Rama: The Omnibus

by Arthur C. Clarke

  Because Maria has too much pride, Johann thought. And the others will not argue with her.

  When Johann offered no response, Vivien decided not to pursue the matter for the moment. The three of them walked in silence toward the kitchen, a partially covered wooden shed in the center of the village. Ravi, Anna, and Beatrice were standing together next to a crude, charred pot suspended over an open fire. Steam was rising from the container.

  Johann glanced down the path at the three who were waiting and sensed from their body language that a group meeting had already been arranged. His good mood of an hour earlier had been shattered by the discovery of the theft. Now what he was feeling was the same sorrowful heartache that usually accompanied his thoughts about Maria. I don’t want to talk about this right now, Johann said to himself, abruptly leaving the path and heading toward the ocean.

  “Where are you going?” Vivien asked.

  “I would like some scruffles for breakfast,” Johann replied, without stopping or turning around.

  “Siegfried and Serentha picked up three or four dozen already this morning, while you were out swimming,” Vivien said.

  “I want black scruffles, from the hollow,” Johann said.

  “Be careful,” Vivien shouted after a moment’s pause. “The tide is coming in and Beatrice saw a pair of sperdens just before you came back.”

  THE CREEK, TWENTY meters wide and half a meter deep between the ocean and the pool at the bottom of the cascades, formed the western boundary of their domain. Beyond the creek to the west, thick undergrowth, with many strange vines, covered the slopes of foothills that were an extension of the front range of the western mountains. Rarely did Johann and his extended family cross the creek, and then only at low tide to play on the white sand beach in front of the lovely, isolated cove a slight distance away.

  Their fields and orchards were on the opposite side of the village. Starting the same distance behind the high-tide point as the village, they covered an area of roughly twenty thousand square meters. Their northern boundary was just before the steep hills that Johann climbed every morning when he went for a swim. On the east, the fields approached the flanks of the bare dark volcanic outcropping they called Black Rock.

  The switchbacks beside the cascades were the only path up the northern hills. A second inland path out of their village area slowly climbed the black volcanic rock and ended up near the point of the promontory, overlooking the ocean. It was upon that path that Johann had seen the bundle of grain earlier that morning.

  The hollow, the only place where Johann had ever found the black scruffles that had become his favorite food in his new home, was a deep, wedge-shaped cut into the bottom of the enormous expanse of rock that jutted out into the ocean below Black Rock Promontory. The hollow faced the ocean directly. During an average low tide, the water depth at the entrance to the hollow was only a couple of centimeters. Johann and the others often waded down the shoreline and entered the hollow, harvesting the delicious black scruffles or simply sitting on the black sand at the back of the hollow and enjoying being surrounded by the immense cliffs of black rock.

  At mean high tide, however, the hollow was an altogether different place. Then the average water depth at the entrance was at least two meters, and no location in the hollow was safe from the turbulent bursts of water and spray that resulted from the ocean waves crashing against the rocks.

  But the biggest danger when the hollow was filled with water was not the possibility of being suddenly driven against the sharp rocks by an onrushing wave. Living in off-shore waters of their new planet were huge long-necked serpents that the humans called sperdens. Unrivaled masters of the ocean, these great green and black animals, whose necks sometimes rose out of the water so high that they towered even over Johann, looked like a bizarre combination of a giant eel and a duck or swan with flippers instead of webbed feet.

  Fortunately, the humans had arrived at this planet during the annual mating rite of the sperdens and had thus been spared any tragic confrontations with these denizens of the deep. On their very first night, sleeping on the beach not far from where their pilotless shuttle had left them before it departed, they had all been kept awake most of the night by choruses of ululations and wails coming from the ocean. One of the moons had been nearly full that night. Johann and his friends had been able to see the long necks swaying in rhythm as they swam, two groups of half a dozen each merging into one, and some titanic baffles, punctuated with sharp, frenzied cries, as pairs of the animals engaged in combat. From that first night .forward, none of the humans had ventured more than waist deep in the ocean, and only that far if none of the green and black necks had been recently sighted.

  Johann was not worrying about the sperdens as he waded through the surf toward the hollow. In fact, he was not even thinking about the black scruffles that he had come to collect. He was trying to determine what to do about Maria and her accomplices.

  Almost mechanically he bent down in shallow water a few meters inside the entrance to the hollow As the water ebbed away, he thrust his powerful right hand into the black sand and scooped up a large volume of material. Deftly sorting through it with the fingers of his left hand, Johann picked out three of the black, ruffled, worm-like creatures about the length of his index finger and dropped them into the front pocket of his shorts.

  He repeated this process over and over, slowly moving deeper into the hollow as the tide came in. While his pockets were filling with the wriggling scruffles, Johann thought about Maria, particularly the changes he had witnessed in her since they had awakened from their long sleep in the bathysphere. Johann hoped that somehow this careful examination of all the historical events would give him some insight on how to deal with the latest crisis.

