There was a general uproar as soon as Reggie sat down. David Brown tried to restore order. “Please, please,” he shouted, “let’s work one issue at a time. Do we want to decide our own leadership and then hand it to the ISA as a fait accompli? Once we handle that question, then we can settle who those leaders should be.”

“I had not thought about any of this before the meeting,” Richard Wake-field said. “But I agree with the idea of cutting the Earth out of the loop. They have not lived with us on this mission. More importantly, they are not onboard a spaceship affixed to an alien creation somewhere just inside the orbit of Venus. We are the ones who will suffer if a bad decision is made; we should decide our own organization.”

It was clear that everyone, with the possible exception of Wilson, pre­ferred the idea of defining the leadership structure and then presenting it to the ISA. “All right,” Otto Heilmann said a few minutes later, “we must now choose our leaders. One strawman proposal has been advanced, suggesting a leadership split between myself and Dr. Brown. Reggie Wilson has nomi­nated General Michael O’Toole as the new commanding officer. Are there any other suggestions or discussion?”

The room was silent for about ten seconds. “Excuse me,” General O’Toole then said, “but I would like to make a few observations.” Everyone listened to the American general. Wilson was correct. Despite O’Toole’s known preoccupation with religion (which he didn’t force anyone else to share), he had the respect of the entire cosmonaut crew. “I think we must be careful at this point not to lose the team spirit that we have worked so hard to develop during the past year. A contested election at this point could be divisive. Besides, it’s not all that important or necessary. Regardless of who becomes our nominal leader, or leaders, each of us is trained to perform a specific set of functions. We will do them under any circumstances.”

Heads were nodding in agreement around the lobby. “For myself,” Gen­eral O’Toole continued, “I must admit that I know little or nothing about the inside-Rama aspects of this mission. I have never trained to do anything except manage the two Newton spacecraft, assess any potential military threat, and act as a communications nexus onboard. I’m not qualified to be the commanding officer.” Reggie Wilson started to interrupt but O’Toole continued without a pause. “I’d like to recommend that we adopt the plan offered by Hetlmann and Brown and move on with our primary task — namely the exploration of this alien leviathan that has come to us from the stars.”

At the conclusion of the meeting the two new leaders informed the rest of the cosmonauts that a rough draft of the first sortie scenario would be ready for review the following morning. Nicole headed for her room. On the way she stopped and knocked on the door of Janos Tabori. At first there was no response. When she knocked a second time, she heard Janos yell, “Who is it?”

“It’s me — Nicole,” she answered.

“Come in,” he said.

He was lying on his back on the small bed with an uncharacteristic frown on his face.

“What’s the matter?” Nicole asked.

“Oh, nothing,” Janos answered. “I just have a headache.”

“Did you take something?” Nicole inquired.

“No. It’s not that serious.” He still didn’t smile. “What can I do for you?” he asked in an almost unfriendly tone.

Nicole was puzzled. She approached her subject cautiously. “Well, I was rereading your report on Valeriy’s death—”

“Why were you doing that?” Janos interrupted brusquely.

“To see if there was anything we might have done differently,” Nicole responded. It was obvious to her that Janos did not want to discuss the subject. After waiting a few seconds, Nicole spoke again. “I’m sorry, Janos. I’m imposing on you. I’ll come back another time.”

“No. No,” he said. “Let’s get this over with now.”

That’s a curious way of putting it, Nicole was thinking as she formulated her question. “Janos,” she said, “nowhere in your report did you mention reaching for RoSur’s control box right before the maneuver. And I could have sworn I saw your fingers on the keyboard panel as I was being swept over against the wall.”

Nicole stopped. There was no expression of any kind on Cosmonaut Tabori’s face. It was almost as if he were thinking of something else. “I don’t remember,” he said at length, without emotion. “You may be right. Perhaps my hitting my head erased part of my memory.”

Stop now, Nicole said to herself as she studied her colleague. There’s nothing more you can learn here.

Genevieve suddenly broke into tears. “Oh, Mother!” she said. “I love you so much and this is absolutely awful.”

The teenager hurriedly moved out of the camera frame and was replaced by Nicole’s father. Pierre looked off to his right for a few seconds, to make certain that his granddaughter was out of earshot, and then turned toward the monitor. “These last twenty-four hours have been especially hard on her. You know how she idolizes you. Some of the foreign press have been saying that you bungled the surgery. There was even a suggestion this evening from an American television reporter that you were drunk during the operation.” He paused. The strain was showing on her father’s face as well– “Both Genevieve and I know that neither of these allegations is true. We love you completely and send all our support.”

The screen went dark. Nicole had initiated the videophone call and had, at first, been cheered by talking to her family. After her second transmission, however, when her father and daughter had reappeared on the screen twenty minutes later, it had been obvious that the events onboard the Newton had unsettled life at Beauvois as well. Genevieve had been particularly dis­traught. She had cried intermittently while talking about General Borzov (she had met him several times and the avuncular Russian had always been especially nice to her) and had barely managed to compose herself before breaking into tears again right before the end of the call.

So I have embarrassed you as well, Nicole thought as she sat down on her bed. She rubbed her eyes. She was extremely tired. Slowly, without being aware of how depressed she had become, she undressed for bed. Her mind was plagued with pictures of her daughter at school in Luynes. Nicole winced as she imagined one of Genevieve’s friends asking her about the operation and Borzov’s death. My darling daughter, she thought, you must know how much I love you. If only I could spare you from this pain. Nicole wanted to reach out and comfort Genevieve, to hold her close, to share one of those mother-daughter caresses that chase away the demons. But it could not be. Genevieve was a hundred million kilometers away.

Nicole lay in bed on her back. She closed her eyes but did not sleep. She was aware of a deep and profound loneliness, a sense of isolation more acute than any she had felt before in her life. She knew that she was longing for some sympathy, for some human being who would tell her that her feelings of inadequacy were overblown and not consistent with reality. But there was nobody. Her father and daughter were back on Earth. Of the two Newton crew members she knew best, one was dead and the other was behaving suspiciously.

I have failed, Nicole was thinking as she was lying on her bed. On my most important assignment I have failed. She recalled another feeling of failure, when she was only sixteen. At that time Nicole had competed for the role of Joan of Arc in a huge national contest associated with the 750th anniversary of the death of the Maid. If she had won, Nicole would have portrayed Joan in a series of pageants over the next two years. She had thrown herself totally into the contest, reading every book she could find about Joan and watching scores of video presentations. Nicole had scored at the top in virtually every test category except “suitability.” She should have won, but she didn’t. Her father had consoled her by telling Nicole that France was not ready for its heroines to have dark skin.