Rama: The Omnibus

by Arthur C. Clarke

  The images for the second segment were fuzzy and indistinct. Nevertheless, once she was accustomed to the poorer quality of the picture, Beatrice had no difficulty following the action. When Mr. Bhutto leaned over and tentatively brushed his lips against Miss Macmillan’s, the young lady reached up, put her right hand behind Mr. Bhutto’s head, and pulled him toward her. They were kissing passionately when the videotape ended.

  “One of the imaging components was failing,” Sister Melissa explained. “By the time of the next segment, the system had automatically switched to the backup element.”

  The images that now appeared on the screen were indeed much sharper. The segment, which began three minutes later, showed the couple first kissing while standing up, and then walking into a secluded area a few meters away from the waterfall. When the segment was completed, the final frame was left frozen on the video monitor.

  “This will be our last good picture of Mr. Bhutto and Miss Macmillan together,” Brother Thomas said. “By the time the camera scans this particular region again, they will be mostly out of sight, over behind that group of trees… Is there anything that you would like to see again?”

  “No, not yet,” Beatrice answered. “Please continue.”

  “The sequence will now switch to the other camera. We will see Mr. Malone and his friends, who are just beyond the grove north of the Dell. The time is six minutes later… By the way, Sister Melissa has searched the complete video database with Malone’s identification number and has found two additional segments, both last week, that show him conversing briefly with Miss Macmillan m the cafeteria. In the interests of time, we have not included those segments in this edited sequence.”

  A burly Irish youth, wearing a jacket as red as his cheeks, could be seen on the monitor. He was approaching the pool of water below the waterfall along a wooded pathway. Malone and his two companions, one on either side, were laughing heartily.

  “The light in that area is not good,” Brother Thomas’s narration continued, “so we have enhanced these frames considerably… Notice the dark object sticking out of the pocket of Malone’s trousers. That is the handle of the knife that will later be used as a weapon in the fight between the two men.”

  The monitor was momentarily blank. “Allan Malone is nineteen, originally from Londonderry,” Brother Thomas said. “He was arrested once as a juvenile for assault. He and his mother and two younger sisters live in one of the new family tents along Rotten Row, just north of the football pitch.”

  There was a cough beside her. Beatrice glanced over at Brother Thomas. From his red eyes she guessed that the man had been up all night preparing for this briefing. “Now watch what happens when Malone first sees Bhutto and Macmillan,” he said.

  As the three young men rounded a corner in the path, their attention was drawn to a scene off to their left. The cocky smile on Malone’s face quickly vanished. A moment later his features tightened and his eyes narrowed. Then, again, the screen went blank.

  “Unfortunately,” Brother Thomas said, “we do not have any more video until a minute and twenty seconds later… Because so much is happening, Sister Melissa has prepared the entire final segment in slow motion.”

  On the left side of the video picture, Bhutto and Malone were engaged in a furious fistfight. The Irishman’s two companions were standing nearby, shouting encouragement to their friend. On the right, a disheveled Miss Macmillan, her skirt and blouse awry, was hastily slipping on her coat. When she was mostly dressed, she ran out of the picture.

  The fight continued for another thirty seconds. Each man swung often and wildly, hitting his adversary only occasionally. Neither man had a definite advantage. After Bhutto landed a solid punch on Malone’s left temple, the Irish youth pulled the knife out of his pocket and slashed at his opponent’s stomach.

  The camera recorded the burst of blood from the wound. Mr. Bhutto grabbed his stomach, now swimming in red, and collapsed on the ground. Allan Malone and his two friends hesitated a moment, then turned and ran away.

  When the video sequence was finished, Sister Beatrice sat silently in the booth for several seconds. “Is there anything else you need?” Sister Melissa asked.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Beatrice replied, taking the videocube Melissa extended to her. “You both have done your usual thorough job. Thanks very much.”

