Rama II

29 THE HUNT

The helicopter very slowly dropped the rover to the ground. “How much farther?” Janos Tabori asked over the communicator.

“About ten meters,” Richard Wakefield replied from below. He was standing in a spot about a hundred meters south of the edge of the Cylindri­cal Sea. Above him the rover dangled at the end of two long cables. “Be careful to let it down gently. There are some delicate electronics in the chassis.”

Hiro Yamanaka commanded the helicopter into its tightest possible alti­tude control loop while Janos electronically extended the cables a few centi­meters at a time. “Contact,” shouted WakeBeld. “On the rear wheels. The front needs to come down another meter.”

Francesca Sabatini raced around to the side of the rover to record its historic touchdown in the Southern Hemicylinder of Rama. Fifty meters farther from the cliff, in the neighborhood of a hut that was serving as a temporary headquarters, the rest of the cosmonauts were preparing for the hunt to begin. Irina Turgenyev was checking the installation of the cable snare in the second helicopter. David Brown was by himself a few meters away from the hut, talking on the radio with Admiral Heilmann back at the Beta campsite. The two men were reviewing the details of the capture plan. Wilson, Takagishi, and des Jardins were watching the conclusion of the rover landing operation.

“Now we know who’s really the boss of this outfit,” Reggie Wilson was saying to his two companions. He pointed at Dr. Brown. “This damn hunt is more like a military operation than anything we’ve done, yet our senior scientist is in charge and our ranking officer is manning the phones.’* He spat on the ground. “Christ, do we have enough equipment here? Two helicop­ters, a rover, three different kinds of cages — not to mention several large boxes of electrical and mechanical shit. Those poor bastard crabs don’t have a chance.”

Dr. Takagishi put the laser binoculars to his eyes. He found the target quickly. Half a kilometer to the east the crab biots were nearing the edge of the cliff again. Nothing about their motion had changed. “We need all the equipment because of the uncertainty,” Takagishi said quietly. “Nobody really knows what is going to happen.”

“I hope the lights go out,” Wilson said with a laugh.

“We’re prepared for that,” David Brown interjected tersely as he walked up to join the other three cosmonauts. “The shells of the crabs have been sprayed with a light fluorescent material and we have plenty of flares. While you were complaining about the length of our last meeting, we were finish­ing the contingency plans.” He stared truculently at his countryman. “You know, Wilson, you could try—”

“Break break,” the voice of Otto Heilmann interrupted him. “News. Hot news. I just received word from O’Toole that INN will be carrying our feed live, beginning twenty minutes from now.”

“Good work,” replied Brown. “We should be ready by then. I see Wake-field heading this way in the rover.” He glanced at his watch. “And the crabs should be turning again in another few seconds. Incidentally, Otto, do you still disagree with my suggestion to snare the lead biot?”

“Yes, David, I do. I think it’s an unnecessary risk. What little we do know suggests that the lead crab has the most capability. Why take a chance? Any biot would be an incredible treasure to carry back to Earth, particularly if it’s still functional. We can worry about the leader after we already have one in the bag.”

“Then I guess I’m outvoted on this one. Dr, Takagishi and Tabori both agree with you. So does General O’Toole. We’ll proceed with Plan B. The target biot will be number four, the back right biot as we approach from the rear.”

The rover carrying Wakefield and Sabatini arrived at the hut area at al­most the same time as the helicopter. “Good job, men,” Dr. Brown said as Tabori and Yamanaka jumped down from the “copter. “Take a short breather, Janos. Then go over and make sure Turgenyev and the cable snare are both ready to go. I want you airborne in five minutes.

“All right,” Brown said, turning to the others, “this is it. Wilson, Takagi­shi, and des Jardins in the rover with Wakefield. Francesca, you come with me in the second helicopter with Hiro.”

Nicole started walking toward the rover but Francesca intercepted her. “Have you ever used one of these?” The Italian journalist extended a video camera the size of a small book.

“Once,” Nicole answered, studying the camera in Francesca’s hand, “eleven or twelve years ago. I recorded one of Dr. Delon’s brain operations. I guess—”

“Look,” interrupted Francesca, “I could use some help. I’m sorry I didn’t discuss it with you earlier, but I didn’t know — Anyway, I need another camera, one on the ground, especially now that we’re live on INN. I’m not asking for miracles. You’re the only one who—”

“What about Reggie?” Nicole replied. “He’s the other journalist.”

“Reggie won’t help,” Francesca said quickly. Dr. Brown called for her to come to the helicopter. “Will you do it, Nicole? Please? Or should I ask someone else?”

Why not? ran through Nicole’s mind. I have nothing else to do unless an emergency comes up. “ Sure,” she replied.

