Rama: The Omnibus

by Arthur C. Clarke

  "Despite her father's opposition, Chamatevi accepted the king's offer of money and provisions and elephants, even though there was only enough food to last the five months of trekking through the jungle to the land of the Haripunchai. She knew that if the tribes of the north did not accept her as their queen, she would be forced to sell herself as a slave. But never for a moment was Chamatevi afraid.

  "Of course the legend was fulfilled, the valley tribes embraced her as their queen, and she reigned for many years in what is known in Thai history as the Golden Age of the Haripunchai. When Chamatevi was very old, she carefully divided her kingdom into two equal parts, which she gave to her twin sons. She then retired to a Buddhist monastery to thank God for His love and protection. Chamatevi remained alert and healthy until she died at the age of ninety-nine." For reasons she did not completely understand, Nai felt herself becoming very emotional while she was telling the story. When she was finished, Nai could still see, in her mind's eye, the wall panels in the temple in Lamphun that illustrated Chamatevi's story. Nai had been so engrossed in her story that she had not even noticed that Patrick, Nicole, and Archie had all come into the schoolroom and were sitting on the floor behind the children.

  "We have many similar stories," Archie said a few minutes later, with Nicole translating, "which we also tell to our juveniles. Most of them are very, very old. Are they true? It doesn't really matter to an octospider. The stories entertain, they instruct, and they inspire."

  "I'm sure the children would love to hear one of your stories," Nai said to Archie. "In fact, all of us would."

  Archie did not say anything for almost a nillet. His lens fluid was very active, moving back and forth, as if he were carefully studying the human beings staring at him. At length the colored strips began to roll out of his slit and circumnavigate his gray head. "A long, long time ago," he began, "on a faraway world blessed with bounteous resources and beauty beyond description, all the octospiders lived in a vast ocean. On the land there were many creatures, one of which, the…"

  "I'm sorry," Nicole said both to Archie and the others, "I don't know how to translate the next color pattern."

  Archie used several new sentences to try to define the word in other terms. "Those that have gone before…" Nicole said to herself. "Oh, well, it's probably not essential for the story that every word be exactly correct. I'll simply call them the Precursors.

  "On the land portions of this beautiful planet," Nicole continued for Archie, "were many creatures, of whom" by far the most intelligent were the Precursors. They had built vehicles that could fly into the air, they had explored all the neighboring planets and stars, they had even learned how to create life from simple chemicals, where there had been no life before. They had changed the nature of the land and of the oceans with their incredible knowledge.

  "It happened that the Precursors determined that the octospider species had enormous untapped potential, capabilities that had never been expressed during their many, many years of aquatic existence, and they began to show the octospiders how to develop and use their latent abilities. As the years passed, the octospider species, thanks to the Precursors, became the second most intelligent on the planet and evolved a very complicated and close relationship with the Precursors.

  "During this time the Precursors helped the octospiders learn to live outside the water by taking oxygen directly from the air of the beautiful planet. Entire colonies of octos began to spend their whole lives on land. One day, after a major meeting between the chief optimizers of the Precursors and the octospiders, it was announced that all octospiders would become land creatures and give up their colonies in the oceans.

  "Down at great depths in the sea was one small colony of octospiders, no more than a thousand altogether, that was managed by a local optimizer who did not think the chief optimizers of the two species had come to a correct decision. This local optimizer resisted the announcement and, although he and his colony were ostracized by the others and did not share in the bounty offered by the Precursors, he and many generations that followed him continued to live their isolated, uncomplicated life on the bottom of the ocean.

  "It happened that a great calamity struck the planet, and it became impossible to survive on the land. Many millions of creatures died and only those octospiders who could live comfortably in the water survived the thousands of years that the planet was laid waste.

  "When eventually the planet recovered and a few of the ocean octospiders ventured out on land, they found none of their kindred—and none of the Precursors either. That local optimizer who had lived thousands of years before had been visionary. Without his action, every single octospider might have perished. And that's why, even today, smart octospiders retain their capability to live either on land or in water."