  She stood up to leave with a heavy heart. While making a quick mental list of everything she still needed to do before the hearing, Beatrice wondered if it would ever be possible for human beings to live with one another in harmony. Not for a moment did she think again about the unusual experience she had had during her walk in the predawn fog.

  Even though it was not yet six-thirty, a queue had already developed in the cafeteria. Because of the cold weather, the residents waited inside, standing in winding ranks like those found in large amusement parks. The blue-robed Michaelites had their own separate line, which was much shorter, but the two lines merged at the entrance to the huge food service area.

  Vivien handed Beatrice a tray when they entered the serving line. A large black woman was immediately behind Vivien. She and her two sons, both teenagers, were joking with each other as they made their juice selections. “You see,” the woman said to her older boy in a lilting West Indies accent several seconds later, “you can be black and be one of the Michael folks. Look at this lady.”

  Sister Vivien turned on cue and smiled. The older boy stared at her with some surprise. “You’re even pretty,” he said abruptly. “Why would you want to be some kind of nun?”

  The woman lightly cuffed her son. Vivien’s eyes sparkled as she tossed her head sideways in her characteristic manner. “Young man,” she said with a flourish, “it is a great honor for me to serve God and all of mankind.”

  The boy looked embarrassed. “Umm, umm,” the black woman now said, changing the subject, “look at all the breads.”

  Spread out on a rectangular table across from them, each variety carefully marked and explained, were eight different kinds of bread. Bread was the primary element of all the meals in the tent city. The wheat from which it was made was raised in the bioengineering greenhouses in Kent that were managed by the order. Each kind of wheat was genetically engineered to provide specific amounts of critical vitamins and bulk fiber.

  Two young Michaelites, a man and a woman, were on the other side of the table, slicing new loaves of bread and helping to serve the residents. The black woman and her two Sons hesitated in front of the profusion of choices.

  “You’re new here?” Sister Vivien inquired of the black woman after she and her family had filled their plates.

  “Yes,” the woman answered. “We were staying in an abandoned warehouse, down by the river, when the notices Went out last week about the openings… We’d been on the waiting list for almost two months and I was just about ready to give up. It’s a shame you had to discharge all those sick folks, but it surely was lucky for us.”

  Beatrice leaned forward and looked down the line at the Woman. “How long did your processing take?” she asked.

  “Better part of three days,” the woman replied. “The boys ached and moaned about being cooped up in those two tents down beside the water, but I told them it would be worth it… When the docs finally told us that we had been cleared to become residents, I let out a whoop of joy.”

  The final serving area, after the juices, the breads, and the somewhat meager selection of fresh fruits and vegetables, contained all the cereals, both hot and cold. Pitchers of coffee and tea were always set on the long wooden tables where everyone ate. Beatrice took a bowl of boiled rice, into which she blended a mixture of exotic spices. Vivien eventually chose some oatmeal.

  “What I would really like this morning,” she said quietly to Beatrice, “are a couple of boiled eggs and a piece of sausage.”

  “Eating meat is not necessary for your health,” Sister Beatrice lectured, “and represents an inefficient allocation of global resources. Tw
elve hundred people can be fed with the amount of grain necessary to sustain and fatten a pig that can only feed one hundred.”

  “But sausage tastes so good…” Vivien said, her voice trailing off as Beatrice’s stern eyes met hers.

  Beatrice sat down and began to eat her breakfast in great gulps. Vivien, meanwhile, poured herself a cup of coffee and watched her companion. “What’s the matter, B?” she asked after a few seconds. “You seem tense and preoccupied…”

  “The presentation needs more work before the meeting,” Beatrice said grumpily. “We only have an hour to fix it. Then we have that damn hearing at 1100, so your personal training will be interrupted again. Brother Hugo only assigned the hearing to me because he hates making unpopular decisions… This afternoon I must suck up to all those rich ladies in Esher… There’s never enough time to do everything…”

  The touch of Vivien’s hand on hers stopped Beatrice. “Hey,” Vivien said. “Lighten up. Aren’t you the one who told me that we can’t really do God’s work unless we’re free from stress?”

