Rama: The Omnibus

by Arthur C. Clarke

Nicole was lying on her back, awake again in the middle of the night. In the dim light of their bedroom she could see Richard sleeping soundlessly beside her. At length she rose quietly and crossed the room, exiting into the large main chamber of their temporary home.

  The intelligence that controlled the illumination made it easy for the humans to sleep, always sharply reducing the light shining through the rainbow dome for roughly eight hours in each twenty-four-hour period. During these "night" intervals, the main chamber underneath the dome was only softly lit, and the individual bedrooms cut into the walls, which had no lights of their own, were dark enough for restful sleep.

  For several consecutive nights Nicole had slept fitfully, awakening often from disquieting dreams that she could not quite remember. This particular night, as she struggled unsuccessfully to recapture the images that had disturbed her rest, Nicole walked slowly around the perimeter of the large circular room in which her family and friends spent most of their time. On the far side of the chamber, near the empty subway platform, she stopped and stared into the dark tunnel that led through the Cylindrical Sea.

  What is really going on here? Nicole wondered. What power or intelligence is providing for us now?

  It had been four weeks since the small human contingent had first reached this magnificent cavern constructed underneath the Southern Hemicylinder of Rama. The new living quarters had obviously been designed, at considerable effort, specifically for them. The bedrooms and the bathrooms in the alcoves were indistinguishable from those in New Eden. The first subway to return after they had arrived at the dome had brought more food and water, plus couches, chairs, and tables to furnish their living areas. The humans had even been supplied with dishes, glasses, and eating utensils. Who, or what, knew enough about everyday human activity to provide such detailed implements?

  It is obviously someone who has observed us very carefully, Nicole was thinking. Her mind conjured up an image of the Eagle and she realized that she was engaging in wishful thinking. But who else could it be? Only the Ramans and the Nodal Intelligence have enough information…

  Her thoughts were broken by a sound behind her. Nicole turned and saw Max Puckett approaching from across the chamber. "You can't sleep either?" he said as he drew near.

  Nicole shook her head. "These last few nights I've been having bad dreams."

  "I keep worrying about Eponine," Max said. "I can still see the terror in her eyes as she was dragged away." He turned away in silence and faced the subway tunnel.

  And what about you, Ellie? Nicole wondered, feeling a sharp pang of anxiety. Are you safe with the octospiders? Or is Max correct about them? Are Richard and I deluding ourselves by believing the octos do not intend to harm us?

  "I can't just sit here any longer," Max said quietly to Nicole. "I must do something to help Eponine. Or at least to convince myself I'm trying."

  "But what can you do, Max?" Nicole asked after a short pause.

  "Our only contact with the outside world is that damn subway," Max said. "The next time it comes to bring us food and water, which should be either tonight or tomorrow, I intend to climb on board and stay there. When it leaves, I will ride until it stops. Then I will try to find an octospider and have myself captured."

  Nicole recognized the desperation in her friend's face. "You're grasping at straws, Max," she said softly. "You will not find an octospider unless they are willing. Besides, we need you."

  "Shit, Nicole, I'm not needed here." Max had raised his voice. "And there's absolutely nothing to do, except talk to each other and play with the children. At least in your lair there was always the option of taking a walk in the dark of New York. Meanwhile, Eponine and Ellie may be dead, or wishing they were. It's time we did something."

  As he was talking, they both saw lights flicker in the distant reaches of the subway tunnel. "Here it comes again," Max said. "I'll help you unload after I finish packing my things." He ran off in the direction of his bedroom.

  Nicole stayed to watch the approaching subway. As always, lights came on in front of the train as it rushed through the tunnel. A few minutes later the subway pulled into its slot, an incision in the circular floor of the room, and stopped abruptly. After the doors opened, Nicole went over to examine the inside of the car.

