Rama II

40 ALIEN INVITATION

I must be prepared for rescue, Nicole said to herself. She had finished filling her flask with the greenish liquid from the center of the manna melon. After carefully sectioning the moist melon flesh and putting the pieces in her old food container packets, Nicole sat back down in her usual corner.

Whew! she thought, returning to the wild mental excursion she had taken after drinking the contents of the vial. What in the world was that all about? Nicole recalled her vision during the Poro, when she was still a child, and the brief conversation about it that she had had with Orneh three years later when Nicole had returned to Nidougou for the funeral of her mother.

“Where did Ronata go?” Omeh had asked one evening when the old man and the girl had been alone together.

She had known immediately what he was asking. “I became a big white bird,” she bad answered. “I flew beyond the Moon and Sun to the great void.”

“Ah,” he had said, “Omeh thought so.”

And why didn’t you ask him then what had happened to you? the scientist in the adult Nicole asked her former ten-year-old self. Then maybe some of this would make sense. But somehow Nicole knew that the vision was be­yond analysis, that it existed in a realm as yet unfathomed by the deductive processes that made science so powerful. She thought instead about her mother, about how beautiful she had been in her long flowing red robes. Anawi had saved her from the tiger. Thank you, Mother, Nicole thought. She wished that she had talked longer with her.

It was a weird sound, like dozens of unshod baby feet on a linoleum floor, and it was definitely coming in her direction. Nicole didn’t have much time to wonder. Seconds later the head and antennae of a centipede biot appeared at the edge of her pit and, without slowing down in any way, proceeded directly down the wall at the opposite end.

Altogether the biot was four meters long. It clambered down the wall without difficulty, placing each of its sixty legs directly against the smooth surface and holding on by some kind of suction. Nicole put on her backpack and watched for her opportunity. She was not that surprised by the appear­ance of the biot. After what she had seen in her vision, she was certain that she was going to be rescued by some means.

The centipede biot consisted of fifteen attached, jointed segments, each with four legs, and an insectlike head with a bizarre array of sensors, two of which were long and thin and resembled antennae. The jumbled pile of metal at the other end of the pit was apparently its spare parts. While Nicole was watching, the biot replaced three of its legs, the carapace for one of its segments, and two knobby protruberances on the side of its head. The entire process took no more than five minutes. When it was finished, the biot started again up the wall.

Nicole jumped on the centipede biot’s back when three-fourths of its body was heading upward. The sudden extra weight was too much. The biot lost its grasp and fell, along with Nicole, back into the pit. Moments later it tried again to scale the wall. This time Nicole waited until the entire length of the centipede was heading up the wall, hoping that the strength of the extra segments would make the difference. It was to no avail. The biot and Nicole collapsed into a heap.

One of its front legs had been severely injured during the second fall, so the biot made the necessary repairs before trying to ascend the wall a third time. Nicole, meanwhile, pulled all her strongest suture material out of her medical pack and tied one end of a long octuple thickness around the three back sections of the biot. In the other end of the suture thread she made a loop. After she first put on gloves to protect her hands and then fashioned a waistband to keep the thread from cutting, Nicole tied the loop around her waist.

This could be a disaster, Nicole realized as she imagined all the possible outcomes of her scheme. Ifthe thread does not hold, I could fall. The second time I might not be so lucky.

The centipede inched its way up the wall as before. Several small steps after it was completely elongated, the biot felt Nicole’s weight from below. This time, however, it did not fall. The struggling biot managed to continue slowly on its upward path. Nicole kept her body perpendicular to the surface, as if she were rock climbing, and held onto the suture thread with both her hands.

Nicole was about forty centimeters behind the last segment of the biot as they scaled the wall. When the head of the centipede reached the top of the pit, Nicole was almost halfway out. Her slow and steady climb continued as, segment after segment, a portion of the biot left the pit above her. A few minutes later, however, her progress slowed markedly, stopping altogether when the number of centipede segments remaining on the wall dropped to four. Nicole could almost touch the rear segment of the centipede if she stretched her arms above her. Only about ,one meter’s length of the biot was still on the wall, but nevertheless it was apparently stuck. Nicole was putting too much strain on the joints attaching the rear segments.

Grim scenarios ran through Nicole’s mind as she dangled more than six meters above the floor of the pit. This is great, she thought sarcastically, as she pulled tightly on the suture line and placed her feet firmly against the wall. There are three possible outcomes, none of them good. The thread could break. The biot could collapse. Or I might remain suspended here forever.

Nicole considered her alternatives. The only plan she could conceive with even a reasonable probability of success, and it was still very risky, was for her to climb up the suture thread to the last segment and then, somehow using the body or legs of the centipede as handholds, to muscle her way to the top of the pit.

Nicole glanced down and remembered her first fall. I think I’ll wait awhile first and see if this machine gets moving again. A minute passed. Then another. Nicole took a deep breath. She reached up high on the suture line and pulled herself up the wall. She repeated the process with the other hand. She was now right behind the last segment. Nicole reached out and grabbed one of the legs, but as soon as she tried to put any weight on it, it pulled free from the wall.