  Beatrice stopped chewing and looked at her friend. “I guess I am pushing too hard again,” she said. “This morning, near the end of my walk, I even had a hallucination. For a moment I thought—”

  Sister Beatrice interrupted herself, took a deep breath, and counted slowly to ten. “Thanks, Vivien,” she said, squeezing the hands wrapped around hers in the middle of the table.

  3

  Half an hour after breakfast, Sister Vivien slid her identification card into the reader, retrieved it a moment later, and joined Beatrice in the kiosk beside the entrance gate on Exhibition Road. Brother Martin handed them their cards and returned the small presentation cylinder to Beatrice.

  The two women, wearing blue shawls over their shoulders, passed through the security area on the Serpentine Bridge. As they were walking Beatrice slipped the cylinder into one of the pockets of her robe.

  “I thought you sent the revised presentation over by televideo,” Vivien commented.

  “I did,” Beatrice said. “This is my backup—in case anything went wrong.”

  They passed a line of cold, mostly bedraggled people waiting to apply for admission to the tent city. Several Michaelites were scattered up and down the line, talking to the people and giving them encouragement. Sister Beatrice stopped briefly to discuss something with one of the priests.

  A few minutes later Beatrice and Vivien crossed Kensington Road into Knightsbridge. A shivering beggar boy, no more than ten years old, approached them on the sidewalk with both his hands outstretched. Beatrice bent down to his level. “What’s your name?” she asked softly.

  “Wills,” the boy answered at length.

  “That’s a lovely name,” Sister Beatrice said. “Now, Wills, if you’ll come with us down the road a little, to that café on the corner of Prince Consort Road, we’ll see to it that you have some breakfast. But we have no money to give you.”

  The lad looked nervously around him. “Just a little spare change, mum, if you please?” he said.

  Beatrice shook her head firmly, patted the boy on the head, and proceeded down the sidewalk. “It infuriates me the way some people use their children,” she said to Vivien. “I bet that boy’s father or mother or some other adult relative is lurking in an alcove nearby… The boy won’t get to keep anything he manages to scrounge… Just another reminder of why our Children’s Village is so important.”

  They turned left before they reached the Victoria and Albert Museum and walked past a row of apartments. “To Let” and “Drastically Reduced” signs were everywhere. There was very little traffic.

  On Brompton Road there were a few cars. It was light now, but the heavy overcast gave a gray tinge to the morning. Half of the stores and shops along the street were empty, victims of the relentless economic depression. In some of the entrances to the abandoned shops, street people had built elaborate cardboard homes. Shopping carts and large trash bags containing their belongings leaned against the empty shop windows.

  “We have seven thousand people in Hyde Park,” Beatrice said to Vivien. “Another ten thousand are housed in shelters scattered around the city. But the Times estimates the total number of homeless in London alone is more than a hundred and twenty thousand. And the number continues to grow—”

  “Where are we going?” Vivien asked suddenly when Beatrice turned right onto Beauchamp Place.

  “To the new administration building on Walton Street,” Sister Beatrice answered. “The meeting was moved there because of the press attendance—” Beatrice stopped. Vivien was no longer beside her.

  Vivien was standing several meters behind Beatrice. “This is too weird,” she said, shaking her head. Vivien crossed herself and looked up at the heavy clouds above her. “Are you doing this, God,” she asked, “to help me make my decision? Or is the wily Sister Beatrice responsible for returning me to the scene of my crimes?”

  Beatrice looked at her assistant with a furrowed brow. “It was just over a year ago that we met for the first time,” Vivien reminded her, “not fifty meters from this spot… One of my johns was walking me back to the escort bureau. You and Brother Madison were on your knees on this very sidewalk, wrapping blankets around some poor unfortunate wino who had passed out and was freezing to death.”

  “That was here?” Beatrice asked, glancing around her. “I don’t seem to remember the exact place.”

