Rama: The Omnibus

by Arthur C. Clarke

  Richard has said several times that he would like to sail across the sea, toward the south, and see if he can find any place where the five-hundred-meter cliff can be scaled. Our information about the Southern Hemicylinder of Rama is very limited. Except for the few days when we were on the biot hunt with the original Newton cosmonaut team, our knowledge of the region is limited to the crude mosaics assembled in realtime from the initial Newton drone images. It would certainly be fascinating and exciting to explore the south—maybe we could even find out where all those octospiders went. But we can't afford to take any risks at this juncture. Our family is critically dependent on each of the three adults—the loss of any one of us would be devastating.

  I believe Michael O'Toole is content with the life we have made for ourselves on Rama, especially since the addition of Richard's large computer has made so much more information readily available to us. We now have access to all the encyclopedic data that was stored onboard the Newton military ship. Michael's current "study unit," as he calls his organized recreation, is art history. Last month his conversation was full of the Medici and the Catholic popes of the Renaissance, along with Michelangelo, Raphael, and the other great painters of the period. He is now involved with the nineteenth century, a time in art history that I find more interesting. We have had many recent discussions about the impressionist "revolution," but Michael does not accept my argument that impressionism was simply a natural by-product of the advent of the camera.

  Michael spends hours with Simone. He is patient, tender, and caring. He has carefully monitored her development and has recorded her major milestones in his electronic notebook. At present Simone knows twenty-one of her twenty-six letters by sight (she confuses the pairs C and S, as well as Y and V, and for some reason cannot learn the K), and can count to twenty on a good day. Simone can also correctly identify drawings of an avian, an octospider, and the four most prevalent types of biots. She knows the names of the twelve disciples as well, a fact that does not make Richard happy. We have already had one "summit meeting" about the spiritual education of our daughters, and the result was polite disagreement.

  That leaves me. I am happy most of the time, although I do have some days when Richard's restlessness or Katie's crying or just the absurdity of our strange life on this alien spaceship combine to overwhelm me. I am always busy. I plan most of the family activities, decide what we're eating and when, and organize the children's days, including their naps. I never stop asking the question, where are we going? But it no longer frustrates me that I do not know the answer.

  My personal intellectual activity is more limited than I might choose if I were left to my own devices, but I tell myself that there are only so many hours in the day. Richard, Michael, and I engage often in lively conversation, so there is certainly no dearth of stimulation. But neither of them has much interest in some intellectual areas that have always been a part of my life. My skills in languages and linguistics, for example, have been a source of considerable pride for me since my earliest days in school. Several weeks ago I had a terrifying dream in which I had forgotten how to write or speak in anything but English. For two weeks thereafter I spent two hours by myself each day, not just reviewing my beloved French, but also studying Italian and Japanese as well.

  One afternoon last month Richard projected on the black screen a Raman external telescope output that included our Sun and another thousand stars in the field of view. The Sun was the brightest of the objects, but just barely. Richard reminded Michael and me that we are already more than twelve trillion kilometers away from our oceanic home planet in close orbit around that insignificant distant star.

  Later the same evening we watched Eleanor the Queen, one of the thirty or so movies originally carried onboard the Newton to entertain the cosmonaut crew. The movie was loosely based on my father's successful novels about Eleanor of Aquitaine and was filmed in many of the locations that I had visited with my father when I was an adolescent. The final scenes of the movie, showing the years before Eleanor died, all took place in l'Abbaye de Fontevrault. I remember being fourteen years old and standing in the abbey beside my father opposite the carved effigy of Eleanor, my hands trembling with emotion as I clutched his. "You were a great woman," I once said to the spirit of the queen who had dominated twelfth century history in France and England, "and you have set an example for me to follow. I will not disappoint you."

  That night, after Richard was asleep and while Katie was temporarily quiet, I thought about the day again and was filled with a deep sorrow, a sense of loss that I could not quite articulate. The juxtaposition of the retreating Sun and the image of myself as a teenager, making bold promises to a queen who had been dead for almost a thousand years, reminded me that everything I had ever known before Rama is now finished. My two new daughters will never see any of the places that meant so much to me and Genevieve. They will never know the smell of freshly mown grass in springtime, the radiant beauty of the flowers, the songs of the birds, or the glory of the full moon rising out of the ocean. They will not know the planet Earth at all, or any of its inhabitants, except for this small and motley crew they will call their family, a meager representation of the overflowing life on a blessed planet.

  That night I wept quietly for several minutes, knowing even as I was weeping that by morning I would again be wearing my optimistic face. After all, it could be much worse. We have the essentials: food, water, shelter, clothing, good health, companionship, and, of course, love. Love is the most important ingredient for the happiness of any human life, either on Earth or on Rama. If Simone and Katie learn only of love from the world we've left behind, it will be enough.