  Nicole had recognized, early in the story, that Archie was sharing with them something altogether different from anything he had ever told them before. Was it because of their conversation that morning, when she had told Archie that they wanted to return to New Eden soon after the Puckett child was born? She wasn't certain. But she did know that the legend Archie had related told them things about the octospiders that the humans could never have figured out in any other way.

  "That was truly marvelous," Nicole said, touching Archie lightly. "I don't know if the children enjoyed it—"

  "I thought it was neat," Kepler said. "I didn't know you guys could breathe water."

  "Just like an unborn baby," Nai was saying, when an excited Max Puckett raced through the door.

  "Come quickly, Nicole," Max said. 'The contractions are only four minutes apart."

  As Nicole rose, she turned to Archie. "Please tell Dr. Blue to bring the image engineer and the quadroid system. And hurry!"

  It was amazing to watch a birth from the outside and inside simultaneously. Nicole was giving directions to both Eponine and the octospider image engineer through Dr. Blue. "Breathe—you must breathe through your contractions," she would shout at Eponine. "Move them closer, lower in the birth canal, with a little more light," she would say to Dr. Blue.

  Richard was absolutely fascinated. He stood out of the way, over to one side of the bedroom, his eyes darting back and forth from the pictures on the wall to the two octospiders and their equipment. What was being shown in the images was delayed an entire contraction from what was happening on the bed. At the end of each contraction, Dr. Blue would hand Nicole a small round patch, which Nicole would stick on the inside of Eponine's upper thigh. Within seconds the tiny quadroids that had been inside Eponine for the last contraction would race to the patch, and the new ones would then scramble up the birth canal. After a twenty—or thirty—second delay for data processing, another set of pictures would appear on the wall.

  Max was driving everybody crazy. When he heard Eponine scream or moan, as she occasionally did near the peak of each contraction, he would rush over to her side and grab her hand. "She's in terrible pain," he would say to Nicole. "You must do something to help her."

  Between contractions, when at Nicole's suggestion Eponine would stand up beside the bed to let the artificial gravity help with the birthing process, Max was even worse. The image of his unborn son wedged tightly in the birth canal, struggling with discomfort from the pressure of the previous contraction, would send him into a tirade. "Oh, my God, look, look," Max said after a particularly severe contraction. "His head is squashed. Oh, fuck. There's not enough room. He's not going to make it."

  Nicole made a couple of major decisions a few minutes before Marius Clyde Puckett entered the universe. First, she concluded that the baby boy was not going to be born without some help. It would be necessary, she decided, for her to perform an episiotomy to mitigate the pain and tearing of the actual birth. Nicole also concluded that Max should be removed from the bedroom before he became hysterical and/or did something that might interfere with the birthing process.

  Ellie sterilized the scalpel at Nicole's request. Max looked at the scalpel wit
h wild eyes. "What are you going to do with that" he asked Nicole.

  "Max," Nicole said calmly as Eponine felt the advent of another contraction, "I love you dearly, but I want you to leave the room. Please. What I am about to do will make it easier for Marius to be born, but it won't look pretty."

  Max didn't move. Patrick, who was standing in the doorway, put a hand on his friend's shoulder as Eponine began to moan again. The baby's head was clearly pressing against the vaginal opening. Nicole began to cut. Eponine screamed in pain. "No," a frantic Max cried at the first sight of blood. "No … Oh, shit … oh, shit."

  "Now… leave now," Nicole yelled imperiously as she concluded the episiotomy. Ellie was swabbing up the blood as fast as she could. Patrick turned Max around, gave him a hug, and led him into the living room.

  Nicole checked the picture on the wall as soon as it was available. Little Marius was in perfect position. What a fantastic technology, she thought fleetingly. It would change birthing altogether.

  She had no more time to reflect. Another contraction was beginning. Nicole reached up and took Eponine's hand. "This could be it," she said. "I want you to push with all your might. All the way through the whole contraction." Nicole told Dr. Blue that no more images would be needed.

