Rama: The Omnibus

by Arthur C. Clarke

  "Otto suggested that maybe we should not wait for the Earth to decide," Dr. Brown continued. "It was his idea that we should develop our own management structure, one that is acceptable to all of us here, and then send it to the ISA as a recommendation. Admiral Heilmann thinks they will accept it because it will avoid what could be a protracted debate."

  "Admiral Heilmann and Dr. Brown came to see me with this idea," Janos Tabori now chimed in, "and emphasized how important it is for us to get started with our mission inside Rama. They even laid out a strawman organization that made sense to me. Since none of us has the broad experience of General Borzov, they suggested that maybe we should now have two leaders, possibly Admiral Heilmann and Dr. Brown themselves. Otto would cover the military and spacecraft engineering issues; Dr. Brown would lead the Rama exploration effort."

  "And what happens when they disagree or their areas of responsibility overlap?" asked Richard Wakefield.

  "In that case," Admiral Heilmann responded, "we would submit the item in question to a vote of all the cosmonauts."

  "Isn't this cute?" said Reggie Wilson. He was still angry. He had been taking notes on his keyboard but now he stood up to address the rest of the cosmonauts. "Brown and Heilmann just happened to be worrying about this critical problem and they just happened to have developed a new leadership structure in which all the power and responsibility are divided between them. Am I the only one here who smells something fishy?"

  "Now come on, Reggie," Francesca Sabatini said forcefully. She dropped her video camera to her side. "There is sound logic in the strawman proposal. Dr. Brown is our senior scientist. Admiral Heilmann has been a close colleague of Valeriy Borzov's for many years. None of us has a solid overall command of all aspects of the mission. To split the duties would be—"

  It was difficult for Reggie Wilson to argue with Francesca. Nevertheless, he did interrupt her before she was finished. "I disagree with this plan," he said in a subdued tone. "I think we should have a single leader. And based on what I have observed during my time with this crew, there's only one cosmonaut that we could all easily follow. That's General O'Toole." He waved in the direction of his fellow American. "If this is a democracy, I nominate him as our new commanding officer."

  There was a general uproar as soon as Reggie sat down. David Brown tried to restore order. "Please, please," he shouted, "let's work one issue at a time. Do we want to decide our own leadership and then hand it to the ISA as a fait accompli? Once we handle that question, then we can settle who those leaders should be."

  "I had not thought about any of this before the meeting," Richard Wake-field said. "But I agree with the idea of cutting the Earth out of the loop. They have not lived with us on this mission. More importantly, they are not onboard a spaceship affixed to an alien creation somewhere just inside the orbit of Venus. We are the ones who will suffer if a bad decision is made; we should decide our own organization."

  It was clear that everyone, with the possible exception of Wilson, preferred the idea of defining the leadership structure and then presenting it to the ISA. "All right," Otto Heilmann said a few minutes later, "we must now choose our leaders. One strawman proposal has been advanced, suggesting a leadership split between myself and Dr. Brown. Reggie Wilson has nominated General Michael O'Toole as the new commanding officer. Are there any other suggestions or discussion?"

  The room was silent for about ten seconds. "Excuse me," General O'Toole then said, "but I would like to make a few observations." Everyone listened to the American general. Wilson was correct. Despite O'Toole's known preoccupation with religion (which he didn't force anyone else to share), he had the respect of the entire cosmonaut crew. "I think we must be careful at this point not to lose the team spirit that we have worked so hard to develop during the past year. A contested election at this point could be divisive. Besides, it's not all that important or necessary. Regardless of who becomes our nominal leader, or leaders, each of us is trained to perform a specific set of functions. We will do them under any circumstances."

  Heads were nodding in agreement around the lobby. "For myself," General O'Toole continued, "I must admit that I know little or nothing about the inside-Rama aspects of this mission. I have never trained to do anything except manage the two Newton spacecraft, assess any potential military threat, and act as a communications nexus onboard. I'm not qualified to be the commanding officer." Reggie Wilson started to interrupt but O'Toole continued without a pause. "I'd like to recommend that we adopt the plan offered by Heilmann and Brown and move on with our primary task—namely the exploration of this alien leviathan that has come to us from the stars."

