Rama: The Omnibus

by Arthur C. Clarke

  “I don’t understand,” Johann said to her while Maria was struggling to make a decent meal out of soggy grain and berries. “You were totally devastated by Hansel and Kwame’s deaths. How can you be so carefree and nonchalant after what happened to us last night?”

  She offered him one of the few dry bites she had found among their provisions. “Last night I was absolutely certain we were going to die, Johann,” Maria said. “My fear seemed to last forever, and then poof, it was gone. I don’t know why.”

  Johann stared at her while continuing to row. He didn’t know what to say. She’s remarkable, he said to himself. And I am still learning something new from her every day.

  An hour later Maria spotted a feature on the horizon in front of them. Johann could not yet see anything. When Maria could definitely assert that what she was seeing was a land form, she shouted “Land ho,” as Johann had told her seafaring explorers had done years before.

  At first Johann thought that perhaps they had returned to their own island. However, as they drew closer, and saw unfamiliar landscapes, Johann realized that they were indeed approaching a new place. The new island was larger, and more mountainous, than their home of eight years. As Johann guided the boat past white cliffs that dropped precipitously to the water, he could see tall, stately trees on the ridges above. There had been no trees that tall on their island.

  “See,” Maria said for the umpteenth time, unable to contain either her delight or her excitement, “I told you that Gretel knew where she was going. Look, Johann. Look how beautiful it is.”

  Johann too was excited. He had never imagined that there might be more than one Earth-like habitat inside their alien sphere. Years before, when Beatrice and he had reached the island they called Paradise, they had both believed that their island was unique, and created especially for them.

  Now, as his eyes surveyed a handsome, forested hill that sloped down toward the shore, Johann’s amazement continued to grow Who or what has built this? he wondered again. And for what purpose?

  “Look there, Johann.” Maria interrupted his thoughts. “Something is moving though the trees… Look, there’s four of them.”

  He followed her pointing finger with his eyes. Emerging from the trees and staring at them from a ridge several hundred meters above the lake were four large brown animals of the same species, each with six muscular legs. Two of them had an enormous, bizarre white protuberance growing on what must have been the forehead, just above a wide, dark rectangle that appeared to contain the visual sensors. One of the animals turned its head and issued a plaintive bellow, allowing Johann and Maria to see the thick white growth on its forehead. Close to the head, the tusk was a single branch, like the trunk of a tree, but as it moved outward and upward, away from the animal’s body, the tusk spread out into three separate branches, each with its own complicated design.

  Johann was fascinated. He stopped rowing and stared up at the alien animals. He had just remarked to Maria that the two tusks on the animals they could see were clearly different, when something caused the alien ungulates to retreat into the trees.

  Maria and he tried to follow their movement but could not. At length Johann began to row again, following the impatient Gretel, who had been squealing at them during the entire time they had been stopped. Soon the gentle, verdant mountain slopes disappeared and harsh new cliffs, with brownish rock faces, towered over their rowboat. After several kilometers of these cliffs, Johann began to wonder if there was going to be any place for them to land.

  Then suddenly as they rounded a sharp corner in the cliffs, Johann and Maria encountered a deep, beautiful half-moon bay with a long stretch of sandy beach and lush green vegetation everywhere. Johann saw the smoke before Maria. It was rising slowly from a spot a few hundred meters behind an expanse of beach on the opposite side of the bay.

  Gretel now increased her speed toward the land and left the boat behind. She was heading directly for the rising smoke, jumping out of the water every twenty meters or so. A few minutes later two half-naked children, a boy and a girl, both brownish-black in color, came out of the brush. They laughed and pointed at Gretel. The boy had started to walk into the water when he was stopped by the girl. She grabbed his hand, pointed at Johann and Maria’s approaching boat, and hustled quickly back into the bushes.

  Johann continued to row toward the shore. Maria, thrilled by the prospect of meeting other children, jabbered ceaselessly. When the water became shallow, Johann jumped out of the boat and pulled it onto the sand with the rope that was attached to the torch stanchion on the prow Maria helped him. As they were beaching the boat Johann heard a voice call his name.

