Rendezvous With Rama - Arthur C. Clarke [74]
And then, to her obvious delight, she got her eagerly desired specimen. Hub Control reported that a spider had fallen down the vertical face and was lying, dead or incapacitated, on the first platform. Laura's time up from the plain was a record that would never be beaten.
When she arrived at the platform, she found that, despite the low velocity of impact, the creature had broken all its legs. Its eyes were still open, but it showed no reactions to any external tests. Even a fresh human corpse would have been livelier, Laura decided; as soon as she got her prize back to Endeavour, she started to work with her dissecting kit.
The spider was so fragile that it almost came to pieces without her assistance. She disarticulated the legs, then started on the delicate carapace, which split along three great circles and opened up like a peeled orange.
After some moments of blank incredulity—for there was nothing that she could recognize or identify—she took a series of careful photographs. Then she picked up her scalpel.
Where to start cutting? She felt like closing her eyes, and stabbing at random, but that would not have been very scientific.
The blade went in with practically no resistance. A second later, Surgeon-Commander Ernst's most unladylike yell echoed the length and breadth of Endeavour.
It took an annoyed Sergeant McAndrews a good twenty minutes to calm down the startled simps.
34
His Excellency Regrets . . .
'As you are all aware, gentlemen,' said the Martian Ambassador, 'a great deal has happened since our last meeting. We have much to discuss—and to decide. I'm therefore particularly sorry that our distinguished colleague from Mercury is not here.'
That last statement was not altogether accurate. Dr. Bose was not particularly sorry that HE the Hermian Ambassador was absent. It would have been much more truthful to say that he was worried. All his diplomatic instincts told him that something was happening, and though his sources of information were excellent, he could gather no hints as to what it might be.
The Ambassador's letter of apology had been courteous and entirely uncommunicative. His Excellency had regretted that urgent and unavoidable business had kept him from attending the meeting, either in person or by video. Dr. Bose found it very hard to think of anything more urgent—or more important—than Rama.
'Two of our members have statements to make. I would first like to call on Professor Davidson.'
There was a rustle of excitement among the other scientists on the Committee. Most of them had felt that the astronomer, with his well-known cosmic viewpoint, was not the right man to be Chairman of the Space Advisory Council. He sometimes gave the impression that the activities of intelligent life were an unfortunate irrelevance in the majestic universe of stars and galaxies, and that it was bad manners to pay too much attention to it. This had not endeared him to exobiologists such as Dr. Perera, who took exactly the opposite view. To them, the only purpose of the Universe was the production of intelligence, and they were apt to talk sneeringly about purely astronomical phenomena. 'Mere dead matter' was one of their favourite phrases.
'Mr. Ambassador,' the scientist began, 'I have been analysing the curious behaviour of Rama during the last few days, and would like to present my conclusions. Some of them are rather startling.'
Dr. Perera looked surprised, then rather smug. He strongly approved of anything that startled Professor Davidson.
'First of all, there was the remarkable series of events when that young lieutenant flew over to the Southern hemisphere. The electrical discharges themselves, though spectacular, are not important; it is easy to show that they contained relatively little energy. But they coincided with a change in Rama's rate of spin, and its attitude—that is, its orientation in