"Before we become involved in an esoteric discussion about science and its methodology," Janos now interrupted with a grin, "I have a sporting proposition for you all." He stood up at his place. "Actually it was Richard's idea originally, but I've figured out how to make it into a game. It has to do with the lights."

Janos took a quick drink of water from his cup. "Since we first arrived here in Ramaland," he intoned formally, "there have been three transitions in the illumination state."

"Boo. Hiss," shouted Wakefield. Janos laughed.

"Okay, you guys," the little Hungarian then continued in his normal offhand way, "what's the deal with the lights?

They've come on, gone off, and now come on again. What's going to happen in the future? 1 propose that we have a pool and contribute, say, twenty marks apiece. Each of us will make a prediction about the behavior of the lights for the rest of the mission and whoever is closest will win the pot."

"Who will judge the winner?" Reggie Wilson inquired sleepily. He had yawned several times during the preceding hour. "Despite the impressive set of brains around this table, I don't think anyone has figured out Rama yet. My personal belief is that the lights will not follow any pattern. They will go on and off at random times to keep us guessing."

"Write it down and send it on the modem to General O'Toole. Richard and I agreed that he would make a perfect judge. When the mission is over, he'll compare the predictions with actuality and someone will win a lucky dinner for two."

Dr. David Brown pushed his chair back from the table. "Are you finished with your game, Tabori?" he asked. "If so," he added, without waiting for an answer, "perhaps we can clean up this lunch mess and get on with our schedule."

"Hey skipper," Janos replied, "I'm just trying to loosen things up. Everybody's getting tense-"

Brown walked out of the hut before Cosmonaut Tabori had finished his sentence.

"What's bothering him?" Richard asked Francesca, "I guess he's anxious about the hunt," Francesca answered.

"He has been in a bad mood since this morning. Maybe he's feeling all the responsibility."

"Maybe he's just a jerk," said Wilson. He too rose from his seat. "I'm going to take a nap."

As Wilson was leaving the large hut Nicole remembered that she wanted to check everyone's biometry before the hunt. It was a simple enough task. All she needed was to stand close to each cosmonaut for about forty-five seconds with her activated scanner and then read the critical data off the monitor. If there were no entries in the warning files, the entire procedure was quite straightforward. On this particular check everyone was clean, including Takagishi.

"Nice going," Nicole said to her j.a.panese colleague very quietly.

She walked outside to look for David Brown and Reggie Wilson. Dr. Brown's hut was at the far end of the campsite. Like the rest of the individual dwellings, his hut resembled a tall skinny hat sitting on the ground. All the huts were offwhite in color, about two and a half meters tall, with a circular base just under two meters in diameter. They were manufactured with super-lightweight, flexible materials that combined easy packing and storage with formidable strength. Nicole remarked to herself that the huts looked something like native American Indian teepees.

David Brown was in his hut, sitting cross-legged on the ground in front of a portable computer monitor. On the screen was text from the chapter on biots in Takagishi's Atlas of Rama. "Excuse me, Dr. Brown," Nicole said as she stuck her head in his door.

"Yes," he said, "what is it?" He made no attempt to hide his annoyance at the interruption.

"I need to check your biometry data," Nicole said. "You haven't been dumped since right before the first sortie." Brown gave her an irritated glance. Nicole held her ground. The American shrugged his shoulders, half grunted, and turned back to the monitor. Nicole knelt beside him and activated her scanner.

"There are some folding chairs over in the supply hut," Nicole offered as Dr. Brown shifted his weight uncomfortably on the ground. He ignored her comment. Why is he so rude to me? Nicole found herself wondering. Is it because of that report on Wilson and him? No, she thought, answering her own question, it's because I have never been properly deferential, Data began to appear on Nicole's screen. She carefully keyed in several inputs that permitted a synopsis of the warning data to be shown. "Your blood pressure has been too high for intermittent intervals during the last seventytwo hours, including almost all of today," she said without emotion. "This particular kind of pattern is usually a.s.sociated with stress."

Dr. Brown stopped reading about biots and turned to face his life science officer. He looked at the displayed data without understanding it. "This graph shows the amplitudes and durations of your out-of-tolerance excursions," Nicole said, pointing at the screen. "None of the individual occurrences would be serious by itself. But the overall pattern is cause for concern."

"I have been under some pressure," he mumbled. David Brown watched while Nicole called up other displays showing data that corroborated her original statements. Many of Brown's warning files were overflowing.

The lights continued to flash on the monitor. "What's the worst-case scenario?" he inquired.

Nicole eyed her patient. "A stroke with paralysis or death," she replied. "If the condition persists or worsens." He whistled. "What should I do?"

"In the first place," Nicole answered, "you must start by getting more sleep. Your metabolic profile shows that since the death of General Borzov you have only had a total of eleven hours of solid rest. Why didn't you tell me you were having trouble sleeping?"

"I thought it was just excitement. I even took a sleeping pill one night and it had no effect."

Nicole's brow furrowed. "I don't remember giving you any sleeping pills."

Dr. Brown smiled. "s.h.i.t," he said, "I forgot to tell you. I was talking to Francesca Sabatini about my insomnia one night and she offered me a pill. I took it without thinking."

"Which night was that?" Nicole asked. She changed displays again on her monitor and called for more data from the storage buffers.

"I'm not certain," Dr. Brown said after some hesitation. "I think it was"Oh, here it is," Nicole said. "I can see it in the chemical a.n.a.lysis. That was March third, the second night after Borzov's death. The day you and Heilmann were selected as joint commanders. From the breakout in this spectrometry data, I would guess that you took a single medvil."

