Nicole thanked the general and gave him a small hug. “Well, here we are,” Richard jabbered nervously. “Twenty-seven minutes and counting. We’ve had a baptism and a prayer. What should we do now? Who has an idea for the last, and I mean the very last, amusement? Should we sing? Dance? Play some kind of game?”
“I would prefer to remain up here by myself,” General O’Toole said solemnly, “and face my death in atonement and prayer. And I imagine the two of you would like to be alone together.”
“All right, Nikki,” Richard said. “Where shall we share our final kiss? On the shore of the Cylindrical Sea or back in the White Room?”
Nicole had been awake for thirty-two consecutive hours and was absolutely exhausted. She fell into Richard’s arms and closed her eyes. At that moment scattered flashes of light intruded upon the new blackness of the Raman night.
“What’s that?” General O’Toole asked anxiously.
“It must be the horns,” Richard answered excitedly. “Come on, let’s go.”
They ran to the south edge of the island and stared at the massive, enigmatic structures in the southern bowl. Filaments of light were darting between different pairs of the six spires surrounding the great monolith in the center. The yellow arcs seemed to sizzle in the air, undulating gently back and forth in the middle while remaining connected to one of the little horns at each end. A distant cracking sound accompanied the spectacular sight.
“Amazing,” said O’Toole, overcome with awe. “Absolutely amazing.”
“So Rama is going to maneuver,” Richard said. He could hardly contain himself. He hugged Nicole, then O’Toole, and finally kissed Nicole on the lips. “Whoopee!” he yelled as he danced along the wall.
“But Richard!” Nicole shouted after him, “isn’t it too late? How can Rama move out of the way in such a short time?”
Richard ran back to his colleagues. “You’re right,” he said breathlessly. “And those damn missiles probably have terminal guidance anyway.” He started running again, this time heading back toward the plaza. “I’m going to watch on the radar.”
Nicole glanced over at General O’Toole. “I’m coming,” he said. “But I’ve already run enough for one day. I want to watch this show for another few seconds. You can go on without me if you want.”
Nicole waited. As the two of them walked briskly toward the plaza, General O’Toole thanked Nicole for allowing him to baptize her. “Don’t be silly,” she replied. “I’m the one who should thank you.” She put her hand on his shoulder. The baptism itself wasn’t that important, she continued in her private thoughts. It was obvious that you were concerned about our souls. We agreed primarily to show our affection for you. Nicole smiled to herself. At least I think that was the reason…
The ground underneath them began to shake vigorously and General O’Toole stopped, momentarily frightened. “That’s apparently what happened during the last maneuver,” Nicole said, steadying both of them by taking the general’s hand, “although I was personally lying unconscious at the bottom of a pit and missed the entire event.”
“Then the light show was just an announcement of the maneuver?”
“Probably. That’s why Richard was so elated.”
They had barely opened the lair covering when Richard bolted up the stairs. “They’ve done it!” he exclaimed. “They’ve done it!”
O’Toole and Nicole stared at him as he caught his breath. “They’ve deployed some kind of mesh or net — I don’t know exactly what it is — about six, maybe eight hundred meters thick — all around the spacecraft.” He turned around. “Come on,” he said, dashing down the steps three at a time.
Despite her fatigue, Nicole responded to his excitement with a final burst of adrenaline. She bounded down the stairs after Richard and ran to the White Room. He was standing in front of the black screen, flipping back and forth from the exterior image that showed the new material around the vehicle to the radar view that depicted the incoming missiles.
“They must have understood our warning,” he said to Nicole. Richard jubilantly picked her up off the ground, gave her a kiss, and held her in the air. “It worked, darling,” he shouted. “Thank you, oh thank you.”
Nicole too was excited. But she was not yet convinced that Rama’s action would prevent the destruction of the vehicle. After General O’Toole came in and Richard explained to him what they were seeing on the screen, there were only nine minutes left. Nicole had butterflies the size of basketballs in her stomach. The ground continued to shake as Rama extended its maneuver.
The nuclear missiles obviously had terminal guidance, for despite the fact that Rama was definitely changing its trajectory, the missiles continued to approach along a straight line. The close-up radar picture showed that the sixteen attackers were quite spread out. Their estimated impact times ranged over a period slightly less than an hour.
Richard’s frenetic activity increased. He paced wildly around the room. At one point he pulled TB out of his pocket, put him down on the floor, and began talking rapidly to the little robot as if TB were his closest friend. What Richard said was barely coherent. One moment Richard was telling TB to prepare for the coming explosion; a second later he was explaining to him how Rama was going to miraculously evade the oncoming missiles.
General O’Toole was trying to remain calm, but it was impossible with Richard flying around the room like a Tasmanian devil. He started to say something to Richard, but decided instead to step outside into the tunnel for some quiet.
During one of the rare moments that Richard was not moving, Nicole walked over to him and grabbed his hands. “Darling,” she said, “relax. There’s nothing we can do.”
Richard looked down for a second at his friend and lover and then threw his arms around her. He kissed her wildly and then sat down on the shaking floor, pulling her down beside him. “I’m scared, Nicole,” he said, his body trembling. “I’m really scared. I hate not being able to do anything.”
“I’m frightened too,” she replied gently, taking his hands again. “And so is Michael.”
“But neither of you act scared,” Richard said. “I feel like an idiot, bouncing around here like Tigger in Winnie the Pooh,”
“Every person confronts death in a different way,” Nicole said. “All of us feel fear. We just deal with it in our own individual fashion,”
Richard was calming down. He glanced over at the big monitor and then at his watch. “Three more minutes until the first impact,” he said.
Nicole put her hands on his cheeks and kissed him softly on the lips. “I love you, Richard Wakefield,” she said.
“And I love you,” he answered.
Richard and Nicole were sitting quietly on the floor, holding hands and watching the black screen, when the first missile reached the edge of the dense mesh that surrounded Rama. General O’Toole was standing behind them in the doorway — he had returned to the room about thirty seconds earlier. At the moment the missile made contact, the impacted part of the mesh yielded, cushioning the blow but allowing the missile to penetrate deeper into the netting. Simultaneously, other pieces of the mesh wrapped themselves rapidly about the missile, spinning a thick cocoon with amazing speed. It was all over in a fraction of a second. The missile was about two hundred meters from the outer shell of Rama, already enclosed in a thick wrapping, when its nuclear warhead detonated. The mesh on the screen flew around a little, but there was only a barely perceptible nudge inside the White Room.