  In addition to four large jugs of water, the subway contained the usual collection of fresh produce that the humans had learned to eat and enjoy, plus a large squeeze tube of a sticky substance that tasted like a mixture of oranges and honey. But where is all this food grown? Nicole asked herself for the hundredth time as she began unloading the food. She recalled the many family discussions of the subject. The consensus conclusion was always that there must be large farms somewhere in the Southern Hemicylinder.

  About who was feeding them there was less agreement. Richard was certain that they were being fed by the octospiders themselves, primarily because all their supplies passed through territory he considered to be octospider domain. It was hard to argue with his logic. Max agreed that what they were eating was indeed being supplied by the octospiders. However, he attributed sinister motives to all octospider actions. If they were being fed by the octospiders, he asserted, then it was not for humanitarian purposes.

  Why would the octospiders be our benefactors? Nicole wondered. I agree with Max that feeding us is inconsistent with kidnapping Eponine and Ellie. Isn't it just possible that some other species is involved? One that has chosen to intercede on our behalf? Despite Richard's gentle ridicule in the privacy of their own bedroom, a part of Nicole clung stubbornly to the hope that there were indeed some "rainbow people," higher in the development hierarchy than the octospiders, who were somehow interested in the preservation of the vulnerable humans and were ordering the octospiders to feed them.

  The contents of the subway always included a surprise. At the back of the car this time were six balls of various sizes, each a different bright color.

  "Look, Max," Nicole said. He had returned with his pack and was helping her unload. "They have even sent balls for the children to play with."

  "Wonderful," Max said sarcastically. "Now we can all listen to the children argue about which ball belongs to whom."

  When they had finished emptying the subway, Max climbed into the car and sat down on the floor. "How long will you wait?" Nicole asked.

  "As long as it takes," Max said grimly.

  "Did you discuss what you're doing with anyone else?" Nicole inquired.

  "Hell, no," Max replied vehemently. "Why should I? We're not operating a democracy here." Max leaned forward in his sitting position. "Sorry, Nicole, but I'm just generally pissed off right now. Eponine has been gone for a month, I've run out of cigarettes, and I'm easily annoyed." He forced a smile. "Clyde and Winona used to tell me, when I was acting like this, that I had a burr up my ass."

  "It's all right, Max," Nicole said. She hugged him briefly before leaving. "I just hope you'll be safe, wherever you go."

  The subway did not depart. Max stubbornly refused to leave the train, not even to go to the bathroom. His friends brought Max food, water, and the necessary materials for him to keep the train clean. By the end of the third day, the food supply was dwindling rapidly.

  "Someone must talk to Max soon," Robert said to the other adults after the children were asleep. "It's clear that the subway is not going to move as long as he is on board."

  "I plan to discuss the situation with him in the morning," Nicole said.

  "But we're running out of food now," Robert protested. "And we don't know how long it takes."

  "We can ration what we have left," Richard interrupted, "and make it last at least two more days. Look, Robert, we're all tense and tired. It will be better to talk to Max after a good night's sleep."

  "What do we do if Max does not willingly leave the subway?" Richard asked Nicole when they were alone.

  "I don't know," Nicole said. "Patrick asked me the same question this afternoon. He's afraid of what will happen if we try to
force Max out of the train. Patrick says that Max is very tired and very angry."

  When Nicole finally fell asleep, she was exhausted. Again her dreams were troubled. In her first dream, the villa at Beauvois was on fire and she could not find Genevieve. Then the dream venue changed abruptly and Nicole was again seven years old in the Ivory Coast participating in the Poro ceremony. She was swimming half naked in the little pond in the center of the oasis. On the banks of the pond the lioness was on the prowl, searching for the human girl who had disturbed her cub. Nicole submerged to avoid the sharp eyes of the lioness. When she came up for a breath, the lioness was gone, but three octospiders were now patrolling the pond.

  "Mother, Mother," Nicole heard Ellie's voice say.

  As she was treading water, Nicole's eyes raced around the perimeter of the pond. "We're all right. Mother," Ellie's voice distinctly said. "Don't worry about us."

