Rama: The Omnibus

by Arthur C. Clarke

  Making a command dictionary was a laborious process. Richard volunteered for the duty. Using their own computers to keep notes, he began the process of developing the rudiments of a language to translate the special keyboard commands. The initial goal was simple—to be able to use the Raman computer like one of their own. Once the translation was developed, any given input into the Newton portable computers would contain, as part of its output, what set of key impressions on the Raman board would produce a similar response on the square black screen.

  Even with Richard's intelligence and computer expertise, the task was a formidable one. It was also not something that could easily be shared. At Richard's suggestion, Nicole climbed out of the lair twice during the first Raman day they were in the White Room. Both times she took long walks around New York, casting her eyes to the sky from time to time to look for a helicopter. On the second excursion Nicole went back to the barn where she had fallen in the pit. Already so much had happened that her frightening experience at the bottom seemed like ancient history.

  She thought often about Borzov, Wilson, and Takagishi. All the cosmonauts had known when they left the Earth that there were uncertainties in the mission. They had trained often to handle vehicle emergencies, problems with their own spacecraft that might prove to be life threatening … but none of them had actually believed that there would be any fatalities on the mission. If Richard and I perish here in New York, Nicole remarked to herself, then almost half the crew will have died. That will be the worst disaster since we started flying piloted missions again.

  She was standing outside the barn, in almost the exact spot where she and Francesca had talked to Richard on the communicator the last time. So why did you lie, Francesca? Nicole wondered. Did you think somehow my disappearance would silence all suspicion?

  On the final morning at the Beta campsite, before she and the others had set out to look for Takagishi, Nicole had transmitted all the notes in her own portable computer in Rama through the networking system to the desktop in her room on the Newton. At the time Nicole had made the data transfer to give herself extra memory, if she should need it, in her traveling computer. But it's all there, she recalled, if some diligent detective ever looks for it The drugs, Jason's blood pressure, even a cryptic reference to the abortion. And of course Richard's solution to the RoSur malfunction.

  On her two walks Nicole saw several centipede biots, and even a bulldozer once, at the far limit of her vision. She didn't see any avians and neither heard nor saw an octospider. Maybe they only come out at night, she mused as she returned to have dinner with Richard.

  49

  INTERACTION

  We're almost out of food," Nicole said. They packed up what remained of the manna melon and stuffed it in Richard's backpack.

  "I know," he replied. "I have a plan for you to obtain some more."

  "Me?" asked Nicole. "Why is it my job?"

  "Well, first of all, it only requires one person. Working with graphics on the Raman computer gave me the idea. Second, I can't spare the time. I think I'm on the verge of breaking into the operating system. There are about two hundred commands that I can't explain unless they allow entry into another level, some kind of higher order space in the hierarchy."

  Richard had explained to Nicole during dinner that he had now figured out how to use the Raman computer like one on the Earth. He could store and retrieve data, perform mathematical computations, design graphics, even create new languages. "But I haven't begun to tap its potential," he had said. "Tonight and tomorrow I must discover more of its secrets. We're running out of time."

  His plan for obtaining food was, indeed, deceptively simple. After the long Raman night (during which Richard could not have slept more than three hours), Nicole walked over to the central plaza to implement the plan. Based on his progressive matrix analysis, Richard gave her three possible locations for the panel to open the covering above the avian lair. He was so confident of his analysis that he wouldn't even discuss what she should do if she didn't find the plate. Richard was correct. Nicole found the panel easily. Then she opened the cover and shouted down the vertical corridor. There was no response.

  She shone her flashlight into the darkness below her. The tank sentinel was on duty, going to and fro in front of the horizontal tunnel that led past the water room. Nicole shouted again. If she could avoid it, she did not want to descend even to the first ledge. Even though Richard had assured her he would come to her rescue if she was overdue, Nicole did not relish the prospect of being hemmed in with the avians again.

  Was that a distant jabbering she heard? Nicole thought so. She took one of the coins that she had found in the White Room and dropped it into the vertical corridor. It sailed far down, hitting a ledge somewhere near the second main level. This time there was loud jabbering. One of the avians flew up into her flashlight beam and over the tank sentinel's head. Moments later the cover began to close and Nicole had to move away.

  She had discussed this contingency with Richard. Nicole waited several minutes and then pushed the panel again. When she yelled into the depths of the avian lair the second time, there was an immediate response. This time her friend, the black velvet avian, flew up to within five meters of the surface and jabbered at her. It was clear to Nicole that she was being told to go away. Before the avian turned around, however, Nicole pulled out her computer monitor and activated a stored program. Two manna melons appeared on the screen in graphic depiction. As the avian watched, the melons became colored and then a neat incision displayed the texture and color inside one of them.

  The black velvet avian had flown up closer to the opening for a better look. Now it turned and screeched back into the dark below. Within seconds a second familiar bird, the likely mate for the black velvet one, flew up and landed on the first ledge below the ground. Nicole repeated the display. The two birds talked and then flew deeper into the lair.

