Rama: The Omnibus

by Arthur C. Clarke

  “Too late, my brothers,” she sang. “Too late, but never mind… All my trials, Lord… Soon be over.”

  Johann thought his heart was going to explode with sorrow. He could not look at her anymore. He stumbled back into his cell, picked up his mat, and carried it with him to the darkness at the very back of the cave.

  There can be no hell worse than this, he thought. I will not endure that pain again. I will stay back here, out of sight and beyond earshot, until I die.

  17

  Johann felt certain that the eleventh day of his confinement would be his last. He lay on his mat in the darkness, too weak even to sit up. He wondered again what death would be like. Johann tried to imagine a God, and a heaven, and angels who would sing like Sister Beatrice. He could not. Even at this final moment his rational mind interceded and told him that any kind of an afterlife was unlikely.

  Death will be like this, Johann told himself. Darkness and nothingness forever. Only I will not be aware of it.

  For hours he lay without moving. Johann no longer knew if it was day or night outside his cell. He lapsed in and out of consciousness several times. The constant pain of his hunger no longer bothered him. He was slipping away.

  Johann thought he was delirious and imagining things the first time he heard the scraping sound at the back of one of the side tunnels behind him. When the noise persisted, be shook himself and made a great effort to prop himself up on one elbow. He turned in the direction of the sound and watched and waited.

  The noise continued for over an hour. Toward the end Johann thought it was growing louder. Then, suddenly, to his complete astonishment, the rocks at the back side of the tunnel were pushed to the side and he could see some light coming through a hole no larger than a soccer ball. Johann crawled into the tunnel as the light began to fade. In front of the new hole he found three food cylinders and a tiny container, white with red markings, which was filled with water.

  Trembling with joy, Johann lifted the water to his lips. He had never tasted anything so delicious in his entire life. He swirled the water around in his dry mouth and then swallowed it very slowly. Next Johann bit off the end of one of the cylinders. The food felt strangely wonderful in his mouth. He ate the cylinders slowly, one by one, until they were all gone. Then be awkwardly clasped his hands in front of him.

  “Thank you, whoever you are,” he said softly. “Whether you are aliens or angels, I thank you with my entire being.”

  The food and water came twice a day, usually when Johann was asleep. Once, while he was lying awake on his mat, he saw a tiny light in the hole. He watched patiently as it grew into a glowing light, too bright for him to look at directly, and then swiftly disappeared. New food cylinders and water were beside the hole when he crawled to the back of the side tunnel.

  Never once did Johann make an appearance in the large main room of the cave. He was also very careful not to make any noise. He had developed a plan. He expected that sooner or later Yasin would come into the cave to make certain he was dead. When he did, Johann was going to be ready.

  Many days passed. Johann was surprised that Yasin had not yet come. His strength had returned. Between each sleep period, he did hundreds of sit-ups, push-ups, and other muscle exercises. He would be prepared when the final confrontation with Yasin finally occurred.

  He saw the light reflecting off a distant cave wall before he heard the footsteps. Johann’s heart began pumping furiously as he edged along the wall toward the corner. He stood still and listened carefully. The footsteps were soft and uncertain. Johann puzzled for a moment. Then he understood. It’s Sister Beatrice, he thought. Yasin has sent her first to see if I am dead.

  The footsteps grew more faint. Whoever was in the cave had obviously gone in the opposite direction off the large main room. Then Johann heard the footsteps again, coming toward him. He braced himself against the wall. When he was certain that Sister Beatrice was only a few meters away from him, and in a location that could not be seen from the entrance to the cave, he darted around the corner and grabbed her.

  He put his hand immediately over her mouth and successfully muffled her scream. She dropped the torch on the cave floor. “Be calm,” he whispered in her ear. “It’s me, Johann… Relax and do not say a word.”

  When he was convinced that she understood what was happening, Johann released her mouth and picked up the torch. He put his finger to his lips and led Sister Beatrice by the hand to the end of the corridor where his mat was lying.

