was evenly distributed. Reassured, he began to drift around the circular structure, trying to determine its purpose.

He had traveled only a few meters when he came across an interruption in the smooth, apparently metallic wall. At first, he thought it was some peculiar decoration, for it seemed to serve no useful function. Six radial grooves, or slots, were deeply recessed in the metal, and lying in them were six crossed bars, like the spokes of a rimless wheel, with a small hub at the center. But there was no way in which the wheel could be turned, because it was embedded in the wall.

Then he noticed, with growing excitement, that there were deeper recesses at the ends of the spokes nicely shaped to accept a clutching hand. (Claw? Tentacle?) If one stood so, bracing against the wall, and pulled on the spokes so….

Smooth as silk, the wheel slid out of the wall. To his utter astonishment—for he had been virtually certain that any moving parts would have become vacuum-welded ages ago—Norton found himself holding a spoked wheel. He might have been the captain of some old windjammer standing at the helm of his ship.

He was glad that his helmet’s sunshade did not allow Mercer to read his expression. He was startled, but also angry with himself. Perhaps he had already made his first mistake. Were alarms now sounding inside Rama, and had his thoughtless action already triggered some implacable mechanism?

But Endeavour reported no change; her sensors still detected nothing except faint thermal crepitations and his own movements.

“Well, Skipper, are you going to turn it?”

Norton thought once more of his instructions: “Use your own discretion, but proceed with caution.” If he checked every single move with Mission Control, he would never get anywhere.

“What’s your diagnosis, Karl?” he asked.

“It’s obviously a manual control for an air lock—probably an emergency back-up system in case of power failure. I can’t imagine any technology, however advanced, that wouldn’t take such precautions.”

And it would be fail-safe, Norton told himself. It could be operated only if there was no possible danger to the system.

He grasped two opposing spokes of the windlass, braced his feet against the ground, and tested the wheel. It did not budge.

“Give me a hand,” he said to Mercer.

Each took a spoke. Exerting their utmost strength, they were unable to produce the slightest movement.

Of course, there was no reason to suppose that clocks and corkscrews on Rama turned in the same direction as they did on Earth.

“Let’s try the other way,” suggested Mercer.

This time, there was no resistance. The wheel rotated almost effortlessly through a full circle. Then, very smoothly, it took up the load.

Half a meter away, the curving wall of the pillbox started to move, like a slowly opening clamshell. A few particles of dust, driven by wisps of escaping air, streamed outward like dazzling diamonds as the brilliant sunlight caught them.

The road to Rama lay open.

CHAPTER 6

COMMITTEE

It had been a serious mistake, Dr. Bose often thought, to put the United Planets Headquarters on the Moon. Inevitably, Earth tended to dominate the proceedings—as it dominated the landscape beyond the dome. If they had to build here, perhaps they should have gone to Farside, where that hypnotic disc never shed its rays.

But, of course, it was much too late to change, and, in any case, there was no real alternative. Whether the colonies liked it or not, Earth would be the cultural and economic overlord of the solar system for centuries to come.

Dr. Bose had been born on Earth, and had not emigrated to Mars until he was thirty, so he felt that he could view the political situation fairly dispassionately. He knew now that he would never return to his home planet, even though it was only five hours away by shuttle. At age 115, he was in perfect health, but he could not face the reconditioning needed to accustom him to three times the gravity he had enjoyed for most of his life. He was exiled forever from the world of his birth. Not being a sentimental man, he had never let this depress him unduly.

What did depress him sometimes was the need for dealing, year after year, with the same familiar faces. The marvels of medicine were all very well—and certainly he had no desire to put back the clock—but there were men around this conference table with whom he had worked for more than half a century. He knew exactly what they would say and how they would vote