Chapter 44 Chapter 44 Space Drive

Newton determined that 100 kilometers was an appropriate limit for a safe distance.Viewed from the side, Rama is now a large rectangular block that completely blocks the sun.He took advantage of this opportunity to fly Endeavor in the shadows, which would save the energy used to cool the system and give the ship more maneuverability.Rama's umbrella of shadows could be lost at any moment, and he intends to use it as much as possible. Rama is still turning, almost 15° by now, and some change in the main track may be imminent.Agitation had reached hysterical proportions at United Planetary Headquarters, but it echoed only faintly aboard Endeavor.Everyone is exhausted.Except for the most necessary shifts, everyone slept for 12 hours after leaving the Arctic base.According to the doctor's orders, Newton himself used electro-valium, but even so, he still climbed the endless ladder in his dream.

On the second day, everything returned to normal, and the investigation of Rama seemed like a lifetime ago.Newton began to work through the backlog of official papers and set out to plan for the future, but he denied access to the television reporters who managed to get past the Bureau of Surveying and Mapping and even the space guards.Mercury has not yet sent a message, and the general assembly of the United Planets has temporarily adjourned, but it is ready to call immediately within one hour of notice. Thirty hours after leaving Rama, Newton was getting his first good night's sleep when he was shaken awake.He muttered in annoyance, and opened his eyes to see that it was Messer.At once he was wide awake, like a good captain.

"Is it not spinning?" Newton asked. "Yes, straight as an arrow." "Let's go to the bridge." The whole ship woke up, and even the monkeys seemed restless knowing something was wrong.Until McAndrews reassured them with a quick gesture.Newton got into his seat and buckled up his seat belt, thinking, this can't be another faux pas. Now Rama has changed from rectangular to oblique cylindrical, with the sun's hot halo peeking out from its edges.Newton deftly steered Endeavor back into the man-made eclipse's umbrella, and the corona's glow reappeared against a background of bright stars.There is a large prominence, at least 500,000 kilometers long, high above the sun, the upper part of which looks like a fiery tree.

Now we have to wait, Newton thought, and the main thing is not to get bored, to be ready for emergency action, to have all instruments calibrated, and to keep recording, no matter how long it takes. really weird!The whole star field was spinning, as if he had activated the ship's roll thrusters.But he hadn't touched any of the controls, and he would have felt it right away if it had turned. "Captain!" Cafu said hastily from his navigating position, "we're rolling, look at the stars! But I can't get any readings from the instruments!" "How is the gyroscope working?"

"Perfectly normal. Tremor equals zero. But we're flipping several degrees every second!" "That's impossible!" "Of course, but see for yourself." When all other means fail, one must rely on one's own eyes.Newton could not suspect that the star field was slowly turning.Sirius glides by on the starboard side.Either the universe is suddenly revolving around Endeavor according to the celestial theory before Copernicus, or the stars are not moving, but the spacecraft is revolving. The second possibility seems more likely, but still involves the fallacy of impossibility.If the ship was rolling, he'd always feel it, and all the gyroscopes wouldn't go down all at once.

There is only one answer left.Every atom on Endeavor is grabbed by some kind of force, because only a strong gravitational field can produce this effect.At least no other known force field can. Suddenly, the stars disappeared again.The sun's dazzling disc emerged from behind Rama's veil, driving the stars out of the sky. "Can you get a radar reading? What is it?" Newton thought the instrument would not work either, but he was wrong.It was showing him that Rama was finally on his way, accelerating with a tiny 0.015 g.Perilla must be happy about that, Newton thought. He expected a maximum of 0.02, and Endeavor was like a piece of wreck floating behind a speeding ship.

Hour after hour passed, and Rama's acceleration continued.Its speed gradually increased, pulling Endeavor farther and farther away.As the distance increases, the abnormal behavior of the spaceship gradually disappears, and the normal law resumes.They could only roughly guess the energy from Rama's force just now, and its black whip swept them slightly.Newton was lucky to keep a safe distance before Rama switched drives.As to the nature of this propulsion, although mysterious, one thing is certain: there was neither ejection of gas nor thrust of ions or plasma beams as Rama entered its new orbit.No one said it better than Staff Sergeant Myron in his amazement: "Newton's third law is over."

But Endeavor relied on Newton's third law the next day anyway, using its last bit of fuel to bend its orbit away from the sun.The change is small, but still enough to increase the perihelion of Endeavor's orbit by 10 million kilometers.This keeps the ship just short of being roasted to death. When they completed the adjustment of the space orbit, Rama was already 200,000 kilometers away.It is difficult to see against the sun's blinding light, but precise radar measurements of its orbit can still be obtained.The more they watched, the more bewildered they became. They check the measured figures over and over again until they are convinced that the conclusion is infallible.It seems that the worries of the Mercury people, Rodrigo's heroism, and the rhetoric of the General Assembly are all in vain.

The universe is unselfish, and as he looked at the final data, Newton thought, if Rama had been safely navigated for a million years, its computer had made a glitch—maybe inverting the signs on both sides of the equation up. Everyone originally thought that Rama would slow down and be captured by the sun's gravity, thus becoming a new planet in the solar system.But now it does the exact opposite. It's speeding up for the worst.Rama fell towards the sun at an even faster rate. ----------------------------- Notes: