Rama: The Omnibus

by Arthur C. Clarke

  Richard jumped off the landing and was beside me in an instant. He grabbed my hand and we raced down several flights of stairs together. We didn't stop until we were back on our living level several landings below.

  We could hear the sound of motion above us. "There was another mantis and at least one bulldozer biot behind the first mantis," Richard said breathlessly. "As soon as they saw me they started removing the grill… Apparently they were just knocking to alert us to their presence."

  "But what do they want?" I asked rhetorically. The noise above us continued to grow. "It sounds like an army," I remarked.

  Within seconds we could hear them moving down the stairs. "We must be prepared to run for it," Richard said frantically. "You get Simone and I'll wake Michael."

  We moved swiftly down the corridor toward our living area. Michael had been awakened already by all the noise, and Simone was stirring as well. We huddled together in our main room, sitting on the shaking floor opposite the black screen, and waited for the alien invaders. Richard had prepared a keyboard request for the Ramans that would, upon the input of two additional commands, cause the black screen to lift up just as it did when our unseen benefactors were about to supply us with some new product. "If we are attacked," Richard said, "we'll take our chances in the tunnels behind the screen."

  Half an hour passed. From the hubbub in the direction of the stairs we could tell that the intruders were already on our level in the lair, but none of them had yet entered the passage toward our living area. After another fifteen minutes curiosity overpowered my husband. "I'll go check out the situation," Richard said, leaving Michael with me and Simone.

  He returned in less than five minutes. "There are fifteen, maybe twenty of them," he told us with a puzzled frown. "Three mantises altogether, plus two different types of bulldozer biots. They seem to be building something on the opposite side of the lair."

  Simone had fallen asleep again. I put her in the cradle and then followed the two men toward the noise. When we reached the circular area where the stairs climb toward the opening to New York, we encountered a maelstrom of activity. It was impossible to follow all the work being done on the opposite side of the room. The mantises appeared to be supervising the bulldozer biots as they were widening a horizontal corridor on the other side of the circular room.

  "Does anybody have any idea what they are doing?" Michael asked in a whisper.

  "Not a clue," Richard replied at the time.

  It is almost twenty-four hours later now and it is still not clear exactly what the biots are building. Richard thinks that the corridor expansion has been made to accommodate some kind of a new facility. He has also suggested that all this activity almost certainly has something to do with us, for it is, after all, being done in our lair.

  The biots work without stopping for rest, food, or sleep. The floor vibrations do not bother them at all. They seem to be following some master plan or procedure that has been thoroughly communicated, for none of them ever confer about anything. It is an awesome spectacle to watch their relentless activity. For their part, the biots have never once acknowledged that we are there watching them.

  An hour ago Richard, Michael, and I talked briefly about the frustration we are all feeling because we do not know what is happening around us. At one point Richard smiled. "It's really not dramatically different from the situation on Earth," he said vaguely. When Michael and I pressed him to explain what he meant, Richard waved his hand in a sweeping gesture. "Even at home," he replied abstractedly, "our knowledge is severely limited. The search for truth is always a frustrating experience."

  8 June 2201

  It is inconceivable to me that the biots could have finished the facility so quickly. Two hours ago the last of them, the foreman mantis that had signaled to us (using the "hand" in the middle of its "face") to inspect the new room early this afternoon, finally trundled up the stairs and disappeared. Richard says that it had remained in our lair until it was satisfied that we understood everything.

  The only object in the new room is a narrow rectangular tank that has obviously been designed for us. It has shiny metal sides and is about three meters high. At either end there is a ladder that goes from the floor to the lip of the tank. A sturdy walkway runs around the outside perimeter of the tank just centimeters below the lip.

  Inside the rectangular structure are four webbed hammocks secured against the walls. Each of these fascinating creations has been individually crafted for a specific member of our family. The hammocks for Michael and Richard are at each end of the tank; Simone and I have webbed beds in the middle, with her tiny hammock being right beside mine.

  Of course Richard has already examined the entire arrangement in detail. Because there is a cover to the tank and the hammocks are set down into the cavity between half a meter and a meter from the top, he has concluded that the tank closes and is then probably filled with a fluid. But why was it built? Are we going to undergo some set of experiments? Richard is certain that we are about to be tested in some way, but Michael says that our being used as guinea pigs is "inconsistent with the Raman personality" we have observed heretofore. I had to laugh at his comment. Michael has now spread his incurable religious optimism to encompass the Ramans as well. He always assumes, like Voltaire's Dr. Pangloss, that we are living in the best of all possible universes.

  The foreman mantis hung around, mostly watching from the walkway of the tank, until each of the four of us had actually lain upon his or her hammock. Richard pointed out that although the hammocks had been positioned at varying depths along the walls, we each will "sink" to approximately the same level when occupying the webbed beds. The webbing is slightly elastic, reminiscent of the lattice material we have encountered before in Rama. While I was "testing" my hammock this afternoon, its bounce reminded me of both the fear and the exhilaration during my fantastic lattice harness ride across the Cylindrical Sea. When I closed my eyes it was easy to see myself again just above the water, suspended beneath the three great avians who were carrying me to freedom.