  But where was Ellie in the scene? Dreaming, Nicole saw a human silhouette in the woods behind the three octospiders and called out, "Ellie, is that you, Ellie?"

  The dark figure said "Yes" in Ellie's voice and then walked out to where he could be seen in the moonlight. Nicole recognized the bright white teeth immediately. "Omeh," she shouted, a wave of terror running down her spine. "Omeh—"

  Nicole was awakened by a persistent nudging. Richard was sitting beside her in the bed. "Are you all right, darling?" he said. "You were shouting Ellie's name … and then Omeh."

  "I had another one of my vivid dreams," Nicole said, rising and putting on her clothes. "I was told that Eponine and Ellie are safe, wherever they are."

  Nicole finished dressing. "Where are you going at this hour?" Richard asked.

  "To talk to Max," Nicole replied.

  She hurried out of their bedroom and into the main chamber underneath the dome. For some reason, Nicole glanced up at the ceiling just when she entered the chamber. She saw something she had never noticed. There appeared to be a landing or platform cut several meters beneath the dome. Nicole wondered why she had never seen it before.

  Max was sleeping in a ball in the corner of the subway. Nicole entered very quietly. A few seconds before she touched him, Max murmured Eponine's name twice. Then his head jerked. "Yes, dear," he said quite distinctly.

  "Max," Nicole whispered in his ear. "Wake up, Max."

  When Max awakened, he looked as if he had seen a ghost. "I've had the most amazing dream, Max," Nicole said. "I now know that Ellie and Eponine are all right… I've come to ask you to leave the subway, so it can bring us more food. I know how much you want to do something—"

  Nicole stopped. Max had risen to his feet and was preparing to descend from the subway. He still had a completely bewildered expression on his face. "Let's go," he said.

  "Just like that?" Nicole said, astonished that she had encountered so little resistance.

  "Yes," said Max, stepping down from the train. Only a few moments after Nicole had also left the subway, the doors closed and the vehicle accelerated swiftly away from them.

  "When you woke me up," Max said as Nicole and he watched the subway disappear, "I was in the middle of a dream. I was talking to Eponine. The instant before I heard your voice she told me you were going to bring me an important message."

  Max shuddered, then laughed and started walking toward the alcoves. "Of course I don't believe in any of that ESP shit, but it certainly was a remarkable coincidence."

  The subway returned before it was dark again. This time there were two cars on the train. The front car was bright and open and full of food and water as it had always been before. The second car was totally dark. Its doors did not open and its windows were covered.

  "Well, well," Max said, walking to the edge of the subway slot and trying unsuccessfully to open the second car, "what have we here?"

  After the food and water had been unloaded from the front car, the subway did not depart as usual. The humans waited, but the mysterious second car refused to yield its secrets. At length Nicole and her friends decided to proceed with dinner. The conversation during the meal was subdued and full of wary speculation about their intruder.

  When little Kepler innocently suggested that perhaps Eponine and Ellie might be inside the dark car, Nicole told the story again of finding Richard in a coma after his long sojourn with the octospiders. A sense of foreboding spread among the humans.

  "We should keep a watch throughout the night," Max suggested after dinner, "so that there can be no possibility of any kind of devious trick while we're asleep. I'll take the first four-hour shift."

  Patrick and Richard also volunteered to help with the watch. Before going to bed, the whole family, including Benjy and the children, marched to the edge of the platform and stared at the subway. "What could be inside, Mama?" Benjy asked.

  "I don't know, darling," Nicole answered, hugging her son. "I really have no idea at all."

  An hour before the lights in the dome brightened the next morning, Richard and Nicole were awakened by Patrick and Max. "Come," Max said to them excitedly, "you've got to see this."

