"Wow!" said Richard first. "Did you see that?"
He jumped up and approached the screen. "It happened so fast," Nicole commented, coming up beside him.
General O'Toole mumbled a very short prayer of thanks and joined his colleagues in front of the screen. "How do you think it did that?" he asked Richard.
"I have no idea," Richard replied. "But somehow that cocoon contained the explosion. It must be a fantastic material." He flipped back to the radar image. "Let's watch this next one more closely. It should be here in a few—"
There was a brilliant flash of light and the screen went blank. Less than a second later a sharp lateral force hit them hard, knocking them to the floor. The lights went out in the White Room and the ground stopped shaking. "Is everyone all right?" Richard asked, groping for Nicole's hand in the dark.
"I think so," O'Toole replied. "I hit the wall, but only with my back and elbow."
"I'm fine, darling," Nicole answered. "What happened?"
"Obviously that one exploded early, before it reached the net. We were hit by the shock wave."
"I don't understand," O'Toole said. "The bomb exploded in a vacuum. How could there be a shock wave?"
"It wasn't technically just a shock wave," Richard replied, standing up as the lights came back on and the ground began to shake again. "Hey, how about that!" he interrupted himself. "The famous Raman redundancy scores again. You okay?" he said to Nicole, who looked unsteady as she was standing up.
"I bruised my knee," she answered, "but it's not serious."
"The bomb destroyed the rest of its own missile," Richard said, now answering O'Toole's question as he searched through the sensor list for the redundant imaging and radar outputs, "vaporizing most of the casing and reducing the rest to fragments. The gas and debris moved outward at enormous speeds, creating the wave that hit us. The mesh attenuated the size of the shock."
Nicole moved over against the wall and sat down. "I want to be ready for the next one," she said.
"I wonder how many bumps like that Rama can survive," Richard said.
General O'Toole came over and sat down beside Nicole. "Two down and fourteen to go," he said. They all smiled. At least they weren't dead yet.
Richard located the redundant sensors a few minutes later. "Uh-oh," he said as he surveyed the remaining blips on the screen. "Unless I'm mistaken, the last bomb that exploded was many kilometers away. We were lucky. We'd better hope one doesn't detonate just outside the mesh."
The trio watched while two more missiles were trapped and wrapped in the material surrounding Rama. Richard stood up. "We have a brief respite now," he said. "It will be three minutes or so before our next impact—then we'll have four more missiles in a hurry."
Nicole rose to her feet also. She saw that General O'Toole was holding his back. "Are you sure you're all right, Michael?" she asked. He nodded, still watching the screen. Richard came over beside Nicole and took her hand. A minute later they sat down together against the wall to wait for the next impacts.
They didn't wait long. A second lateral force, much stronger than the first one, hit them within twenty seconds. Again the lights went out and the floor stopped shaking. Nicole could hear O'Toole's labored breathing in the dark. "Michael," she said, "are you hurt?"
When there was no immediate reply, Nicole started crawling in his direction. That was a mistake. She was not braced against anything when the powerful third blast hit. Nicole was thrown savagely into the wall, hitting it with the side of her head.
General O'Toole stayed beside Nicole while Richard went up into New York to survey the city. The men spoke quietly when Richard returned. He reported only minor damage. Thirty minutes after the final missile had been trapped, the lights came back on and the ground started shaking again. "You see," Richard said with a grin, "I told you we'd be all right. They always do everything important in threes."
Nicole remained unconscious for almost another hour. During the last few minutes she was vaguely aware of both the vibration of the floor and the conversation on the opposite side of the room. Nicole opened her eyes very slowly,
"The net effect," she heard Richard say, "is to increase our velocity along the hyperbola. So we will cross the Earth's orbit much earlier than previously, long before the planet itself has arrived."
"How close will we come to the Earth?"
"Not too close. It depends on when this maneuver ends. If it stopped now we would miss by a million kilometers or so, more than twice the distance to the Moon."
Nicole sat up and smiled. "Good morning," she said cheerfully.
The two men came over beside her. "Are you all right, darling?" Richard asked.
"I think so," Nicole said, feeling the bump on the side of her head. "I may have occasional headaches for a while." She looked at the two men. "What about you, Michael? I seem to remember being worried about you right before the big blast."
"The second one knocked the wind out of me," O'Toole replied. "Luckily I was better prepared for the third bomb. And my back seems fine now."
Richard started to explain what he had learned from the output of Rama's celestial sensors. "I heard the last part of it," Nicole said. "I gather we're now going to miss the Earth altogether." Richard helped her to stand up. "But where are we headed?"
Richard shrugged his shoulders. "No planetary or asteroidal targets are anywhere close to our present trajectory. Our hyperbolic energy is increasing. If nothing changes we will escape from the solar system altogether."
"And become interstellar travelers," Nicole said quietly.
"If we live that long," added the general.
