Arthur C. Clarke
Rendezvous
with Rama (1973)
Li a tradução
portuguesa deste livro em 1984, depois de ter sido editado na
Colecção Argonauta com o título Rendez-vous com Rama. Mais
tarde tive notícia da continuação da série e, como tinha gostado
particularmente deste livro, fiquei com alguma curiosidade pelo seu
desenvolvimento, à mistura com algum cepticismo – em primeiro
lugar porque considerava a obra naturalmente fechada (apesar dos três
parágrafos finais, que ganham hoje outro sentido); depois porque os
livros seguintes eram escritos em parceria com Gentry Lee, um nome
que não conhecia de lado nenhum. Tendo surgido a oportunidade de ler
os volumes seguintes de Rama, decidi revisitar o volume
inicial, desta vez no original inglês. Distinguido com os prémios
Hugo e Nebula, Rendezvous with Rama conta-se certamente entre
as melhores novelas de Arthur C. Clarke.
A obra tem como
tema a passagem de um corpo pelo Sistema Solar, um gigantesco
cilindro artificial que se revela um pequeno mundo oco (16
quilómetros de diâmetro, 50 de profundidade, com um mar central
numa faixa cilíndrica de 10 quilómetros), habitável – e deserto.
A expedição que o aborda, numa estreita janela temporal limitada
pela passagem demasiado rasante ao Sol, explora este enigma vindo dos
abismos do espaço e do tempo – pela análise da sua trajectória
não terá passado nas proximidades de uma estrela nos últimos 200
mil anos, e o artefacto poderá ter milhões de anos. Durante a
exploração, e com a aproximação ao Sol, Rama vai acordando
lentamente. Se deixa de ser um mundo estático e, de certa forma,
desabitado, dado que as surpresas se vão sucedendo numa escala cada
vez maior, também é verdade que nunca é encontrado o menor traço
de um ramano ou da existência comprovada de vida. Alheio a todo o
reboliço causado nos Planetas Unidos (uma espécie de futura ONU que
congrega representantes de sete povoamentos humanos do Sistema
Solar), Rama segue imperturbável o seu curso rumo às estrelas, não
sem antes ter dado uma demonstração cabal da sua capacidade, na
passagem do periélio, adensando o enigma.
It was impossible to tell
how far they had travelled, and Calvert guessed they had almost
reached the fourth level when Mercer suddenly braked again. When they
had bunched together, he whispered: "Listen! Don't you hear
something?"
"Yes," said
Myron, after a minute. "It sounds like the wind."
Calvert was not so sure.
He turned his head back and forth, trying to locate the direction of
the very faint murmur that had come to them through the fog, then
abandoned the attempt as hopeless.
They continued the slide,
reached the fourth level, and started on towards the fifth. All the
while the sound grew louder—and more hauntingly familiar. They were
halfway down the fourth stairway before Myron called out: "Now
do you recognize it?"
They would have identified
it long ago, but it was not a sound they would ever have associated
with any world except Earth. Coming out of the fog, from a source
whose distance could not be guessed, was the steady thunder of
falling water.
A few minutes later, the
cloud ceiling ended as abruptly as it had begun. They shot out into
the blinding glare of the Raman day, made more brilliant by the light
reflected from the low-hanging clouds. There was the familiar curving
plain—now made more acceptable to mind and senses, because its full
circle could no longer be seen. It was not too difficult to pretend
that they were looking along a broad valley, and that the upward
sweep of the Sea was really an outward one.
They halted at the fifth
and penultimate platform, to report that they were through the cloud
cover and to make a careful survey. As far as they could tell,
nothing had changed down there on the plain; but up here on the
Northern dome, Rama had brought forth another wonder.
So there was the origin of
the sound they had heard. Descending from some hidden source in the
clouds three or four kilometres away was a waterfall, and for long
minutes they stared at it silently, almost unable to believe their
eyes. Logic told them that on this spinning world no falling object
could move in a straight line, but there was something horribly
unnatural about a curving waterfall that curved sideways, to end many
kilometres away from the point directly below its source...
"If Galileo had been
born in this world," said Mercer at length, "he'd have gone
crazy working out the laws of dynamics."
"I thought I knew
them," Calvert replied, "and I'm going crazy anyway.
Doesn't it upset you, Prof?"
"Why should it?"
said Sergeant Myron. "It's a perfectly straightforward
demonstration of the Coriolis Effect. I wish I could show it to some
of my students."
Mercer was staring
thoughtfully at the globe-circling band of the Cylindrical Sea.
Li anteriormente:
Os Náufragos do Selene (1961)
Luz da Terra (1955)
Expedição à
Terra (1953)