  “We crossed the street to avoid you,” Vivien continued, becoming more animated. “I pulled my mink jacket closer around my shoulders. My john, one of those heartless Arabs with lots of money but no other redeeming virtues, actually laughed out loud when the wino slipped out of your arms and fell back to the sidewalk… I watched you bend down and strain to pick the man up again. For just an instant our eyes met… I’ll never forget it. I remember feeling absolutely worthless.”

  Beatrice retraced her steps to stand beside her friend. “I cried that night when I returned to my fancy apartment in Mayfair,” Vivien said reflectively. “I didn’t know why I was crying, but I couldn’t stop.” She shook her head. “It was almost four months later when I approached you after your speech at the Marlborough School.”

  “I’m glad you did,” Beatrice said after a short silence.

  The two women hugged in the middle of the sidewalk, turning the heads of the passersby. “Come on,” Beatrice then said. “We have a presentation to make.”

  “You were terrific,” Vivien said as soon as Beatrice and she had reached Beauchamp Place on their return to Hyde Park. “I can’t believe how well you handled everything, including the press. You never cease to amaze me.”

  “Thanks, Vivien,” Sister Beatrice said. “I thought it went very well. But I’m upset with myself for being curt with Ms. Shields near the end of the meeting. That was totally unnecessary.”

  “But she deserved it,” Vivien protested, nearly running to keep up with Beatrice. “The woman’s a pompous asshole. If she could, she would have all the homeless thrown into the Thames and forgotten.”

  “So would many of these people, I’m afraid,” Beatrice said. “And they’d probably throw us in with them. They only put up with us because we have a cheap, acceptable solution to an impossible problem.”

  “Were you surprised that they delayed the actual decision until later this afternoon?” Sister Vivien then asked.

  “Not really,” Beatrice replied. “Mr. Clarke promised that approval would come this morning, but it was obvious from the questions asked by Ms. Shields and her cohorts that there is still considerable opposition to the expansion. Especially since we won’t apologize for admitting so many minority residents… The council needs the closed meeting this afternoon to at least give the impression of deliberation.”

  The two women passed a yard where a group of schoolchildren dressed in uniform were playing. “Those are the lucky ones,” Beatrice said emphatically, “and they don’t even realize it. I can’t wait until we have decent play facilities for our c
hildren.”

  “So you still think your proposal will be approved?”

  “Yes,” Sister Beatrice said. “A lot of what was going on in the meeting was nothing more than political posturing. That always happens when the press is present. Each one of the council members wants to be on record as having expressed concern about some aspect of the proposal—in case it turns out to be a disaster. None of them wants to give up public access to Kensington Gardens, but they realize, under the circumstances, that they have no choice. The homeless numbers are simply overwhelming.”

  They had reached Brompton Road. Beatrice turned left, continuing at her rapid pace. “Can we stop for something to drink?” Vivien asked.

  Beatrice checked her watch. “No,” she said. “We barely have enough time to prepare for the eleven o’clock hearing.”

  Sister Vivien scampered up beside her. “B,” she said, in between breaths, “why do you think the reporters asked all those personal questions at the end?”

  Beatrice shrugged. “They always do that. Especially the ones from television. They believe personalities are more interesting than issues or ideas… By not answering questions about myself, I try to keep the press focused on our order, and what we are trying to achieve. But it doesn’t always work.”

  “I can certainly understand,” Vivien said, “why they would be interested in you. You are definitely unusual. There are not many women your age who could have made that presentation to the council this morning.”

  “It did go well, didn’t it?” Sister Beatrice said with a smile. “I had such a great feeling once I was into the presentation.”

  They walked along in silence. “Sometimes I wonder,” Beatrice said at length, “what my life would have been like if I had not joined the order. Would I still be singing? Or might I have decided on some other career? Maybe I could have been successful in training, or public relations, or even politics… I definitely enjoy speaking in front of groups…”