That’s right, Nicole remembered. The potential crew was first reduced to forty-eight and then we were all taken to Heidelberg for the physicals. The German doctors in charge insisted that each of the candidates must pass every single medical criterion. The academy graduates were the first group tested and five out of twenty failed. Including Alain Blamont

“When your countryman Blamont, who had already flown half a dozen major missions for the ISA, was disqualified from consideration because of that trivial heart murmur — and the Cosmonaut Selection Board subse­quently upheld the doctors by denying his appeal — I completely panicked.” The proud Japanese physicist was now staring directly into Nicole’s eyes, entreating her to understand. “I was afraid that I was going to lose the most important opportunity of my career because of a minor physical problem that had never before affected any part of my life.” He paused to choose his words carefully. “I know that what I did was wrong and dishonorable, but I convinced myself at the time it was all right, that my chance to decipher the greatest puzzle in man’s history should not be blocked by a group of small-minded doctors defining acceptable health only in terms of numerical values.

Dr. Takagishi told the rest of his story without embellishment or obvious emotion. The passion he had fleetingly demonstrated during his discussion of the Ramans had vanished. His monotonic recital was crisp and clear. He explained how he had cajoled his family physician into falsifying his medical history and providing him with a new drug that would prevent the occur­rence of his diastolic irregularity during the two days of his physical at Heidelberg. Although there had been some risk of deleterious side effects from the new drug, everything went according to plan. Takagishi passed the rigorous physical and was ultimately selected as one of the two mission scientists, along with Dr. David Brown. He had never thought again about the medical issue until about three months ago, when Nicole had first ex­plained to the cosmonauts that she was planning to recommend the usage of the Hakamatsu probe system during the mission instead of the standard temporary probe scans once every week.

“You see,” Takagishi explained, his brow now starting to furrow, “under the old mission technique I could have used that same drug once a week and neither you nor any other life science officer would ever have seen my irregu­larity, But a permanent monitoring system cannot be fooled — the drug is much too dangerous for constant use.”

So you somehow worked out a deal with Hakamatsu, Nicole thought, jumping ahead of him in her own mind. Either with or without his explicit knowledge. And you input expected value ranges that would not trigger in the presence of your abnormality. You hoped that nobody analyzing the tests would call for a full biometry dump. Now she understood why he had sum­moned her urgently to Japan. And you want me to keep your secret.

“Watakuski no doryo wa, wakarimas,” Nicole said kindly, changing into Japanese to show her sympathy for her colleague’s anguish. “I can tell how much distress this is causing you. You need not explain in detail how you tampered with the Hakamatsu probes.” She paused and watched his face relax. “But if I understand you correctly, what you want is for me to become an accomplice to your deception. You recognize of course that I cannot even consider preserving your secret unless I am absolutely convinced that your minor physical problem, as you call it, represents no possible threat to the mission. Otherwise I would be forced—”

“Madame des Jardins,” Takagishi interrupted her, “I have the utmost respect for your integrity. I would never, never ask you to keep my heart irregularity out of the record unless you agreed that it was really an insignifi­cant problem.” He looked at her in silence for several seconds. “When Hakamatsu first phoned me last evening,” he continued quietly, “I thought originally that I would call a press conference and then resign from the project. But while I was thinking about what I would say in my resignation, I kept seeing this image of Professor Brown. He is a brilliant man, my Ameri­can counterpart, but he is also, in my opinion, too certain of his own infalli­bility. The most likely replacement for me would be Professor Wolfgang Heinrich from Bonn. He has published many fine papers about Rama but he, like Brown, believes that these celestial visits represent random events, totally without connection in any way to us and our planet.” The intensity and passion had returned to his eyes. “I cannot quit now. Unless I have no choice. Both Brown and Heinrich might miss the clue.”

Behind Takagishi, on the path that the led back to the main wooden building of the temple, three Buddhist monks walked briskly past. Despite the cold, they were dressed lightly in their usual charcoal gray smocks, their feet exposed to the cold in open sandals. The Japanese scientist was propos­ing to Nicole that they spend the rest of the day at the office of his personal physician, where they could study his complete and uncensored medical history dating back to his childhood. If she would be willing, he added, they would give her a data cube containing all the information to take back to France and study at her leisure.

Nicole, who had been listening intently to Takagishi for almost an hour, momentarily diverted her attention to the three monks now purposefully climbing the stairs in the distance. Their eyes are so serene, she thought. Their lives so free of contradiction. Onemindedness can be a virtue, ft makes all the answers easy. For just a moment she was envious of the monks and their ordered existence. She wondered how well they would handle the di­lemma that Dr. Takagishi was presenting her. He is not one of the space cadets, she was now thinking, so his role is not absolutely critical to mission success. And in a sense he is right The doctors on the project have been too strict. They never should have disqualified Alain. It would be a shame if… “Daijobu,” she said before he had finished talking. “I will go with you to see your doctor and if I don’t find anything that bothers me, I will take the entire file home with me to study during the holidays.” Takagishi’s face lit up. “But let me warn you again,” she added, “if there is anything in your history that I find questionable, or if I have the slightest shred of evidence that you have withheld any information from me, then I will ask you to resign immediately.”

“Thank you, thank you so much,” Dr. Takagishi replied, standing and bowing to his female colleague. “Thank you so much,” he repeated.

10

THE COSMONAUT AND THE POPE

General O’Toole could not have slept more than two hours alto­gether. The combination of excitement and jet lag had kept his mind active all night long. He had studied the lovely bucolic mural on the wall opposite the bed in his hotel room and counted all the animals twice. Unfortunately, he had remained wide awake after he had finished both counts.

He took a deep breath, hoping that it would help him relax. So why all this nervousness? he thought. He is lust a man like all the rest on Earth. Well., not exactly. O’Toole sat up straight in his chair and smiled. It was ten o’clock in the morning and he was sitting in a small anteroom inside the Vatican. He was about to have a private audience with the Vicar of Christ himself, Pope John-Paul V.

During his childhood, Michael O’Toole had often dreamed of someday becoming the first North American pope. “Pope Michael,” he had called himself during the long Sunday afternoons when he had studied his cate­chism alone. As he had repeated the words of his lessons over and over and committed them to memory, he had imagined himself, maybe fifty years in the future, wearing the cassock and papal ring, celebrating mass for thou­sands in the great churches and stadia of the world. He would inspire the poor, the hopeless, the downtrodden. He would show them how God could lead them to a better life.