Rendezvous With Rama - Arthur C. Clarke Page 0,68

her assistance. She disarticulated the legs, then started on the delicate carapace, which split along three great circles and opened up like a peeled orange.

After some moments of blank incredulity—for there was nothing that she could recognize or identify—she took a series of careful photographs. Then she picked up her scalpel.

Where to start cutting? She felt like closing her eyes and stabbing at random, but that would not have been very scientific.

The blade went in with practically no resistance. A second later, Surgeon Commander Ernst’s most unladylike yell echoed the length and breadth of Endeavour.

It took an annoyed Sergeant McAndrews a good twenty minutes to calm down the startled simps.

CHAPTER 34

HIS EXCELLENCY REGRETS…

“As you are all aware, gentlemen,” said the Martian Ambassador, “a great deal has happened since our last meeting. We have much to discuss—and to decide. I’m therefore particularly sorry that our distinguished colleague from Mercury is not here.”

That last statement was not altogether accurate. Dr. Bose was not particularly sorry that His Excellency the Hermian Ambassador was absent. It would have been much more truthful to say that he was worried. All his diplomatic instincts told him that something was happening, and though his sources of information were excellent he could gather no hints as to what it might be.

The Ambassador’s letter of apology had been courteous and entirely uncommunicative. His Excellency had regretted that urgent and unavoidable business had kept him from attending the meeting, either in person or by video. Dr. Bose found it hard to think of anything more urgent, or more important, than Rama.

“Two of our members have statements to make. I would first like to call on Professor Davidson.”

There was a rustle of excitement among the other scientists on the committee. Most of them had felt that the astronomer, with his well-known cosmic viewpoint, was not the right man to be chairman of the Space Advisory Council. He sometimes gave the impression that the activities of intelligent life were an unfortunate irrelevance in the majestic universe of stars and galaxies, and that it was bad manners to pay too much attention to them. This had not endeared him to exobiologists such as Dr. Perera, who took exactly the opposite view. For them, the only purpose of the universe was the production of intelligence, and they were apt to talk sneeringly about purely astronomical phenomena. “Mere dead matter” was one of their favorite phrases.

“Mr. Ambassador,” the scientist began, “I have been analyzing the curious behavior of Rama during the last few days, and would like to present my conclusions. Some of them are rather startling.”

Dr. Perera looked surprised, then a little smug. He strongly approved of anything that startled Davidson.

“First of all, there was the remarkable series of events when that young lieutenant”—he pronounced it “leftenant”—“flew over to the Southern Hemisphere. The electrical discharges themselves, though spectacular, are not important; it is easy to show that they contained relatively little energy. But they coincided with a change in Rama’s rate of spin, and its attitude—that is, its orientation in space. This must have involved an enormous amount of energy; the discharges which nearly cost Mr.… er… Pak his life were merely a minor by-product—perhaps a nuisance that had to be minimized by those giant lightning conductors at the South Pole.

“I draw two conclusions from this. When a spacecraft—and we must call Rama a spacecraft, despite its fantastic size—makes a change of attitude, that usually means it is about to make a change of orbit. We must therefore take seriously the views of those who believe that Rama may be preparing to become another planet of our sun, instead of going back to the stars.

“If this is the case, Endeavour must obviously be prepared to cast off—is that what spaceships do?—at a moment’s notice. She may be in very serious danger while she is still physically attached to Rama. I imagine that Commander Norton is already well aware of this possibility, but I think we should send him an additional warning.”

“Thank you very much, Professor Davidson. Yes—Professor Solomons?”

“I’d like to comment on that,” said the science historian. “Rama seems to have made a change of spin without using any jets or reaction devices. This leaves only two possibilities, it seems to me.

“The first one is that it has internal gyroscopes, or their equivalent. They must be enormous. Where are they?

“The second possibility—which would turn all our physics upside down—is that it has a reactionless propulsion system. The so-called space drive, which Professor Davidson doesn’t