  Minutes went by. Nicole could hear occasional jabbering from the depths of the corridor. At length her two friends returned, each carrying a small manna melon in its talons. They landed in the plaza near the opening. Nicole walked over toward the melons, but the avians continued to clutch them. What followed was (Nicole assumed) a long lecture. The two birds jabbered both individually and together, always looking at her and often tapping on the melons. Fifteen minutes later, apparently satisfied that they had communicated their message, the avians took flight, swooped around the plaza, and vanished into their lair.

  I think they were telling me that melons are in short supply, Nicole thought as she walked back toward the eastern plaza. The melons were heavy. She had one in each of the two backpacks that she had emptied that morning before she left the White Room. Or maybe that I should not disturb them in the future. Whatever it was, we will not be welcome anymore.

  She thought that Richard would be ecstatic when she returned to the White Room. He was, but not because of Nicole and the manna melons. He had a grin on his face from one ear to the other and was holding one hand behind his back. "Wait until I show you what I have," he said as Nicole unloaded the backpacks. Richard brought his hand around in front of him and opened it. The hand contained a solitary black ball about ten centimeters in diameter.

  "I'm nowhere near figuring out all the logic, or How much information can go in the request," Richard said. "But I have established a fundamental principle. We can ask for and receive 'things' using the computer."

  "What do you mean?" Nicole asked, still not certain why Richard was so excited about a small black ball.

  "They made this for me," he said, handing her the ball again. "Don't you understand? Somewhere here they have a factory and can make things for us."

  "Then maybe 'they,' whoever they are, can start making us some food," said Nicole. She was a little annoyed that Richard had neither congratulated her nor thanked her for the melons. "The avians are not likely to give us any more."

  "It will be no problem," Richard said. "Eventually, once we lear
n the full range of the request process, we may be able to order fish and chips, steak and potatoes, anything, as long as we can state what we want in unambiguous scientific terms."

  Nicole stared at her friend. With his unkempt hair, his unshaven face, the bags under his eyes, and his wild grin, he looked at the moment like a fugitive from an insane asylum. "Richard," she asked, "will you slow down a little? If you've found the Holy Grail, can you at least spend a second explaining it to me?"

  "Look at the screen," he said, Using the keyboard he drew a circle, then scratched it out and made a square. In less than a minute Richard had carefully drawn a cube in three dimensions. When he was finished with the graphics, he put the eight action keys into a predetermined configuration and then pressed the key with the small rectangle designator. A set of strange symbols appeared on the black monitor. "Don't worry," Richard said, "we don't need to understand the details. They are just asking for the dimensional specifications on the cube."

  Richard next made a string of entries from the normal alphanumeric keys. "Now," he said, turning back to face Nicole, "if I have done it correctly, we will have a cube, made from the same material as that ball, in about ten minutes."

  They ate some of the new melon while they waited. It tasted the same as the others. Steak and potatoes would be unbelievably good, Nicole was thinking, when suddenly the end wall lifted up half a meter above the floor and a black cube appeared in the gap.

  "Wait a minute, don't touch it yet," Richard said as Nicole went over to investigate. "Look here!" He shone his flashlight into the darkness behind the cube. "There are vast tunnels beyond these walls," he said, "and they must lead to factories so advanced we couldn't even recognize them. Imagine! They can even make objects on request."

  Nicole was beginning to understand why Richard was so ecstatic. "We now have the capability to control our own destiny in some small way," he continued, "If I can break the code fast enough, we should be able to request food, maybe even what we need to build a boat."

  "Without loud motors, I hope," quipped Nicole.

  "No motors," agreed Richard. He finished his melon and turned back to the keyboard.

  Nicole was becoming worried. Richard had succeeded in making only one new breakthrough in a full Raman day. All he had to show for thirty-eight hours of work (he had only slept eight hours during the entire period) was one new material. He could make "light" black objects like the first ball, whose specific gravity was close to balsa wood, or he could make "heavy" black objects of density similar to oak or pine. He was wearing himself out with his work. And he could not, or would not, share any of the load with Nicole.

  What if his first discovery was just blind luck? Nicole said to herself as she climbed the stairs for her dawn walk. Or what if the system cannot make anything but two kinds of black objects? She could not help worrying about wasted time. It was only sixteen more days until Rama would encounter the Earth. There was no sign of a rescue team. At the back of her mind was the thought that perhaps she and Richard had been abandoned altogether.

  She had tried to talk to Richard about their plans the previous evening, but he had been exhausted. Richard hadn't responded in any way when Nicole had mentioned to him that she was very concerned. Later, after she had carefully outlined all their options and asked his opinion about what they should do, she noticed that he had fallen asleep. When Nicole awakened after a brief nap herself, Richard was already working again at the keyboard and refused to be distracted by either breakfast or conversation. Nicole had stumbled over the growing array of black objects on the floor as she had exited the White Room for her early morning exercise.

