Big Block now intervened and informed Ms. Bronson that she and her friends were indeed disrupting the game. As the trio turned to leave, more than half of the humans rose from their chairs to follow.
"This is preposterous," a voice with astonishing clarity and power said. Nicole was standing in her place, leaning on the table with one hand. "Sit back down," she said in the same tone. "Do not allow yourself to be bullied by a hatemonger."
All the bridge players returned to their seats. "Shut up, old woman," Emily Bronson said in anger from across the room. "This is none of your concern." Big Block escorted her and her companions out the door.
"You don't have any idea, do you, Mrs. Wakefield, what any of the objects are?"
"Your guess is as good as mine, Maria," Nicole answered. "They probably had special meaning, in some way, for your mother. I thought at the time that the silver cylinder implanted under your mother's skin was some kind of zoo identifier, but since none of the zookeeping staff survived the bombing and very few of the records remain, it's unlikely that we will ever be able to verify my hypothesis."
"What's a 'hypothesis'?" the girl asked.
"It's a tentative assumption or explanation for what's happened, when there's really not sufficient evidence to come to any definite answers," Nicole said. "By the way, I must say that your English is quite impressive."
"Thank you, Mrs. Wakefield."
They were sitting together in the communal lounge just off the observation deck. Nicole and Maria were both drinking fruit juice. Although Nicole had been in the Grand Hotel for a week already, this was the first time she had had a private moment with the girl she had found amid the octospider zoo ruins sixteen years earlier.
"Was my mother really pretty?" Maria asked.
"She was striking, I remember that," Nicole said, "even though I couldn't see her very well in the dim light. She appeared to have your same coloring, maybe a little lighter, and was of medium build. I would have guessed she was thirty-five years old or maybe slightly less."
"And there were no signs of my father?" Maria asked.
"None that I saw," Nicole said. "Of course, under the circumstances I did not make a very thorough search. It's possible that he might have been wandering somewhere in the Alternate Domain looking for help. The fence that enclosed your compound had been flattened in the bombing. I worried, when we woke up the next morning, that your father might have been looking for you, but I later convinced myself, based on what I had seen in your shelter, that you and your mother lived alone."
"So is it your hypothesis that my father had already died?" Maria said.
"Very good," Nicole replied. "No, not necessarily. I wouldn't be that specific. It just did not look as if anyone else had lived there in your enclosure for some time."
Maria took a drink of her juice and there was a momentary silence at the table. "You told me the other night, Mrs. Wakefield," the girl said, "when we were talking with Max and Eponine, that you presumed my mother, or maybe both my parents, had been kidnapped much earlier by the octospiders, from a place called Avalon. I didn't understand completely what you were saying."
Nicole smiled at Maria. "I appreciate your politeness, Maria," she said. "But you're certainly part of the family—you can call me Nicole." Her mind drifted back to New Eden—it seemed so long ago—and then Nicole realized that the girl was waiting for an answer to her comment.
"Avalon was a settlement outside of New Eden," Nicole said, "in the dark and cold of the Central Plain. It was originally created by the government of the colony to quarantine those people who had a deadly virus called RV-41. After Avalon was built, the dictator of New Eden, a man named Nakamura, convinced the Senate that Avalon was also a perfect place for other 'abnormal' humans, including those who protested against the government and those who were mentally ill or retarded."
"It doesn't sound like a very nice place," Maria commented.
Benjy was there for over a year, Nicole was thinking. He never talks about it. She began feeling guilty about not having spent enough private time with Benjy since she had awakened. But he has never once complained.
Again Nicole had to force herself to pay attention to her conversation with Maria. We old people have drifting thoughts, she said to herself. Because so many things we see and hear remind us of memories.
"I have done some checking already," Nicole said. "Unfortunately, all the administrative personnel from Avalon died in the war. I have described your mother to a few of the people who spent considerable time in Avalon, but none of them remember her."
"Do you think she was a mental patient?" Maria asked.
'That's possible," Nicole replied. "We may never know for certain. Your necklace, incidentally, is our best clue to your mother's identity. She was clearly a devotee of the order of the Catholic church started by Saint Michael of Siena. There are some other Michaelites on board, Ellie says. I intend to talk with them when I have the time."
Nicole stopped and turned toward the observation deck, where a commotion had started. A few humans and a large group of octospiders were pointing out the window and gesticulating wildly. A couple of people raced off toward the main corridor, presumably to bring back others to observe whatever it was they were seeing.
Nicole and Maria left their table, walked up the steps to the deck, and looked out the large window. In the distance, beyond the tetrahedron of lights, a huge, flat-topped spacecraft that resembled an aircraft carrier was approaching the Node. Nicole and Maria watched for several minutes without speaking as the new spacecraft loomed larger and larger.
"What is it?" Maria asked.
"I have no idea," Nicole answered.
The observation deck filled rapidly. The doors were constantly opening as more humans, octospiders, iguanas, and even a pair of avians came into the room. The crowd began to press against Nicole and Maria.