"For my part," Richard said with a playful smile, "I am not going to worry about what happens next. At least not yet. I plan to celebrate our escape from the nuclear phalanx. I vote we go upstairs and introduce Michael to some new friends. Should it be the avians or the octospiders?"
Nicole shook her head and smiled. "You're hopeless, Wakefield. Let me not in any way inhibit—"
"Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments…"
TB suddenly interrupted. All three of the cosmonauts were startled. They stared down at the tiny robot and then erupted with laughter.
"…love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds
Or bends with the remover to remove.
Oh no, it is an ever-fixed mark…"
Richard picked up TB and switched him off. Nicole and Michael were still laughing. Richard embraced each of them individually. "I can't think of three better traveling companions," he said, holding the little robot over his head, "wherever it is we're going."
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many different people contributed to this novel during numerous conversations over a two-year period. Those whose comments or insights were especially valuable include Bebe Barden, Paul Chodas, Clayton Frohman, Michael Glassman, Bruce Jakosky, Roland Joffe, Gerry Snyder, and Ian Stewart.
Lou Aronica, Malcolm Edwards, and Russ Galen each made significant contributions to the book. Their editing insights were essential in shaping the final structure of the novel.
Special thanks are extended to Father Martin Slaught, whose religious acumen was indispensable in creating General O'Toole, and Peter Guber, who enabled the authors to meet for the first time over three years ago.
Finally, no acknowledgment would be complete without bouquets for Mr. Lee's family. His wife, Stacey, and five young sons, Cooper, Austin, Robert, Patrick, and Michael, generously allowed him to make the necessary trips halfway around the world to Sri Lanka and granted him the private time that was required for the integration of this novel
THE
GARDEN
OF RAMA
Arthur C. Clarke
and
Gentry Lee
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many people made valuable contributions to this novel. First among them, in terms of overall impact, was our editor, Lou Aronica. His early comments
shaped the structure of the whole novel and his insightful final editing significantly strengthened the flow of the book.
Our good friend and polymath Gerry Snyder was again extremely helpful, generously tackling any technical problem, whether large or small. If the medical passages in the story are accurate and have verisimilitude, then credit should go to Dr. Jim Willerson. Any errors in the same passages are strictly the responsibility of the authors.
During the early writing, Jihei Akita went out of his way to help us find the proper locations for the Japanese scenes. He also was more than willing to discuss at length both the customs and history of his nation. In Thailand, Ms. Watcharee Monviboon was an excellent guide to the marvels of that country.
The novel deals in considerable detail with women, especially the way they feel and think. Both Bebe Barden and Stacey Lee were always available for conversations about the nature of the female. Ms. Barden was also especially helpful with the ideas for the life and poetry of Benita Garcia.
Stacey Kiddoo Lee made many direct contributions to The Garden of Rama, but it was her unselfish support of the entire effort that was absolutely critical. During the writing of the novel Stacey also gave birth to her fourth son, Travis Clarke Lee. For everything, Stacey, thank you very much.
NICOLE'S JOURNAL
1
29 December 2200
Two nights ago, at 10:44 Greenwich time on the Earth, Simone Tiasso Wakefield greeted the universe. It was an incredible experience. I thought I had felt powerful emotions before, but nothing in my life—not the death of my mother, not the Olympic gold medal in Los Angeles, not my thirty-six hours with Prince Henry, and not even the birth of Genevieve under the watchful eyes of my father at the hospital in Tours—was as intense as my joy and relief when I finally heard Simone's first cry.
Michael had predicted that the baby would arrive on Christmas Day. In his usual lovable way, he told us that he believed God was going to "give us a sign" by having our spacechild born on Jesus' assumed birthday. Richard scoffed, as my husband always does when Michael's religious fervor gets carried away. But after I felt the first strong contractions on Christmas Eve, even Richard almost became a believer.
I slept fitfully the night before Christmas. Just before I awakened, I had a deep, vivid dream. I was walking beside our pond at Beauvois, playing with my pet duck Dunois and his wild mallard companions, when I heard a voice calling me. I could not identify the voice, but I definitely knew it was a woman speaking. She told me that the birth was going to be extremely difficult and that I would need every bit of my strength to bring my second child into the light.
On Christmas itself, after we exchanged the simple presents that each of us had clandestinely ordered from the Ramans, I began to train Michael and Richard for a range of possible emergencies. I think Simone would indeed have been born on Christmas Day if my conscious mind had not been so aware that neither of the two men was even remotely prepared to help me in case of a major problem. My will alone probably delayed the baby's birth those final two days.
One of the contingency procedures we discussed on Christmas was a breech baby. A couple of months ago, when my unborn baby girl still had some freedom of movement inside my womb, I was fairly certain that she was upside down. But I thought she had turned around during the last week before she dropped into the birth position. I was only partially correct. She did manage to come headfirst down the birth canal; however, her face was upward, toward my stomach, and after the first serious set of contractions, the top of her little head became awkwardly wedged against my pelvis.
