Chapter 23 Chapter 23 New York

This is not a city, but a machine, Newton concluded within ten minutes.He saw no reason to change his opinion when they had crossed the island.A city, whatever its inhabitants, must provide some kind of accommodation, and here there are none, except underground.But if so, where is the entrance, ladder or lift?There isn't even what could be considered a door. Among the places he had seen, the closest to this situation was a large chemical plant on earth.But there is neither a raw material storage yard nor anything that could be considered a raw material transportation system.He could not imagine how its finished product would be shipped, let alone what it would produce.

"Who cares to offer a guess?" he asked at last to all who listened. "If this is a factory, what does it make? Where does it come from?" "I have an idea, Captain," said Messer on the other side. "Maybe it uses seawater as a raw material. According to the doctor, seawater contains almost everything you can think of." "That's a good guess, Carl. But what does New York make out of sea water?" After a long time, there was no answer from the spaceship, the hub, or the northern plains.Then, an unexpected voice spoke up. "That's easy, Captain. But you'll laugh at me."

"We won't, go ahead, Ravi." Lavie McAndrews, purser and monkey's steward, was the last person aboard Endeavor to get involved in technical discussions.He has an average IQ (intelligence quotient) and less scientific knowledge, but he is by no means stupid and has a shrewdness that everyone respects. "Well, it's a factory, that's right, Captain, and maybe seawater is what it's made of. It's done on Earth, but in a different form... I believe New York is a factory, and it makes... Rama people." Someone snickered there, but fell silent quickly, and didn't say who he was.

"You know, Ravi," said his captain at last, "that theory is as crazy as reality is, and I don't want to see it put to the test—at least not until I get back to the Northland." This paradise New York is about the width of the island of Manhattan, but the geometry is completely different.There are few straight thoroughfares here, and short passages are connected like a maze.Luckily there is no way to lose your way in Ramari, you can tell north and south just by looking at the sky. They took panoramic stereo cameras at every intersection.These hundreds of photos will be sorted.It's tedious work, but it accurately shows the scale and model of the city.Newton thought it would take generations of scientists to solve this mystery.

The silence here is harder to get used to than on the plains of Rama.A city or a machine has to have a sound, and here there was not even the hum of electricity or the faintest sound of mechanical motion.Several times Newton pressed his ear to the ground and the wall, but could hear nothing but his own pulse. The machine is still asleep and hasn't ticked yet.Will they wake up?And for what purpose?Everything is in a perfect state, as long as a hidden computer is connected to a circuit, the entire maze will wake up. When they finally reached the other end of the island, they watched from a distance the other half of Rama, which was blocked by the 500-meter overhang, the more complex and varied half.From this angle it was ominous and forbidden black, and it was easy to imagine a prison wall surrounding the land there, with no steps or any other exits along its entire circumference.

Newton thought, how did the Rama people get from New York to the southern continent?underwater tunnel?aircraft?The city has a lot of open space for landing.It would be a great achievement to discover one of Rama's vehicles, especially if one can learn to maneuver it.There are quite a few structures that look like hangers and garages, but they are all sealed and don't even have windows.Sooner or later, Newton thought, we would be forced to use blasting or lasers.He decided to leave the matter for last consideration. His reluctance to use these extreme methods was partly out of pride and partly out of fear.He didn't want him to behave like a technical slob who smashed something he didn't understand, and they were uninvited guests after all, so they had to behave a little better.

As for fear, maybe the word is used too much, and it would be more appropriate to say worry.These Rama people seem to have everything planned very well.He was not in a hurry to find out what defenses they had taken to protect the property.When I came to New York this time, I had to go back empty-handed.