Rendezvous With Rama - Arthur C. Clarke [85]
Rodrigo looked back only once when he had left the ship; he saw that, as planned, it had lifted from the central axis and was thrusting gently away across the spinning disc of the North Face. By the time he reached the bomb, it would have placed the thickness of Rama between them.
He took his time, flying over the polar plain. There was no hurry here, because the bomb's cameras could not yet see him, and he could therefore conserve fuel. Then he drifted over the curving rim of the world—and there was the missile, glittering in sunlight fiercer even than that shining on the planet of its birth.
Rodrigo had already punched in the guidance instructions. He initiated the sequence; the scooter spun on its gyros, and came up to full thrust in a matter of seconds. At first the sensation of weight seemed crushing; then Rodrigo adjusted to it. He had, after all, comfortably endured twice as much inside Rama—and had been born under three times as much on Earth.
The huge, curving exterior wall of the fifty-kilometre cylinder was slowly falling away beneath him as the scooter aimed itself directly at the bomb. Yet it was impossible to judge Rama's size, since it was completely smooth and featureless—so featureless, indeed, that it was difficult to tell that it was spinning.
One hundred seconds into the mission; he was approaching the halfway point. The bomb was still too far away to show any details, but it was much brighter against the jet-black sky. It was strange to see no stars—not even brilliant Earth or dazzling Venus; the dark filters which protected his eyes against the deadly glare made that impossible. Rodrigo guessed that he was breaking a record; probably no other man had ever engaged in extra-vehicular work so close to the sun. It was lucky for him that solar activity was low.
At two minutes ten seconds the flip-over light started flashing, thrust dropped to zero, and the scooter spun through 180 degrees. Full thrust was back in an instant, but now he was decelerating at the same mad rate of three metres per second squared—rather better than that, in fact, since he had lost almost half his propellant mass. The bomb was twenty-five kilometres away; he would be there in another two minutes. He had hit a top speed of fifteen hundred kilometres an hour—which, for a space scooter, was utter insanity, and probably another record. But this was hardly a routine EVA, and he knew precisely what he was doing.
The bomb was growing; and now he could see the main antenna, holding steady on the invisible star of Mercury. Along that beam, the image of his approaching scooter had been flashing at the speed of light for the last three minutes. There were still two to go, before it reached Mercury.
What would the Hermians do, when they saw him? There would be consternation, of course; they would realize instantly that he had made a rendezvous with the bomb several minutes before they even knew he was on the way. Probably some stand-by observer would call higher authority—that would take more time. But even in the worst possible case—even if the officer on duty had authority to detonate the bomb, and pressed the button immediately—it would take another five minutes for the signal to arrive.
Though Rodrigo was not gambling on it—Cosmo-Christers never gambled—he was quite sure that there would be no such instantaneous reaction. The Hermians would hesitate to destroy a reconnaissance vehicle from Endeavour, even if they suspected its motives. They would certainly attempt some form of communication first—and that would mean more delay.
And there was an even better reason; they would not waste a gigaton bomb on a mere scooter. Wasted it would be, if it was detonated twenty kilometres from its target. They would have