Rendezvous With Rama - Arthur C. Clarke [48]
'If you have to swim for it,' Dr. Ernst had warned the mariners, 'keep your mouths closed. A few drops won't matter—if you spit them out right away. But all those weird organo-metallic salts add up to a fairly poisonous package, and I'd hate to have to work out an antidote.' This danger, fortunately, seemed very unlikely. Resolution could stay afloat if any two of her buoyancy tanks were punctured. (When told of this, Joe Calvert had muttered darkly: 'Remember the Titanic!') And even if she sank, the crude but efficient life jackets would keep their heads above, water. Although Laura had been reluctant to give a firm ruling on this, she did not think that a few hours' immersion in the Sea would be fatal; but she did not recommend it. After twenty minutes of steady progress New York was no longer a distant island. It was becoming a real place, and details which they had seen only through telescopes and photo-enlargements were now revealing themselves as massive, solid structures. It was now strikingly apparent that the 'city', like so much of Rama, was triplicated; it consisted of three identical, circular complexes or superstructures, rising from a long, oval foundation. Photographs taken from the Hub also indicated that each complex was itself divided into three equal components, like a pie sliced into 120-degree portions. This would greatly simplify the task of exploration; presumably they had to examine only one ninth of New York to have seen the whole of it. Even this would be a formidable undertaking; it would mean investigating at least a square kilometre of buildings and machinery, some of which towered hundreds of metres into the air.
The Ramans, it seemed, had brought the art of triple redundancy to a high degree of perfection. This was demonstrated in the airlock system, the stairways at the Hub, the artificial suns. And where it really mattered, they had even taken the next step. New York appeared to be an example of triple-triple redundancy.
Ruby was steering Resolution towards the central complex, where a flight of steps led up from the water to the very top of the wall or levee which surrounded the island. There was even a conveniently-placed mooring post to which boats could be tied; when she saw this, Ruby became quite excited. Now she would never be content until she found one of the craft in which the Ramans sailed their extraordinary sea. Norton was the first to step ashore; he looked back at his three companions and said: 'Wait here on the boat until I get to the top of the wall. When I wave, Pieter and Boris will join me. You stay at the helm, Ruby, so that we can cast off at a moment's notice. If anything happens to me, report to Karl and follow his instructions. Use your best judgement—but no heroics. Understood?'
'Yes, Skipper. Good luck!'
Commander Norton did not really believe in luck; he never got into a situation until he had analysed all the factors involved and had secured his line of retreat. But once again Rama was forcing him to break some of his cherished rules. Almost every factor here was unknown—as unknown as the Pacific and the Great Barrier Reef had been to his hero, three and a half centuries ago . . . Yes, he could do with all the luck that happened to be lying around. The stairway was a virtual duplicate of the one down which they had descended on the other side of the Sea; doubtless his friends over there were looking straight across at him through their telescopes. And 'straight' was now the correct word; in this one direction, parallel to the axis of Rama, the Sea was indeed completely flat. It might well be the only body of water in the universe of which this was true, for on all other worlds every sea or lake must follow the surface of a sphere, with equal curvature in all directions.
'Nearly at the top,' he reported, speaking for the record and for his intently listening second-in-command, five kilometres away, still completely quiet—radiation normal. I'm holding the