Chapter 26 Chapter 26 The Voice of Rama

It wasn't until he flew to the shore of the Sea of ​​Columns that Jimmy Peck really realized the difficulty of this expedition.Before that, he was above known land, and in case something happened, he could land and walk back to base in a few hours. This retreat is no longer available.He would fall into the sea and drown in the poisoned water.Even if he manages to land safely on the Southern Continent, there may not be a way to retrieve him before Endeavor is forced out of Rama's orbit. There was another thing that hadn't occurred to me before: he was flying over that completely unknown area, which could cause all kinds of accidents.What if something flying stopped his invasion?His slender thing was no match for anything bigger than a pigeon.

But without danger, there is no achievement, and the fun of adventure is lost.Millions would have gladly traded for his position today.He will be the only human being who has ever visited the southern region of Rama throughout history.Whenever he felt scared, he reminded himself of it. He is now able to maneuver freely, flying at a distance of 2,000 meters from the central axis, the ground is 6,000 meters below, and the sky is 10,000 meters above his head.The City of London was hanging upside down from the sky, and New York was directly ahead below. "Flying Dragon," the hub post called, "you are flying too low, 2,200 meters off the axis."

"Thanks," he replied, "I'm ascending now. Please let me know when I get back to 2,000 meters." This is exactly one thing he should pay attention to.There is a natural tendency to lose altitude, and he has no instrument to tell him exactly where he is.If he strays too far from the zero-gravity zone of the axis, he may never climb back.Fortunately, there was a wide margin for this error, and besides, there was always someone watching his progress with a telescope from the hub post. He had already flown a long way over the sea, pedaling steadily at a speed of 20 kilometers per hour. In five minutes he'll be over New York.The island now looked very much like a ship sailing forever, week after week, in the Cylindrical Sea.

Once he was over New York, he flew in a circle, stopping several times to send back steady images from a small television camera.The full shots of those buildings, towers, factories, power plants—or whatever they are—are spectacular, but they don't really make much sense.No matter how long he stared at such a complicated combination, he still couldn't understand anything.The camera recorded more and more useful details than he could, and maybe someday, after many years, a certain student would be able to find the key to Rama's secret in these videos. After leaving New York, he crossed that half of the sea in just 15 minutes.Although he didn't realize it, he unconsciously flew much faster over the water, but when he reached the sky over the south bank, he subconsciously relaxed again, and his speed dropped to several thousand meters per hour.Because after all, it is already above the land.

As soon as he flew over the big cliff at the end of Hainan, he swept the TV camera around the whole world for a week. "Beautiful!" said the Hubwhistle. "It will delight the Cartographers. How do you feel?" "I'm fine - just a little tired, but better than I expected. How far am I from Antarctica?" "15.6 kilometers." "Please tell me when I reach 10 kilometers, I will take a rest, and please be careful not to fly too low again, I have to climb and fly for the remaining 5,000 meters." After 20 minutes, he had come to the end of the cylindrical section and began to enter the southern arch.

He had studied the South Pole with a telescope for hours on the other side of Rama, and had its entire topography in mind.But now he is still not psychologically prepared for the scene around him. The north and south ends of Rama are completely different.There were no ladders of thirds, no tiers of narrow circular platforms, no curved surfaces that slid down to the plain.What replaced these was a huge pointed cone more than 5,000 meters long, sticking out along the central axis.There are six more half as big as it, distributed in equal parts around it.The cones look like symmetrical clusters of stalactites hanging from the ceiling of a cave, or, conversely, like the spiers of a Cambodian temple.

If these slender pinnacles are connected, and merged with the cylindrical plain, there are strong and solid corners, strong enough to bear the weight of the whole world.This is likely to be the envisioned outer space drive. Jimmy approached the central cone carefully, and stopped pedaling a hundred meters away, allowing the "Flying Dragon" to stop in the air.He tested the radiation value here, and the result was nothing special.There may be some force at work, but one that cannot be measured by human instruments, and that is another unavoidable risk. "Can you see anything?" the hub post asked anxiously.