  "Push," Nicole and Ellie yelled together.

  The baby crowned. They could see swatches of light brown hair.

  "Again," Nicole said. "Push again."

  "I can't," Eponine wailed.

  "Yes, you can… Push."

  Eponine arched her back, took a deep breath, and moments later baby Marius squirted into Nicole's hands. Ellie was ready with the scissors to cut the umbilical cord. The boy cried naturally, without needing to be incited. Max rushed into the room.

  "Your son has arrived," Nicole said. She finished wiping off the excess fluid, tied off the umbilical, and handed the baby to the proud father.

  "Oh my … oh my … What do I do now?" said the flustered but beaming Max, who was holding the child as if Marius were as fragile as glass and as precious as diamonds.

  "You could kiss him," Nicole said with a smile. "That would be a good start."

  Max lowered his head and kissed Marius very gently. "And you might bring him over to meet his mother," Eponine said.

  Tears of joy were streaming down the new mother's cheeks when she looked at her baby boy close up for the first time. Nicole helped Max lay the child across Eponine's chest. "Oh, Frenchie," Max then said, squeezing Eponine's hand, "how I love you … how very much I love you."

  Marius, who had been crying steadily since moments after his birth, quieted down in his new position on his mother's chest. Eponine reached down with the hand that Max was not holding and tenderly caressed her new son. Suddenly Max's eyes exploded with tears. "Thank you, honey," he said to Eponine. "Thank you, Nicole. Thanks, Ellie."

  Max thanked everybody in the room multiple times, including the two octospiders. For the next five minutes Max was also a veritable hugging machine. Not even the octospiders escaped from his grateful embraces.

  6

  Nicole knocked lightly on the door and then stuck her head into the room. "Excuse me," she said. "Is anybody awake?"

  Eponine and Max both stirred, but no eyes opened to greet Nicole. Little Marius was nestled between his parents, sleeping contentedly. At length Max mumbled, "What time is it?"

  "Fifteen minutes after the scheduled time for our examination of Marius," Nicole said. "Dr. Blue will be back in a little while."

  Max groaned and nudged Eponine. "Come on in," he said to Nicole. Max looked terrible. His eyes were red and puffy and both of them had double bags underneath. "Why do babies not sleep for more than two hours at a time?" he asked with a yawn.

  Nicole stood in the doorway. "Some do, Max. But every baby is different. Just after they're born, they usually follow the same routine they were comfortable with in the womb."

  "What are you complaining about anyway?" Eponine said, struggling to sit up. "All you have to do is listen to some cries, change a diaper occasionally, and go back to sleep. I have to stay awake while he nurses. Have you ever tried to fall asleep while a little munchkin is sucking on your nipples?"

  "What's this?" said Nicole, laughing. "Have our new parents lost their neophyte aura in only four days?"

  "Not really," said Eponine, forcing a smile as she put on her clothes. "But Jesus, I am so tired!"

  "That's normal," Nicole said. "Your body has been through a trauma. You need rest. As I told you and Max the day after Marius was born when you insisted that we have a party, the only way you'll get enough sleep in the first two weeks is if you adapt your schedule to conform with his."

  "I believe you," Max said. He stumbled out the door with his clothes and headed for the bathroom.

  Eponine glanced at the light blue rectangular pad that Nicole had just taken out of her bag. "Is that one of the new diapers?" she said.

  "Yes," Nicole answered. "The octospider engineers have made some more improvements. By the way, their offer about the special waster is still open. They don't have anything yet for Marius's urine, but they calculate that with the waster he would only poop—"

  "Max is completely against the idea," Eponine interrupted. "He says that his little boy is not going to be an experiment for the octospiders."

  "I wouldn't exactly call it an experiment," Nicole said. "The special waster species they have designed is only a slight modification from the ones that have been cleaning our toilets for six months now. And think of the trouble you would avoid—"

  "No," Eponine said firmly. "But thank the octospiders anyway."