  The apparition of Sister Beatrice in his cell in the grotto had correctly foretold the future. Only a few days after her visit, Johann and all the other humans had been gathered up by the nozzlers and taken to a platform far out in the middle of the lake. There they had been divided into groups of two and herded in pairs into small, thick-walled, spherical constructions. Before being placed in a bathysphere with Maria, Johann had had the pleasure of seeing Vivien and his infant son, Siegfried, for a maximum of two minutes.

  Maria had been frightened and had clung to Johann. From the layout inside their dimly lit submersible, which was furnished only with two hammocks, each a size that matched one of the two of them, it was obvious that they were supposed to lie down. She had refused to crawl into her hammock until Johann set an example for her and gently coaxed her to do what he was doing. When they were both lying in their hammocks, they were enwrapped by dozens of pieces of tiny twine, some of which were sharp and pierced the skin. Johann’s last memory, before waking up with a long gray beard and an enormous tangle of gray hair, was of Maria whimpering and asking for his help.

  When they awakened, Maria was already a woman. During her long sleep she had obviously been properly nourished, and somehow cleaned, for Johann’s first reaction to her naked body was one of shock. After they dressed in the simple clothes that had been laid out for them beside their hammocks, they immediately joined the others on the surface of the lake and were transported back to the large floating platform. In only a matter of minutes the drone shuttle had appeared and landed on one end of the platform. Everyone except Dr. Jailani and Sister Nuba had been loaded inside, and they had been flown across the lake, down a dark tunnel, through what appeared to be an airlock, and then out into space. An hour later the shuttle had hurtled through the atmosphere of their new home planet and deposited them where their fields and orchards would later be planted.

  There had been no problems with Maria during the first several months after their arrival. She had taken part eagerly in the building and planning activities, performed her assigned duties without complaint, and had been generally pleasant to everyone, including her erstwhile adversary Beatrice. As time passed, a romantic relationship had begun to develop between Beatrice and
Eric, Ravi and Anna’s son. Both were then physically in their early twenties and their attraction for each other was completely natural. For some reason that Johann could not fathom, however, Maria had been definitely bothered by their budding relationship. One evening, while everyone was eating together, Beatrice, laughing about some comment Eric had made, leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. Maria, who was sitting next to them, expressed her disapproval verbally and then left the dinner gathering altogether.

  Johann had followed Maria but she would tell him nothing about what was troubling her. Later that night, Vivien had suggested that Maria’s biological urges were also at work, and that she was perhaps distressed because her particular choice for a mate and the father of her future children was already taken. At first Johann had been confused by what Vivien was telling him. However, later in the conversation, when she made it clear that she believed Maria’s prime candidate for her husband was none other than Johann himself, he became indignant and accused Vivien of unreasonable jealousy.

  Because of Vivien’s comments, however, Johann was not totally startled a week or so later when Maria made an awkward attempt to seduce him one morning after they had been swimming together in the clear lake on the plateau above their village. Johann was caring and considerate in his responses, and explained carefully to Maria why he could not become her lover and her husband, but his rejection devastated the young woman, who thought it was her birthright to claim whatever she wanted from him.

  From that time forward, Maria was a changed person. She antagonized Vivien at every opportunity and flew into fits of rage when the older woman patronized her. Maria also vindictively seduced the hapless Eric, claiming him as her mate and completely humiliating Beatrice. After Johann interceded, and chastised Maria both publicly and privately for her untoward selfish behavior, Maria forced Eric to leave the village with her and to establish a new home a couple of kilometers to the east, on the other side of Black Rock Promontory. The schism among Johann’s group became permanent when Keiko, who had become Maria’s best friend, eloped with Jomo to join Maria and Eric the night after Johann and Vivien tried to counsel the young couple to wait another year before marrying.

  Roughly a year later Johann had made a trek to the East Village to try to negotiate the return of the two young couples. His visit had ended with a quarrel between Maria and him, and no resolution of their problems, but he had been able to meet and hold Eric and Maria’s infant daughter, Stephanie. He had also learned that Keiko was pregnant. Poor Satoko, mentally destabilized by all the conflicts, had asked for and received Johann’s permission to move to the East Village to assist her daughter.

  And what have we learned from all this? Johann asked himself, emotionally exhausted after the lengthy recollection. He was still sifting the sand for the black scruffles even though all his pockets were bulging and the hollow was becoming dangerously full of water. He heaved a heavy sigh and headed for the hollow entrance.

  We have learned, sadly, that human nature is invariant under a locale and situation transformation. He laughed at himself and his awkward mathematical phraseology. Or rather, what we are is more important than where we are or how we are living.

  Just outside the hollow a pair of sperdens were swimming about twenty-five meters away, watching Johann warily. The water at the entrance was now knee deep, seriously compromising his freedom of movement. One of the sperdens arched its graceful neck so that it was facing its partner. Johann imagined that the clucking sounds they were exchanging were some kind of conversation. Staring back at the sperdens and exhibiting no fear, he waded along the base of the rock toward the village.