So much for that plan, she thought after a moment’s fright. She had restabilized herself just behind the biot. Nicole studied the centipede again very carefully. The carapace of each segment was made of overlapping pieces. It might be possible to grab one of those flaps… Nicole recon­structed her first two attempts to ride on the back of the biot. It was the suction force of the feet that gave out, she thought. Now most of the biot is on the level ground above. It should be able to hold me.

Nicole realized that once she was on the back of the biot, she no longer had any protection against falling. To test the concept, she pulled herself to the top of the suture line and grabbed the carapace flap. She was able to get a firm grip. The only question was whether the flap could support her weight. Nicole tried to assess its strength while holding onto the suture with her other hand for safety. So far, so good.

Nicole grasped the flap on the rear biot segment and cautiously pulled herself up. She released her grip on the suture thread. Then she wrapped her legs around the side of the centipede’s body and scooted along until she could reach the next flap. The legs of the rear segment popped off the wall, but the centipede did not move otherwise.

She repeated the process twice more, moving from segment to segment. Nicole was almost to the top. While she was on her final climb, she had a brief scare when the biot slipped a few centimeters back into the pit. Hold­ing on breathlessly, she waited until the biot was stable and then crawled forward to the first segment that was on level ground. As she was crawling, the biot began walking again, but Nicole just rolled off sideways and landed on her back on the ground. “Hallelujah!” she shouted.

As she stood on the wall around New York and stared out at the moiling waters of the Cylindrical Sea, Nicole wondered why there had been no answer to her call for help. The self-test status flag on her radio indicated that it was working properly, yet she had tried three separate times without success to establish contact with the rest of the crew. Nicole was well aware of the commlinks available to the cosmonauts. Failure to receive a reply meant both that no crew members were within six to eight kilometers of her at present and that the Beta relay station was not operational. If Beta were working, Nicole thought, then they would be able to talk to me from any­where, even the Newton.

Nicole told herself that the crew was doubtless onboard their own space­craft, preparing for another sortie, and that the Beta communications station had probably been disabled by the hurricane. What bothered her, though, was that it had already been forty-five hours since the onset of the melting and more than ninety hours since she had fallen into the pit. Why was nobody looking for her?

Nicole’s eyes scanned the sky for some sign of a helicopter. The atmo­sphere now contained clouds, as predicted. The melting of the Cylindrical Sea had substantially altered the weather patterns on Rama. The tempera­ture had warmed up considerably. Nicole glanced at her thermometer and confirmed her estimate, that it was now four degrees above freezing.

The most likely situation, Nicole reasoned, returning to the question of the whereabouts of her colleagues, is that they will return soon. I need to stay close to this wall so that I can be easily seen. Nicole did not waste much time thinking about other, less likely scenarios. She considered only briefly the possibility that the crew had had a major disaster and nobody had yet been available to look for her. But even in that case, she said to herself, I should follow the same approach. They would come sooner or later.

To pass the time, Nicole took a sample of the sea and tested it. It had very few of the organic poisons found by the first Raman expedition. Maybe they flourished and died while I was still in the pit, she thought. Anyway they’re virtually all gone now. Nicole noted to herself that in an emergency a strong swimmer might be able to make it across without a boat. However, she recalled the pictures of the shark biots and other denizens of the sea reported by Norton and his crew and slightly modified her assessment.

Nicole walked along the ramparts for several hours. While she was sitting down quietly eating her manna melon lunch {and thinking about methods she could employ to retrieve the rest of the melon, in the event that she still wasn’t rescued in another seventy-two hours), she heard what she thought was a cry coming from New York. She thought immediately of Dr. Takagi-shi.

She tried her radio one more time. Nothing. Again Nicole checked the sky for some sign of a helicopter. She was still debating whether or not to forsake her lookout on the wall when she heard another cry. This time she had a better fix on its location. She located the nearest stairway and walked south into the center of New York.

Nicole had not yet updated the map of New York stored in her computer. After she crossed the annular streets near the central plaza, she stopped near the octahedron and entered all her new discoveries, including the bam with the pits and anything else she could remember. A moment later, while Nicole was admiring the beauty of the bizarre, eight-sided building, she heard a third cry. Only this time it was more like a shriek. If it was Takagi-shi, he was certainly making a peculiar noise.

She jogged across the open plaza, trying to close in on the sound while it was still fresh in her mind. As Nicole approached the buildings on the opposite side, the shriek sounded again. This time she also heard an answer. She recognized the voices. They sounded like the avian pair that had visited her while she was in the pit. Nicole became more cautious. She walked in the direction of the sound. It seemed to be coming from the area around the lattice nets that Francesca Sabatini had found so fascinating.