“Thanks a million,” Francesca shouted as she handed Nicole the camera and dashed off to the waiting helicopter.

“Well, well,” said Reggie Wilson as Nicole approached the rover with the camera cradled in her hands. “I see that our crew doctor has been recruited by the number one journalist. I hope you asked for the minimum wage.”

“Lighten up, Reggie,” Nicole replied. “It doesn’t bother me to help oth­ers when I have nothing specific to do myself.”

Wakefield switched on the rover and began to drive east toward the biots. The headquarters had been intentionally established in the area already “cleaned” by the crabs. The packed soil made progress very easy for the rover. They were within a hundred meters of the biots in less than three minutes. Overhead the two helicopters circled around the crabs.

“What exactly do you want me to do?” Nicole called to Franceses on the rover transmitter.

“Try to move parallel to the biots!” Francesca answered. “You can proba­bly run alongside, at least for some of the time. The most important moment is when Janos tries to close the snare.”

“We’re all ready here,” Tabori announced a few seconds later, “Just give the word.”

“Are we on the air?” Brown asked Francesca. She nodded her head. “All right,” he said to Janos. “Go ahead.”

From out of one of the helicopters came a long, thick cable with what looked like an inverted basket on the end. “Janos will try to center the snare on the target biot!” Wakefield explained to Nicole, “and let the sides drape naturally over the corner of the shell. Then he will increase the tension and pull the biot off the ground. We will cage the crab after we return it to the Beta campsite.”

“Let’s see what they look like from down there,” Nicole heard Francesca say. The rover was now right next to the biots. Nicole climbed out and jogged beside them. She was frightened at first. For some reason she had not expected them to be so large or so strange looking. Their metallic sheen reminded her of the cold exterior of many of the new buildings in Paris. As she ran along on the soil, the biots were only about two meters away from her. With the automatic focusing and framing of the camera, it was not difficult for Nicole to take the proper pictures.

“Don’t get in front of them,” Dr. Takagishi warned her. He didn’t need to worry. Nicole had not forgotten what they had done to that mound of metal.

“Your pictures are really very good,” Francesca’s voice boomed on the rover receiver. “Nicole, try to speed up to the lead biot and then fall back little by little, letting the camera pan across each of the ranks.” She waited while Nicole moved to the front of the biots. “Wow. That’s superb. Now I know why we brought an Olympic champion with us.”

On his first two attempts Janos missed with the snare. However, on the third try it landed perfectly on the number four crab’s back. The edges of the net or basket spread out to the limit of the shell. Nicole was starting to sweat. She had been running already for four minutes. “From now on,” Francesca said to her from the helicopter, “focus on the single target crab. Move up as close as you dare.”

Nicole reduced her distance from the closest biot to about a meter. She nearly slipped once and a cold chill swept over her. If I were to fall across their path, she thought, they “d make mincemeat out of me. Her camera was fixed on the right rear crab as Janos tightened the cables.

“Now!” he shouted. The snare, with the biot entrapped, began to rise off the ground. Everything happened very fast. The target biot used its scissor-like claws to snap through one of the metal threads of the snare. The other five biots came to a brief halt, for maybe one full second, and then immedi­ately all attacked the snare with their claws. The metal net was completely shredded and the biot was freed in five seconds,

Nicole was amazed by what she was seeing. Despite her pounding heart she continued to film. The lead biot now sat down on the ground. The other five surrounded it in an extremely tight circle. Each of the biots attached one claw to the crab in the center and the other to its neighbor on the right. The formation was finished in less than five more seconds. The biots were locked and motionless.

Francesca was the first to speak. “Absolutely incredible,” she screamed in elation. “We just made the hair stand up on every human being on Earth.”

Nicole felt Richard Wakefield beside her. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“I think so,” she said. She was still shaking. The two of them glanced over at the biots. There was no movement.

“They’re in a huddle,” Reggie Wilson said from the rover. “The score is now Biots seven, Humans zero.”

“Since you are so convinced that there is no danger, I’ll agree to go ahead. But I must confess that I myself am nervous about another attempt. Those things clearly communicate with each other. And I don’t think they want to be captured.”

“Otto, Otto!” Dr. Brown replied. “This procedure is only a straightfor­ward refinement of what we tried the first time. The line nexus will adhere to the shell of the crab and will wrap its thin cables tightly around the entire carapace. The other biots will not be able to use their claws. There will be no room between the line and the shell.”

“Admiral Heilmann, this is Dr. Takagishi.” There was definite concern in his voice as he spoke into the communicator. “I must register my strongest objection to proceeding with this hunt. We have seen already how little we understand about these creatures. As Wakefield said, our attempt to snare one of them has obviously triggered their main fault protection responses. We have no idea at all how they will react next.”

