derwent studio pencils

Norton was instantly awake. He had received such a
message only three times in his whole career, and on each
occasion it had meant trouble.

'Damn!' he said. 'What do we do now?'

His Exec did not bother to answer. Each understood
the problem perfectly; it was one that Ship's Orders had
never anticipated. Normally, a commander was never
more than a few minutes away from his office and the
code book in his personal safe. If he started now, Norton
might get back to the ship - exhausted - in four or five
hours. That was not the way to handle a Class AAA Pri-
ority.

'Jerry,' he said at length. 'Who's on the switchboard?'

'No one; I'm making the call myself.'

'Recorder off?'

'By an odd breach of regulations, yes.

Norton smiled. Jerry was the best Exec he had ever
worked with. He thought of everything.

'OK. You know where my key is. Call me back.'

He waited as patiently as he could for the next ten
minutes, trying - without much success - to think of
other problems. He hated wasting mental effort; it was
derwent studio pencils very unlikely that he could out-guess the message that
was coming, and he would know its contents soon
enough. Then he would start worrying effectively.

When the Exec called back, he was obviously speaking
under considerable strain.

'It's not really urgent Skipper - an hour won't make
any difference. But I prefer to avoid radio. I'll send it
down by messenger.'

'But why - oh, very well - I trust your judgement. Who
will carry it through the airlocks?'

'I'm going myself; I'll call you when I reach the Hub.'

'Which leaves Laura in charge.'

'For one hour, at the most. I'll get right back to the
derwent studio pencils ship.'

A medical officer did not have the specialized training
to be acting commander, any more than a commander
could be expected to do an operation. In emergencies,
both jobs had sometimes been successfully switched; but
it was not recommended. Well, one order had already
been broken tonight...

'For the record, you never leave the ship. Have you
woken Laura?'

'Yes. She's delighted with the opportunity.'

'Lucky that doctors are used to keeping secrets. Oh -
have you sent the acknowledgement?'

'Of course, in your name.'

'Then I'll be waiting.'

Now it was quite impossible to avoid anxious anticipa-
tions. 'Not really urgent - but I prefer to avoid radio...'

One thing was certain. The Commander was not going
to get much more sleep this night.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX - Riot Watcher

Sergeant Pieter Rousseau knew why he had volunteered
for this job; in many ways, it was a realization of a child-
hood dream. He had become fascinated by telescopes
when he was only six or seven years old, and much of his
youth had been spent collecting lenses of all shapes and
derwent studio pencils sizes. These he had mounted in cardboard tubes, making
instruments of ever-increasing power until he was fam-
iliar with the moon and planets, the nearer space-stations,
and the entire landscape within thirty-kilometres of his
home.

He had been lucky in his place of birth, among the
mountains of Colorado; in almost every direction, the
view was spectacular and inexhaustible. He had spent
hours exploring, in perfect safety, the peaks which every
year took their toll of careless climbers. Though he had
seen much, he had imagined even more; he had liked to
pretend that over each crest of rock, beyond the reach of
derwent studio pencils his telescope, were magic kingdoms full of wonderful
creatures. And so for years he had avoided visiting the
places his lenses brought to him, because he knew that.
the reality could not live up to the dream.

Now, on the central axis of Rama, he could survey
marvels beyond the wildest fantasies of his youth. A
whole world lay spread out before him - a small one, it
was true, yet a man could spend an entire lifetime explor-
ing four thousand square kilometres, even when it was
dead and changeless.

But now life, with all its infinite possibilities, had come
to Rama. If the biological robots were not living crea-
tures, they were certainly very good imitations.

No one knew who invented the word 'biot'; it seemed
to come into instant use, by a kind of spontaneous gen-
eration. From his vantage point on the Hub, Pieter was
Biot-Watcher-in-Chief, and he was beginning, - so he
believed - to understand some of their behaviour pat-
terns.

The Spiders were mobile sensors, using vision - and
probably touch - to examine the whole interior of Rama.
At one time there had been hundreds of them rushing
around at high speed, but after less than two days they
had disappeared; now it was quite unusual to see even
one.