  At the conclusion of the meeting the two new leaders informed the rest of the cosmonauts that a rough draft of the first sortie scenario would be ready for review the following morning. Nicole headed for her room. On the way she stopped and knocked on the door of Janos Tabori. At first there was no response. When she knocked a second time, she heard Janos yell, "Who is it?"

  "It's me—Nicole," she answered.

  "Come in," he said.

  He was lying on his back on the small bed with an uncharacteristic frown on his face.

  "What's the matter?" Nicole asked.

  "Oh, nothing," Janos answered. "I just have a headache."

  "Did you take something?" Nicole inquired.

  "No. It's not that serious." He still didn't smile. "What can I do for you?" he asked in an almost unfriendly tone.

  Nicole was puzzled. She approached her subject cautiously. "Well, I was rereading your report on Valeriy's death—"

  "Why were you doing that?" Janos interrupted brusquely.

  "To see if there was anything we might have done differently," Nicole responded. It was obvious to her that Janos did not want to discuss the subject. After waiting a few seconds, Nicole spoke again. "I'm sorry, Janos. I'm imposing on you. I'll come back another time."

  "No. No," he said. "Let's get this over with now."

  That's a curious way of putting it, Nicole was thinking as she formulated her question. "Janos," she said, "nowhere in your report did you mention reaching for RoSur's control box right before the maneuver. And I could have sworn I saw your fingers on the keyboard panel as I was being swept over against the wall."

  Nicole stopped. There was no expression of any kind on Cosmonaut Tabori's face. It was almost as if he were thinking of something else. "I don't remember," he said at length, without emotion. "You may be right. Perhaps my hitting my head erased part of my memory."

  Stop now, Nicole said to herself as she studied her colleague. There's nothing more you can learn here.

  19

  RITE OF PASSAGE

  Genevieve suddenly broke into tears. "Oh, Mother," she said. "I love you so much and this is absolutely awful."

  The teenager hurriedly moved out of the camera frame and was replaced by Nicole's father. Pierre looked off to his right for a few seconds, to make certain that his granddaughter was out of earshot, and then turned toward the monitor. "These last twenty-four hours have been especially hard on her. You know how she idolizes you. Some of the foreign press have been saying that you bungled the surgery. There was even a suggestion this evening from an American television reporter that you were drunk during the operation."

  He paused. The strain was showing on her father's face as well. "Both Genevieve and I know that neither of these allegations is true. We love you completely and send all our support."

  The screen went dark. Nicole had initiated the videophone call and had, at first, been cheered by talking to her family. After her second transmission, however, when her father and daughter had reappeared on the screen twenty minutes later, it had been obvious that the events onboard the Newton had unsettled life at Beauvois as well. Genevieve had been particularly distraught. She had cried intermittently while talking about General Borzov (she had met him several times and the avuncular Russian had always been especially nice to her) and had barely managed to compose herself befor
e breaking into tears again right before the end of the call.

  So I have embarrassed you as well, Nicole thought as she sat down on her bed. She rubbed her eyes. She was extremely tired. Slowly, without being aware of how depressed she had become, she undressed for bed. Her mind was plagued with pictures of her daughter at school in Luynes. Nicole winced as she imagined one of Genevieve's friends asking her about the operation and Borzov's death. My darling daughter, she thought, you must know how much I love you. If only I could spare you from this pain. Nicole wanted to reach out and comfort Genevieve, to hold her close, to share one of those mother-daughter caresses that chase away the demons. But it could not be. Genevieve was a hundred million kilometers away.

