Rama: The Omnibus

by Arthur C. Clarke

  "Where is Jamie?" Nicole asked as they were entering the building. "I thought originally he was going with us. And while I'm at it, what ever happened to Hercules? We haven't seen him since Bounty Day."

  While they walked together up the ramp to the second floor of the pyramid, Dr. Blue informed them that Jamie was with his fellow matriculating octospiders that evening and that Hercules had been "reassigned."

  "Goodness," said Richard jokingly, "Hercules didn't even say good-bye."

  The octospiders, who still hadn't learned to recognize human humor very well, apologized for Hercules' lack of manners. They then mentioned that there would no longer be an octospider among the humans as a daily observer.

  "Was Hercules fired for some reason?" Richard asked, still in a lighter vein. The two octospiders ignored the question altogether.

  They entered the same conference room where Nicole had learned about the digestive process of the octospiders. Several large sheets of the parchment or hide on which the octos made their drawings and diagrams were over in the corner facing the wall. Dr. Blue asked Richard, Nicole, and Ellie to sit down.

  "What you are going to see later tonight," Archie then said, "has never been witnessed by a nonoctospider since our colony was formed here in Rama. We are taking you with us in an attempt to increase the quality of communication between our two species. It is imperative that you understand, before we leave this room and head for the Alternate Domain, not only what you are going to see, but also how you are expected to behave."

  "Under no circumstances," Dr. Blue added, "are you to disturb the proceedings or try to interact with anyone or anything along the way, either coming or going. You are to follow our instructions at all times. If you cannot or do not want to accept these conditions, then you must tell us now and we will not take you with us."

  The three humans looked at each other with alarm. "You know us well," Nicole said at length. "I trust that we're not going to be asked to do something that is inconsistent with our values and principles. We could not—"

  'That's not our concern," Archie interrupted. "We are simply asking you to be passive observers, no matter what you see or experience. If you become confused or frightened and for some reason cannot locate one of us, sit down, wherever you are, with your hands at your sides, and wait for us to come."

  There was a brief pause. "I cannot stress too much," Archie continued, "how important your behavior is this evening. Most of the other optimizers objected when I requested that you be allowed to attend. Dr. Blue and I have personally vouched for your ability not to do anything untoward."

  "Are our lives in danger?" Richard asked.

  "Probably not," Archie replied. "But they could be. And if tonight were to turn into some kind of a fiasco because of something that one of you did, I'm not certain…" In a very unusual action for an octospider, Archie did not finish his sentence.

  "Are you telling us," Nicole now said, "that our request to return to New Eden is somehow tied up in all this?"

  "Our mutual relationship," Archie said, "has reached a cusp. By sharing a critical portion of our Matriculation process with you, we are attempting to attain a new level of understanding. In that sense, the answer to your question is yes."

  They spent almost half a tert, two human hours, in the conference room. Archie began by explaining what the entire Matriculation activity was all about. Jamie and his compatriots, the octospider told them, had finished their adolescence and were about to make the transition to adulthood. As juveniles, their lives had been mostly controlled, and they had not been allowed to make any decisions of great significance. At the end of the Matriculation, Jamie and the other young octos would make a single monumental decision, one that would fundamentally alter the rest of their lives. It was the purpose of the Matriculation, and even much of the final year prior to the transition, to provide the adolescent octospiders with information that would help them make that important decision.

  "Tonight," Archie said, "the juveniles will all be taken, as a group, over to the Alternate Domain to see a…"

  Neither Ellie nor Nicole could figure out at first how to translate into English what the young octospiders were going to see. Eventually, after some discussion between them and several sentences of clarification from Dr. Blue and Archie, the women decided that the best interpretation for what Archie had said in color was "morality play."

  For the next several minutes the conversation digressed as Dr. Blue and Archie explained, in response to questions from the humans, that the Alternate Domain was a specific section of the octospider realm that was not under the dome. "South of the Emerald City," Archie said, "there is another settlement with a decidedly different life-style from ours. About two thousand octospiders live in the Alternate Domain at the present time, along with another three thousand or four thousand other creatures representing a dozen different species. Their lives are chaotic and unstructured. The alternate octospiders have no dome over their heads to protect them, no assigned tasks, no planned entertainment, no access to the information in the library, no roads or homes except those they collectively build for themselves, and a life expectancy about one-tenth that of the average octospider in the Emerald City."

  Ellie thought about how the Avalon area had been created by Nakamura to deal with the problems that the colonists in New Eden wanted to forget. She thought that perhaps the Alternate Domain was a similar settlement. "Why," she asked, "have so many of your kindred—over ten percent, if my math is accurate—been forced to live outside the dome?"

  "No normal octospider has been forced to live in the Alternate Domain," Dr. Blue said. "They are living there because of a personal choice."

  "But why?" all three humans said, almost in unison.

