Bill Norton

Bill Norton is the 55-year-old commander of the spaceship Endeavour. He leads a mission whose task is to explore the alien spacecraft Rama. As a commander, he takes an active role in most of the missions. Just like a true captain, he is always the first one to go in and the last one to come out.

Norton has two wives, who live on different planets. He is traveling through space for most of the time, so he keeps in contact with his spouses by sending them near-carbon copies of his messages. His hero is Captain James Cook, a mythical explorer of the 18th century. He often relies on the imaginary advices of Captain Cook to make important decisions regarding his missions. Whenever he faces a difficult decision or a problem that science alone cannot resolve, he imagines what Cook would do in the same situation.

As...