"You can tell that from my biometry data."

"Not exactly," Nicole said with a smile. "The interpretation is not unique. What was it you said at lunch? Sometimes it's necessary to extrapolate . . , and speculate," Their eyes met for a moment. Could that be fear? Nicole wondered as she tried to interpret what she was seeing in his gaze. Dr. Brown looked away. "Thank you, Dr. des Jardins," he said stiffly, "for your report on my blood pressure. I will try to relax and get plenty of sleep. And I apologize for not informing you about the sleeping pill." He dismissed her with a wave of his hand.

Nicole started to protest her dismissal but decided against it. He wouldn't follow my advice anyway, she said to herself as she walked toward Wilson's hut. And his blood pressure was certainly not dangerously high. She thought about the strained final two minutes of their conversation, after she had astonished Dr. Brown by correctly identifying the type of sleeping pill. There's something not quite right here. What is it that I am missing?

She could hear Reggie Wilson snoring before she arrived at the door of his tent. After a brief debate with herself, Nicole decided that she would scan him after his nap. She then returned to her own hut and quickly fell asleep.

"Nicole. Nicole des Jardins." The voice intruded in her dream and awakened her. "It's me. Francesca. I need to tell you something."

Nicole sat up slowly on her cot. Francesca had already entered the hut. The Italian was wearing her friendliest smile, the one that Nicole had thought was always saved for the camera.

"I was talking to David just a few minutes ago," Francesca said as she approached the cot, "and he told me about your conversation after lunch." Francesca kept talking as Nicole yawned and swung her legs around to the floor. "I was, of course, very concerned to learn about his blood pressuredon't worry, he and I have already agreed that I won't use it-but what really bothered me was he reminded me that we never told you about the sleeping pill. I'm so embarra.s.sed. We should have told you immediately."

Francesca was talking too fast for Nicole. Just moments before she had been in a deep sleep, dreaming of Beauvois, and now all of a sudden she was expected to listen to a staccato confession from the Italian cosmonaut.

"Could you wait a minute until I wake up?" Nicole asked crossly. She leaned around Francesca to a makeshift table and took a cup of water. She drank slowly.

"Now am I to understand," Nicole said, "that you have awakened me to tell me that you gave Dr. Brown a sleeping pill? Something I already know?"

"Yes," Francesca said with a smile. "I mean, that's part of it. But I realized that I had forgotten to tell you about Reggie also."

Nicole shook her head. "I'm not following you, Francesca. Are you talking about Reggie Wilson now?"

Francesca hesitated for a second. "Yes," she said. "Didn't you check him with your scanner right after lunch?" Nicole shook her head again. "No, he was already asleep." She looked at her watch. "I had planned to scan him before the meeting started. Maybe an hour from now/'

Francesca was fl.u.s.tered. "Well," she said, "when David told me that the medvil showed up in his biometry data, I thought . . ." She stopped herself in midsentence. She seemed to be collecting her thoughts. Nicole waited patiently.

"Reggie started complaining of headaches over a week ago," Francesca eventually continued, "after the two Newton ships joined for the rendezvous with Rama. Since he and 1 have been close friends and he knew about my knowledge of drugs-you know, from all that work on my doc.u.mentary series-he asked me if I would give him something for headaches. I refused at first, but finally, after he kept badgering me, I gave him some nubitrol."

Nicole frowned. "That's a very strong medicine for a simple headache. There are still doctors who believe it should never be prescribed unless everything else has failed-"

"I told him all that," Francesca said. "He was adamant. You don't know Reggie. Sometimes you can't reason with him."

"How much did you give him?"

"Eight pills altogether, a total of two hundred milligrams."

"No wonder he's been acting so strangely." Nicole leaned over and picked up her pocket computer sitting on the end table. She accessed her medical data base and read the short entry about nubitrol. "Not much here," she said. "I'll have to ask O'Toole to transmit the full entry from the medical encyclopedia. But if I remember correctly, wasn't there a controversy about nubitrol remaining in the system for weeks?"

"I don't recall," Francesca replied. She looked at the monitor in Nicole s hand and quickly read the text. Nicole was irritated. She started to lambast Francesca verbally but at the last moment changed her mind. So you gave drugs to both David and Reggie, she was thinking. Out of her memory came a vague recollection of Francesca handing Valeriy Borzov a gla.s.s of wine several hours before he died. A strange chill ran through Nicole's body. Could her intuition be correct?

Nicole turned around and fixed Francesca with a cold stare.

"Now that you have confessed to playing doctor and pharmacist for both David and Reggie, is there anything else you want to tell me?"

"What do you mean?" Francesca asked.

"Have you given drugs to any other member of the crew?" Nicole felt her heart race as Francesca blanched, ever so slightly, and hesitated before replying.

"No. No, of course not," was her answer. 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 cha.s.sis."

Hiro Yamanaka commanded the helicopter into its tightest possible alt.i.tude 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 d.a.m.n 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 s.h.i.t. Those poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d 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. "n.o.body 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 sh.e.l.ls 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 knowAnyway, 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 sh.e.l.l. 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 1 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 sh.e.l.l. 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 sh.e.l.l 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 sh.e.l.l."

"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 s.p.a.ce 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 selfdefense activity."

"Professor Brown," the eminent j.a.panese 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 s.p.a.cecraft. 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-"

"Poppyc.o.c.k," 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."