“We all understand that, Dr. Takagishi,” David Brown interjected before Heilmann could respond. “But there are extenuating factors that override the uncertainties. First, as Francesca pointed out, the entire Earth will again be watching if we go after the biots right away. You heard what Jean-Claude Revoir said twenty minutes ago — we have already done more for space explo­ration than anyone since the original Soviet and American cosmonauts back

in the twentieth century. Second, we are prepared to complete the hunt now. If we abandon the attempt and return all our equipment to Beta, then we will have wasted a huge amount of time and effort. Finally, there is no obvious danger. Why do you insist on making such dire predictions? AH we saw the biots do was engage in some kind of self-defense activity.”

“Professor Brown,” the eminent Japanese scholar tried one last rational appeal, “please look around you. Try to imagine the capabilities of the crea­tures who made this amazing vehicle. Try to appreciate the possibility that perhaps, just perhaps, what we are trying to do might be viewed as a hostile act and has somehow been communicated to whatever intelligence is manag­ing this spacecraft. Suppose as a result that we, as representatives of the human species, are condemning not only ourselves, but also, in some larger sense, all of our fellow—”

“Poppycock,” David Brown scoffed. “How can anyone ever accuse me of wild speculation?..” He laughed heartily. “This is absurd. The evidence overwhelmingly indicates that this Rama has the same purpose and function as its predecessor and is completely oblivious to our existence. Just because one single subfamily of robots bands together when threatened does not have overwhelming significance.” He looked around at the others. “I say that’s enough talk, Otto. Unless you object, we’re going out to capture a biot.”

There was a short hesitation from across the Cylindrical Sea. Then the cosmonauts heard Admiral Heilmann’s affirmative reply. “Go ahead, David. But don’t take any unnecessary chances.”

“Do you think we’re really in danger?” Hiro Yamanaka asked Dr. Takagi-shi while the new capture tactics were being reviewed by Brown, Tabori, and Wakefield. The Japanese pilot was staring off in the distance at the massive structures in the southern bowl, thinking, perhaps for the first time, of the vulnerability of their position.

“Probably not!” his countryman replied, “but it’s insane to take such—”

“Insane is a perfect word for it,” Reggie Wilson interrupted. “You and I were the only two vocal opponents of continuing this stupidity. But our objections were made to sound foolish and even cowardly. Personally, I wish one of those goddamn things would challenge the esteemed Dr. Brown to a duel. Or better still, a bolt of lightning would come shooting out of those spires over there.”

He pointed at the great horns that Yamanaka had been regarding earlier. Wilson’s voice changed and there was a fearful edge to it. “We are over our heads here. I can feel it in the air. We are being warned of danger by powers that none of us can begin to understand. But we are ignoring the warnings.”

Nicole turned away from her colleagues and glanced at the lively planning meeting taking place fifteen meters away from her. Engineers Wakefield and Tabori were definitely enjoying the challenge of outwitting the biots. Nicole wondered if perhaps Rama really was sending them some kind of a warning. Poppycock, she said to herself, repeating David Brown’s expression. She shuddered involuntarily as she recalled the several seconds when the crab biots had devastated the metal snare. I’m overreacting. And so is Wilson. There’s no reason to be afraid.

Yet, as she turned again and looked through the binoculars to study the biot formation half a kilometer away, there was a palpable fear in her that would not be assuaged. The six crabs had not moved in almost two hours. They were still locked in their original arrangement. What are you really all about, Rama? Nicole asked herself for the umpteenth time. Her next ques­tion startled her. She had never verbalized it before. And how many of us mil make it back to Earth to tell your tale?

On the second capture attempt Francesca wanted to be on the ground beside the biots. As before, Turgenyev and Tabori were up in the prime helicopter along with the most important equipment. Brown, Yamanaka, and Wakefield were in the other helicopter. Dr. Brown had invited Wakefield to provide him with real-time advice; Francesca had of course persuaded Rich­ard to take some aerial pictures for her to complement the automatic images from the helicopter system.

Reggie Wilson drove the ground-based cosmonauts to the biot site in the rover. “Now here’s a good job for me,” he said as they approached the location of the alien crabs. “Chauffeur.” He gazed up at the distant ceiling of Rama. “You hear that, you guys? I’m versatile. I can do many things.” He looked over at Francesca beside him in the front seat. “By the way, Mrs. Sabatini, were you planning to thank Nicole for her spectacular work? It was her action shots on the ground that captured the audience in your last transmission.”

Francesca was busy checking all her video equipment and at first ignored Reggie’s comment. When he repeated his jibe, she responded, without look­ing up, “May I remind Mr. Wilson that I do not need his unsolicited advice on how to conduct my business?”