  7

  1 April 2204

  Today was unusual in every respect. First, I announced as soon as everyone was awake that we were going to dedicate the day to the memory of Eleanor of Aquitaine, who died, if the historians are correct and we have properly tracked the calendar, exactly one thousand years ago today. To my delight, the entire family supported the idea and both Richard and Michael immediately volunteered to help with the festivities. Michael, whose art history unit has now been replaced by one on cooking, suggested that he prepare a special medieval brunch in honor of the queen. Richard dashed off with TB, whispering to me that the little robot was going to return as Henry Plantagenet.

  I had developed a short history lesson for Simone, introducing her to Eleanor and the twelfth century world. She was unusually attentive. Even Katie, who never sits still for longer than five minutes, was cooperative and didn't interrupt us. She played quietly with her baby toys most of the morning. Simone asked me at the end of the lesson why Queen Eleanor had died. When I responded that the queen had died of old age, my three-year-old daughter then asked if Queen Eleanor had "gone to heaven."

  "Where did you get that idea?" I asked Simone.

  "From Uncle Michael," she replied. "He told me that good people go to heaven when they die and bad people go to hell."

  "Some people believe there is a heaven," I said after a reflective pause. "Others believe in what's called reincarnation, where people come back and live again as a different person or even as a different kind of animal. Some other people believe that each special life is a unique miracle, awakening from conception to birth, and going to sleep forever at death." I smiled and tousled her hair.

  "What do you believe, Mama?" my daughter then asked.

  I felt something very close to panic. I temporized with a few comments while I tried to figure out what to say. An expression from my favorite T.S. Eliot poem, "to lead you to an overwhelming question," whisked in and out of my mind. Luckily I was rescued.

  "Fare thee well, young lady." The little robot TB, dressed in what was supposed to pass for medieval riding garb, walked into the room and informed Simone that he was Henry Plantagenet, king of England, and husband of Queen Eleanor. Simone's smile brightened. Katie looked up and grinned.

  "The queen and I built a grand empire," the robot said,
making an expansive gesture with his little arms, "that eventually included all of England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and half of what is now France." TB recited a prepared lecture with gusto, amusing Simone and Katie with his winks and hand gestures. He then reached in his pocket and pulled out a miniature knife and fork, claiming that he had introduced the concept of eating utensils to the "barbaric English."

  "But why did you put Queen Eleanor in prison?" Simone asked after the robot was finished. I smiled. She had indeed paid attention to her history lesson. The robot's head pivoted and looked in Richard's direction. Richard held up a finger, indicating a brief wait, and rushed out into the corridor. In no more than a minute TB, a.k.a. Henry II, returned. The robot walked over to Simone. "I fell in love with another woman," he said, "and Queen Eleanor was angry. To get even with me, she turned my sons against me…"

  A short time later Richard and I were involved in a mild argument about the real reasons why Henry imprisoned Eleanor (we have discovered many times that we each learned a different version of Anglo-French history) when we heard a distant but unmistakable shriek. Within moments all five of us were topside. The shriek repeated.

  We looked up in the sky above us. A solitary avian was flying a wide pattern a few hundred meters above the tops of the skyscrapers. We hurried over to the ramparts, beside the Cylindrical Sea, so we could have a better look. Once, twice, three times the great creature flew around the perimeter of the island. At the end of each loop the avian emitted a single long shriek. Richard waved his arms and shouted throughout the flight, but there was no indication that he was noticed.

  The children became restless after about an hour. We agreed that Michael would take them back to the lair and Richard and I would stay as long as there was any possibility of contact. The bird continued flying in the same pattern. "Do you think it's looking for something?" I asked Richard.

  "I don't know," he said, shouting again and waving at the avian as it reached the point in its loop where it was closest to us. This time it changed course, inscribing long graceful arcs in its helical descent. As it grew closer, Richard and I could see both its gray velvet underbelly and the two bright, cherry-red rings around its neck.

  "It's our friend," I whispered to Richard, remembering the avian leader who had agreed to transport us across the Cylindrical Sea four years earlier.

  But this avian was not the healthy, robust creature that had flown in the center of the formation when we had escaped from New York. This bird was skinny and emaciated, its velvet dirty and unkempt. "It's sick," Richard said as the bird landed about twenty meters away from us.

  The avian jabbered something softly and jerked its head around nervously, as if it were expecting more company. Richard took one step toward it and the creature waved its wings, flapped them once, and backed up a few meters. "What food do we have available," Richard said in a low voice, "that is chemically most like the manna melon?"

  I shook my head. "We don't have any food at all except last night's chicken—Wait," I said, interrupting myself, "we do have that green punch the children like. It looks like the liquid in the center of the manna melon."

  Richard was gone before I had finished my sentence. During the ten minutes until he returned, the avian and I stared silently at one another. I tried to focus my mind on friendly thoughts, hoping that somehow my good intentions would be communicated through my eyes. Once I did see the avian change its expression, but of course I had no idea what either expression meant.