  Nicole was feeling very lonely. The last fifty hours, which she had spent mostly by herself, had passed very slowly. Her only escape had been the pleasure of reading. She had the text of five books stored in her computer. One was her medical encyclopedia, but the other four were all for recreation. I bet all of Richard's discretionary memory is filled with Shakespeare, she thought as she sat on the wall surrounding New York. She stared out at the Cylindrical Sea. In the far distance, barely visible in her binoculars through the mist and clouds, she could see the northern bowl where they had entered Rama the first time.

  She had two of her father's novels stored in the computer. Nicole's personal favorite was Queen for All Ages, the story of Eleanor of Aquitaine's younger years, beginning with her adolescence at the ducal court in Poitiers, The story line followed Eleanor through her marriage to Louis Capet of France, their crusade to the Holy Land, and her extraordinary personal appeal for an annulment from Pope Eugenius. The novel culminated with Eleanor's divorce from Louis and betrothal to the young and exciting Henry Plantagenet.

  The other Pierre des Jardins novel in her computer's memory was his universally acclaimed chef d'oeuvre, I Richard Coeur de Lion, a mixture of first-person diary and interior monologue, set during two winter weeks at the end of the twelfth century. In the novel Richard and his soldiers, embarked on another crusade, are quartered near Messina under the protection of the Norman king of Sicily, While there the famous warrior-king and homosexual son of Eleanor of Aquitaine and Henry Plantagenet, in a burst of self-examination, relives the major personal and historical events of his life.

  Nicole remembered a long discussion with Genevieve after her daughter had read I Richard the previous summer. The young teenager had been fascinated by the story, and had surprised her mother by asking extremely intelligent questions. Thoughts of Genevieve made Nicole wonder what her daughter might be doing at Beauvois at the very moment. They have told you that I have disappeared, Nicole surmised. What does the military call it? Missing in action?

  In her mind's eye Nicole could see her daughter riding home from school each day on her bicycle. "Any news?" Genevieve would probably say to her grandfather as she crossed the portal of the villa. Pierre would just shake his head sorrowfully.

  It has been two weeks now since anyone has officially seen me. Do you still have hope, my darling daughter? The bereft Nicole was struck by an overwhelming desire to talk to Genevieve. For a moment, suspending reality, Nicole could not accept the fact that she was separated from her daughter by millions of kilometers and had no way to communicate with her. She rose to return to the White Room, thinking in her temporary confusion that she could phone Genevieve from there.

  When her sanity returned several seconds later, Nicole was astonished at how easily her mind had tricked itself. She shook her head and sat down on the wall overlooking the Cylindrical Sea. She remained on the wall for almost two hours, her thoughts roaming freely over a variety of subjects. Toward the end of the time, when she was preparing to return to the White Room, her mind focused on Richard Wakefield. I have tried, my British friend, Nicole said to herself. I have been more open with you than with anyone since Henry. But it would be just my luck to be here with someone even less trusting than myself.

  Nicole was feeling an undefined sadness as she trekked down the stairs to the second level and turned right at the horizontal tunnel. Her sadness changed to surprise when she entered the White Room. Richard jumped up from his small black chair and greeted her with a hug. He had shaved and brushed his hair. He had even cleaned his fingernails. Laid out on the black table in the middle of the room was a neatly sectioned manna melon. One piece sat on each of the two black plates in front of the chairs.

  Richard pulled out her chair and indicated for Nicole to sit down. He went around the table and sat in his own seat. He reached across the table and took both of Nicole's hands. "I want to apologize," he said with great intensity, "for being such a boor. I have behaved very badly these last few days.

  "I have thought of thousands of things to tell you during these hours I've been waiting," he continued hesitantly, a strained smile playing across his lips, "but I can't remember most of them… I know I wanted to explain to you how very important Prince Hal and Falstaff were to me. They were my closest friends… It has not been easy for me to deal with their deaths. My g
rief is still very intense…"

  Richard took a drink of water and swallowed. "But most of all," he said, "I'm sorry that I have not told you what a spectacular person you are. You are intelligent, attractive, witty, sensitive—everything I ever dreamed of finding in a woman. Despite our situation, I've been afraid to tell you how I felt. I guess my fear of rejection runs very deep."

  Tears welled out of the comer of Richard's eyes and ran down his cheeks. He was trembling slightly. Nicole could tell what an incredible effort it had been for him. She brought his hands up against her cheeks. "I think you're very special too," she said.

  50

  HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL

  Richard continued to work with the Rama computer, but he limited himself to short sessions and involved Nicole whenever he could. They took walks together and chatted like old friends. Richard entertained Nicole by acting out entire scenes from Shakespeare. The man had a prodigious memory. He tried to play both sides in the love scenes from Romeo and Juliet, but every time he broke into his falsetto, Nicole would erupt with laughter.

  One night they talked for over an hour about Omen, the Senoufo tribe, and Nicole's visions. "You understand that it's difficult for me to accept the physical reality of some of these stories," Richard said, attempting to qualify his curiosity. "Nevertheless, I admit that I find them absolutely fascinating." Later he showed keen interest in analyzing all the symbolism in her visions. It was obvious that he acknowledged Nicole's mystical attributes as just another component in her rich personality.