One of the crew members, Jimmy Pak, who has experience with low gravity skybikes, rides a smuggled skybike along Rama's axis to the far end, otherwise inaccessible due to the cylindrical sea and the 500m high cliff on the opposite shore. Once at the massive metal cones on the southern end of Rama, Jimmy detects magnetic and electric fields coming from the cones, which increase, resulting in lightning. Due to his proximity to the spires, the concussion from a discharge damages his skybike causing him to crash on the isolated southern continent.