The flat-topped vehicle was extremely long, longer even than the transportation corridors connecting the spheres of the Node. Several dozen big transparent "bubbles" were scattered around its surface. The carrier stopped near one of the spherical vertices of the Node and extended a long transparent tube that fit neatly into the side of the sphere.
The deck was in turmoil. All kinds of creatures were pushing, pressing to move closer to the window. A pair of iguanas leaped upward against the window in the weightlessness and were quickly joined by ten to twenty humans. Nicole began to feel claustrophobic and tried to move out of the way. There was no room through the mob. Nicole was pushed in all directions. She lost contact with Maria. A strong wave caught Nicole from the side and smacked her against the wall. Nicole felt a sharp pain in her left hip upon impact. In the ensuing melee, she might have been trampled and injured even more except that Big Block and the blockheads swept into the mob and restored order.
Nicole was badly shaken when Big Block reached her. The pain in her hip was unbearable. She could not walk.
"It's just part of being old," the Eagle said. "You must be more careful." He and Nicole were alone in her apartment. The others were eating breakfast.
"I do not like being fragile," Nicole said. "Nor do I like not doing things because I'm afraid of injuring myself."
"Your hip will heal," the Eagle said. "But it will take a while. You're lucky it's only badly bruised and not broken. At your age a broken hip can make a human a permanent invalid."
'Thanks for the words of reassurance," Nicole said. She took a small sip of her coffee. She was lying on her mat with her head lifted up slightly by several pillows. "But enough about me. Let's move on to more important things. What is that flat spacecraft all about?"
"The other humans have already started calling it the Carrier," the Eagle said. "That's a very appropriate name."
There was a short silence. "Come on, come on," Nicole said in a cranky voice, "don't play coy with me. I'm lying here doped up and still in pain. It shouldn't be necessary for me to drag the information out of you."
"This phase of th
e operation will soon be over," the alien said. "Some of you will be transferred to the Carrier, and the rest of you will move over to the Node."
"And what happens then?" Nicole asked. "And how is it decided who goes where?"
"I can't tell you that yet," the Eagle said. "But I will tell you that you will be going to the Node—although if you tell anyone else what I have just shared with you, I will not in the future give you any more advance information. We want the transition to be orderly."
"You always want things to be orderly… Ouch," Nicole said as she changed positions slightly. "And I must say you have not given me very significant information."
"You know more than anyone else."
"Big deal," Nicole grumped, taking another sip of coffee. "By the way, do you have any fancy doctors over there in the Node who can wave a magic wand over this bruise and make it go away?"
"No," said the Eagle, "but we can give you a new hip if you like. Or a pseudo-hip, as I guess you would call it."
Nicole shook her head. She winced as she jostled her hip while putting her coffee cup on the floor. "Being old is shit," she said.
"I'm sorry," the Eagle said. He started to leave. "I'll look in on you whenever I can."
"Before you go," Nicole said, "I have one other item of business. Nai wanted me to ask you to intercede on Galileo's behalf. She would like him returned to the family."
"It's irrelevant now," the Eagle said as he was leaving. "You'll all be out of here in four or five days. Good-bye, Nicole. Don't try to walk—use the wheelchair I brought you. Your hip won't heal unless you keep your weight off of it."
5
It was early in the morning, before most of the humans had awakened. Nicole had been out in the long hallway for half an hour experimenting with the controls on the arm of her wheelchair. She had been surprised that the chair could move so swiftly and quietly. As she raced past the series of conference rooms halfway down the kilometer-long corridor, Nicole wondered what kind of advanced technology was contained inside the sealed metal box beneath her chair. Richard would have loved this wheelchair, she thought. He probably would have tried to take it apart.
She passed a few humans out in the hallway, most shuffling along in an attempt at a morning exercise walk. Nicole laughed to herself as a pair of shufflers moved quickly out of her way. I must look very strange, she thought, a gray-haired old woman zooming down the hall in a wheelchair.
She turned around just after she drove by the small tram, which was carrying a handful of passengers toward the common areas for an early breakfast. Nicole continued to press the acceleration button on her chair until she was going faster than the tram. The people in the tram stared at her with astonishment as she passed them. Nicole waved and grinned. A few moments later, however, when a door a hundred meters in front of her opened abruptly and ,two women walked out into the corridor, Nicole realized that it was not safe for her to be driving so fast. She slowed down, still chuckling to herself at the thrill the speed had given her.
As she drew near to her own apartment, Nicole saw the Eagle standing at the end of the ray where it merged with the annulus encircling the starfish. She drove over beside him.
"You look like you're having fun," the Eagle said.
"I am," Nicole said with a laugh. 'This chair is a fantastic toy. It has almost made me forget about the pain in my hip."
The Eagle waved toward a lounge on the other side of the annulus. "Let's go over there, please," the alien said. "I would like to talk to you in private."
Nicole drove her chair across the main annulus until she reached the ramp leading to the lounge. The Eagle, who was walking behind her, motioned for her to continue. A dozen octospiders were sitting around the room. The Eagle and Nicole chose a spot off to the right, where they could be alone.
"The Carrier has almost finished its tasks over at the Node," the Eagle said. "Twelve hours from now it will make a short stop near this vehicle to pick up some more passengers. I will announce after lunch who will be moving to the Carrier."