In a hospital on Earth the physician would probably have performed a cesarean section. Certainly a doctor would have been on guard for fetal stress and at work early with all the robot instruments, striving to turn Simone's head around before she wedged into such an uncomfortable position.
Toward the end the pain was excruciating. In between the strong contractions driving her against my unyielding bones, I tried to yell out orders to Michael and Richard. Richard was almost useless. He could not deal with my pain (or "the mess," as he later called it), much less either assist with the episiotomy or use the makeshift forceps we had obtained from the Ramans. Michael, bless his heart, sweat pouring off his forehead despite the cool temperature in the room, struggled gallantly to follow my sometimes incoherent instructions. He used the scalpel from my kit to open me up wider and then, after only a moment's hesitation due to all the blood, he found Simone's head with the forceps. Somehow he managed, on his third attempt, both to force her backward in the birth canal and to turn her over so she could be born.
Both men screamed when she crowned. I kept concentrating on my breathing pattern, worried that I might not maintain consciousness. Despite the intense pain, I too bellowed when my next powerful contraction shot Simone forward into Michael's hands. As the father it was Richard's job to cut the umbilical cord. When Richard had finished, Michael lifted Simone up for me to see. "It's a girl," he said with tears in his eyes. He laid her softly on my stomach and I rose up slightly to look at her. My first impression was that she looked exactly like my mother.
I forced myself to stay alert until the placenta was removed and I had finished stitching, with Michael's assistance, the cuts he had made with the scalpel. Then I collapsed. I don't remember many details from the next twenty-four hours. I was so tired from the labor and delivery (my contractions were down to five minutes apart eleven hours before Simone was actually born) that I slept at every opportunity. My new daughter nursed readily, without any urging, and Michael .insists that she even nursed once or twice while I was only partially awake. My milk now surges into my breasts immediately after Simone begins to suckle. She seems quite satisfied when she's finished. I'm delighted that my milk is adequate for her—I was worried that I might have the same problem that I had with Genevieve.
One of the two men is beside me every time I wake up. Richard's smiles always seem a little forced, but they are appreciated nevertheless. Michael is quick to place Simone in my arms or at my breasts when I am awake. He holds her comfortably, even when she is crying, and keeps mumbling, "She's beautiful."
At the moment Simone is sleeping beside me wrapped in the quasi-blanket manufactured by the Ramans (it is extremely difficult to define fabrics, particularly quality words like soft, in any of the quantitative terms that our hosts can understand). She does indeed look like my mother. Her skin is quite dark, maybe even darker than mine, and the thatch of hair on her head is jet black. Her eyes are a rich brown. With her head still coned and misshapen from the difficult birth, it is not easy to call Simone beautiful. But of course Michael is right. She is gorgeous. My eyes can readily see the beauty beyond the fragile, reddish creature breathing with such frantic rapidity. Welcome to the world, Simone Wakefield.
2
6 January 2201
I have been depressed now for two days. And tired, oh, so tired. Even though I am well aware that I have a typical case of postpartum syndrome, I have been unable to relieve my feelings of depression.
This morning was the worst. I woke before Richard and lay quietly on my portion of the mat. I looked over at Simone, who was sleeping peacefully in the Raman cradle against the wall. Despite my feelings of love for her, I could not manage any positive thoughts about her future. The glow of ecstasy that had surrounded her birth and lasted for seventy-two hours had completely vanished. An endless stream of hopeless observations and unanswerable questions kept running through my mind. What kind of life will you have, my little Simone? How can we, your parents, possibly provide for your happiness?
My darling daughter, you live with your parents and their good friend Michael O'Toole in an underground lair onboard a gargantuan spacecraft of extraterrestrial origin. The three adults in your life are all cosmonauts from the planet Earth, part of the crew of the Newton expedition sent to investigate a cylindrical worldlet called Rama almost a year ago. Your mother, father, and General O'Toole were the only human beings still o
nboard this alien craft when Rama abruptly changed its trajectory to avoid being annihilated by a nuclear phalanx launched from a paranoid Earth.
Above our lair is an island city of mysterious skyscrapers, which we call New York. It is surrounded by a frozen sea that completely circles this huge spacecraft and cuts it in half. At this moment, according to your father's calculations, we are just inside the orbit of Jupiter (although the great gasball itself is way over on the other side of the Sun), following a hyperbolic trajectory that will eventually leave the solar system altogether. We do not know where we are going. We do not know who built this spaceship or why they built it. We know there are other occupants onboard, but we have no idea where they came from and, in addition, have reason to suspect that at least some of them may be hostile.
Over and over my thoughts the last two days have continued in this same pattern. Each time I come to the same depressing conclusion: It is inexcusable that we, as supposedly mature adults, would bring such a helpless and innocent being into an environment about which we understand so little and over which we have absolutely no control.
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