  Nicole lay in bed on her back. She closed her eyes but did not sleep. She was aware of a deep and profound loneliness, a sense of isolation more acute than any she had felt before in her life. She knew that she was longing for some sympathy, for some human being who would tell her that her feelings of inadequacy were overblown and not consistent with reality. But there was nobody. Her father and daughter were back on Earth. Of the two Newton crew members she knew best, one was dead and the other was behaving suspiciously.

  I have failed, Nicole was thinking as she was lying on her bed. On my most important assignment I have failed. She recalled another feeling of failure, when she was only sixteen. At that time Nicole had competed for the role of Joan of Arc in a huge national contest associated with the 750th anniversary of the death of the Maid. If she had won, Nicole would have portrayed Joan in a series of pageants over the next two years. She had thrown herself totally into the contest, reading every book she could find about Joan and watching scores of video presentations. Nicole had scored at the top in virtually every test category except "suitability." She should have won, but she didn't. Her father had consoled her by telling Nicole that France was not ready for its heroines to have dark skin.

  But that was not exactly a failure, the Newton life science officer told herself. And anyway I had my father to comfort me. An image of her mother's funeral came to Nicole's mind. She had been ten years old at the time. Her mother had gone to the Ivory Coast by herself to visit their African relatives. Anawi had been in Nidougou when a virulent epidemic of Hogan fever had swept through the village. Nicole's mother had died quickly.

  Five days later Anawi had been cremated as a Senoufo queen, Nicole had wept while Omeh chanted her mother's soul through the nether world and into the Land of Preparation, where beings rested while waiting to be selected for another life on Earth. As the flames had mounted the pyre and her mother's regal dress had begun to bum, Nicole had felt an overpowering sense of loss. And loneliness. But that time also my father was there beside me, she recalled. He held my hand as we watched Mother disappear. Together it was easier to bear. I was much more lonely during the Poro, And more frightened.

  She could still remember the mixture of terror and helplessness that had filled her seven-year-old body at the Paris airport on that spring morning. Her father had caressed her very tenderly. "Darling, darling Nicole," he had said. "I will miss you very much. Come back safely to me."

  "But why must I go, Papa?" she had replied. "And why are you not coming with us?"

  He had bent down beside her. "You are going to become part of your mother's people. All Senoufo children go through the Poro at the age of seven.

  Nicole had started crying. "But Papa, I don't want to go. I'm French, not African. I don't like all those strange people and the heat and the bugs…"

  Her father had placed his hands firmly on her cheeks. "You must go, Nicole. Your mother and I have agreed." Anawi and Pierre had indeed discussed it many times. Nicole had lived in France all her life. AH she knew of her African heritage was what her mother had taught her and what she had learned from two month-long visits to the Ivory Coast with her family.

  It had not been easy for Pierre to agree to send his beloved daughter off to the Poro. He knew that it was a primitive ceremony. He also knew that it was the cornerstone of the Senoufo traditional religion and that he had promised Omeh, at the time of his marriage to Anawi, that all their children would return to Nidougou for at least the first cycle of the Poro.

  The hardest part for Pierre was staying behind. But Anawi was right. He was an outsider. He would not be able to participate in the Poro. He would not understand it. His presence would distract the little girl. There was an ache in his heart as Pierre kissed his wife and daughter and put them onto the plane to Abidjan.

  Anawi was also apprehensive about the rite of passage ceremony for her only child, her little girl of barely seven years. She had prepared Nicole as well as she could. The child was a gifted linguist and had picked up the rudiments of the Senoufo language very easily. But there was no doubt that she was at a severe disadvantage with respect to the rest of the children. All of the others had lived their whole lives in and around the native villages. They were familiar with the area. To alleviate the orientation problem a little, Anawi and Nicole arrived in Nidougou a week ahead of time.