In less than two minutes, Nicole was standing between two tall skyscrapers that were connected at the ground by a thick mesh lattice that rose 6fty meters into the air. About twenty meters above the ground, the velvet-bodied avian struggled against its trap. The avian’s talons and wings were ensnared in the cords of the stringy lattice. It screamed again when it saw Nicole. Its larger companion, presently circling near the top of the buildings, dove down in her direction.

Nicole cowered against the facade of one of the buildings as the avian drew near. It jabbered at Nicole, as if it were scolding her, but it did not touch her. The velvet avian then said something and, after a short exchange, the huge linoleum bird withdrew to a nearby ledge about twenty meters away.

After she had calmed herself (and keeping one eye on the linoleum avian on its perch), Nicole walked over to the lattice and inspected it. She and Francesca had not had any time to spare when they had been searching for Takagishi, so this was Nicole’s first chance for a detailed examination. The lattice was made of a ropelike material, about four centimeters thick, that had some elasticity. There were thousands of intersections in the lattice, and at each one of them there was a small knot, or node. The nodes were a little sticky, but not enough to make Nicole think that the whole lattice was some kind of spider web for catching flying creatures.

While she was studying the bottom of the lattice, the free avian flew over Nicole’s head and landed close to its trapped friend. Being very careful to avoid becoming snared itself, it played with the individual strands with its talons. It also stretched and twisted the cords, with some difficulty. Next the linoleum bird gingerly stepped over to where its companion was trapped and made an awkward attempt either to break or untie the lattice links holding the other avian. When it was finished, the huge bird stepped back and stared at Nicole.

What is it doing? Nicole said to herself. I’m certain that it’s trying to tell me something… When Nicole did not move, the avian laboriously re­peated the entire demonstration. This time Nicole thought she understood that the alien creature was trying to tell her that it couldn’t free its friend. Nicole smiled and waved. Then, still staying at the bottom of the lattice, she tied a few of the adjacent cords together. When she subsequently untied them, the two avians shrieked their approval. She repeated the process twice and then pointed, first at herself and then at the velvet creature trapped above her.

There was a flurry of talk in their loud, sometimes musical tongue and the larger of the pair returned to his ledge. Nicole stared up at the velvet crea­ture. It was caught in three different places; in each case its struggle had resulted in its being wedged more tightly in the elastic cord. Nicole surmised that the avian must have been caught in the violent hurricane winds and had been blown into the lattice during the preceding night. The cords had prob­ably deformed under the momentum of the contact, and when they had snapped back to their normal size, the great bird was trapped in the mesh. It was not a difficult climb. The lattice was carefully anchored to the two buildings and the rope itself was heavy enough that Nicole did not sway very much. But twenty meters off the ground is a considerable height, taller than a normal six-story building, so Nicole was having some second thoughts when she finally reached the altitude where the avian was trapped.

Nicole was panting from the effort of her climb. She eased gingerly over to the avian to ensure that she had not misunderstood anything in their strange communication. The alien bird followed her fixedly with its huge blue eyes. One of the wings was snared very close to the avian’s head. Nicole began trying to free the wing, first wrapping strands of the lattice around her own ankles to make certain that she would not fall. It was slow work. At one point Nicole caught a whiff of the creature’s powerful breath. ! know that smell, Nicole said to herself. It only took an instant for Nicole to connect the smell with the manna melon that she had been eating earlier. So you eat the same thing? Nicole thought. But where does it come from? Nicole wished that she could talk to these strange and wonderful creatures.

She struggled with the first knot. It was very tight. She was afraid she might injure the creature’s wing if she pulled with more force. Nicole reached into her pack and retrieved her power scalpel.

Instantly the other avian was upon her, jabbering and shrieking and scar­ing Nicole half to death. It would not go away and permit her to proceed until Nicole moved away from the trapped bird and showed its companion how the scalpel could cut through the lattice cord.

Using the scalpel the freeing operation was completed quickly. The velvet avian soared into the air, its musical cries of happiness resounding through­out the area. Its companion joined in the celebration with shrieks of its own as the two played, almost like lovebirds, in the air above the lattice. They disappeared a moment later and Nicole climbed slowly down to the ground. Nicole was pleased with herself. She was ready now to return to the wall and wait for the rescue that she was certain was imminent. She walked toward the north, singing a folk song of the Loire that she remembered from her adolescence.

After several minutes Nicole had company again. More accurately, she had a guide. Whenever she would make a wrong turn, the velvet avian, flying overhead, would make an incredible racket. The noise would only cease when Nicole would go in the proper direction. ! wonder where we’re going? Nicole asked herself.

In the plaza area, not more than forty meters from the octahedron, the avian swooped down on an utterly unobtrusive portion of the metallic ground. It tapped its talons several times and then hovered over the spot. A covering of some kind slid away and the creature disappeared under the plaza. Twice it flew out, said something in Nicole’s direction, and then descended,

Nicole understood the message. I think I’m being invited home to meet the family, she said to herself. Let’s just hope that I’m not the dinner.