  TWO

  JOHANN COULD NOT fall asleep. He lay on his back, trying to think about something other than the crisis facing his little clan. The group meeting had been contentious. Siegfried and Beatrice had insisted that the thieves must be punished. Since everyone had agreed that Maria was almost certainly the individual making the decisions in the East Village, there had been a consensus that the punishment should be directed at her. During the heated discussion that had ensued about the kind of action that would be appropriate, first Beatrice, then Siegfried and Serentha as well, had accused Johann of being “soft” on Maria because of his special relationship with her.

  “She has never, even been forced to be accountable for her actions,” Beatrice had said to Johann with rancor. “She has not had to live by the same rules as the rest of us… Even now, you are still making excuses for her. It’s not our fault that their crops are poor. And it certainly does not justify their thievery.”

  During the meeting, nobody, not even Vivien, had defended him against the accusations that he showed favoritism to Maria. What had troubled Johann the most, however, was that his own son, Siegfried, whom he loved beyond measure, explicitly suggested that all of them, even Vivien and he himself, were less important to Johann than Maria was.

  Johann squirmed on his mat as he recalled Siegfried’s bitter words. He is still young, Johann told himself and has not learned to control what he is saying when he is emotionally aroused. But the disquiet he was feeling would not go away. Because of the depth of his attachment to Maria’s mother, Johann knew that there was a modicum of truth in what Siegfried and the others had said.

  Johann changed positions, rolling over on his side facing Vivien. He opened his eyes for a second and saw that Vivien was watching him. “Heavy is the head that wears the crown,” she said, smiling warmly

  “I’m not the king,” Johann replied.

  “But you are our leader,” she said. “Everyone acknowledges that. All the conversation today was aimed at helping you make a decision.”

  Johann was silent. Vivien leaned over and touched him gently “Siegfried came to talk to me tonight, while you were walking on the beach. He felt he handled himself poorly in the meeting. He wants to apologize to you, but he doesn’t know how.”

  “‘I’m sorry’ would be a good start,” Johann said.

  “That’s not good enough for Siegfried,” she said. “He is a perfectionist, like you. He wants the apology also to convey how much he respects, admires, and loves you.”

  Neither of them said anything for a while. Johann was thinking about his teenage son, a beautiful young man, already almost two meters tall, with his light brown skin and blue eyes, and a full head of his mother’s rich black hair. He toils ably beside me in the fields without complaint, Johann thought proudly Already he is stronger than Ravi. Soon he will surpass me.

  He glanced across the hut to where Siegfried had slept the first two years after their arrival in this new world. Johann remembered the night he had been awakened by noises he could not at first identify, coming from Siegfried’s mat. Johann had watched and listened for several seconds, without moving or saying anything. The next morning, after talking with Vivien, they had informed Siegfried that the time had come for him to become more independent, and to move into his own hut. Johann and Siegfried had built the hut together, for the boy did not want to move into the one abandoned by Maria and Keiko. Johann remembered their working together as one of the high points in his relationship with Siegfried. He had been impressed both by the boy’s intelligence and by his self-discipline.

  “Johann, are you still awake?” Vivien said for the second time.

  “Umm, yes,” he said. “I guess I was drifting.”

  “There was another reason that Siegfried came to talk to me,” she said. “It’s important, but it could wait until morning if you…”

  “No, no,” he said. “Go ahead.”

  “Siegfried and Serentha want to marry,” Vivien said. “He’s concerned about your reaction. He asked me to talk to you—”

  Johann sat up on his mat. “That’s absurd,” Johann said. “The boy may be physically sixteen, but he’s only really lived for three years. How can he possibly know what he wants?”

  “There aren’t a lot of options,” Vivien replied, “as I tried to point out to you when Jomo and Keiko came
to talk to us. If Siegfried doesn’t marry Serentha, what’s he going to do? Beatrice is his half-sister. B would probably be willing but I would hate to see another conflict like—”

  “Yes, yes,” Johann said, lying back down. “We ought to be able to learn from our mistakes. I doubt if Siegfried would want to wait until Stephanie is a woman, and it’s unrealistic to assume other options might show up. So I guess we have no choice.”

  “He would like your blessing,” Vivien said.

  “He will have it when he asks for it,” Johann said. “Which shouldn’t be tomorrow, incidentally. There’s something else I must do first.”

  “So you have decided?” Vivien asked.

  “Yes,” Johann answered. “I will go over there alone, without carrying any grain or fruit. I guess all of you convinced me that taking food to them might be misinterpreted.”

  “Are you certain you don’t want Siegfried and Ravi to go with you?” Vivien said.

  “That would look too much like a war party. And Eric and Siegfried have always antagonized each other.” Johann reflected for a moment. “No, I’ll go alone, right after my swim in the morning.”

  JOHANN REACHED THE East Village by the middle of the afternoon. He made no effort to conceal his coming; he was in fact whistling as he walked down the path toward the meager fields to the west of the three ramshackle huts that formed the village.

  Eric was standing in the path on the edge of the fields. He was brandishing a long, thick wooden club. “You’re not welcome here, old man,” he shouted when Johann was within earshot. “Turn around now and go back where you came from.”

  Johann made no comment and did not alter his pace or his direction. “I’m warning you,” Eric then said, “don’t come any closer.”