  The fundamental idea of the Poro was that life was a succession of phases or cycles and that each transition should be carefully marked. Each cycle lasted seven years. There were three Poros in every normal Senoufo life, three metamorphoses that were necessary before the child could be transformed into an adult in the tribe. Despite the fact that many of the tribal customs faded away with the arrival of modern telecommunications devices in the Ivory Coast villages in the twenty-first century, the Poro remained an integral part of Senoufo society. In the twenty-second century, tribal practices enjoyed a renaissance of sorts, especially after The Great Chaos proved to most of the African leaders that it was dangerous to depend too much on the outside world.

  Anawi kept a good acting smile upon her face during the afternoon that the tribal priests came to take Nicole away for the Poro. She didn't want her fear or anxiety to be transferred to her daughter. Nevertheless, Nicole could tell that her mother was troubled. "Your hands are cold and sweaty, Mama," she whispered in French as she hugged Anawi before departing. "Don't worry. I'll be all right." Nicole, in fact—the only brown face among the dozen dark black girls climbing into the carts—seemed almost cheery and expectant, as if she were going to an amusement park or a zoo.

  There were four carts altogether, two carrying the little girls and two that were covered and unexplained. Nicole's friend from four years earlier, Lutuwa, who was actually one of Nicole's cousins, explained to the rest of the girls that the other wagons contained the priests and the "instruments of torture." There was a long silence before one of the little girls had the courage to ask Lutuwa what she was talking about.

  "I dreamed it all two nights ago," Lutuwa said matter-of-factly. "They are going to burn our nipples and stick sharp objects in all our holes. And as long as we don't cry, we won't feel any pain." The other five girls in Nicole's cart, including Lutuwa, hardly said a word for the next hour.

  By sunset they had traveled a long way east, past the abandoned microwave station, into the special area known only to the tribal religious leaders. The half dozen priests threw up temporary shelters and started building a fire. When it was dark, food and drink were served to the initiates, who sat cross-legged in a wide circle around the fire. After dinner the costumed dancing began. Omeh narrated the four dances, each of which featured one of the indigenous animals. Music for the dances came from tambourines and crude xylophones, the rhythm being maintained by the monotonic beat of the tom-tom. Occasionally an especially meaningful point in the story would be punctuated by a blast on the oliphant, the ivory hunting horn.

  Just before bedtime Omeh, still wearing the great mask and headdress identifying him as the chieftain, handed each of the girls a large kit made of antelope hide and told them to study its contents very carefully. There was a flask of water, some dried fruit and nuts, two chunks of native bread, a cutting implement, some rope, two different kinds of unguents, and a tuber from an unknown plant.


  "Tomorrow morning each child will be removed from this camp," Omeh said, "and placed in a specific location not too far away. The child will have only the gifts in the antelope hide. The child is expected to survive on her own and return to the same spot by the time the sun is full in the sky on the following day.

  "The hide contains everything that is needed except for wisdom, courage, and curiosity. The tuber is something very special. Eating the fleshy root will terrify the child, but may also give abnormal powers of strength and vision."

  20

  BLESSED SLUMBER

  The little girl had been alone for almost two hours before she really understood what was happening to her. Omeh and one of the younger priests had placed Nicole right near a small, brackish pond, surrounded on all sides by the high grasses of the savanna. They had reminded her that they would return in the middle of the next day. Then they were gone.

  At first Nicole had reacted as if the entire experience were a great game. She had taken out her kit made of antelope hide and carefully inventoried the contents. She had mentally divided the food into three parts, planning what she would eat for dinner, breakfast, and midmorning snack. There was not excessive food, but little Nicole judged that it would be enough. On the other hand, when she had visually measured the flask to determine the adequacy of her water supply, she had concluded that it was marginal. It would be good if she could End a spring or some pure running water that could be used in an emergency.

  Nicole's next activity had been to create a mental map of her location, paying special attention to any landmarks that would help her identify the brackish pond from a distance. She was an extremely organized little girl and, back at Chilly-Mazarin, often played by herself in a wooded vacant lot very close to her house. In her room at home Nicole had maps of the wood that she had carefully drawn by hand, her secret hiding places marked with stars and circles.