  “Johann?” the voice said. “Is that really you, giant Johann?”

  Coming down a narrow path through the brush was a tall, thin, copper-skinned woman wearing only a loincloth. Her face was alive with laughter and happiness. The two children Johann and Maria had seen before were following close behind the woman.

  “Come here, giant Johann,” Sister Vivien said, pushing her long, thick hair out of her face. “Come here and give me a hug”

  SISTER

  VIVIEN’S

  TALE

  ONE

  “LET ME LOOK at you,” Vivien said. She pulled away from Johann, and shook her head quickly back and forth. “You are even larger and grander than my memories, giant Johann,” she said with an easy laugh. “How long has it been? Nine years…? It doesn’t seem possible that it’s really you… But where’s Sister Beatrice? Why didn’t she come with you?”

  “Beatrice… Jomo… where are you?” a child called from farther up the path before Johann could answer.

  “Down here, Keiko,” the girl answered. “With Mother… and the strangers.”

  A brown-skinned girl, seven or so, with exotic facial features, stopped immediately when she saw Johann and Maria. “Who are they?” she demanded of Vivien with a worried look on her face.

  Vivien laughed again. “It’s all right, Keiko,” she said. “Johann is a very dear old friend.”

  Keiko joined the group hesitantly and stood behind Vivien with the other two children. “I guess introductions are in order,” Vivien then said, moving over toward Johann and Maria. “This charming girl is Keiko, the daughter of Fernando and Satoko. That pair over there are God’s gifts to Kwame and me. My daughter is Beatrice, named, unless my eyes are mistaken, after this young lady’s beautiful mother, who was my very best friend for several years.”

  Vivien gestured toward Maria. The girl, who was still overwhelmed by everything that was happening, tightened her grip on Johann’s hand. “Her name is Maria. Her mother was indeed Beatrice,” Johann said. “And her father was Yasin,” he added awkwardly. “They both died many years ago.”

  Vivien’s eyes widened immediately and her brow knitted into wrinkles. She stared at Johann and started to say something. “Later;” he said softly.

  It took the flustered Vivien several seconds to regain her composure. Her son helped her. Staring continuously at Johann and Maria, he walked over and put both arms around Vivien’s left leg. “And this urchin,” Vivien said fondly, “who makes me crazy; is little Jomo.”

  “Maria is pretty,” the boy said.

  Everybody laughed, diffusing some of the tension. “Thank you, Jomo,” Maria said, proving to the other children that she could speak.

  Keiko and Beatrice took Maria’s comment as a cue and came over beside her for a closer inspection. “I have a dress too;’ Beatrice said, fingering the material Maria was wearing. “But I don’t wear it very often.”

  “So tell me, giant Johann,” Vivien said in a more somber tone, putting her arm through his and turning toward the path, “what brings you to this shore? Is it pure chance or did you know we were here?”

  Johann smiled. “Sister Beatrice,” he said, “would probably have insisted it was divine intervention. We bad no idea—” He stopped in mid-sentence. For a split second, as Johann glanced up the hill, he thought he bad entered
a time warp and returned to the Earth or Mars. There, standing above him on the path, was a woman dressed in the blue robe and headpiece of the Michaelites.

  Vivien saw the astonished look on Johann’s face and laughed heartily “Oh, I’m sorry’ she said, “I completely forgot. Sister Nuba is also here with us, helping me with the children while we wait for Kwame to return with the others.”

  The shy Nuba came down the path with her hand extended. “It is delightful to see you again, Brother Johann,” she said softly “When the children said that a boat was coming with some people onboard, I thought our prayers had been answered and that Kwame had finally returned.”

  Johann shook Sister Nuba’s hand and almost said something about Kwame. Reflecting quickly he turned around. Maria and the other children were playing together on the beach. Beatrice and Keiko were pointing toward the lake where Gretel was bounding out of the water. While the children exclaimed and applauded, Johann excused himself from Vivien and Nuba and walked swiftly toward the children.

