1) ''Then the orbit was calculated, and the mystery was resolved---to be replaced by an even greater one. 31/439 was not traveling on a normal asteroidal path, along an ellipse which it retraced with clockwork precision every few years. It was a lonely wanderer among the stars, making its first and last visit to the solar system---for it was moving so swiftly that the gravitational field of the Sun could never capture it. It would flash inward past the orbits of Jupiter, Mars, Earth, Venus, and Mercury, gaining speed as it did so, until it rounded the Sun and headed out once again into the unknown.
It was at this point that the computers started flashing their 'We have something interesting' sign, and, for the first time, 31/439 came to the attention of human beings. There was a brief flurry of excitement at SPACEGUARD headquarters, and the interstellar vagabond was quickly dignified with a name instead of a mere number. Long ago, the astronomers had exhausted Greek and Roman mythology; now they were working through the Hindu pantheon. And so 31/439 was christened Rama.''

2) ''There was a rustle of excitement among the other scientists on the committee. Most of them had felt that the astronomer, with his well-known cosmic viewpoint, was not the right man to be chairman of the Space Advisory Council. He sometimes gave the impression that the activities of intelligent life were an unfortunate irrelevance in the majestic universe of stars and galaxies, and that it was bad manners to pay too much attention to them. This had not endeared him to exobiologists such as Dr. Perera, who took exactly the opposite view. For them, the only purpose of the universe was the production of intelligence, and they were apt to talk sneeringly about purely astronomical phenomena. 'Mere dead matter' was one of their favorite phrases.''