The alien turned and looked directly at Nicole with his intense blue eyes. "Some of the humans may not be pleased with my announcement. After the decision was made to split your species into two separate groups, it was immediately apparent to me that it would be impossible to achieve a division that would not make some people unhappy. I would like some help from you in making this process as smooth as possible."
Nicole studied the remarkable face and eyes of her alien companion. She thought she remembered seeing, once before, a similar look from the Eagle. Back at the Node, she recalled, when I was asked to do the video.
"What is it that you want me to do?" Nicole asked.
"We have decided to allow a degree of flexibility in this process. Although all the individuals on the list for transfer to the Carrier must accept their assignments, we will permit some of those who are assigned to the Node to request reconsideration. Since there will be no interaction between the two vehicles, in the case of strong emotional attachments, for example, we would not want to force—"
"Are you telling me," Nicole interrupted, "that this split may permanently break up families?"
"Yes, it may," the Eagle replied. "In a few instances, a husband or a wife has been assigned to the Carrier, while the spouse is on the list for the Node. Similarly, there are some cases where parents and their children will be separated."
"Jesus," exclaimed Nicole. "How in the world can you, or anyone, arbitrarily decide to separate a husband and a wife who have chosen to live together, and expect them to be happy? You'll be lucky if there is not a widespread revolt after you make your announcement."
The Eagle hesitated for a few seconds. "There was nothing arbitrary in our process," the alien said at length. "For months now we have been carefully studying voluminous data on every single creature currently living in the starfish. The records include complete information from all the years in Rama as well. Those who have been assigned to the Carrier do not, in one way or another, meet our necessary criteria for transfer to the Node."
"And what exactly are those criteria?" Nicole asked quickly.
"All I can tell you now is that the Node will feature an interspecies living environment. Those individuals who have limited adaptability have been assigned to the Carrier," the Eagle replied.
"It sounds to me," Nicole said after a few seconds, "as if some subset of the humans in the Grand Hotel has been rejected, for some reason, and not found 'acceptable'—"
"If I understand your choice of words," the Eagle now interrupted, "you are inferring that this split divides the two groups on the basis of merit. That is not exactly the case. It is our belief that most of those in either group will, in the long run, be happier in the environment to which they have been assigned."
"Even without their spouses or children?" Nicole said. She frowned. "Sometimes I wonder if you have really observed what motivates the human species. 'Emotional attachments,' to use your words, are usually the most essential component in any human's happiness."
"We know that," the Eagle said. "We had a special review of every single case where families will be broken apart by the split, and we made some accommodations as a result. In our judgment, the remaining family divisions, which are not as numerous as this discussion might suggest, are all supported by the observational data."
Nicole stared at the Eagle and shook her head vigorously. "Why was this split never mentioned before? Never once in all the discussions of the impending transfer did you ever even suggest that we were going to be divided into two groups."
"We hadn't decided ourselves until fairly recently. Recall that our intercession with the affairs on Rama took us into a contingency regime in our planning matrix. Once it became clear that some kind of split would be necessary, we didn't want to upset the status quo."
"Bullshit," Nicole said suddenly. "I don't believe that for a moment. You knew what you were going to do long ago. You just didn't want to listen to any objections."
Using the controls on the arm of her chair, Nicole turned around and faced away from her alien companion. "No," she said firmly, "I will not be your accomplice in this matter. And I am angry that you have compromised my integrity by not telling me the truth before now."
She pushed the acceleration button and started toward the main corridor.
"Is there nothing I can do to change your mind?" the Eagle said, following her.
Nicole stopped. "I can only imagine one scenario in which I would help you. Why don't you explain the differences between the two living environments and let each individual from each species decide for himself or herself?"
"I'm afraid we can't do that," the Eagle said.
"Then count me out," Nicole said, activating her wheel-chair again.
Nicole was in a foul mood by the time she reached the door to her apartment. She leaned forward in her chair and entered the combination sequence on the panel in the middle of the door.
"Hello, Mrs. Wakefield," Kepler said as Nicole entered the room. "Patrick and Mother are out looking for you. They were worried when they didn't find you in the hallway."
Nicole drove past the young man and into the room. Benjy came out of the bathroom with only a towel wrapped around him. "Hello, Mama," he said with a big smile. He noticed the look of displeasure on Nicole's face and hurried over beside her. "What's wrong?" he asked. "You haven't hurt yourself again…?"
"No, Benjy," Nicole said. "I'm fine. I just had a disturbing conversation with the Eagle."
"What about?" Benjy said, taking her hand.
"I'll tell you later," Nicole said after a brief hesitation. "After you dry off and get dressed."
Benjy smiled and kissed his mother on the forehead before returning to the bathroom. The sinking feeling in her stomach that Nicole had experienced during her conversation with the Eagle now returned. Oh, my God, she thought suddenly. Not Benjy. Surely the Eagle was not trying to tell me that we are going to be separated from Benjy. She remembered the Eagle's comment about "limited capabilities" and started to panic. Not now. Please not now. Not after all this time.
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