"Just a big bull's horn. Absolutely smooth, without markings, and the point was as sharp as a needle. I hardly dared to go near it." He was only half joking.It is unimaginable that such a huge thing can have such a complete and sharp point.This reminded Jimmy of those insect specimens that were stabbed on the tip of a needle.He and the Wyvern did not want this fate. He stepped over it slowly, and stopped until the sharp cone expanded to a diameter of several meters.He catapulted the cone with a catapult with a string, and then reeled up the string as if fishing, and the Dragon was dragged slowly until he could reach it with his hands. A pointed cone named the Great Horn.

He reported to the hub post: "It feels like glass, almost no friction, and a little warm. Now I suck the microphone firmly...Connect the plug lead...Did you get anything there?" It was a moment before the hub post replied in disappointment, "Nothing but thermal noise. Can you bang it with something metal? Let's see if it's hollow." "OK. What now?" "We want you to fly along the big corner, scan every 500 meters, and see if there are any abnormalities. Then, if you are sure to fly back to the zero center of gravity area, you can go to a small corner to have a look."

"It's 3,000 meters away from the axis, and the gravitational force is slightly stronger than that of the moon. Let me work harder!" "Jimmy, this is the captain talking. I thought about it again. From the images you took back, those small cones are exactly the same as the big ones. You can take a full image of them with a zoom lens. I don't want to You leave low gravity—unless you find something important. We'll talk then." "Okay, Captain!" Jimmy said with a sigh of relief, "Then I'll stay near the big horn, and we're on our way again."

He flew forward, and now the big horn was 1,000 meters above his head, surrounded by six small horns.The closer he got to the South Pole, the more he felt like a tiny sparrow flying under the dome of a gigantic Catholic church.Maybe this really is a shrine of some kind of religion?But he quickly dismissed the idea.In Rama, there is nothing about artistic expression, everything is purely functional.Or the Rama people think that they have glimpsed the secret of the universe and don't need to rely on gods like humans? The thought made him shudder, the feeling was foreign to him, he had never been a philosophical type.Feeling an urgent need for human contact, he reported his surroundings to his distant friends. "Again," replied the Wyvern hub post, "we can't hear you well, your communication is choppy." "I repeat - I'm near the base of the small horn six, and I'm pulling it with the thrower." "Only part of it. Can you hear me?" "Clear, repeat, very clear." "Please count the numbers." "1, 2, 3, 4..." "Only part of it is heard. Send us a fixed frequency signal for 15 seconds, and then talk." "Here we come." Jimmy flipped on the switch to send a low-power signal, counted the time, and then asked patiently, "How? Can you hear me this time?" It seemed that the hub post still couldn't hear clearly, because the post asked him to send back a 15-second TV signal to try again.It was not called through until Jimmy asked twice. "Glad you could hear us, Jimmy. But there's something weird on your end. Listen." The familiar whistle of the fixed-frequency signal he'd sent back over the radio started off normal and then mixed in with a weird distortion.That 1,000 signal is modulated into a muffled pulse.Then this low-frequency sound is re-modulated again, one high and one low, one high and one low, and the change period is about five seconds. I don't know what happened to the hub post, but I have an idea. "We think you must be in some kind of very strong field, perhaps a magnetic field, with a frequency of about ten cycles, which may be dangerous. You are advised to leave immediately, it may only be localized. Turn on your signal switch , and we'll send it back to you right away. That way you'll know when and where you can get away from distractions. Jimmy quickly untied the thrower, turned sharply and flew the "dragon" away, while listening to the radio waves from the earphones.After flying a few meters away, he already felt that the intensity of the field interference weakened rapidly.As hub whistle estimated, it was localized. He paused for a moment on the edge of the palpable beat frequency, when the sound was as feeble as the pulsation of his own cerebral vessels.It was clearly a slight leak of giant-like energy, it was well controlled, waiting for its time to come. Whatever the sound meant, Jimmy thought it best to get out as soon as possible.Among the oppressive eccentric buildings of the Antarctic, this is not the place to be alone listening to Rama's voice.