  Dr. Blue went over to the corner and retrieved a few of the charts. The two octospiders used the diagrams extensively during the long discussion that followed. First they explained that hundreds of generations earlier their biologists had correctly identified the connection between sexuality in their species and many other behavioral characteristics, including personal ambition, aggression, territoriality, and aging, to name the most important. This discovery had been made during a period of octospider history when the transition to Optimization was first occurring. But despite the supposedly universal acceptance of a theoretically better structure for octospider society, the transition was severely impeded by regular outbreaks of warfare, tribal dissension, and other mayhem. The octo biologists at the time speculated that only a sexless society, or one in which only a small fraction of the population was sexual, would be able to abide by the principles of Optimization, in which the desires of the individual were subordinated to the welfare of the colony as a whole.

  A seemingly endless succession of conflicts convinced all of the forward-looking octospiders of the period that Optimization was only a foolish dream unless some method or technique could be found to combat the individualism that inevitably blocked acceptance of the new order But what could be done? It was several more generations before a brilliant discovery was made. Research found that special chemicals in a sugarcane-like product called barrican actually slowed down sexual maturation in the octospiders. Within several hundred years the octo genetic engineers had succeeded in designing and producing a variation of this barrican which, if ingested regularly, stopped the advent of sexual maturity altogether.

  Test cases and test colonies succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of both the biologists and the progressive political scientists. Sexually immature octos were more responsive to the group concepts of Optimization. In addition, aging was also somehow retarded in those octos who ate barrican. Aging, the octospider scientists then learned very quickly, was tied to the same internal clock mechanism as puberty, and in fact the enzymes causing the cells not to replenish properly in older octospiders did not even activate until a specified time period after sexual maturity.

  Octospider society underwent rapid changes, Archie and Dr. Blue both asserted, afte
r these colossal discoveries. Optimization took a firm hold everywhere. Octospider social scientists began to envision a society in which the individual octos would be nearly immortal, dying only from accidents or the sudden failure of a major and critical organ. Sexless octospiders populated all the colonies and, as the biologists had predicted, personal ambition and aggression became almost nonexistent.

  "All this history took place many generations -ago," Archie said, "and is primarily background information to help you understand what the Matriculation is all about. Without going into the complex intervening history, Dr. Blue will summarize where we are today in our particular colony."

  "Every octospider that you have encountered so far," Dr. Blue said, "except for the midget morphs and the repletes, both of whom are permanently sexless, is a creature whose sexual maturity has been retarded by the barrican. Many years ago, before a rogue biologist showed how a different kind of sexuality could be genetically engineered into our species, only an octospider queen could produce offspring.

  "Among the normal adult octospider population there were two sexes, but the only significant differentiation between them was that one of the two had the ability, if mature, to fertilize a queen. Sexual adults copulated for pleasure, but because there was no issue from this contact, the distinctions between the sexes were blurred. In fact, long-term bonding in the colony was more frequent among members of the same sex, because of similar feelings and common points of view.

  "Now the situation is vastly more complicated. In our octospider species, thanks to the genetic engineering genius of our predecessors, an adult female octo is capable of producing, as the result of a sexual union with a mature male octospider, a single, infertile juvenile of limited life expectancy and somewhat reduced capability. You have not yet seen one of these morphs because all of them live, by decree, in the Alternate Domain."

  Dr. Blue paused and Archie continued. "Right after Matriculation, each juvenile citizen of our colony decides whether he or she wishes to become sexually mature. If the answer is no, then the octo places his or her sexuality in trust with the optimizers and the colony as a whole. That's what Dr. Blue, who is a female, and I each did long ago. Under octospider law, it is only immediately after Matriculation that an individual can make his or her own sexual choice without any consequences. The optimizers are not lenient toward those who decide to undergo a sexual metamorphosis, without explicit colony permission, after their careers have been carefully structured and planned."

  Again Dr. Blue spoke. "As we have presented it tonight, it might seem unlikely that a juvenile octospider would ever make the decision for early sexual maturity. However, in the interest of fairness we should point out that there are compelling reasons, at least in the minds of some young octospiders, for choosing to become alternates. First and foremost, a female octo knows that her chances of ever bearing offspring are significantly diminished if she chooses to remain nonsexual after Matriculation. Our history suggests that only in an emergency will a large number of these females ever be called upon to produce juvenile octospiders. In general, the reduced capability and infertility of this kind of offspring makes them less desirable, from the point of view of the colony as a whole, unless of course more octos are needed to support the infrastructure of the society.

  "Some of the young octospiders don't like the regimentation and predictability of our life in the Emerald City and want an existence in which they can make all their own decisions. Others fear that the optimizers will place them in an improper career. All of those choosing early sexuality see the Alternate Domain as a free and exciting place, full of glamor and adventure. They discount what they are giving up … and in their momentary exuberance, the quality of their life is more important than its likely duration…"

  Throughout the long conversation, Richard, Nicole, and Ellie asked many questions. As the evening progressed, all three of the humans started feeling overwhelmed. There was just too much information to digest in a single discussion.

