Rendezvous With Rama - Arthur C. Clarke [86]
He would act as if the triggering impulse would arrive in the shortest possible time—just five minutes.
As the scooter closed in across the last few hundred metres, Rodrigo quickly matched the details he could now see with those he had studied in the photographs taken at long range. What had been only a collection of pictures became hard metal and smooth plastic—no longer abstract, but a deadly reality.
The bomb was a cylinder about ten metres long and three in diameter—by a strange coincidence, almost the same proportions as Rama itself. It was attached to the framework of the carrier vehicle by an open latticework of short I-beams. For some reason, probably to do with the location of the centre of mass, it was supported at right angles to the axis of the carrier, so that it conveyed an appropriately sinister hammerhead impression. It was indeed a hammer, one powerful enough to smash a world.
From each end of the bomb, a bundle of braided cables ran along the cylindrical side and disappeared through the latticework into the interior of the vehicle. All communication and control was here; there was no antenna of any kind on the bomb itself. Rodrigo had only to cut those two sets of cables and there would be nothing here but harmless, inert metal.
Although this was exactly what he had expected, it still seemed a little too easy. He glanced at his watch; it would be another thirty seconds before the Hermians, even if they had been watching when he rounded the edge of Rama, could know of his existence. He had an absolutely certain five minutes for uninterrupted work—and a ninety-nine per cent probability of much longer than that.
As soon as the scooter had drifted to a complete halt, Rodrigo grappled it to the missile framework so that the two formed a rigid structure. That took only seconds; he had already chosen his tools, and was out of the pilot's seat at once, only slightly hampered by the stiffness of his heavy-insulation suit.
The first thing he found himself inspecting was a small metal plate bearing the inscription:
DEPARTMENT OF POWER ENGINEERING
Section D,
47, Sunset Boulevard,
Vulcanopolis, 17464
For information apply to Mr. Henry K. Jones
Rodrigo suspected that, in a very few minutes, Mr. Jones might be rather busy.
The heavy wire-cutters made short work of the cable. As the fist strands parted, Rodrigo gave scarcely a thought to the fires of hell that were pent up only centimetres away; if his actions triggered them, he would never know.
He glanced again at his watch; this had taken less than a minute, which meant that he was on schedule. Now for the back-up cable—and then he could head for home, in full view of the furious and frustrated Hermians.
He was just beginning to work on the second cable assembly when he felt a faint vibration in the metal he was touching. Startled, he looked back along the body of the missile.
The characteristic blue-violet glow of a plasma thruster in action was hovering round one of the attitude control jets. The bomb was preparing to move. The message from Mercury was brief, and devastating. It arrived two minutes after Rodrigo had disappeared around the edge of Rama.
COMMANDER ENDEAVOUR FROM MERCURY SPACE CONTROL, INFERNO WEST.
YOU HAVE ONE HOUR FROM RECEIPT OF THIS MESSAGE TO LEAVE VICINITY OF RAMA. SUGGEST YOU PROCEED MAXIMUM ACCELERATION ALONG SPIN AXIS.
REQUEST ACKNOWLEDGEMENT.
MESSAGE ENDS.
Norton read it with sheer disbelief, then anger. He felt a childish impulse to radio back that all his crew were inside Rama, and it would take hours to get everyone out. But that would achieve nothing—except perhaps to test the will and nerve of the Hermians.
And why, several days before perihelion, had they decided to act? He wondered if the mounting pressure of public opinion was becoming too great, and they decided to present the rest of the human race with a fait accompli. It seemed an unlikely explanation; such sensitivity would have been uncharacteristic.
There was no