  In the center of the main chamber were four large black segmented creatures that were antlike in shape and structure. To each of their three body segments were attached both a pair of legs and another pair of prehensile appendages that were, as the humans watched, busily stacking material in piles. The creatures were a wonder to behold. Each of the long, snake like "arms" had the versatility of an elephant's trunk, with one additional capability. When any particular arm was not being used, either to lift something or to balance a weight being carried by its opposite member, that arm would withdraw into its "case" in the side of the being, where it would remain tightly coiled until needed again. Thus, when the alien beings were not performing any task, their arms were out of sight and did not impede their movement.

  The stunned humans continued to watch with rapt attention as the bizarre creatures, almost two meters long and a meter tall, quickly emptied the contents of the dark subway car, briefly surveyed their stacks, and then departed with the train. As soon as the aliens had disappeared, Max, Patrick, Richard, and Nicole walked over to examine the piles. There were objects of all shapes and sizes in the stacks, but the dominant single part was a long flat piece that resembled a conventional stairstep.

  "If I had to guess," Richard said, picking up a small item that was shaped like a fountain pen, "I would say that this stuff is between cement and steel in bearing strength."

  "But what is it for, Uncle Richard?" Patrick asked.

  "They are going to build something, I would assume."

  "And who are they?" Max said.

  Richard shrugged and shook his head. "These creatures that just left struck me as advanced domestic animals, capable of complicated sequential tasks but not real thinking."

  "So they are not Mama's rainbow people?" Patrick said.

  "Certainly not," Nicole answered with a wan smile.

  The rest of the humans, including the children, were thoroughly briefed about the new creatures during breakfast. All the adults agreed that if the aliens returned, as expected, there should be no interference with whatever task they were doing, unless it was determined that the creatures' activities constituted some kind of serious threat.

  When the subway pulled into its slot three hours later, two of the new beings clambered out of the front car and hurried into the center of the main chamber. Each was carrying a small pot, into which it dipped one of its arms frequently as it made bright red markings on the floor. Eventually these red lines circumscribed a region containing the subway platform, all the material that had been placed in stacks, and about half the area of the room.

  Moments later, another dozen of the huge animals with the trunklike appendages poured forth from the two subway cars, several carrying on their backs large and heavy curvilinear structures. They were followed by two octospiders with unusually bright colors streaming around their spherical heads. The two octospiders sauntered into the center of the chamber, whe
re they inspected the piles of material and then ordered the antlike creatures to begin some kind of construction task.

  "So the plot thickens," Max said to Patrick as the two men watched together from a distance. "It is indeed our octospider friends who are in control here, but just what in the world are they doing?"

  "Who knows?" Patrick replied, mesmerized by what he was seeing.

  "Look, Nicole," Richard said a few minutes later, "over by that large stack. That ant thing is definitely reading the octospider's colors."

  "So what do we do now?" Nicole said in a low voice.

  "I guess we just watch and wait," Richard answered.

  All the construction activity took place inside the red lines that had been painted on the floor. Several hours later, after another subway load of the large curvilinear components was delivered and unloaded, the overall shape of what was being built became clear. On one side of the room a vertical cylinder, four meters in diameter, was being erected. Its top segment was eventually positioned even with the bottom of the dome. Inside the cylinder, the stairsteps were placed so that they wound up and around the center of the structure.

  The work continued unabated for thirty-six hours. The octospider architects supervised the giant ants with the versatile arms. The only significant break in the activity came when Kepler and Galileo, who tired of watching the alien construction after several hours, inadvertently allowed a ball to bounce across the red paint and into one of the antlike creatures. All work halted instantly and an octospider hurried over, both to retrieve the ball and seemingly to reassure the worker. With an adroit motion of two of its tentacles, the octospider threw the ball back to the children and the work resumed.

  Everyone except Max and Nicole was asleep when the aliens finished their staircase, picked up their residual materials, and departed in the subway. Max walked over to the cylinder and stuck his head inside. "Pretty impressive," he said coyly, "but what is it for?"

  "Come on, Max," Nicole replied, "be serious. It's obvious that we are supposed to climb the stairs."