  "Wait a minute," Richard said abruptly when Archie indicated it was past time for them to leave. "I'm sorry … there's something fundamental about this that I still don't understand. Why is this choice permitted at all? Why do the optimizers not simply decree that all the octospiders will always eat the barrican and remain sexless until the colony has a requirement for reproduction?"

  "That's a very good question," Archie replied, "with a complex answer. Let me oversimplify, in the interests of time, by saying that our species believes in permitting some free choice. Also, as you will see tonight, there are some functions for which the alternates are uniquely suited and from which the whole colony derives benefits."

  7

  After leaving their zone, the transport followed a different route from the one that had taken the humans to the stadium on Bounty Day. This time it stayed on dimly lit streets on the periphery of the city. The party encountered none of the busy, colorful scenes that they had seen in their previous excursion. After several fengs the transport approached a large closed gate very much like the one through which they had initially entered the Emerald City.

  Two octospiders came over and peered in the car. Archie said something to them in color, and one of the octospiders returned to what must have been their equivalent of a guardhouse. In the distance Richard could see colors flashing on a flat wall. "She's checking with the authorities," Dr. Blue told the humans. "We're outside our expected arrival interval, so our exit code is no longer valid."

  During a wait of several more nillets, the other octospider entered the transport and inspected it thoroughly. None of the humans had ever experienced such stringent security precautions in the Emerald City, not even at the stadium. Ellie's discomfort was heightened when the octospider security officer, without saying anything to her, opened up her purse to see its contents. Eventually the inspector returned Ellie's purse and disembarked. The gate swung open, the transport moved out from under the green dome, and then it parked in the dark less than a minute later.

  The transport was surrounded in the parking lot by thirty or forty other vehicles. "This area," Dr. Blue explained as they descended from the car and a pair of fireflies joined them, "is called the Arts District. It and the zoo, which is not too far from here, are the only two sections of the Alternate Domain visited with any regularity by the octospiders who live in the Emerald City. The optimizers do not approve many visitation requests to the alternate living areas that are farther south—in fact, for most octospiders, the only comprehensive view of the Alternate Domain that they ever have is the tour during the last week of Matriculation."

  The air was much colder than it had been in the Emerald City. Archie and Dr. Blue both started walking faster than the humans had ever seen an octospider move before. "We must hurry," Archie turned and said, "or we will be late." The human trio ran to keep up with the fast pace.

  As they neared an illuminated area about three hundred meters from their transport, Archie and Dr. Blue moved to either end of the line of humans so that they were walking five abreast. "We're entering Artisan's Square," Dr. Blue said, "which is where the alternates offer their artistic works for transfer."

  "What do you mean, 'transfer'?" Nicole asked.

  "The artists need credits for food and other essentials. They offer their works of art to an Emerald City resident who has credits to spare," Dr. Blue replied.

  As much as Nicole might have wanted to pursue the conversation, she was immediately sidetracked by the dazzling array of unusual objects, makeshift stalls, octospiders, and other animals that greeted her eyes in Artisan's Square. The square, a large plaza seventy or eighty meters on a side, was directly across a broad avenue from the theater that was their destination. Archie and Dr. Blue, at the ends of their line, each extended a single tentacle along the collective backs of the humans so that the five of them moved as one across the bustling square.

  The group was confronted by several octospiders holding out objects to transfer. Richard, Nico
le, and Ellie ; quickly confirmed what Archie had told them during the long meeting, namely that the alternates did not conform to the official language specification used by the octospiders in the Emerald City. There were no neat color bands sweeping around the heads of these octospiders, only sloppy sequences of colored blotches of widely variable heights. One of the hawkers who accosted them was small, obviously a juvenile, and he or she, after being waved away by Archie, gave Ellie a sudden fright by wrapping a tentacle around Ellie's arm for a few fractions of a second. Archie seized the offender with three of his own tentacles and hurled him roughly out of the way, in the direction of one of the octospiders with a cloth bag over its shoulder. Dr. Blue explained that the bag identified the octo as a policeman.

  Nicole was walking so fast, and there was so much around her to see, that she found herself holding her breath. Although she had no idea what to make of many of the objects being offered for transfer in the square, she could recognize and appreciate the occasional painting, or piece of sculpture, or those tiny representations, in wood or some similar medium, of all the different animals who lived in the Emerald City. In one section of the square there were displays of colored patterns pressed upon the parchment material—Dr. Blue explained later, when they were inside the theater, that the particular art form represented by the patterns was a combination, as she understood the human terms, of both poetry and calligraphy.

  Just before they crossed the street, Nicole caught sight, on a wall twenty meters away on her left, of a large mural that was astonishingly beautiful. The colors were bold and eye-catching, the composition the work of an artist who understood both structure and optical appeal. The technical skill was also extremely impressive, but it was the emotions rendered in the bodies and faces of the octospiders and other creatures in the mural that fascinated Nicole.