“There was a time,” Reggie mused out loud, shaking his head, “when things were very different.” He glanced at Francesca. There was no indica­tion that she was even listening. “Back when I still believed in love,” he said in a louder voice. “Before I knew about betrayal. Or ambition and its selfish­ness.”

He jerked the rover wheel vigorously to the left and brought it to a stop about forty meters west of the biots. Francesca jumped out without a word.

Within three seconds she was chattering to David Brown and Richard Wakefield on the radio about the video coverage of the capture. The ever polite Dr. Takagishi thanked Reggie Wilson for driving the rover.

“We’re coming in,” Tabori shouted from above. He managed to position the dangling nexus properly on his second attempt. The nexus was a round, heavy sphere about twenty centimeters in diameter, with a dozen small holes or indentations on its surface. It was slowly dropped onto the center of the shell of one of the outside biots. Next Janos, transmitting a barrage of com­mands from the hovering helicopter to the processor in the nexus, ordered the extension of the massed threads of metal rolled up inside the sphere. The crabs did not stir as the threads wrapped themselves around the target biot.

“What do you think, inspector?” Janos hollered at Richard Wakefield in the other helicopter.

Richard surveyed the strange apparatus. The thick cable was attached to a ring stanchion at the rear of the helicopter. Fifteen meters below, the metal ball sat on the back of the target biot, thin filaments extending from inside the ball around the top and bottom of the carapace. “Looks fine,” Richard replied. “Now there’s only the single question remaining. Is the helicopter stronger than their collective grip?”

David Brown commanded Irina Turgenyev to lift the prey. She slowly increased the speed of the blades and tried to ascend. The tiny slack in the cable disappeared but the biots barely moved. “They’re either very heavy or they’re holding onto the ground somehow,” Richard said. “Hit them with a sharp burst.”

The sudden jolt in the cable lifted the entire biot formation momentarily skyward. The helicopter strained as the biot mass dangled two or three meters off the ground. The two crabs not attached to the target biot dropped first, falling into a motionless heap seconds after takeoff. The other three crabs lasted longer, ten seconds altogether before they finally disengaged their claws from their companion and fell to the ground below. There were universal cries of joy and congratulations as the helicopter climbed higher into the sky.

Francesca was filming the capture sequence from a distance of about ten meters. After the last three biots, including the leader, had released their grips on the target crab and fallen onto the Raman soil, she leaned back to record the helicopter as it headed for the banks of the Cylindrical Sea with its prey. It took her two or three seconds to realize that everyone was shout­ing at her.

The lead biot and its final two companion crabs had not crumbled into a heap when they had hit the ground. Although slightly damaged, they were active and on the move within moments after landing. While Francesca was filming the departure of the helicopter, the lead biot sensed her presence and headed toward her. The other two followed a step behind.

They were only four meters away when Francesca, still filming, finally understood that she was now the prey. She turned around and started to run. “Run to the side,” Richard Wakefield screamed into the communicator, “they can only go in straight lines.”

Francesca zigged and zagged but the biots continued to follow her. Her original burst of adrenaline enabled her to extend the distance separating her from the crabs to ten meters. Later, however, as she began to tire, the relentless biots were closing in on her. She slipped and almost fell. By the time Francesca regained her stride the lead biot was no more than three meters away.

Reggie Wilson had raced toward the rover as soon as it was clear that the biots were chasing Francesca. Once he was at the controls of the vehicle, he headed for her rescue at top speed. He had originally intended to pick her up and move her out of the way of the biot onslaught. They were too close to her, however, so Reggie decided to smash into the three crabs from the side. There was a crash of metal on metal as the lightweight vehicle rammed the biots. Reggie’s plan worked. The momentum of the crash carried Reggie and the crabs several meters to the side. The threat to Francesca was over.

But the biots were not incapacitated. Far from it. Despite the fact that one of the follower crabs had lost a leg and the lead biot had a slightly damaged claw, within seconds all three of them were at work in the wreck­age. They started slicing the rover into chunks with their claws, and then they used their fearful collection of probes and rasps to tear the chunks into still smaller pieces.

Reggie was momentarily stunned by the impact of the rover against the biots. The alien crabs had been heavier than he had anticipated and the damage to his vehicle was severe. As soon as he realized that the biots were still active, he started to jump out of the rover. But he couldn’t. His legs were wedged underneath the collapsed dashboard.

His unmitigated terror lasted no longer than ten seconds. There was noth­ing anyone could do. Reggie Wilson’s horrified shrieks echoed through the vastness of Rama as the biots chopped him apart exactly as if he were part of the rover. It was accomplished swiftly and systematically. Both Francesca and the automatic camera in the helicopter filmed the final seconds of his life. The pictures were transmitted live back to the Earth.