Chapter 4 Chapter 4 Rendezvous

In the last few minutes before the rendezvous, Captain Newton thought of those first televised communications, which he had watched several times.But there's a signal that electronic images can't convey, and that's Rama's bewildering scale.He had never felt like this before landing on other natural objects like the moon or Mars.They are worlds, and one naturally expects them to be enormous.Although he also landed on the eighth moon of Mercury-it is slightly larger than Rama, and it is a small celestial body. This seemingly strange idea is easy to understand.But human judgment is turned upside down when confronted with a man-made object millions of times heavier than anything humans have ever put into space.Rama has a mass of at least 10 billion tons, which is a frightening thought for any astronaut.No wonder he felt small and oppressed as the cylinder of that ancient metal sculpture filled more and more of the sky.

At the same time, there was a premonition of danger which was entirely foreign to his experience.Every time he'd landed before that, he'd known there would be a surprise, but it had never been a surprise.As for Rama, what he will encounter will surely be nothing but surprises. The Endeavor spacecraft is now hovering less than a kilometer above the north pole of the cylinder—the center of a slowly rotating disk.This end was chosen because it is on the sunlit side.As Rama rotated, the shadows of several short structures near the axis steadily swept across the metal ground plane.Rama's northern face seemed to be a giant sundial, counting each of its four-minute days.

Landing a 5,000-ton spacecraft in the center of a rotating disk was nothing to Newton, not much different from landing on a large space station.Endeavor's side jets had given it a synchronized spin, and he had full confidence in his Captain Joe Cafu to land the ship as smoothly as a snowflake, with or without the navigation computer. "In three minutes," Joe Cafu said, looking at the video screen, "we'll find out if Rama was made of it." Newton smiled, remembering all the creepier theories about Rama's composition.If Rama were indeed made of antimatter, within a few minutes there would be one of the largest explosions ever recorded. The annihilation of 100,000 tons of matter will cause a second sun to appear in the solar system.

However, steps have been taken to rule out even this remote possibility.Endeavor was thousands of kilometers away safe enough to spy on Rama with its jets, and when the jets reached their target, there was no matter-antimatter interaction; if anything, even if only a few Milligram amounts also show surprising bursting phenomena. Newton, like all space captains, was a cautious man.He had carefully observed the preselected landing site on Rama.After thinking about it, he decided to avoid the key point - the exact center point on the axis.In the middle of the disk there is a clear boundary coil with a diameter of 100 meters.He believed it was the outer shell of a huge gas chamber.The creatures who create this hollow world will also need access to their own spaceships.Here is the logical place for this huge portal.It would be unwise, he thought, to barricade someone's door with his own spaceship.

But this decision caused another problem. If Endeavor were parked a few meters away from the axis, Rama's rapid rotation could cause it to slide outward from the pole.At first, this centrifugal force is weak, but it gradually increases to an unbearable level.Newton could not rule out the possibility that his spaceship was gliding above the polar horizon and accelerating minute by minute until it was flung into space at 1,000 kilometers an hour at the edge of the disk. It's also possible that the tinyness of Rama's gravitational field -- about one-thousandth that of Earth -- prevented this from happening.The gravitational field will hold Endeavor with a force of several kilograms.If the surface of the disc is rough, the spacecraft may also stop near the pole.But Newton was unwilling to gamble on the centrifugal force that must exist with the unsure friction force.

Fortunately, Rama's designers have provided an answer. There are three low post-box-like structures at the same distance around the pole, each 10 meters in diameter.If the Endeavor was hitched to one of them, it would be firmly fixed in one place, like a ship being pushed against a pier by a rising tide. "Landing in 15 seconds," Cafu said. Newton tensed himself against the second set of controls.This set of controls he hoped he wouldn't have to touch.He began to really realize that everything that was going to happen was concentrated in this moment.It's sure to be the most significant landing on the moon since humans first landed on the moon a century and a half ago.

Those postbox-like structures floated up slowly outside the porthole of the control cabin.There followed the final hiss of the reaction jet and a barely perceivable jolt. Captain Newton had spent the past few weeks wondering what he should say at this moment, but it was up to him now.History chose what he said.He almost blurted it out, without realizing it was an echo from the past: "Lama Base, Endeavor has landed." For nearly a month, he hadn't believed it was possible.When the order came, the spacecraft was on a regular mission—a patrol flight to check for asteroid warning signals.Endeavor is the only spacecraft in space capable of rendezvousing with the invaders before they sweep past the sun and return to interstellar space.Even so, it would have to snatch all the fuel from three other Space Mapping spacecraft, leaving them adrift helplessly until they could be refueled.Newton feared that the captains of the Folk Song, the Beagle and the Defiant would not speak to him for a long time!

Even with the extra propellant, it's been a long and arduous chase.When Endeavor caught up with Rama, it was already in orbit around Venus; no other spacecraft could do this, the privilege was unique, and not a second was wasted in the next few weeks. Thousands of scientists across the planet are willing to stake their souls for this opportunity.But now, they could only bite their lips and look at the TV, wondering how he would do this better.They may be right, but things cannot be changed.The iron laws of interstellar mechanics dictate that Endeavor be the first and last of all human ships to reach Rama.

The various suggestions that were constantly being received from Earth did not relieve Newton much of the responsibility.When decisions need to be made in fractions of a second, no one can help him.It already takes ten minutes for the telegram sent from the headquarters to reach here, and this time is still increasing.He always envied those navigators before the age of electronic communication, who could understand the sealed instructions without the supervision of the headquarters.When they make a bad decision, no one will know. But at the same time, he was happy that some of the decisions could be made by Earth.Now, Endeavor's orbit has merged with Rama's orbit, pointing directly at the sun.In 40 days, they will reach perihelion and circle the sun at a distance of 20 million kilometers.It was so comfortable to be so close.Long before that, Endeavor will use its remaining fuel to detach itself into a safer orbit.The expedition may have three weeks to explore Rama before leaving it for good.After that, it will be the problem of the earth.Endeavor would then do nothing to become the first spacecraft to travel to interstellar orbit in about 50,000 years.However, this was nothing to worry about. Headquarters had promised to refuel Endeavor no matter what the cost, even if it had to launch fuel tanks specially for this purpose and dump them in space after transferring the last drop of propellant.Rama is a reward worth any risk, as long as it's not a suicidal quest.

But Captain Newton had no illusions about this.This is a completely uncertain event that has entered human life for a hundred years.And neither a scientist nor a statesman can bear to be uncertain.There has to be a price to pay to figure it out.Endeavor and its crew were likely victims. ----------------------------- Notes: