Rendezvous With Rama - Arthur C. Clarke [62]
Winding down the interior of the well was a spiral ramp, completely recessed into the sheer wall, so that the effect was rather like that of rifling in an immense gun barrel. There seemed to be a remarkable number of turns; not until Jimmy had traced them for several revolutions, getting more and more confused in the process, did he realize that there was not one ramp but three, totally independent and 120 degrees apart. In any other background than Rama, the whole concept would have been an impressive architectural tour de force.
The three ramps led straight down into the pool and disappeared beneath its opaque surface. Near the waterline Jimmy could see a group of black tunnels or caves; they looked rather sinister, and he wondered if they were inhabited. Perhaps the Ramans were amphibious . . .
As the crab approached the edge of the well, Jimmy assumed that it was going to descend one of the ramps—perhaps taking the wreckage of Dragonfly to some entity who would be able to evaluate it. Instead, the creature walked straight to the brink, extended almost half its body over the gulf without any sign of hesitation—though an error of a few centimetres would have been disastrous—and gave a brisk shrug. The fragments of Dragonfly went fluttering down into the depths; there were tears in Jimmy's eyes as he watched them go. So much, he thought bitterly, for this creature's intelligence.
Having disposed of the garbage, the crab swung around and started to walk towards Jimmy, standing only about ten metres away. Am I going to get the same treatment? he wondered. He hoped the camera was not too unsteady as he showed Hub Control the rapidly approaching monster. 'What do you advise?' he whispered anxiously, without much hope that he would get a useful answer. It was some small consolation to realize that he was making history, and his mind raced through the approved patterns for such a meeting. Until now, all of these had been purely theoretical. He would be the first man to check them in practice.
'Don't run until you're sure it's hostile', Hub Control whispered back at him. Run where? Jimmy asked himself. He thought he could outdistance the thing in a hundred metre sprint, but had a sick certainty that it could wear him down over the long haul.
Slowly, Jimmy held up his outstretched hands. Men had been arguing for two hundred years about this gesture; would every creature, everywhere in the universe, interpret this as 'See no weapons?' But no one could think of anything better.
The crab showed no reaction whatsoever, nor did it slacken its pace. Ignoring Jimmy completely, it walked straight past him and headed purposefully into the south. Feeling extremely foolish, the acting representative of Homo sapiens watched his First Contact stride away across the Raman plain, totally indifferent to his presence. He had seldom been so humiliated in his life. Then Jimmy's sense of humour came to his rescue. After all, it was no great matter to have been ignored by an animated garbage truck. It would have been worse if it had greeted him as a long-lost brother . . .
He walked back to the rim of Copernicus, and stared down into its opaque waters. For the first time, he noticed that vague shapes—some of them quite large—were moving slowly back and forth beneath the surface. Presently one of them headed towards the nearest spiral ramp, and something that looked like a multi-legged tank started on the long ascent. At the rate it was going, Jimmy decided, it would take almost an hour to get here; if it was a threat, it was a very slow-moving one. Then he noticed a flicker of much more rapid movement, near those cave-like openings down by the waterline.
Something was travelling very swiftly along the ramp, but he could not focus clearly upon it, or discern any definite shape. It was as if he was looking at a small whirlwind or 'dust-devil', about the size of a man . . .
He blinked and shook his head, keeping his eyes closed for several seconds. When he opened them again, the apparition was gone.
Perhaps