He returned to his bed and rolled over on his back. Dear God, he prayed, staring at the ceiling, how can I possibly know what is right in this situation? Please show me the way.

Only thirty seconds after his morning alarm, Otto Heilmann heard a soft knock on his door. General O’Toole walked in moments later. The American was already dressed for the day. “You’re up early, Michael,” Admiral Heilmann said, fumbling for his morning coffee that had been automatically heating for five minutes already.

“I wanted to talk to you,” O’Toole said pleasantly. He courteously waited for Heilmann to pick up his coffee packet.

“What is it?” the admiral asked.

“I want you to call off the meeting this morning.”

“Why?” Heilmann replied. “We need some assistance from the rest of the crew, as you and I discussed last night. The longer we wait to get started, the more chance we will delay our departure.”

“I’m not ready just yet,” O’Toole said.

Admiral Hermann’s brow furrowed. He took a long sip from his coffee and studied his companion. “I see,” he said quietly. “And what else is needed before you will be ready?”

“I want to talk to someone, General Norimoto perhaps, to understand why we are destroying Rama. I know you and I talked about it yesterday, but I want to hear the reasons from the person giving the order.”

“It is a military officer’s duty to follow orders. Asking questions could be viewed as a disciplinary breach—”

“I understand all that, Otto,” O’Toole interrupted, “but this is not a battlefield situation. I am not refusing to comply with the order. I just want to be certain…” His voice trailed off and O’Toole stared off in the dis­tance.

“Certain of what?” Heilmann asked.

O’Toole took a deep breath. “Certain that I’m doing the right thing.”

A video conference with Norimoto was arranged and the Newton crew meeting was delayed. Since it was the middle of the night in Amsterdam, it was some time before the encoded transmission could be translated and presented to the COG chief of staff. In his typical manner, General Norimoto then requested several more hours to prepare his response, so that he could obtain “staff consensus” on what he was going to say to O’Toole.

The general and Admiral Heilmann were sitting together in the Newton military control center when the transmission from Norimoto began. Gen­eral Norimoto was dressed in his full military uniform. He did not smile when he greeted the Newton officers. He put on his glasses and read from a prepared text.

“General O’Toole, we have carefully reviewed the questions contained in your last transmission. All your concerns were included on the issues list that was discussed here on Earth before we reached the decision to proceed with Trinity. Under the unique provisions contained in the ISA-COG operating protocols, you and the other Newton military personnel are temporarily part of my special staff; therefore, I am your commanding officer. The message that was transmitted to you should be treated as an order.”

General Norimoto managed just a glimmer of a smile. “Nevertheless,” he continued reading, “because of the significance of the action contained in your order and your obvious concern about its repercussions, we have pre­pared three summary statements that should help you to understand our decision:

“One: We do not know if Rama is hostile or friendly. We have no way of obtaining additional data to resolve the issue.

“Two: Rama is hurtling toward Earth. It might impact our home planet, take hostile action once it’s in our neighborhood, or perform benign activi­ties that we can’t define.

“Three: By implementing Trinity when Rama is still ten or more days away, we can guarantee the safety of the planet, regardless of Rama’s inten­tions or future actions.”

The general paused for the briefest of moments. “That is all,” he then concluded. “Proceed with Trinity.”

The screen went black, “Are you satisfied?” Admiral Heilmann asked.

“I guess so!” O’Toole said with a sigh. “I didn’t hear anything new, but I shouldn’t have expected anything else.”

Admiral Heilmann looked at his watch. “We’ve wasted almost an entire day,” he said. “Should we have the crew meeting after dinner?”

“I’d rather not,” O’Toole replied. “This episode has exhausted me and I hardly slept at all last night. I’d prefer to wait until the morning.”

“All right,” Heilmann said after a pause. He stood up and put his arm on O’Toole’s shoulder. “We’ll get started first thing after breakfast.”

In the morning General O’Toole did not attend the scheduled crew meet­ing. He phoned Heilmann and asked the admiral to proceed with the discus­sion without him. O’Toole’s excuse was that he had a “vicious stomach upset.” He doubted if Admiral Heilmann really believed his explanation, but it didn’t really matter.

O’Toole watched and listened to the meeting on the video monitor in his room, never interrupting or adding to the proceedings. None of the other cosmonauts seemed particularly surprised that the Newton was carrying a nuclear arsenal. Heilmann did a thorough job of explaining what was to be done. He enlisted the help of Yamanaka and Tabori, as he and O’Toole had discussed, and outlined a sequence of events that would be complete with the weapons deployed inside Rama in seventy-two hours. That would leave the crew another three days to prepare for departure.

“When will the bombs detonate?” Janos Tabori asked nervously after Admiral Heilmann was finished.

“They will be set to explode sixty hours after our scheduled departure. According to the analytical models, we should be out of the debris field in twelve hours, but for safety we have specified, in our procedure, that the weapons will not be exploded unless we are at least twenty-four hours away… If our departure is delayed because of some crisis, we can always over­write the detonation time by electronic command.”

“That’s reassuring” Janos remarked.

“Any more questions?” Heilmann asked.

“Just one,” Janos said. “As long as we’re inside Rama putting these things in their proper locations, I assume that it’s all right if we look around for our lost friends. In case they may be wandering—”

“The timeline is very tight, Cosmonaut Tabori,” the admiral replied, “and the deployment itself, inside the structure, only takes a few hours. Unfortu­nately, due to our delays in starting the procedure, we will place the weapons in their designated positions during the time that Rama is dark.”

Great, O’Toole thought in his room, that’s something else that can be blamed on me. All in all, though, he felt that Admiral Heilmann had han­dled the meeting very well, ft –was nice of Otto not to say anything about the code, O’Toole told himself. He probably figures I’ll come around. And he’s probably right.

When O’Toole woke up from a short nap it was past lunchtime and he had a ravenous appetite. There was nobody in the dining room except Francesca Sabatini; she was finishing her coffee and studying some kind of engi­neering data on a nearby computer monitor.

“Feeling better, Michael?” she said when she saw him.

He nodded. “What are you reading?” O’Toole asked.

“I’m looking at the executive software manual,” Francesca replied. “David is very concerned that without Wakefield we won’t even know if the Newton software is working properly or not. I’m learning how to read the self-test diagnostic output.”

“Whew,” O’Toole whistled. “That’s pretty heavy for a journalist.”

“It’s really not that complicated!” Francesca said with a laugh. “And it’s extremely logical. Maybe in my next career I’ll be an engineer.”

O’Toole made himself a sandwich, picked up a package of milk, and joined Francesca at the table. She put a hand on his forearm. “Speaking of next careers, Michael, have you given any thought to yours?”