  When he reached them, Maria was showing the others the carved wooden amulet around her neck. “Sister Nuba wears one of these,” Keiko said, turning the amulet over in her fingers. “And Brother Jose too.”

  “Mom has one in her box of important things,” Beatrice added. “But there’s nothing written on hers.”

  “Maria,” Johann said, touching her lightly on the arm. “May I speak with you for a moment?”

  He led her down the shore until they were several meters away from the other children. “What is it, Johann?” Maria asked, a worried look on her face. “Have I done something wrong?”

  “No, Maria,” he said, touching her shoulder reassuringly. “I just have something important to discuss with you.”

  As Johann bent down to talk to Maria at her level, Gretel suddenly started squealing at a high pitch and clapping her flippers with each leap out of the water.

  “That’s the way she says good-bye,” Maria said sadly.

  He took Maria’s hand and they walked together to the edge of the shore. Gretel’s display continued as she moved away from them, out toward the open water of the lake.

  “She’s probably going to look for her new friends,” Johann said.

  “Good-bye, Gretel,” Maria shouted. She waved. Her eyes were brimming with tears.

  “Good-bye,” Johann yelled. “And thank you.”

  He dried Maria’s tears and gave her a long silent hug. At length Johann broke from the hug and bent down again to talk to her. “Maria,” he said, “nobody here knows what happened to Kwame. He was Vivien’s husband, and the father of Beatrice and Jomo. They will be very upset when they find out that he is dead, and I want to wait until the proper time to tell them. Will you promise not to say anything about Kwame, at least until I tell you it’s all right?”

  Maria thought for a moment. “Sure, Johann,” she said. “I can do that.”

  He kissed her on the forehead. “You’re a good girl, Maria,” he said.

  A FEW MINUTES after Johann and Maria rejoined the others, Vivien invited him to come with her to their “home.” Sister Nuba graciously volunteered to remain on the beach with the children. Jomo insisted that he was going to accompany his mother, and a struggle of wills ensued. Jomo adamantly refused to stay with Nuba and eventually threw a temper tantrum of the first order. Vivien reacted swiftly, smacking him firmly on the behind and then handing him, kicking, to Sister Nuba.

  “I’m sorry,” Vivien said to Johann as they started up the path that she, Sister Nuba, and the children had worn through the calf-high vegetation. “Jomo can be really difficult at times. It’s his age…”

  “There’s no need to apologize,” Johann said, interrupting her gently “I know what it’s like… I have raised Maria since she was an infant.”

  It was not easy for Vivien to restrain her many questions until they were out of earshot of the others. “All right, giant Johann,” she said, spinning around in the middle of the path, “you can’t keep me waiting any longer. How did that bastard Yasin happen to be the father of this beautiful child? We all thought he was dead. He was thrown into a deep chasm during a fight with Fernando and Kwame. How did he…?”

  “Hold it,” Johann said with a laugh. “One question at a time,” He glanced over his shoulder in the direction of Maria, who was still playing with the other children on the beach. “Maria never knew her father,” Johann said. “Yasin died before she was born… And I have purposely never told her what he was really like. I didn’t see any reason to tell the child that her father was a…”

  Johann didn’t finish his sentence. Vivien reached over and touched him lightly on the forearm. “I understand,” she said. “You are a very kind and generous man, Johann. You can rest assured that neither Sister Nuba nor I will destroy the girl’s illusions about her father.”

  Johann was now looking in the other direction, gazing out at the lake. His mind was full of memories of another beach, at another time. He could almost hear Beatrice’s voice calling to him from the lake.

  Vivien must have been reading his mind. “And how did dear, sweet, perfect Sister Beatrice die?” she said. “That’s even harder to believe. She was so alive, and so healthy…”

  “She died soon after childbirth,” Johann said with difficulty. He didn’t turn toward Vivien. He couldn’t. The terrible heartache had returned, as it always did when he thought of Beatrice’s final moments.

  After a long while Johann slowly turned to face Vivien again. Her arms were open and extended. Johann accepted the comfort of her embrace and allowed himself to grieve.

  “I couldn’t save her,” Johann said, his body trembling as he spoke.