  “Sit down,” he said in a low voice, surprised to find her wearing a blouse and pair of long pants. “We can talk back here if we aren’t too loud. The cave walls attenuate the sound.”

  “Oh, Brother Johann,” she said, joy apparent on her face, “you don’t know how many times I have prayed that you were still alive. God has heard my prayers.”

  He told her about the hole in the side corridor, the lights, the food cylinders, and the water.

  “It’s a miracle,” Sister Beatrice exclaimed, “an absolute miracle.” She took his hand and kissed it. “I can’t believe that you’re alive.”

  They stared at each other for several seconds.

  “So tell me,” Johann said, “how are you?”

  “Not so good,” Sister Beatrice said, pain showing in her eyes. “But I guess it could be much worse… God has helped me adjust to my hell, Brother Johann,” she added. “Because I have been meek and submissive and have not caused Yasin any trouble, he has graciously allowed me time for my prayers and meditations, without which my soul would have died long ago… I have learned again that you can endure anything if your faith is strong enough.”

  Johann took her hands in his. “I want you to tell Yasin that I have died, Sister Beatrice,” he said. “can you do this for me?”

  She stared in his eyes, thinking. It did not take her long to make a decision. Sister Beatrice pulled a knife out of the pocket of her pants.

  “He still doesn’t trust me, Brother Johann,” she said, “even though he calls me his wife… Yasin told me that if you were dead, I was to cut off one of your fingers and bring it back to him as proof.”

  Johann didn’t hesitate. He thrust his left hand forward. “I suggest the middle finger,” he said. “I can do without it the easiest.”

  Sister Beatrice looked squeamish. “Would you like for me to do it for you?” he asked.

  She nodded. “If you would, please… I’m not certain I could hurt you like that.”

  He handed her the torch. “There will be a lot of blood,” he said. “We will need to cauterize the wound immediately.”

  Johann laid his left hand down on the floor of the cave. He asked Sister Beatrice to move the torch so he could better see what he was doing. Johann checked the knife. It was very sharp.

  He cut off the middle finger of his left hand with one sure, strong stroke. Johann then held his stump against the fire, recoiling from the pain. He closed his eyes and took several quick breaths. When he looked at Sister Beatrice, he noticed the blood dripping from the gruesome finger remnant in her hand.

  “What happens to your blood when you die?” Johann asked. “Doesn’t it solidify when rigor mortis sets in?”

  “I think so,” Sister Beatrice said. “But I’m not certain.”

  “We don’t want to take any chances,” Johann said. “That might be something that Yasin would know.”

  Johann took the remnant, washed it off, and then burned it on the end where it was still bleeding. “Tell him you accidentally burned it with the torch,” Johann said. “Now go, before he becomes suspicious.”

  Sister Beatrice reached over and kissed Johann lightly on the lips. “You have no idea…” she started to say.

  “Yes, I do,” Johann said with a smile. “Now go, please.”

  Johann anticipated that Yasin would come to examine his body in a few minutes. He was correct. Not long after Sister Beatrice had left, he heard two pairs of feet coming rapidly in his direction. Again he braced himself against
the cave wall near the entrance to his corridor. Johann intended to jump Yasin the moment he was in view.

  “Around that corner,” he heard Sister Beatrice say. “His body is on a mat, at the end of a short tunnel.”

  “You lead the way, darling,” Yasin said. “I will follow.”

  Beatrice made a wide arc around the turn and Johann pounced. Despite Yasin’s surprise, he managed to elude Johann’s first attempt to grab him. Yasin retreated several meters, holding his staff in his right hand.

  Sister Beatrice stood to the side holding the torch. “Watch out,” she called to Johann. “He has sharpened the end of his staff.”

  Johann circled around in the cave, cutting off all possibility of flight and protecting Sister Beatrice. Yasin surveyed the situation. “You have betrayed me again, cunt,” he hissed. “You will die after I finish with him.”

  Yasin raised his staff above his shoulder like a spear and prepared to attack. “Allah, give me strength,” he shouted as he rushed toward Johann.