  When Max returned, he was dressed for the day, although still unshaven. "I wanted to tell you. Max," Nicole said, "before Dr. Blue comes back, that I did finally have a long conversation with Archie about our leaving New Eden. When I explained to Archie that we all wanted to go, and tried to give him some of the reasons why, he told me it was not in his power to approve our leaving."

  "What does that mean?" Max asked.

  "Archie said it was an issue for the Chief Optimizer."

  "Ah-ha! So I must have been right all along," Max said. "We really are prisoners here, and not guests."

  "No, not if I understood correctly what Archie said. He told me that it 'can be arranged, if necessary,' but only the Chief Optimizer understands 'all the factors' well enough to make an informed decision."

  "More goddamn octospider gobbledygook," Max grumbled.

  "I don't think so," Nicole replied. "I was actually encouraged. But Archie said we will not be able to schedule a meeting with the Chief Optimizer until after the Matriculation is over. That's the process that has been taking all of Jamie's time. Apparently it only happens every two years or so and involves the whole colony."

  "How long does this Matriculation thing last?" Max asked.

  "Only another week. Richard, Ellie, and I have been invited to participate in some facet of the process tonight. It sounds intriguing."

  "Marius and I won't be able to leave for several weeks anyway," Eponine said to Max. "So waiting a week is certainly no problem."

  At that moment Dr. Blue knocked on the door. The octospider entered the bedroom with the specialized equipment that was going to be used in the examination of Marius. Max looked askance at a pair of plastic bags containing writhing creatures that looked like black pasta.

  "What are those damn things?" Max asked with a scowl.

  Nicole finished laying out her own instruments on the table beside the bed. "Max," she said with a smile, "why don't you go next door for the next fifteen minutes or so?"

  Max's brow furrowed. "What are you going to do to my little boy? Boil him in oil?"

  "No." Nicole laughed. "But from time to time it may sound as if that's what we're doing."

  Ellie picked up Nikki and gave her a hug. The little girl momentarily stopped crying. "Mommy is going out with Nonni and Boobah and Archie and Dr. Blue," she said. "We'll be back after your bedtime. You'll be fine
here with Mrs. Watanabe, Benjy, and the twins."

  "I don't want to stay here," Nikki said in her most unpleasant voice. "I want to go with Mommy." She kissed Ellie on the cheek. The little girl's face was expectant.

  When Ellie put the child back down on the floor a few seconds later, Nikki's beautiful face scrunched up and she began to wail. "I don't want to," she screamed as her mother walked out the door.

  Ellie shook her head as the five of them strolled toward the plaza. "I wish I knew what to do for her," Ellie said. "Ever since that incident in the stadium, she has been clinging to me."

  "It could be just a normal phase," Nicole said. "Children change very rapidly at her age. And Nikki's no longer the center of attention, now that Marius is here."

  "I think the problem's deeper than that," Ellie said several seconds later. She turned to Nicole. "I'm sorry, Mother, but I believe Nikki's insecurity has more to do with Robert than with Marius."

  "But Robert has been gone for over a year," Richard said.

  "I don't think that matters," Ellie replied. "At some level Nikki must still remember what it was like to have two parents. To her it probably seems like first I abandoned her, then Robert. No wonder she is insecure."

  Nicole touched her daughter gently. "But Ellie, if you're right, why is she just now reacting so strongly?"

  "I can't say for certain," Ellie said. "Maybe the encounter with the iguana thing reminded her how vulnerable she was … and how much she misses the protection of her father."

  They heard Nikki's loud wail behind them. "Whatever is bothering her," Ellie said with a sigh, "I hope she outgrows it soon. When she cries like that, I feel as if a hot knife were cutting into my stomach."

  There was no transport at the plaza. Archie and Dr. Blue kept on walking, heading for the pyramid, where the octospiders and the humans usually held their conferences. "This is a very special evening," Dr. Blue explained, "and there are many things that we must tell you before we leave your zone."