Rendezvous With Rama - Arthur C. Clarke Page 0,66

ball. Set around the body were three large, expressionless eyes, apparently giving 360 degrees of vision, and trailing beneath it were three whiplike tendrils. The creature was not quite as tall as a man and looked far too fragile to be dangerous, but that did not excuse their carelessness in letting it sneak up on them unawares. It reminded Norton of nothing so much as a three-legged spider or daddy longlegs, and he wondered how it had solved the problem—never attempted by any creature on Earth—of tripedal locomotion.

“What do you make of it, Doc?” he whispered, turning off the voice of the TV newscaster.

“Usual Raman threefold symmetry. I don’t see how it could hurt us, though those whips might be unpleasant—and they could be poisonous, like a coelenterate’s. Sit tight and see what it does.”

After regarding them impassively for several minutes, the creature suddenly moved, and now they could understand why they had failed to observe its arrival. It was fast, and it covered the ground with such an extraordinary spinning motion that the human eye and mind had real difficulty in following it.

As far as Norton could judge—and only a high-speed camera could settle the matter—each leg in turn acted as a pivot around which the creature whirled its body. And he was not sure, but it also seemed to him that every few “steps” it reversed its direction of spin, while the three whips flickered over the ground like lightning as it moved. Its top speed—though this also was hard to estimate—seemed to be at least thirty kilometers an hour.

It swept swiftly around the camp, examining every item of equipment, delicately touching the improvised beds and chairs and tables, communication gear, food containers, electrosans, cameras, water tanks, tools—there seemed to be nothing that it ignored except the four watchers. Clearly, it was intelligent enough to draw a distinction between humans and their inanimate property; its actions gave the unmistakable impression of an extremely methodical curiosity or inquisitiveness.

“I wish I could examine it!” Laura exclaimed in frustration as the creature continued its swift pirouette. “Shall we try to catch it?”

“How?” Calvert asked, reasonably enough.

“You know the way primitive hunters bring down fast-moving animals with a couple of weights whirling around at the end of a rope? It doesn’t even hurt them.”

“That I doubt,” said Norton. “But even if it worked, we can’t risk it. We don’t know how intelligent this creature is—and a trick like that could easily break its legs. Then we would be in real trouble, from Rama, Earth, and everyone else.”

“But I’ve got to have a specimen!”

“You may have to be content with Jimmy’s flower—unless one of these creatures co-operates with you. Force is out. How would you like it if something landed on Earth and decided that you would make a nice specimen for dissection?”

“I don’t want to dissect it,” said Laura, not at all convincingly. “I only want to examine it.”

“Well, alien visitors might have the same attitude toward you, but you could have a very uncomfortable time before you believed them. We must make no move that could possibly be regarded as threatening.”

He was quoting from ship’s orders, of course, and Laura knew it. The claims of science had a lower priority than those of space diplomacy.

In fact there was no need to bring in such elevated considerations; it was merely a matter of good manners. They were all visitors here, and had never even asked permission to come inside.

The creature seemed to have finished its inspection. It made one more high-speed circuit of the camp, then shot off at a tangent, toward the stairway.

“I wonder how it’s going to manage the steps?” Laura mused. Her question was quickly answered: the spider ignored them completely and headed up the gently sloping curve of the ramp without slackening its speed.

“Hub Control,” said Norton, “you may have a visitor shortly. Take a look at Stairway Alpha, section six. And incidentally, thanks a lot for keeping such a good watch on us.”

It took a minute for the sarcasm to sink in. Then the hub observer started to make apologetic noises. “Er… I can just see something, Skipper, now you tell me it’s there. But what is it?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Norton answered as he pressed the General Alert button. “Camp Alpha calling all stations. We’ve just been visited by a creature like a three-legged spider, with very thin legs, about two meters high, small spherical body, travels very fast, with a spinning motion.