  Along the lair wall, behind the tank from the point of view of our living area, there is a set of thick pipes that are connected directly to the tank. We suspect that their purpose is to carry some kind of fluid that fills up the volume of the tank. I guess we will find out soon enough.

  So what do we do now? All three of us agree that we should just wait. Doubtless we will eventually be expected to spend some time in this tank. But we have to assume that we will be told when it is the proper time.

  10 June 2201

  Richard was right. He was certain that the intermittent, low-frequency whistle early yesterday was announcing another mission phase transition. He even suggested that maybe we should go over to the new tank and be prepared to take positions on our individual hammocks. Michael and I both argued with him, insisting that there was not "nearly enough information" to jump to such a conclusion.

  We should have followed Richard's advice. Essentially we ignored the whistle and went on with our normal (if that term can ever be used for our existence inside this spacecraft of extraterrestrial origin) routine. About three hours later, the foreman mantis appeared suddenly in the doorway of our main room and scared me out of my wits. It pointed down the corridor with its peculiar fingers and made it clear that we were to move with some dispatch.

  Simone was still asleep and not at all happy when I woke her up. She was also hungry, but the mantis biot would not let me take the time to feed her. So Simone was crying fitfully as we were herded across our lair to the tank.

  A second mantis was waiting on the walkway that rings the lip of the tank. It was holding our transparent helmets in its strange hands. It must also have been the inspector, for this second mantis would not let us descend to our hammocks until it checked to ensure that the helmets were properly placed over our heads. The plastic or glass compound that forms the helmet front is remarkable; we can see perfectly through it. The bottoms of the helmets are also ext
raordinary. They are made of a sticky, rubberlike compound that adheres to the skin very tightly and creates an impermeable seal.

  We had only been lying on our hammocks for thirty seconds when a powerful surge pressed us down against the webbed elements with such force that we sank halfway into the empty tank. An instant later tiny threads (they seemed to grow out of the hammock material) wrapped themselves around the trunks of our bodies, leaving only our arms and necks free. I glanced over at Simone to see if she was crying; she had a big smile on her face.

  The tank had already begun to fill with a light green liquid. In less man a minute we were surrounded by the fluid. Its density was very close to our own, for we half floated on its surface. Soon thereafter the top of the tank closed. I became frightened as the liquid continued to fill the volume. Although I considered it unlikely that we were in any actual danger, I was relieved when the liquid stopped rising, leaving us a few centimeters of breathing space beneath the lid.

  All this time the strong acceleration continued. Luckily it wasn't completely dark inside the tank. There were tiny lights scattered around the tank cover. I could see Simone next to me, her body bouncing like a buoy, and I could even see Richard in the distance.

  We were inside the tank for slightly more than two hours. Richard was extremely excited when we were finished. He told Michael and me that he was certain we had just completed a "test" to see how we could withstand "excessive" forces.

  "They are not satisfied with the paltry accelerations that we have been experiencing heretofore," he exuberantly informed us. "The Ramans want to really increase the velocity. To accomplish that, the spacecraft must be subjected to long duration, high gee forces. This tank has been designed to provide us with enough cushioning that our biological construction can accommodate the unusual environment."

  Richard spent all day doing calculations and a few hours ago showed us his preliminary reconstruction of yesterday's "acceleration event." "Look at this," he shouted, barely able to contain himself. "We made an equivalent velocity change of seventy kilometers per second during that short two-hour period. That is absolutely monstrous for a spacecraft the size of Rama! We were accelerating at close to ten gees the entire time." He then grinned at us. "This ship has one hell of an overdrive mode."

  When we finished the test in the tank, I inserted a new set of biometry probes in all of us, including Simone. I have not seen any unusual responses, at least nothing that has triggered a warning, but I admit that I am still a little concerned about how our bodies will react to the stress. A few minutes ago Richard chided me. "The Ramans are certainly watching too," he said, indicating that he thought the biometry was unnecessary. "I bet they are taking their own data through those threads."

  5

  19 June 2201

  My vocabulary is inadequate I have to describe my experiences of the last several days. The word amazing, for example, falls far short of conveying the true sense of how extraordinary these long hours in the tank have been. The only remotely similar experiences in my life were both induced by the ingestion of catalytic chemicals, first during the Poro ceremony in the Ivory Coast when I was seven years old and then, more recently, after drinking Omeh's vial while I was at the bottom of the pit in Rama. But both those trips or visions or whatever were isolated incidents and comparatively short in duration. My recent episodes in the tank have lasted for hours.

  Before throwing myself totally into a description of the world inside my mind, I should summarize first the "real" events of the past week so that the hallucinatory episodes can be placed in context. Our daily life has now evolved into a repeating pattern. The spacecraft continues to maneuver, but in two separate modes: "regular," when the floor shakes and everything moves but a quasi-normal life can be lived, and "overdrive," when Rama accelerates at a ferocious rate that Richard now estimates is in excess of eleven gees.