They had been replaced by a whole menagerie of much
more impressive creatures; it had been no minor task,
thinking of suitable names for them. There were the
Window Cleaners, with large padded feet, who were ap-
derwent studio pencils parently polishing their way the whole length of Rama's
- six artificial suns. Their enormous shadows, cast right
across the diameter of the world, sometimes caused tem-
porary eclipses on the far side.

The crab that had demolished Dragonfly seemed to be
a Scavenger. A relay chain of identical creatures had ap-
proached Camp Alpha and carried off all the debris that
had been neatly stacked on the outskirts; they would
have carried off everything else if Norton and Mercer had
not stood firm and defied them. The confrontation had
been anxious but brief; thereafter, the Scavengers seemed
to understand what they were allowed to touch, and ar-
derwent studio pencils rived at regular intervals to see if their services were re-
quired. It was a most convenient arrangement, and indi-
cated a high degree of intelligence - either on the part of
the Scavengers themselves, or some controlling entity
elsewhere.

Garbage disposal on Rama was very simple; everything
was thrown into the Sea, where it was, presumably,
broken down into forms that could be used again. The
process was rapid; Resolution had disappeared overnight,
derwent studio pencils to the great annoyance of Ruby Barnes. Norton had con-
soled her by pointing out that it had done its job magni-
ficently - and he would never have allowed anyone to use
it again. The Sharks might not be as discriminating as
the Scavengers.

No astronomer discovering an unknown planet could
- have been happier that Pieter when he spotted a new
type of biot and secured a good photo of it through his
telescope. Unfortunately, it seemed that all the interest-
ing species were over at the South Pole, where they were
derwent studio pencils performing mysterious tasks round the Horns. Something
that looked like a centipede with suction pads could be
seen from time to time exploring Big Horn itself, while
round the lower peaks Pieter had caught a glimpse of a
burly creature that could have been a cross between a
hippopotamus and a bulldozer. And there was even a
double-necked giraffe, which apparently acted as a mob-
ile crane.

Presumably, Rama, like any ship, required testing,
derwent studio pencils checking and repairing after its immense voyage. The
crew was already hard at work; when would the pas-
sengers appear?

Biot classifying was not Pieter's main job; his orders
were to keep watch on the two or three exploring parties
that were always out, to see that they did not get into
trouble, and to warn them if anything approached. He
alternated every six hours with anyone else who could be
spared, though more than once he had been on duty for
twelve hours at a stretch. As a result, he now knew the
geography of Rama better than any man who would ever
live. It was as familiar to him as the Colorado mountains
of his youth.

When Jerry Kirchoff emerged from Airlock Alpha,
Pieter knew at once that something unusual was happen-
derwent studio pencils ing. Personnel transfers never occurred during the sleep-
ing period, and it was now past midnight by Mission
Time. Then Pieter remembered how short-handed they
were, and was shocked by a much more startling irregu-
larity.

'Jerry - who's in charge of the ship?'
- 'I am,' said the Exec coldly, as he flipped open his
helmet. 'You don't think I'd leave the bridge while I'm
on watch, do you?'

He reached into his suit carry-all, and pulled out a
small can still bearing the label: CONCENTRATED ORANGE
JUICE: TO MAKE FIVE LITRES.

'You're good at this Pieter. The skipper is waiting for it.'
Pieter hefted the can, then said, 'I hope you've put
enough mass inside it - sometimes they get stuck on the
first terrace.'

'Well, you're the expert.'

That was true enough. The Hub observers had had
plenty of practice, sending down small items that had
been forgotten or were needed in a hurry. The trick was
to get them safely past the low-gravity region,. and then to
see that the Coriolis effect did not carry them too far
away from the Camp during the eight-kilometre roll
downhill.

Pieter anchored himself firmly, grasped the can, and
hurled it down the face of the cliff. He did not aim dir-
ectly towards Camp Alpha, but almost thirty degrees
away from it.

Almost immediately, air resistance robbed the can of its
initial speed, but then the pseudo-gravity of Rama took
over and it started to move downwards at a constant
velocity. It hit once near the base of the ladder, and did a
slow-motion bounce which took it clear of the first ter-
race.

'It's OK now,' said Pieter. 'Like to make a bet?'

'No,' was the prompt reply. 'You know the odds.'