  “I’m certain you did your best,” Vivien said quietly.

  At length they separated and Johann followed Vivien up the remainder of the path. They didn’t talk. Nor did Johann even notice the numerous new and different species of flowering bushes and exotic grasses that surrounded them as they climbed. He was deep in thought, and still recovering from the outburst of emotion that had accompanied his telling Vivien about Beatrice’s death. That was the first time I have ever shared her death with someone else who knew and loved her, Johann realized.

  But another subject was also disturbing him. How was he going to tell Vivien about Kwame? From the inflections in her voice when she mentioned his name, Johann knew that the two of them had had a good marriage. She will be devastated, Johann thought. I must tell her at the right moment, and give her comfort during her sorrow.

  At the end of the path was a rock overhang, underneath which Vivien, Sister Nuba, and the children had created a temporary home. “It’s adequate for now,” Vivien said, chatting idly and offering Johann a hot herbal drink from the pot hanging above the fire, “at least until Kwame and the others arrive. Then we’ll build some real houses. Kwame says that the wood here is much better for construction than it was where we were living before.”

  Johann’s internal struggles must have shown in his face. “Are you all right, Johann?” Vivien asked with concern. “Do you want to talk some more about Beatrice?”

  Now, a voice inside Johann said. Tell her now. Johann leaned forward and took both of Vivien’s hands in his. “There’s something that I must tell you, Vivien,” he said.

  He paused. “What is it, Johann?” she said.

  “Kwame is dead,” he said simply. “I found his body and buried him a week ago.”

  Vivien sat opposite Johann, her eyes blinking occasionally, looking at him with profound disbelief. Seconds passed. Tears wedged into Vivien’s eyes and her breathing became more and more labored.

  “Kwame is dead,” she said twice to herself “How did he die, Johann?” she finally managed to ask.

  “I’m not completely certain,” Johann said. “I found him in the lake, wrapped around a dead alien creature we call a nozzler. It appeared that Kwame and the nozzler had been fighting, and that they had killed each other.”

  Vivien looked down at the groun
d for almost a minute, shaking her head mechanically. The gray tinges in her hair were more apparent from the top. “Hold me please, Johann,” she then said, her body starting to shake. “I think I’m going to cry.”

  For the second time in an hour, the two friends held one another in sorrow. Vivien wept. “He was such a good man, Johann,” she said, between bursts of tears. “So tender and patient with the children. And kinder to me than anyone has ever been.”

  After her long cry, Vivien pulled away from Johann and stood up straight. “Will you kneel with me, Johann?” she said. “I need to pray.”

  Johann dropped down beside Sister Vivien, recalling the times he had knelt beside Beatrice while she prayed. “Dear God,” Vivien said, “I ask you to help me to be strong in the hours and days ahead. Help me to guide my children through this terrible loss, and to be thankful for the wonderful years we all shared with Kwame as our husband and our father.” Her voice broke for a moment. “And dear God,” she then continued, “thank you for having the compassion to send Johann here with this news, so that I have a good friend to comfort me in my hour of loss.”

  JOHANN WAS SURPRISED that Vivien was as concerned about Keiko’s reaction to the news of Kwame’s death as she was about her own children’s responses. “Keiko has not yet completely recovered from losing her own parents.” Sister Nuba told Johann in a soft voice while Vivien and Keiko were off on their long walk and Jomo was napping. “Vivien and Kwame had essentially adopted her… And Keiko absolutely adored Kwame”

  Before Johann could ask Nuba any more questions, Beatrice came over and interrupted them. The little girl looked miserable. “Is Mommy not back yet?” Beatrice asked petulantly. “I need her now.”

  Johann and Vivien did not have another chance to talk together until late that night, after she finished putting the children to bed. Mindful of the strong emotions of the day, both Vivien and Nuba had spent extra time with the children after dinner. They had encouraged Maria to place her mat alongside the other two girls, and Nuba had told a long and entertaining story about Carthage and Hannibal. Finally, while Vivien was nursing Jomo, the last of the girls had fallen asleep.