  Johann kept his eyes on the point of the staff, which was aimed directly at his heart. At the last moment of Yasin’s run, he jumped to the side, grabbing the staff just in front of Yasin’s hand and ripping it from the smaller man’s grasp. In one swift, powerful, continuous motion, Johann thrust the staff completely through Yasin’s gullet, the sharp point stopping several centimeters beyond the back of Yasin’s neck.

  Yasin’s eyes bulged out of his head as he staggered around the cave. He reached up to his throat and pulled on the staff, but it was too late. Blood was already pouring from his mouth.

  Sister Beatrice averted her eyes as Yasin dropped to his knees. He glanced up at Johann and tried to smile. “Well done, Ace,” he gurgled. Then he toppled over and died.

  Beatrice dropped the torch and ran over to Johann. She wept in his arms. “It’s over now,” he said. “It’s all over.”

  They burned Yasin’s body on a funeral pyre that same evening. Johann and Sister Beatrice slept next to each other, holding hands all night long, and in the morning he went for a long swim in the lake. She meditated on the beach and greeted him with a kiss when he returned.

  They didn’t talk much during breakfast. Neither of them wanted to discuss the killing or the horrors that they had each endured. Johann and Sister Beatrice spent the rest of the morning gathering up food and useful objects. At midday, just before they shouldered their backpacks for the trek across the island, Sister Beatrice said a prayer for Yasin’s soul and thanked God for their deliverance.

  18

  Beatrice told Johann she thought she was pregnant the first night they were together in their home cave on the other side of the island. “I know my body very well, Brother Johann,” she said, “and it already feels different. Besides, I’m seven days late for my period.”

  She suggested to him that they not become lovers until after they found out for certain whether or not she was pregnant. Beatrice added that she also wanted to wait for another reason, so that she could come to terms with her feelings of revulsion associated with sexual activity of any kind. “It’s still difficult,” she told Johann, “despite my love for you, to imagine being intimate… The memories of Yasin are still too fresh, and too painful.”

  Johann understood. Although they had only alluded indirectly to becoming lovers, it had been obvious to him from her first kisses that Beatrice no longer felt bound to her vow of chastity that Yasin had forcibly broken.

  The waiting was difficult. Each morning when they awakened, before Johann swam and Beatrice meditated, he interrogate her with his eyes. Each morning she shook her head.

  On the eleventh day after Yasin’s death, Johann and Beatrice took a long walk on the beach. “You have been great about everything, Johann,” Beatrice said, taking his hand, “kind, loving, so respectful of my feelings. I know that you have a million questions you have not asked… I am not yet ready to talk about the time I spent with Yasin—God knows I would forget it completely if I could—but I do think it’s time to assume that I’m pregnant. I am now eighteen days late. I have never been more than one week late in my entire life.”

  “What specifically do you want to discuss?” Johann said. “It’s not as if we haven’t talked about the subject.”

  “But you haven’t told me how you really feel,” she said. “And I haven’t yet shared with you some of the private thoughts I have had during my many prayers about my pregnancy… I have definitely had mixed emotions, and have changed my mind several times. In the beginning, I was horrified by the thought of bringing Yasin’s child into our world. If I were going to have anyone’s baby,” she said, looking at Johann, “I would want it to be yours.

  “However, the more I thought and prayed about it, the more I realized that my not wanting Yasin’s child was both childish and inconsistent with my deepest beliefs. If God has allowed me to conceive Yasin’s child, then He must have had some reason.”

  They stopped walking. Beatrice took Johann’s other hand and looked fixedly into his eyes. “If I am pregnant, Johann,” she said, “it is not just Yasin’s child. It is my child, and God’s, and yours as well…

  “I don’t mean to imply that we would tell either Michael or Maria—those are the two names I have picked out, subject to your approval—that you are their biological father. We would tell the child the truth about his or her parentage. However, you would be the baby’s ‘true’ father, if I can use that expression. The biological father supplies only the genes. In my opinion, and in yours, too, assuming I have understood what you have been telling me, the nurturing parents are the ones who really ‘imprint’ the child.”