  Richard returned carrying one of our black bowls filled with the green punch. He set the bowl in front of us and pointed at it as we backed away six or eight meters. The avian approached it in small, halting steps, stopping eventually right in front of the bowl. The bird dropped its beak into the liquid, took a small sip, and then threw its head back to swallow. Apparently the punch was all right, for the liquid was drained in less than a minute. When the avian was finished, it backed up two steps, spread its wings to their full extent, and made a full circular turn.

  "Now we should say you're welcome," I said, extending my hand to Richard. We executed our circular turn, as we had done when we had said good-bye and thank you four years earlier, and bowed slightly in the avian's direction when we were finished.

  Both Richard and I thought that the creature smiled, but we readily admitted later that we might have imagined it. The gray velvet avian spread its wings, lifted off the ground, and soared over our heads into the air.

  "Where do you think it's going?" I asked Richard.

  "It's dying," he replied softly. "It's taking one last look around the world it has known."

  6 January 2205

  Today is my birthday. I am now forty-one years old. Last night I had another of my vivid dreams. I was very old. My hair was completely gray and my face was heavily wrinkled. I was living in a castle-somewhere near the Loire, not too far from Beauvois—with two grown daughters (neither of whom looked, in the dream, like Simone or Katie or Genevieve) and three grandsons. The boys were all teenagers, healthy physically, but there was something wrong with each of them. They were all dull, maybe even retarded. I remember in the dream trying to explain to them how the molecule of hemoglobin carries oxygen from the pulmonary system to the tissues. None of them could understand what I was saying.

  I woke up from the dream in a depression. It was the middle of the night and everyone else in the family was asleep. As I often do, I walked down the corridor to the nursery to make certain that the girls were still covered by their light blankets. Simone hardly ever moves at night but Katie, as usual, had thrown her blanket off with her thrashing around. I put the cover back over Katie and then sat down in one of the chairs.

  What is bothering me? I wondered. Why have I been having so many dreams about children and grandchildren? One day last week I made a joking reference to the possibility of having a third child and Richard, who is going through another of his extended gloomy periods, almost jumped out of his skin. I think he's still sorry I talked him into having Katie. I dropped the subject immediately, not wanting to provoke another of his nihilistic tirades.

  Would I really want another baby at this juncture? Does it make any sense at all, given the situation in which we find ourselves? Putting aside for the moment any personal reasons I might have for giving birth to a third child, there is a powerful biological argument for continuing to reproduce. Our best guess at our destiny is that we will never have any future contact with other members of the human species. If we are the last in our line, it would be wise for us to pay heed to one of the fundamental tenets of evolution: Maximum genetic variation produces the highest probability of survival in an uncertain environment.

  After I had thoroughly awakened from my dream last night, my mind carried the scenario even further. Suppose, I told myself, that Rama is really not going anywhere, at least not soon, and that we will spend the rest of our lives in our current conditions. Then, in all likelihood, Simone and Katie will outlive the three of us adults. What will happen next? I asked. Unless we have somehow saved some semen from either Michael or Richard (and both the biological and sociological problems would be formidable), my daughters will not be able to reproduce. They themselves may arrive at paradise or nirvana or some other world, but they will eventually perish and the genes they carry will die with them.

  But suppose, I continued, that I give birth to a son. Then the two girls will have a male companion their age and the problem of succeeding generations will be dramatically lessened.

  It was at this point in my thought pattern that a truly crazy idea jumped into my brain. One of my major areas of specialty during my medical training was genetics, especially hereditary defects. I remembered my case studies of the royal families of Europe between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries and the many "inferior" individuals produced from the excessive inbreeding. A son produced by Richard and me would have the same genetic ingredients as Simone and Katie. That son's children with either of the girls, our grandchildren, w
ould have a very high risk of defects. A son produced by Michael and me, on the other hand, would share only half his genes with the girls and, if my memory of the data serves me correctly, his offspring with Simone or Katie would have a drastically lower defect risk.

  I immediately rejected this outrageous thought. It did not, however, go away. Later in the night, when I should have been sleeping, my mind returned to the same topic. What if I become pregnant by Richard again, I asked myself, and I have a third girl? Then it will be necessary to repeat the entire process. I'm already forty-one. How many more years do I have before the onset of menopause, even if I delay it chemically? On the basis of the two data points thus far, there is no evidence that Richard can produce a boy at all. We could establish a laboratory to permit male sperm selection from his semen, but it would take a monumental effort on our part and months of detailed interaction with the Ramans. And there would still remain the issues of sperm preservation and delivery to the ovaries.

  I thought through the various proven techniques of altering the natural sex selection process (the man's diet, type and frequency of intercourse, timing with respect to ovulation, etc.) and concluded that Richard and I would probably have a good chance of producing a boy naturally, if we were very careful. But at the back of my mind the thought persisted that the odds would be still more favorable if Michael were the father. After all, he had two sons (out of three children) as a result of random behavior. However much I might be able to improve the probabilities with Richard, the same techniques with Michael would virtually guarantee a son.