Status Updates From Rendezvous with Rama (Rama,...

it mean? Who needs a forest of glass pillars?'
Norton rapped gently on one column. It sounded solid,
though more metallic than crystalline. He was completely
baffled, and so followed a piece of useful advice he had
heard long ago: 'When in doubt, say nothing and move
on

Norton walked towards the nearest column and dir-
ected his beam into its interior. Refracted as through a
cylindrical lens, the light fanned out on the far side to be
focused and refocused, getting fainter with each repeti-
tion, in the array of pillars beyond. He felt that he was in
the middle of some complicated demonstration in optics.
'Very pretty,' said the practical Mercer, 'but what does
it mean? Who

and still less were they completely trusted.

It had even been proposed that
Hermian lasers would one day thaw out gigantic Jupiter,
but this idea had not been well received on the other
worlds. A technology that could cook Jupiter had too
many tempting possibilities for interplanetary black-
mail.
That such a concern had ever been expressed said a
good deal about the general attitude towards the Her-
mians. They were respected for their toughness and e

'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.

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 activi-
ties 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

I guess Jimmy's crash was lowkey a blessing on disguise? I guess he would have explored a lot less if he was airborne the entire time. It's impressive that the story has little action yet you can never predict what will happen next

All this sky-biking around has been a bit anticlimactic thus far, I have a feeling that something bad will happen to Jimmy