Rendezvous with Rama

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)