Nicole looked at Richard. “What’s he talking about?”

Richard Wakefield stood up and walked over to Nicole. He took her hands in his. “They screwed up the navigation system too,” Richard said. “Their automatic search algorithms, the big number crunchers being used to try to decrypt O’Toole’s code, were overlaid into the general purpose computers on top of the vidcomm and navigation subroutines. This ship is useless as a transportation module.”

General O’Toole’s voice was distant and lacked its usual upbeat timbre. “They must have started only minutes after I left. Richard read the com­mand buffers and found out that the decryption software was uplinked less than two hours after my departure.”

“But why would they incapacitate the Newton?” Nicole asked.

“Don’t you understand?” O’Toole said with passion. “The priorities had changed. Nothing was as important as detonating the nuclear weapons. They didn’t want to waste the time for the radio signals to go back and forth to Earth. So they moved the computations up here, where each successive candidate code could be commanded from the computer without delay.”

“In fairness to mission control,” Richard interjected, now pacing around the room, “we should acknowledge that the fully loaded Newton military ship actually has less orbit change capability than a two-person pod with an auxiliary propulsion system. In the eyes of the ISA safety manager, there was no increased risk associated with making this craft inoperable.”

“But none of this should have happened in the first place,” the general argued. “Dammit! Why couldn’t they just have waited for my return?”

Nicole sat down abruptly in one of the available chairs. Her head was spinning and she felt momentarily dizzy. “What’s the matter?” Richard said, approaching her with alarm.

“I have been having occasional periods of nausea today,” Nicole replied. “I think I’m pregnant. I’ll know for certain in about twenty minutes.” She smiled at the dumbfounded Richard. “It’s extremely rare for a woman to become pregnant within ninety days of an injection of neutrabriolate. But it has happened before. I don’t suppose—”

“Congratulations,” an enthusiastic General O’Toole suddenly interrupted. “I had no idea that the two of you were planning to have a family.”

“Nor did I,” Richard replied, still looking shocked. He gave Nicole a vigorous hug and held her close. “Nor did I,” he repeated.

“There will be no more discussion of this subject!” General O’Toole said emphatically to Richard. “Even if Nicole weren’t pregnant with your child, I would insist that the two of you go in the pod and leave me here. It’s the only sensible decision. In the first place, we both know that mass is the most critical parameter and I am the heaviest of the three of us by far. In addition, I am old and you two are both quite young. You know how to fly the pod; I’ve never even trained inside it a single time. Besides,” he added dryly, “I will be court-martialed on Earth for refusing to follow orders.”

“As for you, my good doctor,” O’Toole continued moments later, “I don’t need to tell you that you are carrying a very special baby. He or she will be the only human child that was ever conceived inside an extraterrestrial space vehicle.” He stood up and glanced around. “Now,” he said, “I propose we open a bottle of wine and celebrate our last evening together.”

Nicole watched General O’Toole glide over to the larder. He opened it and started rummaging around. “I’m perfectly happy with fruit juice, Mi­chael,” she said. “I shouldn’t drink more than a single glass of wine now anyway.”

“Of course,” he replied quickly. “I temporarily forgot. I was hoping that we could do something special on this last night. I wanted to share one last time—” General O’Toole stopped himself and brought the wine and juice back to the table. He handed cups to both Richard and Nicole. “I want you both to know,” he said quietly, his mood now subdued, “that ! cannot imagine a finer pair of people than the two of you. I wish you every success, especially with the baby.”

The three cosmonauts drank in silence for several seconds. “We all know it, don’t we?” General O’Toole said in barely audible tone. “The missiles must be on their way. How long do you figure I have, Richard?”

“Judging from what Admiral Heilmann said on the tape, I would say that the first missile will reach Rama at 1-5 days. That would be consistent both with the pod being outside the debris field and the deflection velocities that must be imparted to the surviving pieces of the spacecraft.” “I’m afraid I’m lost,” Nicole said. “What missiles are we talking about?” Richard leaned over toward her. “Both Michael and I are certain!” he said gravely, “that the COG has ordered a missile strike against Rama. They had no assurance that the general would ever return to the Newton and enter his code. And the search algorithm with the automatic punch was a long shot at best. Only a missile strike could guarantee that Rama would not have the capability of harming our planet.”

“So I have a little more than forty-eight hours to make my final peace with God,” General O’Toole said after reflecting for several seconds. “I have lived a fabulous life. I have much to be thankful for. I will go into His arms without regret.”

Nicole stretched her arms over her head and to her sides, she brushed against Richard on her left and one of the water containers hanging slightly out of the shelf behind her. “It’s going to be crowded.” she observed, squirming in her seat.

“Yes, it is,” Richard replied distractedly. His attention was focused on the display in front of the pilot’s seat in the pod. He entered some commands and waited for the response. When it finally came, Richard frowned.

“I guess I’ll make one more attempt to repackage the supplies,” Nicole said with a sigh. She turned around in her seat and stared at the shelves. “I could save us some room and fourteen kilograms if our rescue was guaranteed in seven days,” she said.

Richard did not respond. “Dammit,” he muttered when a set of numbers appeared on the display.

“What’s the matter?” Nicole asked.

“There’s something not quite right here!” Richard said. “The navigation code was developed for considerably less payload mass — it may not converge if we lose one of the accelerometers.” Nicole waited patiently for Richard to explain. “So if we have any hiccoughs along the way, we will probably have to stop for several hours and reinitialize.”

“But I thought you said there was plenty of fuel for the two of us.”

“Plenty of fuel, yes. However, there are some subtleties in the reprogrammed navigation algorithms that assume the pod contains less than a hundred kilograms, basically only O’Toole and his supplies.”

Nicole could read the concern in Richard’s brow. “We’re all right, I think, if there are no malfunctions,” he continued. “But no pod has ever been operated under conditions like this.”

Through the front window they could see General O’Toole walking across the bay toward them. He was carrying a small object in his hand. It was TB, one of Richard’s tiny Shakespearean robots.

“I almost forgot I had him,” O’Toole said a minute later after he had been thanked profusely by Richard. Cosmonaut Wakefield was soaring around the supply depot like a joyous child, a wide smile on his delighted face.

“I thought I’d never see any of them again,” Richard yelled from one of the side walls where his exuberant momentum had carried him.

“I was passing your room,” General O’Toole shouted back, “right before the scientific ship departed. Cosmonaut Tabori was arranging your things. He asked me to keep that particular robot, just in case—”

“Thank you, thank you, Janos,” Richard said. He walked carefully down the wall and anchored himself to the floor. “This is a very special one, Michael,” he said with a gleam in his eye. He switched on TB’s power. “Do you know any Shakespearean sonnets?”