Rama II

33 MISSING PERSON

“Admiral Heilmann.”

“Yes, General O’Toole.”

“Are you by yourself?”

“Certainly. I just woke up a few minutes ago. My meeting with Dr. Brown is not for another hour. Why are you calling so early?”

“While you were sleeping I received a coded top secret message from COG military headquarters. It’s about Trinity. They wanted to know the status.”

“What do you mean, General?”

“Is this line secure, Admiral? Have you turned off the automatic re­corder?”

“Now I have.”

“They asked two questions. Did Borzov die without telling anyone his RQ? Does anyone else on the crew know about Trinity?” “You know the answers to both questions.”

“I wanted to be certain that you hadn’t talked to Dr. Brown. They in­sisted that I check with you before encoding my answer. What do you think this is all about?”

“I don’t know, Michael. Maybe somebody down on Earth is getting ner­vous. Wilson’s death probably scared them.”

“It certainly scared me. But not to the point that I would think about Trinity. I wonder if they know something that we don’t.”

“Well, I guess we’ll find out soon enough. All the ISA officials have been insisting that we should evacuate Rama at the first available opportunity. They didn’t even like our decision to rest the crew for several hours first. This time I don’t think they will change their minds.”

“Admiral, do you remember that hypothetical discussion we had with General Borzov during the cruise, about the conditions under which we would activate Trinity?”

“Vaguely. Why?”

“Do you still disagree with his insistence that we must know why the Trinity contingency is being called for? You said at the time that if the Earth thought great danger was imminent, you didn’t personally need to under­stand the rationale.”

“I’m afraid I’m not following you, General. Why are you asking me these questions?”

“I would like your permission, Otto, when I encode the response to COG military headquarters, to find out why they are asking about the status of Trinity at this particular time. If we are in danger, we have a right to know.”

“You may request additional information, Michael, but I would bet that their inquiry is strictly routine.”

Janos Tabori awakened while it was still dark inside Rama. As he pulled on his flight suit, he made a mental list of the activities that would be required to transport the crab biot to the Newton. If the order to leave Rama was confirmed, they would be departing soon after dawn. Janos consulted the formal evacuation procedure stored on his pocket computer and updated it by adding the new tasks associated with the biot.

He checked his watch. Dawn was only fifteen minutes away, assuming of course that the Rama diurnal cycle was regular. Janos laughed to himself. Rama had produced so many surprises already that there was no certainty the lights would return on schedule. If they did, however, Janos wanted to watch the Raman “sunrise.” He could eat his breakfast after dawn.

A hundred meters from his hut the caged crab biot was immobile, as it had been since it was hoisted away from its companions the previous day. Janos shone his flashlight through the tough, transparent cage wall and checked to see if there were any signs that the biot might have moved during the night. Having established that the biot had not changed position, Janos walked away from the Beta campsite in the direction of the sea.

As he waited for the burst of light, he found himself thinking about the very end of his conversation with Nicole the night before. There was some­thing not quite right about her offhand revelation of the possible cause of General Borzov’s pain on the night he died. Janos remembered vividly the healthy appendix; there was no doubt that the primary diagnosis had been incorrect. But why had Nicole not talked to him about the backup drug diagnosis? Especially if she was conducting an investigation into the is­sue…

Janos reached the inescapable conclusion that Dr. des Jardins had either lost faith in his ability or somehow suspected that he might have himself administered the drugs to General Borzov without consulting her. Either way he should find out what she was thinking. A strange idea, born from his own feelings of guilt, next crossed his mind. Could it be, he mused, that Nicole somehow knows about the Schmidt and Hagenest project and suspects all four of us?

For the first time, Janos himself wondered if perhaps Valeriy Borzov’s pain had not been natural. He recalled the chaotic meeting the four of them had had two hours after David Brown had learned that he would be left onboard the Newton during the first sortie. “You must talk to him, Otto!” a frus­trated Dr. Brown had said to Admiral Heilmann. “You must convince him to change his mind.”

Otto Heilmann had then admitted it was unlikely General Borzov would change the personnel assignments based on his request. “In that case!” Dr. Brown had replied angrily, “we can say good-bye to all the incentive awards in our contract.”

Throughout the meeting Francesca Sabatini had remained quiet and seemingly unworried. As he was leaving, Janos had overheard Dr. Brown berating her. “And why are you so calm?” he had said. “You stand to lose as much as anyone else. Or do you have a plan I don’t know about?”

Janos had glimpsed Francesca’s smile for only a fraction of a second. But he had remarked to himself at the time that she had seemed oddly confident. Now, as Cosmonaut Tabori awaited dawn on Rama, that smile returned to haunt him. With Francesca’s knowledge of drugs it would have been well within her capability to give General Borzov something that would induce appendicitis symptoms. But would she have done something so… so blatantly dishonest, just to enhance the value of their postmission media proj­ect?

Again Rama was instantaneously flooded with light. As always, it was a feast for the eyes. Janos turned around slowly, looking in all directions and studying both bowls of the immense structure. With the light now brightly shining, he resolved to talk to Franceses at the first opportunity.