  When die spacecraft is in overdrive, the four of us must be inside the tank. The overdrive periods last for just under eight hours out of each twenty-seven-hour, six-minute cycle in the repetitive pattern. We are clearly intended to sleep during the overdrive segments. The tiny lights above our heads in the closed tank are extinguished after the first twenty minutes of each segment and we lie there in the total darkness until five minutes before the end of the eight-hour period.

  All this rapid velocity change, according to Richard, is speeding our escape from the Sun. If the current maneuver remains consistent in both magnitude and direction, and continues for as long as a month, we will then be traveling at half the speed of light with respect to our solar system.

  "Where are we going?" Michael asked yesterday.

  "It's still too early to tell," Richard responded. "All we know is that we're blasting away at a fantastic rate."

  The temperature and density of the liquid inside the tank have been carefully adjusted each period until they are now exactly equal to ours. As a result, when I lie there in the dark, I can feel nothing at all except a barely perceptible downward force. My mind always tells me that I am inside an acceleration tank, surrounded by some kind of fluid cushioning my body against the powerful force, but the absence of sensation eventually causes me to lose my sense of body altogether. That's when the hallucinations begin. It's almost as if some normal sensory input to the brain is necessary to keep me properly functioning. If no sounds, no sights, no tastes, no smells, and no pain reach my brain, then its activity becomes unregulated.

  I tried to discuss this phenomenon with Richard two days ago, but he just looked at me as if I were crazy. He has had no hallucinations. He spends his time in the "twilight zone" (his name for the period of no sensory input prior to deep sleep) doing mathematical calculations, conjuring up a wide variety of maps of the Earth, or even reliving his most outstanding sexual moments. He definitely manages his brain, even in the absence of sensory input. That is why we are so different. My mind wants to find a direction of its own when it is not being used for chores such as processing the billions of pieces of data coming from all the other cells in my body.

  The hallucinations usually begin with a colored speck of red or green that appears in the total dark surrounding me. As the speck enlarges, it is joined by other colors, often yellow, blue, and purple. Each of the colors rapidly forms into its own irregular pattern and spreads across my vision screen. What I am seeing becomes a kaleidoscope of bright colors. The movement in the field accelerates until hundreds of strips and splotches fuse into one raging explosion.

  In the middle of this riot of color a coherent image always forms. At first I cannot tell exactly what it is, for the figure or figures are very small, as if they are far, far away. As the image moves closer, it changes colors several times, adding both to the surreal overtone of the vision and to my inner sense of dread. More than half the time the image that eventually resolves itself contains my mother, or some animal like a cheetah or a lioness that I intuitively recognize as my mother in disguise. As long as I just watch, and make no volitional attempt to interact with my mother, she remains a character in the changing image. However, if I try to contact Mother in any way, she, or the animal representing her, immediately disappears, leaving me with an overwhelming feeling of having been abandoned.

  During one of my recent hallucinations the waves of color broke into geometric patterns and these in turn changed to human silhouettes marching single file across my field of view. Omeh was leading the procession in a bright green robe. The two figures at the rear of the group were both women, the heroines of my adolescence, Joan of Arc and Eleanor of Aquitaine. When I first heard their voices the procession dissolved and the scene instantly shifted. Suddenly I was in a small rowboat in the early morning fog on the small duck pond near our villa at Beauvois. I shivered with fear and began to weep uncontrollably. Joan and Eleanor appeared in the fog and mist to assure me that my father was not going to marry Helena, the English duchess with whom he had gone to Turkey on a vacation.

  Another night the overture of c
olor was followed by a bizarre theatrical performance somewhere in Japan. There were only two characters in the hallucinatory play, both of whom were wearing brilliant, expressive masks. The man who was dressed in the Western suit and tie recited poetry and had magnificently clear, open eyes that could be seen through his friendly mask. The other man looked like a seventeenth century samurai warrior. His mask was a perpetual scowl. He began to threaten both me and his more modern colleague. I screamed at the end of this hallucination because the two men met in the middle of the stage and merged into a single character.

  Some of my most powerful hallucinatory images have only lasted for a few seconds. On the second or third night, a naked Prince Henry, engorged with desire, his body a vibrant purple in color, appeared for two or three seconds in the middle of another vision in which I was riding on a giant green octospider.

  During yesterday's sleep period there were no colors for hours. Then, as I became aware of being incredibly hungry, a giant pink manna melon appeared in the darkness. When I attempted to eat the melon in my vision, it grew legs and scampered away, disappearing into unresolved colors.

  Does any of this mean anything at all? Can I learn something about myself or my life from these apparently random outpourings of my undirected mind?

  The debate about the significance of dreams has raged now for almost three centuries and is still unresolved. These hallucinations of mine, it seems to me, are even more removed from reality than normal dreams. In a sense they are distant cousins of the two psychedelic trips that I took earlier in my life, and any attempt to interpret them logically would be absurd. However, for some reason I still believe some fundamental truths are contained in these wild and seemingly unconnected rampagings of my mind. Maybe that's because I cannot accept that the human brain ever operates in a purely random manner.