  Beatrice waited patiently for Johann to say something. “I would be lying,” he said at-length, “if I told you that I am pleased with the idea that you might be carrying Yasin’s child. I hope very much that you are not pregnant. But if you are…”

  Johann kissed her on the forehead. “I love you, Beatrice,” he said, “and I want to support you in every way. If you are pregnant, I will wrestle with the demons whispering in my ear, and eventually I will overcome them. It’s as simple as that.”

  Her smile was full of love. “You are a wonderful man, Johann Eberhardt,” she said.

  The days passed. Life was good for Johann and Beatrice. They decided together that they would officially declare her to be pregnant on the thirtieth day after Yasin’s death. There was some rationale for the date, but not much.

  “I have heard of women,” Beatrice had said while they were discussing the subject, “who sometimes skip a period altogether during times of acute stress. The time I spent with Yasin would certainly fit into that category.”

  On the appointed morning, Johann awakened unusually early. He lay on his mat and watched the firelight flickering on the wall of the cave. He tried to imagine what it would be like to share their world with an infant.

  Beatrice was sleeping peacefully beside him. Johann glanced over at her and watched her take a couple of easy breaths. She was smiling. She has looked exceptionally beautiful lately, he thought. Her cheeks have been full of color. I wonder if that old wives’ tale about pregnant women being radiant is true.

  He waited until daylight to awaken her. Soon thereafter she checked herself. “Nothing,” Beatrice said, smiling coyly as she shook her head.

  “This is the thirtieth day,” Johann said.

  “I know,” she said. “I guess I am officially pregnant.”

  Johann stood up and stretched. “Well,” he said, “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Don’t say anything,” Beatrice said. “Just come over here and kiss me.”

  He bent down beside her on the mat and kissed her on the lips. Beatrice put her hands behind his head and returned his kiss, softly at first, but then with increasing passion.

  “Wow,” Johann said with a smile when they broke the kiss. “That’s a great way to start the morning.”

  Beatrice kept her arms around him. “I don’t want you to leave this morning, Joha
nn,” she said. “I want you to make love to me.”

  Johann was deliberate and extremely gentle in his foreplay. He was worried that any kind of abrupt or forceful move would bring back painful memories for her. They kissed and touched until he was afraid that he was going to explode.

  “I’m ready now, Johann,” she whispered in his ear after tickling it lightly with her tongue. “Please come inside me.”

  For Johann, the next few minutes were pure ecstasy. Never in his life had he imagined that physical pleasure could be so intense. He surrendered completely to what he was feeling, surprising himself by emitting a long, plaintive cry when he climaxed.

  “Goodness,” said Beatrice moments later. “Are you all right?”

  “All right?” Johann said, lifting his head from her neck and smiling. “No, sweet lady, I’m not all right. I’m absolutely, unbelievably, incredibly, terrific.”

  He jumped up quickly and began to dance around the cave. Beatrice laughed. “I have never, ever been better,” he said. In a few seconds he was lying beside her again, kissing her wildly on the forehead, the neck, the lips, and the nipples of her breasts.

  “And do you know why I’m terrific?” he asked.

  Beatrice shook her head.

  “Because I’m completely, madly in love with you,” Johann said.

  Sexual pleasure added an extra dimension to their relationship. Johann and Beatrice were already as close as good friends could possibly be, so the period during which they explored each other physically was a delight for both of them. Beatrice was the more creative of the pair, although Johann surprised her from time to time with an exciting suggestion that she had not considered. They made love in the lake, on the beach, in front of the fire, in the total darkness at the rear of their cave, and even in the grove, underneath the trees with the unusual brown nuts.

  Johann’s happiness amazed him. Often he would lie awake on his mat at night, chuckling to himself about his good fortune. If I were a praying man, he thought one night, I would ask God to freeze time right here, right now. I want to feel like this forever.