It was Irina Turgenyev, strangely enough, who asked the question. The cosmonauts were almost finished with their breakfast. Dr. Brown and Admi­ral Heilmann, in fact, had already left the table to conduct another of their interminable conference calls with ISA management. “Where’s Dr. Takagi-shi?” she said innocently. “He’s the last member of the crew that I would expect to be late for anything.”

“He must have slept through his alarm,” Janos Tabori answered, pushing his folding chair away from the table. “Ill go check on him.”

When Janos returned a minute later he was perplexed. “He wasn’t there,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders. “I guess he went out for a walk.”

Nicole des Jardins had an immediate sinking feeling in her stomach. She rose abruptly without finishing her breakfast. “We should go look for him,” she said, her concern undisguised, “or he won’t be ready when we leave.”

The other cosmonauts all noticed Nicole’s agitation. “What’s going on here?” Richard Wakefield said good-naturedly. “One of our scientists takes a little morning walk on his own and the company doctor goes into panic?” He switched on his radio. “Hello, Dr. Takagishi, wherever you are. This is Wakefield. Will you please let us know that you’re all right so that we can finish our breakfast.”

There was a long silence. Every member of the crew knew that it was an absolutely mandatory requirement to carry a communicator at all times. You could choose to turn off the transmission capability, but you had to listen under any and all circumstances.

“Takagishi-san,” Nicole said next with an urgent edge in her voice. “Are you all right? Please respond.” During the extended silence, Nicole’s sinking feeling in her stomach turned into a large knot. Something terrible had happened to her friend.

“I’ve explained that to you twice, Dr. Maxwell,” David Brown said in exasperation. “It makes no sense to evacuate part of the crew. The most efficient way to search for Dr. Takagishi is to use the entire staff. Once we find him we will clear out of Rama with great haste. And to answer your last question, no, this is not a ploy on the part of the crew to avoid compliance with the evacuation order.”

He turned to Admiral Heilmann and handed him the microphone. “Dam­mit, Otto,” he muttered, “you talk to that bureaucratic nincompoop. He thinks he can command this mission better than we can, even though he’s a hundred million kilometers away.”

“Dr. Maxwell, this is Admiral Heilmann. I am in complete agreement with Dr. Brown. Anyway, we really can’t afford to argue with such long delay times. We are going to proceed with our plan. Cosmonaut Tabori will stay here with me at Beta and pack all the heavy equipment, including the biot. I will coordinate the search. Brown, Sabatini, and des Jardins will cross the ice to New York, the most likely destination if the professor went under his own power. Wakefield, Turgenyev, and Yamanaka will look for him in the heli­copters.”

He paused for a moment. “There’s no need for you to respond to this transmission in a hurry. The search will already have begun before your next message will arrive.”

Back in her hut, Nicole very carefully packed her medical supplies. She criticized herself for not foreseeing that Takagishi might try one last time to visit New York. You made another mistake, Nicole said to herself. The least you can do is make certain you “re prepared when you find him.

She knew the personal packing procedure by heart. Nevertheless, she skimped on her own supplies of food and water to ensure that she had whatever an injured or sick Takagishi might need. Nicole had mixed emo­tions about her two companions on the quest to find the Japanese scientist, but it never occurred to her that the grouping might have been purposely planned. Everyone knew Takagishi’s fascination with New York. Given the circumstances, it was not surprising that Brown and Sabatini were accompa­nying her to the primary search area.

Just before Nicole left the hut, she saw Richard Wakefield at her door. “May I come in?” he asked.

“Certainly,” she replied.

He walked in with an uncharacteristic uncertainty, as if he were confused or embarrassed. “What is it?” Nicole asked after an awkward silence.

He smiled. “Well,” he said sheepishly, “it seemed like a good idea a few minutes ago. Now it strikes me as a little stupid — maybe even childish.” Nicole noticed he was holding something in his right hand. “I brought you something,” he continued. “A good luck charm, I guess. I thought you might take it with you to New York.”

Cosmonaut Wakefield opened his hand. Nicole recognized the figurine of Prince Hal. “You can say what you will about valor and discretion and all that, but sometimes a little luck is more important.”

Nicole was surprisingly touched. She took the little figurine from Wake-field and studied its intricate detail with admiration. “Does the prince have any special qualities I need to know about?” she asked with a smile.

“Oh yes.” Richard brightened. “He loves to spend witty evenings in pubs with fat knights and other unsavory characters. Or battle renegade dukes and earls. Or court beautiful French princesses.”

Nicole blushed slightly. “If I’m lonely and want the prince to amuse me, what do I do?” she asked.

Richard came over beside Nicole and showed her a tiny keyboard just above Prince Hal’s buttocks. “He’ll respond to many commands!” Richard said, handing her a very small baton the size of a pin. “This will fit perfectly into any of the key slots. Try t for talk or a for action if you want him to show you his stuff.”

Nicole put the little prince and the baton in the pocket of her flight suit. “Thank you, Richard,” she said. “This is very sweet.”

Wakefield was flustered. “Well, you know, it’s no big deal. It’s just that we’ve had a spate of bad luck and I thought, I mean, maybe—”

“Thanks again, Richard,” Nicole interrupted, “I appreciate your con­cern.” They walked out of her hut together.