Rendezvous With Rama - Arthur C. Clarke [31]
'Is that safe?' Rodrigo called down, with a trace of anxiety.
'Believe me, Boris,' she answered, 'if there are any pathogens around here that have slipped through my detectors, our insurance policies lapsed a week ago.'
But Boris had a point. Despite all the tests that had been carried out, there was a very slight risk that this substance might be poisonous, or might carry some unknown disease. In normal circumstances, Dr. Ernst would not have taken even this minuscule chance. Now, however, time was short and the stakes were enormous. If it became necessary to quarantine Endeavour, that would be a very small price to pay for her cargo of knowledge.
'It's water, but I wouldn't care to drink it—it smells like an algae culture that's gone bad. I can hardly wait to get it to the lab.'
'Is the ice safe to walk on?'
'Yes, solid as a rock.'
'Then we can get to New York.'
'Can we, Pieter? Have you ever tried to walk across four kilometres of ice?'
'Oh—I see what you mean. Just imagine what Stores would say, if we asked for a set of skates! Not that many of us would know how to use them, even if we had any aboard.'
'And there's another problem,' put in Boris Rodrigo. 'Do you realize that the temperature is already above freezing? Before long, that ice is going to melt. How many spacemen can swim four kilometres? Certainly not this one . . .'
Dr. Ernst rejoined them at the edge of the cliff, and held up the small sample bottle in triumph.
'It's a long walk for a few cc's of dirty water, but it may teach us more about Rama than anything we've found so far. Let's head for home.'
They turned towards the distant lights of the Hub, moving with the gentle, loping strides which had proved the most comfortable means of walking under this reduced gravity. Often they looked back, drawn by the hidden enigma of the island out there in the centre of the frozen sea. And just once, Dr. Ernst thought she felt the faint suspicion of a breeze against her cheek. It did not come again, and she quickly forgot all about it.
16
Kealakekua
'As you know perfectly well, Dr. Perera,' said Ambassador Bose in a tone of patient resignation, 'few of us share your knowledge of mathematical meteorology. So please take pity on our ignorance.'
'With pleasure,' answered the exobiologist, quite unabashed. 'I can explain it best by telling you what is going to happen inside Rama—very soon.'
'The temperature is now about to rise, as the solar heat pulse reaches the interior. According to the latest information I've received, it's already above freezing point. The Cylindrical Sea will soon start to thaw; and unlike bodies of water on Earth, it will melt from the bottom upwards. That may produce some odd effects but I'm much more concerned with the atmosphere.'
'As it's heated, the air inside Rama will expand—and will attempt to rise towards the central axis. And this is the problem. At ground level, although it's apparently stationary, it's actually sharing the spin of Rama—over eight hundred kilometres an hour. As it rises towards the axis it will try to retain that speed—and it won't be able to do so, of course. The result will be violent winds and turbulence; I estimate velocities of between two and three hundred kilometres an hour.'
'Incidentally, very much the same thing occurs on Earth. The heated air at the Equator—which shares the Earth's sixteen-hundred-kilometres-an-hour spin—runs into the same problem when it rises and flows north and south.'
'Ah, the Trade Winds! I remember that from my geography lessons.'
'Exactly, Sir Robert. Rama will have Trade Winds, with a vengeance. I believe they'll last only a few hours, and then some kind of equilibrium will be restored. Meanwhile, I should advise Commander Norton to evacuate—as soon as possible. Here is the message I propose sending.'
With a little imagination, Commander Norton told himself,